Ed Speaking in tongues

[s4zando]

You could reasonably accuse people who claim the gift of tongues of a lack of critical thinking - in fact, it would probably be a very easy case to make - but I doubt very much that you could make the charge of dishonesty stick.

Yes, thank you for putting that in perspective for me. Your example was a good read, and fine illustration of your point, (and several other posters'). Good luck with the rest of your 'recovery'.

 

[Checkmite]

Isnt it the Pentecostals that speak in tongues?
When they speak in tongues, say at a gathering, do all the participants say the same gibberish-sounding stuff? If so, that be remarkable on those merits alone.
But if they all were uttering different sounding stuff, wouldnt that seem contrived?.

Not only the Pentacostals, but also many "non-Denominational" (their term for themselves; they are fundamentalist-evangelists) congregations also do this a lot.

I expect members of the same congregation will speak "tongues" which sound similar, because they've learned the correct "sound". But it can be vastly different between churches.

I remember one occasion in high school being invited to an after-school meeting of a "Bible club", which I attended as at that point I still considered myself nominally Christian and I thought from the name "Bible club" that there would be bible-reading/discussion going on. The club was primarily run by kids who were attendees of a local large (as in, they had a compound, not a church) "non-Denominational" group, and in retrospect I think it was mostly a recruiting tool for that congregation. Anyway, they started off the meeting just being excited about Jesus, and then they proceeded to heal a couple of people with God-touch or something, and some tongues were involved. They encouraged one boy to speak in tongues, explaining to him that God would put the language in his mind, so just make whatever sounds his body seemed to want to make. Bless him, he certainly tried his best...making some droning and hissing sounds, hoping I guess that God would form them into the "tongues" language. It didn't sound anything even remotely like the tongues the other kids had spoken earlier, but they approved and encouraged him to continue all the same. I think they may have made some excuse for the different sound of it, but I don't remember enough to be sure.

 

[arthwollipot]

More true than you know. There's often a lot of pressure, both overt and more subtle, to conform. Opinion varies from "you're not a Christian if you don't join in" through to bemusement at why anyone wouldn't want to, with a strong suggestion that the only thing getting in the way is your sinful obstruction of God's will. Add in an insistence that this is God's special gift, available to anyone, and anyone who doesn't have this particular gift will tend to feel rather left out.

Faced with this, people generally shape up or ship out.

There's another aspect of this that I experienced. If you haven't been baptised in the Holy Spirit, then you're not really a part of the congregation. Speaking in tongues is one of the gifts of baptism. They don't treat you as one of them until you speak in tongues. It's a rite of passage, an initiation.

 

[Pup]

Lots of people swore by it for personal private prayer - if you didn't know what to say, you could just open your mouth and mumble away in whatever language came to hand. So it wasn't just about group dynamics. Some people didn't just get the gift all on their own out of the blue, but spent a long time hiding it from others when they were younger, because they thought it would seem weird. So it wasn't just created by expectation or environment. It seems to be moderately common, when connected to ecstatic religious experiences, and easily imitated by anyone who wants to fit in.

Great post--it's fascinating to read about these things from someone with first-hand knowledge.

Now I'm curious about something. I mentioned earlier that I used to give "speeches" in nonsense syllables with the cadence and emphasis of actual speech, when I was three or four years old, and my motivation was similar to the part I've bolded above.

I thought I couldn't do it anymore, not having tried it in 45 or 50 years, but out of curiosity, I tried it and was able to do it as fluently as ever. So apparently it's like riding a bicycle--you don't forget. And I thought, therefore, that everyone must be able to do it.

But I demonstrated for my wife with a minute or so of a nonsense "speech" and asked her if she could do it. She agreed it sounded superficially like I was fluent in a foreign language, but said there's no way she could do that, and she never remembered doing it when younger.

Of course, I don't consider it inspired or a real language or anything--it's just a fun novelty thing to do, like wiggling your ears. But if I can turn it on or off apropos of nothing in the living room, it would be very easy to do in the hyped-up environment of a church that I wanted to believe in.

So now I wonder: Is nonsense speech something that some people can do easily, and churches hijack this odd quirk and convince people it's from God? How common an ability is it? Could you (anyone reading this) do it right now for fun?

If it's difficult for some people and easier for others to speak in tongues at church, I wonder if it's just because it would be difficult for some and easy for others anyway, regardless of the strength of their faith?

