‘The Lord touched me’. Physical metaphors in the charismatic testimonies

<ns3:p>The aim of the article is to present how Catholic charismatics conceptualise non-physical phenomena in bodily terms. The material base covers written testimonies published on the websites of selected charismatic communities: Miasto na Górze, Głos na Pustyni, Diakonia Świętej Rodziny and Wspólnota ‘Własność Pana’, as well as the transcription of the worship during the XXVI National Vigil of Renewal in Jasna Góra. In the linguistic analysis, the tools of cognitive linguistics were applied, in particular the theory of conceptual metaphor, as elaborated by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. In the first part of the article, the concept of embodied mind and the basic methodological assumptions are briefly presented. In the second, examples of realisations of bodily metaphors appearing in charismatic utterances are depicted, including those rooted in sensory experiences and those based on pre-conceptual image schemas.</ns3:p>