Revista Cultura & Religión (Oct 2009)
Somatosemiosis e identidad carismática pentecostal
Abstract
The pentecostal identity is defined by spiritual alterity experience, which in charismatic evangelism is called the seal of Holy Spirit, who baptises with power. The signals of the presence are registred in the worshipper’s body in form of sensations, sintomatic expressions, extatics experiences in such way that, literally, among participants of the cult, the verb becomes flesh. In psychodynamical terms, the ‘arrival of Holy’ or ‘spiritual ointment’ is conceptualized as a somatomorphic dissociation process, because it supposes a split of conscience functions -marked by the loss of selfcontrol and possession experiences- and includes somatics expressions.In pentecostal perspective, the Holy Spirit is the one who takes control of belivers’s actions and is self expressed by their corporality, filling them whit enjoyment, fullfilment sensation and sense of certainty. For the same, it is an efficient mechanism to face life’s crises. The dissosiation has integration effects. The sacred extasis confirms church’s doctrine, founds mystical community, and offers an identity principle that embrace diverse dimenssions of individual’s life. In this paper we approach the place of body as significant of this process of change.The analysis of semiotics of flesh shows pentecostalism as paradigmatic case of social construction of subjectivity, where cultural representations are infleshed, mediating the sense in the process of crisis, dissociation and reintegration of self.