 

[Iamme]

Not only the Pentacostals, but also many "non-Denominational" (their term for themselves; they are fundamentalist-evangelists) congregations also do this a lot.

I expect members of the same congregation will speak "tongues" which sound similar, because they've learned the correct "sound". But it can be vastly different between churches.

I remember one occasion in high school being invited to an after-school meeting of a "Bible club", which I attended as at that point I still considered myself nominally Christian and I thought from the name "Bible club" that there would be bible-reading/discussion going on. The club was primarily run by kids who were attendees of a local large (as in, they had a compound, not a church) "non-Denominational" group, and in retrospect I think it was mostly a recruiting tool for that congregation. Anyway, they started off the meeting just being excited about Jesus, and then they proceeded to heal a couple of people with God-touch or something, and some tongues were involved. They encouraged one boy to speak in tongues, explaining to him that God would put the language in his mind, so just make whatever sounds his body seemed to want to make. Bless him, he certainly tried his best...making some droning and hissing sounds, hoping I guess that God would form them into the "tongues" language. It didn't sound anything even remotely like the tongues the other kids had spoken earlier, but they approved and encouraged him to continue all the same. I think they may have made some excuse for the different sound of it, but I don't remember enough to be sure.

So back then, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, landed on peoples heads, looking like a flame, and the people were driven to speak in tongues, quite spontaneously.
But now days, in said churches, they encourage you to attempt to speak in tongues.
So to me it sounds more like the Holy Spirit is no longer the one driving the person or congregation to speak in tongues. That the pastor thinks he can command this event to occur at HIS will, and not so much according to the will of the Holy Spirit.
Surely this very question has been raised by parishoners.
What does the pastor say about this whole process that involves who is supposed to be driving this, and when, how often, etc.?

 

[arthwollipot]

So back then, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, landed on peoples heads, looking like a flame, and the people were driven to speak in tongues, quite spontaneously.
But now days, in said churches, they encourage you to attempt to speak in tongues.
So to me it sounds more like the Holy Spirit is no longer the one driving the person or congregation to speak in tongues. That the pastor thinks he can command this event to occur at HIS will, and not so much according to the will of the Holy Spirit.
Surely this very question has been raised by parishoners.
What does the pastor say about this whole process that involves who is supposed to be driving this, and when, how often, etc.?

The pastor has nothing to do with it, except to prepare the congregation to receive the Holy Spirit. It's not at the pastor's will that this occurs, it's at God's.

 

[Checkmite]

So back then, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, landed on peoples heads, looking like a flame, and the people were driven to speak in tongues, quite spontaneously.
But now days, in said churches, they encourage you to attempt to speak in tongues.
So to me it sounds more like the Holy Spirit is no longer the one driving the person or congregation to speak in tongues. That the pastor thinks he can command this event to occur at HIS will, and not so much according to the will of the Holy Spirit.
Surely this very question has been raised by parishoners.
What does the pastor say about this whole process that involves who is supposed to be driving this, and when, how often, etc.?

I can't answer this non-speculatively - I never went to that church; kids from school who went there seemed to become "not right" to me in some ineffable way. And I never went to another meeting of that club.

Speculatively, though...well, I suppose the fact that the "Holy Spirit" would come to and bless only certain random members of a wholly-faithful congregation with the gift of heavenly jibberjabber would seem unfair to some folks individually; they would want to be seen as so devout that they would receive this gift too, and so at some point they miraculously "did". I suppose that given enough time, this formerly-special occasion became such a regular occurrence that the oddity would be those people it didn't happen to - in other words, it became a peer-pressure thing. Newcomers would be encouraged to speak in tongues because that became the default symbol of "arrival", a genuine connection with God/Jesus.

In the above scenario, I'm not sure the pastor's participation is necessary. In a religion where the reality of "tongues" as a blessing is held to, indeed the pastor may not even necessarily like the trend but his hands are essentially tied. The pastors in these churches may not have the authority (or wont) to discourage the practice or call out "fakers".

 

[arthwollipot]

Speculatively, though...well, I suppose the fact that the "Holy Spirit" would come to and bless only certain random members of a wholly-faithful congregation with the gift of heavenly jibberjabber would seem unfair to some folks individually; they would want to be seen as so devout that they would receive this gift too, and so at some point they miraculously "did". I suppose that given enough time, this formerly-special occasion became such a regular occurrence that the oddity would be those people it didn't happen to - in other words, it became a peer-pressure thing. Newcomers would be encouraged to speak in tongues because that became the default symbol of "arrival", a genuine connection with God/Jesus.

