The Phenomenology and Psychological Correlates of Verbal Prayer

Abstract

In the process of Christian verbal prayer there are two basic categories: petitionary prayer and prayer of relationship. In contrast to the stereotype of most prayer as petitionary, in this study of 345 subjects, members of a non-denominational program called A Search For God, prayer of relationship made up a substantial part of the typical prayers of both those who identified themselves as members of traditional denominations and those who did not. The intensity of the prayer experience was correlated positively with purpose in life, negatively with external locus of control, and positively with absorption, a personality characteristic hypothesized to be related to the capacity for transcendent experience.