RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION AND PRAYER EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Sunm~y.-86 participants with at least nominal religious affiliation completed a questionnaire on experiences during All participants were identified as to religious orientation using Allport's well known typology As predicted, no religious types differed on minimal phenomenological experlcnces during However, as predicted, intrinsic and indiscriminately favorable persons were more likely to interpret their experiences in relevant religious terms than were either exrrinsic or indiscriminately anti-religious persons. It is a curious fact that prayer, common to all religious traditions, is little smdied by psychology. As Finney and Malony (1985, p. 104) have noted in their critical review of the empirical literamre, Nowhere is the longstanding breach becween psychology and religion more evident than in the lack of research on prayer. Our own concern with the study of prayer was based upon our research with mysticism and the fact that standard measures of mystical experience distinguish between the minimal phenomenological experience of mysticism and its possibility of religious interpretation (Hood, 1975; Spilka, Hood, & Gorsuch, 1985). Among persons who pray or meditate we anticipated similar distinctions. This seemed especially likely given Heiler's distinction between prophetic and mystical prayer as discussed by Finney and Maloney ( 1986). Under prophetic prayer Heiler includes various verbal petitions, for which there are at least some empirical studies (Finney & Maloney, 1986, pp. 106-110). Under mystical prayer Heiler includes silent contemplation, that may occur in religious traditions as a form of prayer or in ocher traditions as a form of meditation. Yet this form of prayer or meditation has not been studied at all in relatiooship to religiosity. Our anticipation was that among persons who pray or meditate similar distinctions found in mysticism research would hold, especially since mystical prayer or silent contemplation is itself often utilized as a mystical technique. Hence, among persons who pray or meditate we anticipated differences in religious interpretation across religious types, but with no differences in the minimal phenomenological experiences of the mystical aspects of prayer or meditation, a finding common in mysticism research (Spilka, et al., 1985). Religious types were identified by the widely used Religious Orientation Scale which allows classification of participants into intrinsic, extrinsic, indiscriminately favorable, or indiscriminately unfavorable religious types (Donahue, 1985).