The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit — in Hebrew Ruach HaKodesh (רוח הקודש), 'the Spirit of Holiness,' and in Greek Pneuma Hagion (Πνεῦμα Ἅγιον) — is the mode of divine presence and activity in the world described across the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. In Christianity the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son, and the divine agent of sanctification, prophecy, inspiration, and the Church's ongoing life. In Judaism, Ruach HaKodesh is the mode of God's presence that speaks through the prophets and dwells with Israel. In Islamic thought, Ruh al-Qudus is associated with the angel Gabriel and with the inspiration of the Prophets.

The Hebrew word ruach means, at once, wind, breath, and spirit — a triple sense that shapes the phenomenology of encounters. In the Genesis creation account the ruach Elohim — the Spirit of God — hovers over the face of the waters. In the Book of Acts the Holy Spirit descends at Pentecost as a rushing wind and tongues of flame. In Christian mystical experience, encounters with the Holy Spirit are consistently described as a felt presence of breath and warmth — sometimes literal wind-like sensations on the body — accompanied by a sudden overflow of love, inarticulate speech (glossolalia), or the sense of being suddenly, unmistakably known.

A closely related figure is the Shekhinah — the feminine presence of God in Jewish mystical literature, the divine indwelling that accompanied the Israelites through the wilderness and rests in the Holy of Holies. The Kabbalistic tradition treats the Shekhinah as the bride of the Divine, the immanent counterpart of the transcendent Ein Sof. In modern psychedelic reports, encounters with a felt presence that experiencers name variously as 'the Spirit,' 'the Presence,' or 'the Shekhinah' recur across otherwise-unrelated participants — one of the more compelling data points for the shared underlying phenomenology hypothesised by comparative religionists from William James onward.

Sources:
Wikipedia — Holy Spirit
Wikipedia — Shekhinah