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Blind beholding

Schemas, metaphor, and blending in descriptions of seemingly opposing religious experiences

ORCiD logo with link | Hokkaido University
ORCiD logo with link | Fuji Women’s University
Published online: 14 July 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.26002.ric
Abstract
This paper examines how contemporary Christian contemplative discourse integrates two apparently opposed construals of religious experience: relational intimacy with a divine entity and non-conceptual states of pure awareness. We argue that relational intimacy is conceptualized through warmth, connection, spatial proximity, shared will, and resonance, underpinned by a linked goal schematic structure. By contrast, non-conceptual awareness is conceptualized through release, falling, dropping out, darkness, and the cessation of attentional movement, while also exhibiting various degrees of source-path-goal attenuation. Despite their apparent incompatibility, this paper argues that conceptual blending allows these perceived experiences to be encapsulated within a single framework of belief and practice. Focusing on Bourgeault, C. (2016). The heart of centering prayer: Nondual Christianity in theory and practice (reprint ed.). Shambhala.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar The Heart of Centering Prayer, we demonstrate how her use of the metaphor scenario of entering the cloud, drawn from the Christian mystical classic The Cloud of Unknowing, offers one such example. The analysis shows how metaphor and blending enable contemporary contemplative discourse to negotiate the social and theological boundary between Christian relational theism and nondual spirituality.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The linked_goal Schema
    • 1.2source-path-goal Attenuation
    • 1.3Integration and Conceptual Blending
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Data: Bourgeault’s The Heart of Centering Prayer
    • 2.2The Cloud of Unknowing and Centering Prayer
    • 2.3Identification and Selection of Passages
    • 2.4Metaphor Identification, Source-Domain Analysis, and Validation
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1source-path-goal Attenuation during Centering Prayer
    • 3.2linked_goal Structuring: Intimacy, Resonance, and Accordance of Wills
    • 3.3Integrating source-path-goal Attenuation and the linked_goal Schema
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
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