That pretty much accords with my experience, except that the peer pressure isn't in any way overt. It's more subtle and psychological.

 

[Checkmite]

That pretty much accords with my experience, except that the peer pressure isn't in any way overt. It's more subtle and psychological.

Yes absolutely, I should've said - it's a very "passive" kind of peer pressure. Nobody wants to be the one to tell the emperor (i.e., all the tongues-speakers) that he's naked - what if there's something to it after all and you genuinely just aren't "clever enough" to see the clothes?

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

[Snipped]
So now I wonder: Is nonsense speech something that some people can do easily, and churches hijack this odd quirk and convince people it's from God? How common an ability is it? Could you (anyone reading this) do it right now for fun?

If it's difficult for some people and easier for others to speak in tongues at church, I wonder if it's just because it would be difficult for some and easy for others anyway, regardless of the strength of their faith?

I believe so, if you feel sufficiently motivated. Without the religious support, it's a silly game that could be considered rather childish, begging your pardon. With, it becomes imbued with all sorts of additional meaning. It becomes a place of comfort and refuge when you don't know where to go, it becomes a sign that God loves you, and as arth mentioned, it can even be necessary to prove that you're a Christian.

A lot of people I used to know believed that if you didn't use the gift, you'd lose it. Quite a few said this had happened to them at some point. They interpreted this as God taking it away for some reason (Spite? To give it to someone else who would use it? Is there a gift shortage in heaven?), but from a different perspective, it seems obvious that there are more natural explanations, like losing the knack, applying too much conscious thought because it had become unfamiliar again, and so on.

Anyone can make nonsense sounds, so all we're really talking about is the ability to string them together with confidence and fluency. I don't see any reason why religion would be necessary for that. On the contrary, like near death experiences, temporal lobe epilepsy, sleep paralysis and much more, I think it's an unremarkable feature of the brain which gets imbued with supernatural significance as a way of understanding some seriously crazy stuff.

 

[pakeha]

Great post--it's fascinating to read about these things from someone with first-hand knowledge.

Now I'm curious about something. I mentioned earlier that I used to give "speeches" in nonsense syllables with the cadence and emphasis of actual speech, when I was three or four years old, and my motivation was similar to the part I've bolded above.

I thought I couldn't do it anymore, not having tried it in 45 or 50 years, but out of curiosity, I tried it and was able to do it as fluently as ever. So apparently it's like riding a bicycle--you don't forget. And I thought, therefore, that everyone must be able to do it.

But I demonstrated for my wife with a minute or so of a nonsense "speech" and asked her if she could do it. She agreed it sounded superficially like I was fluent in a foreign language, but said there's no way she could do that, and she never remembered doing it when younger.

Of course, I don't consider it inspired or a real language or anything--it's just a fun novelty thing to do, like wiggling your ears. But if I can turn it on or off apropos of nothing in the living room, it would be very easy to do in the hyped-up environment of a church that I wanted to believe in.

So now I wonder: Is nonsense speech something that some people can do easily, and churches hijack this odd quirk and convince people it's from God? How common an ability is it? Could you (anyone reading this) do it right now for fun?

If it's difficult for some people and easier for others to speak in tongues at church, I wonder if it's just because it would be difficult for some and easy for others anyway, regardless of the strength of their faith?

Hijack is the word, Pup.
Glossolalia is something used by many different peoples around the world. For some of the more extreme Qi Gong groups, it's cultivated and encouraged as proof one's chi is flowing correctly.
Siberian societies apparently considered glossolalia as the mark of a true shaman.
I've wondered why the early Christians hijacked the technique. I daresay glossolalia was a feature in Middle Eastern mystery religions, but I have no evidence to back up that supposition.

ETA
Found!
"the recorded cases of glossolalia go back as far as 1100 B.C. On that occasion a young Amen worshiper attracted historical infamy when he became possessed by a god and began to make sounds in a strange ecstatic tongue.

