In ‘secular’ Western societies, religious topics permeate media texts of books, films, series and games and such texts even inform several religious-spiritual movements. Critically expanding on theories about ‘fiction-based religion’, ‘invented religion’ or ‘hyper-real religion’, this article studies if, how and why players of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of...

OBJECTIVE Distinguishing the unique contributions and roles of chaplains as members of healthcare teams requires the fundamental step of articulating and critically evaluating conceptual models that guide practice. However, there is a paucity of well-described spiritual assessment models. Even fewer of the extant models prescribe interventions and describe desired outcomes corresponding to spir...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To understand how hospital inpatients express their spirituality and to investigate the impact of hospice environment on this expression. RESEARCH APPROACH Qualitative. SETTING Two metropolitan hospice centers in southern Australia. PARTICIPANTS 12 inpatients (7 males, 5 females) who were residents for at least four days. METHODOLOGIC APPROACH Influenced by Heidegger'...

Both contemporaries and historians have focused on the high-profile 1874 Belfast Address in which John Tyndall was widely perceived as promulgating atheism. Although some historians have instead interpreted him as a pantheist or an agnostic, it is clear that any such labels do not accurately capture Tyndall’s religious position throughout his life. By contrast, this paper seeks to chart Tyndall...

I surveyed 60 hospice nurses regarding their knowledge and attitudes toward the near-death experience (NDE), using Thornburg's NearDeath Phenomena Knowledge and Attitudes Questionnaire. Most hospice nurses had previous work experience with an NDEr. Approximately half the nurses were knowledgeable about the NDE. All participants had a positive attitude toward near-death phenomena and toward cari...

PURPOSE Spirituality encompasses a wide range of meanings between holistic wellbeing and mysticism. We explored advanced cancer patients' spiritual experiences of transcendence. METHODS A total of 251 patients with advanced cancer were included and observed (participant observation) over 12 months by a psycho-oncologist/music-therapist. She recorded and documented patients' spontaneously expr...