To what extent is the numinous a flooding of our brains—ourselves—with rich multi-sensory experiences?  Are we multi-tasking in the sense of taking in and seeking to organize content from many sources? Are the trains of thought and ideations converging to create a catharsis of thoughts and feelings? Are a mixture of powerful at-the-moment sensations provoking memories of the past (both positive and negative) which interweave with hopes and fears about the future? I believe that all of this produces a tapestry of great (awe-full) affective beauty and power.  I find that cathedrals and temples are great dwellings for the numinous not just because they are sacred (though this helps), but also because they are filled with many strong sensory experiences: sound, sight, smell, touch and human interaction (often nonverbal). For me, the numinous is found in the Cathedral at Salisbury (near Stonehenge) in England, Notre Dame in Paris, a crumbling temple in Southern Taiwan—and at the Jackson Square cathedral in New Orleans.

It is not so much what happens inside the Jackson Square Cathedral—it’s what happens outside before I enter the cathedral: street musicians, painters, hucksters, tourists, the smell of coffee (from Café du Monde and other nearby cafes) and the Magnolia blossoms. My wife, Kathleen, prepared several sketches of the Cathedral towers while sitting on a bench in Jackson Square on a warm day in spring many years ago—some of the only art she has produced during the past busy decade of her life.  Kathleen was multi-tasking in that she was taking in the warmth, sounds, smells and sights of the Square while sketching the Cathedral towers. These other “tasks” were inspiring her to sketch and influenced what she was representing on paper. As I mentioned above, the experience of the numinous is about the breaking of boundaries between the internal and external. Jackson Square and the Cathedral encourage one to “lose control.” They allow the internal and external experiences to intermingle, provoking new ideations that link with old memories and emotions as well as new hopes and aspirations. As coaches we can encourage our clients to find their own Jackson Squares and we might even at times be the Jackson Square for our client—helping them create their own multi-tasking New Orleans State of Mind.

Behavioral Economics

All of what I have been writing about with regard to New Orleans, peremptory ideation and the numinous might seem at best fanciful and at worst a distraction from the “real” and very serious work of coaching in an organizational setting. I would suggest that this notion of creative and productive multi-tasking is very serious and quite relevant to the business of professional coaching. I believe I can make this point briefly and in a persuasive manner by pointing to a newly emerging interdisciplinary field called behavioral economics. The work being done in this field suggests that critical multi-tasking occurs when the discipline of economics interplays with the discipline of psychology and when rational decision-making (particularly with regards to money) meets at an intersection with powerful human emotions.