The term numinous encounter is used to describe a glimpse of heaven or paradise whilst living on earth, this may also be described as a golden world. Ways in which the numinous world may be encountered include a near death experience, taking drugs, through an out of body experience or an ecstatic creative vision that artists, poets and musicians describe in the expression of their work.

Aged  twenty, at university, and a member of the Hull University Fell Walking and Rambling Club, on a Sunday outing to walk in the Yorkshire Dales, the coach that I was travelling in slipped on agricultural mud and overturned.

Thrown out of the window, with my back broken, I sat on the side of the road. I saw that the skies or heaven above the upturned coach had opened up and angelic support poured out to the scene below; I saw it as many hands and great beauty, I heard music of such delicacy and power that I have no words to come near to describing it.

The whole scene had such a feeling of peace, awe and wonder about it I was bemused that other people at the accident were in so much disarray, trying to get the coach uprighted to rescue the people trapped underneath. Four people died that day, including the person who had been sitting behind me when we started out on our journey.

And the vision that I had, which I did not know was a numinous encounter, has stayed with me ever since and impacted upon my life. However it was not until just before I reached the age of 59 and read the book Balancing Heaven and Earth by Robert Johnson that I realised that numinous encounters can be dangerous and without doubt need to be more widely understood.

Here are 7 reasons why:

1. To view the Divine is to experience beauty / music /light of such beauty and intensity that it is indescribable, and very hard to hold or manage. The word Angel actually means ‘messenger’. The Zohar (ancient mystical book of Judaism) describes Angels as being used by G-D to convey messages to humans because the light of G-d is to intense, awesome, almighty for humans to encounter.
2. Johnson says: “These openings into another realm can be terribly dangerous; indeed, visions of heaven break some people by interrupting their sense of identity and continuity”.
3. And “For years my life seemed upended by the glimpse of the divine. Nothing on this earth could fill my hunger for more of the ecstatic experience”.
4. I was only 20 when I was in the coach crash. Studying sociology I thought that I was a radical and had no idea why few of the aspirations or goals that seemed to drive other people could hold my interest for long. On the one hand I did not understand why material life on earth was taken so seriously and on the other hand I could not understand why we made everything about money rather than about the divine. In other words we did not take life seriously enough.
5. ‘History is filled with examples of mad ones, monks, sages and seers who have undergone numinous encounters, and for such souls it becomes nearly impossible to lead an ordinary life’ (Johnson).
6. In my case the reality was that although luckily my broken back healed within a year, for nearly forty years afterwards although I appeared present I was actually in the wilderness through being in an ongoing state of disconnect. For much of this time I had felt like a lost soul.
7. If we are ‘spiritual beings having a human experience’ then surely we should be focusing upon being in the material world and learning from that. And bringing our Gifts to the world through making manifest the divine. If our gifts are of a more spiritual nature it can be more difficult and tricky. For example when the book that I had written about Angels was published I was afraid that people would think that I was mad. I took myself to my Doctor “I have written a book about speaking with Angels, am I crazy?”. My Doctor was kind enough to reply, “No you are not crazy, in another society you would be revered”. That was a relief!

I hope that I have explained how for me, just understanding of the concept of numinous experiences has been transformative. I also realised that we can get a glimpse of heaven through joy; that which is in front of our eyes rather than through suffering and yearning. I am thinking of classical music, dance and nature. Opera Singers were originally called diva’s because they could touch the divine through the beauty of singing. (Not because they lost their temper!) The Chassidic Jews painted by Marc Chagall provide another example. They were said to go village to village drunk on ecstasy produced by being in nature and playing music. So often ‘my’ personal Angel CB gives the message ‘You Have the Right to Joy’. I believe her. We have the right to be fully present and engage; to have our time on earth and in the material world. To be good to life. To understand that the mere fact of being embodied is an enormous privilege. Heaven can wait!