Paper short abstract:

I study how the conversion happens in a Central European fundamentalist new religious movement, focusing on the reception of the main concepts. I analyze the emotions and narratives called forth in speech events in which they are alluded (the process how the vernacular religions overlap each-other).

Paper long abstract:

I analyze the process how a dwelling place is constructed for a fundamentalist faith. The conversion to a new religious movement is based on the convergence of the subjective meanings - engraving a set of narratives, values and attitudes. This Christian fundamentalist movement (with emic term the "shines") has members from Romania, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovakia. I focus on the concept of the Holy Spirit: its shape, its symbol, its dwelling, how its heavenly incarnations (the "angels") can be settled in our homes and witnessed. The ideas of "Prophet Dénes" (leader of the new religious movement) are sometimes quite far from the vernacular concepts of his followers. Cognitive semantics and discourse analysis method can help us - with the revised notion of "knowledge" and "meaning" - to systematize the field-notes and records collected during the research. The time and sequence should be interpreted together with the observed attitudes. Which notions and emotions are called forth by mentioning "Holy Spirit" in the speech events? It is a dynamic and complex process where the personal, vernacular religions - within the discourse of the NRM - start to overlap each-other. Long term participant observation can give an access for the researcher to several repetitive variants of narratives in a particular group, observing how interpretations, narratives and values are transforming in the participants' life-worlds. The recognition of local, educational, occupational, religious etc. discourse levels can give ground to trace a model of discourse spaces, where the theoretical discourse field is divided into several relatively dissevered interpretive communities.