There is anecdotal evidence that charismatic Christians across Wales are reporting that
they have been physically healed following prayer. Although healing as a phenomenon is
acknowledged to be a key part of charismatics theology and practice, it is significantly
understudied in the context of Wales. Moreover, little is known about what the ordinary
individual believes or talks about when they experience a healing miracle. Therefore, the
aim of this study is to investigate what charismatics in Wales say when they talk about a
healing miracle. Through the distribution of questionnaires across Wales, 605 healing
narratives were collected. The main finding from this research is that many individuals
talk about their healing experience in an everyday way. This means some report that they
have been healed in an everyday location outside of a Church context, prayed for by
someone other than a church minister, for a common, non-life-threatening condition,
using normal and colloquial language to describe the experience. To discuss the
implications of these findings, this thesis engages with the debate on secularism to
examine how these reports of everyday miracles can be understood today. I begin with a
brief overview of the secularisation thesis within the sociology debate. I then move on to
introduce Charles Taylor’s definition of what our secular age consists of, building upon
his theory of disenchantment. The final section answers how these sacred encounters can
be understood in our secular age. I propose that individuals have disenchanted their
enchanting experiences in order to, as Anton Wessels argues, ‘inculturate’ into our secular
age. I then offer a critique of this view, examining the theory that our modern times are
re-enchanted with ‘spiritualities of life’.