143 thiempactofmysticalexperienceonself-actualizationw,orldviewu,nderstandinga,ndtoleranceinbuddhisme,asternorthodoxhy,induisma,ndislam phrases, and/or sentences of living and deceased persons with a widely acknowledged expertise in religious traditions under examination. The statements are not grouped or ordered. During this initial stage of the analysis, the goal was to learn how each tradition views the phenomenon. Notwithstanding the limitations of using authoritative and historical texts as qualitative data, (and indeed, the authority and/or historicity of texts are not always universally accepted), the significant statements of information nevertheless provided meaningful details about how each tradition experiences spiritual ascent and mysticism (Kolb, 1984). 2.6 themes and meaning units As the significant statements of information were initially treated as being of equal value, statements irrelevant to the topic, repetitious, or overlapping were then deleted (Overgaard, 2004). The researcher examined the delimited significant constituents and then clustered them into themes and meaning units (Moustakas, 1994). Through multiple and systematic readings of the text and the contemplation of the phenomenon through empathic immersion and reflection, recurrent themes and psychological meaning structures emerged as “an extreme form of care that savors the situations described in a slow, meditative way and… [attended] to, even… [magnified], all the details” (Wertz, 2005, p. 172). Excerpts from the researcher’s considerable literature review were also utilized to elucidate the terminology and themes that emerged from the analysis. 2.7 textural and structural descriptions Upon review of the thematic analysis, textural descriptions provided accounts of ‘what’ was experienced, and structural descriptions provided accounts of the ‘how’ or context of the experiences (Creswell, 2007). These were closely examined and considered, and meanings were constructed from diverse perspectives, roles, and functions (Moustakas, 1994). This process of ‘imaginative variation’ resulted in the combined descriptions that led to the identification of the essential structures. e impact of mys ic l experience on self-actualiza i n...
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