Numinous and Neurology: Correlating Neurology and Sufism to Understand and Legitimize Mystical and Religious Experience, The

The Numinous is a subjective experience of creating a framework for God without rational nor moral implications. Within its own framework, it is the ineffable within religious and mystical experience. The research for this project is divided into two sections: Sufism and Rumi, and the neurology of the brain during religious and mystical experience. Sufism is the mystical “branch” of Islam, which is used together with the writings of Jalal Ad-Din Muhammad Rumi to portray the mindset within a mystical experience. The second section uses the neurology of the brain to demonstrate the quantitative data of a mystical experience. This is done to reconcile religious experience with scientific data. Together, these two sections describe the authenticity and desire for religious and mystical experience in practitioners of all different faiths. Rumi is used as an intermediary to aid in the understanding, whilst the neurology of mystical experience is used to legitimize these experiences.