An Atlantic University Master’s Degree Thesis

While researchers have investigated religious and spiritual experiences, often within the classification of parapsychological phenomena, little research has been undertaken specifically about numinous experiences.

Often these studies examine broader categories of mystical experience or exceptional human experiences. While seeking a broader understanding of these religious, spiritual, psychological, or parapsychological experiences is significant, conducting a more limited examination of one particular experienced phenomenon is not only warranted, but necessary, if not merely undertaken as a reductionist scientific endeavor.

Such is the focus of this present study, a specific research endeavor regarding the numinous. The specific and limited focus of this study is further justified as there are few research studies that have investigated any social dimensions of numinous experiences while no known studies have examined the social effects of numinous experiences on an individual’s religious, spiritual, and social lives, a reality confirmed by other researchers also supports the need for an investigation of the effects of paranormal experiences.

Although mental health effects are not specifically assessed in this present study, the narrative frames, combined with their rank order explanation, will provide some reflective insights into how individuals “handle” one form of paranormal experience.

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