The spirit or divine power presiding over a thing or place.
‘the spirit of the place—its numen—was strong’
‘Carew's speaker chooses to drain the Christian supernatural of its numen.’
‘I feel as if one massive exercise of reason burnt me out, and now I'm moving in a world of numina, moved not by will but by the application of force.’
‘In the work of the late Swaminathan, the cultural symbols are converted to serve the elusive numen with a formal language.’
‘As he wrote in ‘The Truth and Life of Myth,’ ‘The word numen I take from Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy.’’
‘It is able to do this because of the numen, the specific energy stored up in the archetype.’
‘Whatever numen is cast in the appropriate role depends on the personnel to hand.’