ABSTRACT
This volume has presented a comprehensive paradigm for conceptualizing, developing, and applying numinous constructs as organismic qualities. We believe that this paradigm can be very useful for anyone interested in scientifically understanding religiousness/spirituality (R/S) concepts. It provides a solid foundation for creating a psychologically based platform for grasping the origin of numinous motivations and the intrapsychic functions they serve. Each of us has a deep-seated need to feel a personal sense of abundance, purpose, and acceptance, the essential elements for creating a sound sense of self. The numinous lies at the core of our humanity and serves to focus and direct the tremendous capacities of people to bring value to life. Understanding what the numinous represents enables the development of an empirical framework for developing, testing, validating, and applying constructs that capture these unique drivers of behavior. It is fortuitous that the field has come to a point where it has been able to construct a relatively comprehensive taxonomy of temperamental traits that can serve as the scaffolding for the development of numinous constructs. Without such a taxonomy, this type of work would be much more difficult to accomplish, if it could be done at all.