Seven hundred years later, the Greek philosopher Plato demonstrated that he was well acquainted with the phenomenon of speaking in tongues as he referred to several families who practiced ecstatic speech, praying and utterings while supposedly possessed. He also pointed out that these practices had even brought physical healing to those who engaged in them. Plato and most of his contemporaries asserted that these occurrences were caused by divine inspiration. He suggested that God takes possession of the mind while man sleeps or is possessed and during this state, God inspires him with utterances which he can neither understand nor interpret. This does NOT mean of course that one practising speaking in tongues as seen today is possessed or not saved. That of course is just simply not true. When God confused the languages of His people who were rebelling at Babel in Genesis 11, they also spoke in “new tongues” and note this happened without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

In the last century before Christ, Virgil described the speaking of ecstatic tongues of the Sybilline priestess on the Island of Delos as the result of her being unified with the god Apollo. This happened while she meditated in a haunted cave amidst the eerie sounds of the wind playing strange music through the narrow crevices in the rocks.

Several of the mystery religions of the Greco-Roman world record the same phenomenon of speaking in tongues. Some of those most often listed are the Mithra cult of the Persians; the Osiris cult originating in the land of the Pharaohs, and the lesser known Dionysian, Eulusinian, and Orphic cults cradled in Macedonia, Thrace and Greece. Another indication comes from Lucian of Samosata (A.D. 120-198) who in De Dea Syria describes an example of glossolalia as exhibited by a roaming believer of June, the Syrian goddess, stationed at Hierapolis in Syria. "
http://www.speaking-in-tongues.net/

So, Pup, you're right. Glossolalia was hijacked by the early Christians.
Showmanship?

 

[pakeha]

Here's more on the subject
"..In a cross cultural survey of glossolalia and related forms of dissociative speaking, Harvard anthropologist L. Carlyle May concluded that the Christian tradition of speaking in tongues “probably had its roots in the ancient religions of Asia Minor.” Similar sorts of speaking were widely known in the Greco-Roman world and were generally considered, by polytheist and philosophical elites, to be “primitive” or “barbaric” practices. These speech acts were, in other words, associated with shamanist societies and what May calls “religiomedical practitioners.” While we today tend to think of such societies as small-scale foragers or horticulturalists, in classical times there were several large and powerful groups (such as the Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals) that were still suffused with shamanic ideas and practices."
http://genealogyreligion.net/cross-cultural-glossolalia-babeling

There's a great deal more in the article, for those interested in glossolalia.

 

[Pup]

So, Pup, you're right. Glossolalia was hijacked by the early Christians.
Showmanship?

Interesting stuff! Sounds similar to how ouija boards and dowsing hijack the natural quirk of the ideomotor effect.

Once I discovered I could still do it, I assumed everyone could, and was surprised by my wife's reaction. She said that not only could she "never" do anything like that, she found it creepy, while I found it fun and amusing, so there was a natural showmanship effect happening already. Edited to add: I mean that if I convinced a gullible person that it was a special, unique talent and they doubted they could do it, but I carefully worked them up into being able to do it, it would be both surprising and creepy for that person once they were doing it. They could then teach others and the whole meme could spread.

 

[s4zando]

Interesting stuff! Sounds similar to how ouija boards and dowsing hijack the natural quirk of the ideomotor effect.

Once I discovered I could still do it, I assumed everyone could, and was surprised by my wife's reaction. She said that not only could she "never" do anything like that, she found it creepy, while I found it fun and amusing, so there was a natural showmanship effect happening already. Edited to add: I mean that if I convinced a gullible person that it was a special, unique talent and they doubted they could do it, but I carefully worked them up into being able to do it, it would be both surprising and creepy for that person once they were doing it. They could then teach others and the whole meme could spread.

Once men use the word 'creepy' to describe their skillset, they have already doomed themselves.

Better to use the word: "divine." Much more powerful, manipulative, and for the love of God, less *gasp* 'creepy' which will never get your religion off the ground. You need centuries of non-creepy, or non-reported behaviour to have your religion taken seriously. Then you can touch all the underage boys you want.

BTW, when did you stop touching underage boys in a divine manner?

 

[Checkmite]

Hijack is the word, Pup.
Glossolalia is something used by many different peoples around the world. For some of the more extreme Qi Gong groups, it's cultivated and encouraged as proof one's chi is flowing correctly.
Siberian societies apparently considered glossolalia as the mark of a true shaman.
I've wondered why the early Christians hijacked the technique. I daresay glossolalia was a feature in Middle Eastern mystery religions, but I have no evidence to back up that supposition.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say Christians "hijacked" glossolalia. I'm sure I did some of it when I was a kid while playing, and I had no exposure to fundamentalist Christianity or Qi Gong or Asian mystery cults. Like building fire, it's a thing different people are capable of "discovering" independently. The kind of glossolalia that happens in American Pentacostal and fundamentalist churches seems to have originated there; I don't recall ever hearing about it being practiced among the first American Christians - the congregationalists and Unitarians or the pilgrims or any of these. I tend to think they would've regarded "possession" as something devils did to you, not angels or the "Holy Spirit".

