An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

condition that they are praying about, praying from a distance was more effective. Thispsychological activity of imagery relates to the person sending the prayer for healing waspartly repeated in the research strategy of O‟Laoire‟s (2007) study. Although the samplestudied in the present thesis is too small to contribute to the literature empiricallyassociating prayer with health outcomes, the social processes illustrated contextualise howit is that prayer can be seen as an independent variable affecting health outcomes.In the collection of articles by nursing and other academic authors on Christian Healingedited by Lucas (1997) it is argued that the expectations of spiritual healing should notsurpass those of normal medical expectations. However, some hold that healing signs arean act of God and cannot be programmed by Christians. Nonetheless, the factorsinfluencing individuals as to whether or not to seek spiritual healing seem, from thisliterature, to parallel those which influence individuals to adopt the sick-role as outlined byParsons (1975) or what Goffman (1995) terms the appropriate etiquette for those sufferingillness.Schneider et al (1995) studied comparatively the effect of Transcendental Meditation (TM)– a religious practice - and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR), a purely seculartechnique on the reduction of hypertension with the intention of determining the feasibilityof long term implementation of these programmes in primary care in the patientpopulation. The results of the study showed that there was a higher significant reduction inthe systolic blood pressure of those who practiced TM than those who practiced PMR.Their controlled trial of stress reduction for hypertension used older African Americans astheir subjects, but there was no evidence that the cultural aspect of the subjects was takeninto consideration. Other research relating to religious activities and the survival rate of51