A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Essential Meanings of ….pdf

 This study analyzes and explicates the most intense experience of religiosity and spirituality.  There are many current research studies in the discipline of psychology that use these two concepts in order to determine their relationship to important mental health variables.  However, within this body of research there is no agreed upon understanding of the primary concepts of “religiosity” and “spirituality.”  Instead, these two concepts are used by researchers in confusing and inconsistent ways.  This study demonstrates that much of the confusion is due to quantitative methodological procedures that alter, ignore, or fail to elaborate important conceptions of religiosity and spirituality.  The narrowly defined approach to these two concepts fits more easily and efficiently into the quantitative research framework.  Some recent qualitative studies have begun to take holistic and contextual lived experiences into account.  These qualitative studies have offered descriptions of spirituality.  Although this is a good place to start, two problems remain.  First, these qualitative studies do not take into account recent theoretical research that proposes that experiences of religiosity and spirituality occur on a continuum based on low, average, and high levels of intensity.  None of the qualitative studies to date focus on the highest level of intensity.  The second problem is that while the qualitative research focuses on spirituality, it does not take into account the concept of religiosity.  These two problems are addressed by phenomenologically investigating mystical experiences as reported in historical religious texts.  Mystical experiences have been called high intensity experiences of spirituality and religiosity.  The phenomenological structures of this experience are explicated in order to reveal the essential meanings of the mystical experience.  These high intensity structures are linked to the existing less intense experiences found in the qualitative research.   The data compiled in this study is used to formulate a four stage model of religiosity and spirituality.  This model helps to bring a greater understanding of the essential meanings of religiosity and spirituality.