Guardian writer Oliver Burkeman tells of visiting the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan to see "The Last Supper." He says, "I'm aware this was a boringly predictable location in which to feel the spine-shiver of something beyond words (transcendent? divine?). But I did, and powerfully. I'm no expert, but maybe there's a reason this particular picture of some guys eating some bread is more celebrated than any other."[i ]

        Burkeman believes the Milan church is a "thin place." A "thin place" is a "Celtic Christian term for "'those rare locales where the distance between heaven and Earth collapses.'"[ ii] He writes of attempts from the field of psychology to explain this indiscernible phenomenon believers all over the world have described with great intensity, especially in specific locales. Maybe science can demythologize these numinous encounters.

        However Burkeman says, "I'm not sure I want to know what brain scans tell us about thin places, or how people respond to psychology questionnaires right after visiting the Grand Canyon. We're in the territory, here, of the ineffable: the stuff we can't express because it's beyond the power of language to do so. Explanations aren't merely useless; they threaten to get in the way. The experience of a thin place feels special because words fail, leaving stunned silence."[ iii]

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