PhD researcher Xsara Helmi recently presented at the transdisciplinary conference Sacred Arts 2025: Exploring the Spiritual Dimensions of Artistic Expression and Ritual, hosted by the London Arts-Based Research Centre at the University of Oxford, as part of the Sacred Soundscapes section.
Her paper, The Numinous Ear: Autistic Listening and Aural Diversity as a Gateway to the Divine and Sublime, explores neurodivergent auditory perception as a site of relational and numinous experience. Drawing on Rudolf Otto’s mysterium tremendum et fascinans and Carl Jung’s concept of the numinous, Helmi examines how autistic listening- characterised by heightened sensitivity to sonic textures and patterns- challenges normative auditory paradigms, revealing sound’s affective and transcendent dimensions. These paradoxical experiences suggest a co-creative relationship between sound and consciousness.
The research draws on philosophical frameworks from Merleau-Ponty, Ihde, Nancy, Chalmers, Goff, and Whitehead to interrogate whether sound functions merely as stimulus or as an ontological participant in shaping experience. Helmi’s practice-led work integrates music composition, poetic inquiry, and documentary film to position aural diversity as an epistemological resource rather than a deficit.