“This is the first time I have seen something”. Image, healing and rhetoric of rebirth in the Pentecostal movement

Abstract

My writing is based on the fieldwork I did in an Italian Pentecostal church in Pavia. The work focuses on the relationship between the embodiment of the image of the tripartite man scheme (body-soul-spirit) and the rebirth conceived as a therapeutic practice. My analysis emphasises the connection between the semiotic of the imaginary and the phenomenology of proprioception. The main subject is the embodiment of the collective imagination of the community in a new experience of self which is identified by the presence of the Holy Spirit experienced with specific somatic sensations. In particular, my research highlights a retroaction mechanism as the basis of the therapeutic efficacy of the tripartite man image.