141 thiempactofmysticalexperienceonself-actualizationw,orldviewu,nderstandinga,ndtoleranceinbuddhisme,asternorthodoxhy,induisma,ndislam to be transcendentally open to its totality. Moustakas then employs systematic and practical procedures for analyzing the data. Through epoché, the researcher describes his/her own experiences, and sets preconceptions aside. S/he then identifies significant statements from the data, clusters these statements into meaning and theme units, synthesizes the meanings and themes into textural and structural descriptions, and constructs a combined description of the essences of the experience (Moustakas, 1994; Overgaard, 2004; Patton, 1990; Van Heuveln, 2000). 2.3 epoché Epoché was the first and foundational stage of the phenomenological reduction process in this study, which enabled the researcher to ‘bracket’ and set aside his views of the phenomenon and focus on those views reported in the data (Moustakas, 1994, p. 85). Moustakas proffers that “no position whatsoever is taken... nothing is determined in advance” (p. 84). Self-reference and references to others, and all perceptions, opinions, judgments, predispositions, and biases were therefore purposively set aside in order to achieve epoché, and only the researcher’s present-mindful perceptions of the data were retained as indicators of knowledge and meaning (Moustakas, 1994, p. 88; Nitta & Tatematsu, 1979, p. 23). This was a significant undertaking because of latent prejudices to which the researcher was exposed as part of his socio-ethnic and religious acculturation. 2.4 framing the Study Moustakas (1994) considers the researcher’s review of literature as part of the initial ‘framing’ of the research problem in preparation inquiry. Minimal research has been conducted exploring the similarities and differences between the religious psycho-spiritual therapeutic methodologies of Buddhism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Hinduism, and Islam in terms of theory, method, practice, and outcomes (Solihu, 2009c), and even less work has been done in the comparison and contrast of the respective prototypes of the religious psycho-spiritual therapeutic methodologies in these five world religious systems and their historically documented impact on the development e impact of mys ic l experience on self-actualiza i n...
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