The Method of Conceptual Integration in the Analysis of Concepts of the Cultic Milieu on the Example of Homeopathy

The phenomenon of non-traditional religiosity includes not only structured forms, but also a significant amount of practices and ideas sporadically used outside the framework of any communities. These are those practices and religious ideas that are jointly performed and conventionally shared by small groups (cults and sects) and individual users, borrowed from a certain amount of unconventional religiosity, called in 1972 by Colin Campbell the Cultic Milieu. The content of the ideas of the Cultic Milieu is currently superficially described in terms of syncretic or eclectic, but nothing more. Within the framework of this work, an attempt was made to apply one of the classical methods of cognitive linguistics in relation to the ideas of the cult environment of society, namely, the method of conceptual integration between the mental spaces of concepts from the field of non-institutionalized non-traditional religiosity. The application of this approach allows you to identify the process of genesis of a specific construct or image of the Cultic Milieu. In this case, this is one of the many variants of pseudomedicine, namely homeopathy. According to our hypothesis, the ideas and practices of the Cultic Milieu are in a state of constant transformation and are subject to analysis only in a synchronous slice. Any construct or individual image of the Cultic Milieu by definition has religious or mytho-magical characteristics. A model for connecting religious and non-religious elements in the study area has not yet been found. The purpose of this work is to develop a model for combining religious (mytho-magical) and secular (non-religious) elements in the ideas of the Cultic Milieu.