6 articles
Miracle
Miracle (Latin mirari, to wonder): an extraordinary event attributed to supernatural agency rather than natural causes alone. Central definitions come from Aquinas and Hume's 1748 "violation of laws of nature", with Hume's testimony argument and later reformulations by Swinburne, Holland, and Craig.
Mysticism
Mysticism is the pursuit of direct experience of ultimate reality or the Divine through practices like meditation and prayer, found in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam alike.
Numinous
The numinous is Rudolf Otto's term, from Latin numen, for the experience of a divine presence, introduced in Das Heilige (1917) as the non-rational, mysterium tremendum et fascinans core of the holy underlying all religion.
Thaumaturgy
Thaumaturgy, from the Greek for wonder-working, is the performing of miracles or magic; in Christianity it names the work of miracle-working saints like Gregory Thaumaturgus.
The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience is a 1902 book by William James, collecting his Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh and studying religion through personal experience rather than institutions.
Theophany
A theophany is a manifestation of a god to a human being, the sensible sign by which divine presence is revealed. The word comes from Greek and first appears in Herodotus.