 Care should also be taken not to confuse “mystical experience” with “religious experience.” The latter refers to any experience having significance appropriate to a religious context. This includes many instances of mystical experiences but also religious visions and voices, and various religious feelings, such as religious awe and sublimity. Also included is what Friedrich Schleiermacher identified as the fundamental religious experience: the feeling of “absolute dependence” (Schleiermacher 1963). Rudolf Otto reserved the term “numinous” (from Latin “numen” meaning “divine” or “spirit”) for experiences allegedly of a reality perceived of as “wholly other” than the subject, producing a reaction of dread and fascination before an incomprehensible mystery (Otto 1957). In the sense of “mystical” used here, Otto’s numinous experience is a dualistic experience and not thus mystical. Your garden-variety sense of God’s “presence” would count as a numinous experience. A “secular” mysticism is also possible (see Section 12). 