 

[Delvo]

It's pretty common for toddlers with no knowledge of grammar and practically no vocabulary to emit streams of speech-like sounds, particularly if the older people around them are having a conversation for them to want to participate in, or even in a setting that just seems like that could be expected to happen. It's just an experience in fitting in socially and emulating those whom a toddler naturally tends to emulate and learn from.

However, it's also usually pretty easy to distinguish from language. They start with the easiest sounds to make; the first vowel is the one represented by "a" in most European languages (but not English in most cases), and the consonants start out with "b" and "d" and later expand to "g" and "w" and "y", and so on. I remember noticing, as a kid, that when people tried to sound like they were speaking foreign languages just as a silly game (the religious version of it being something I had never encountered), they all tended to come back to the same few sounds or groups of sounds over and over again, so it normally didn't sound like a real language to me; it sounded more like kids who hadn't yet mastered any language's whole range, as if taking away meaning caused reversion to what toddlers do before learning to apply meaning.

I've seen a few videos of religious people doing this stuff at church, but I don't think I've seen an example that really sounded like a language to me, whereas I do know that at least some examples seemed to me to be pretty obvious toddlerish fakery.

 

[Pup]

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say Christians "hijacked" glossolalia. I'm sure I did some of it when I was a kid while playing, and I had no exposure to fundamentalist Christianity or Qi Gong or Asian mystery cults. Like building fire, it's a thing different people are capable of "discovering" independently. The kind of glossolalia that happens in American Pentacostal and fundamentalist churches seems to have originated there; I don't recall ever hearing about it being practiced among the first American Christians - the congregationalists and Unitarians or the pilgrims or any of these. I tend to think they would've regarded "possession" as something devils did to you, not angels or the "Holy Spirit".

That's what I mean by hijacked, though. It's apparently something that humans can do for various mundane reasons across many cultures, but when some Christians discovered it, they introduced it to others: "Hey, try this. Pretty creepy divine, huh? That's evidence of our god."

From what Pakeha posted, it sounds like other religious people in other cultures did the same thing. People were taking a mundane skill and hijacking it to be evidence for whatever religious or paranormal thing they wanted to prove.

They may even have believed it was divinely inspired themselves, just like dowsers swear something else is moving the stick, although common sense says they're moving the stick and just not realizing it, just as common sense says the person is making up the nonsense syllables but so quickly they may not realize it.

 

[Drewbot]

I witnessed this once.

I thought it was a prepared plant by the minister.

Something like, 'when I say "x", that is your cue to say this, god is going to speak through you, the following:'

"Ahhh-ma-nomma babba shabby wabby"

Then during the minister's sermon this person stands up and screams out the above, and when they are done the minister says 'Amen'

 

[pakeha]

Interesting stuff! Sounds similar to how ouija boards and dowsing hijack the natural quirk of the ideomotor effect.

Once I discovered I could still do it, I assumed everyone could, and was surprised by my wife's reaction. She said that not only could she "never" do anything like that, she found it creepy, while I found it fun and amusing, so there was a natural showmanship effect happening already. Edited to add: I mean that if I convinced a gullible person that it was a special, unique talent and they doubted they could do it, but I carefully worked them up into being able to do it, it would be both surprising and creepy for that person once they were doing it. They could then teach others and the whole meme could spread.

I have some peculiar ancient texts you could 'translate' and then you're off and away, Pup!

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say Christians "hijacked" glossolalia.

I'm sure I did some of it when I was a kid while playing, and I had no exposure to fundamentalist Christianity or Qi Gong or Asian mystery cults. Like building fire, it's a thing different people are capable of "discovering" independently. The kind of glossolalia that happens in American Pentacostal and fundamentalist churches seems to have originated there; I don't recall ever hearing about it being practiced among the first American Christians - the congregationalists and Unitarians or the pilgrims or any of these. I tend to think they would've regarded "possession" as something devils did to you, not angels or the "Holy Spirit".

I would.
Even just reading the posts here, it's clear people associate glossolalia with Christians, rather than Plato and Virgil.
Anyway, it seems clear Christians hijacked glossolalia back in the second century, if not earlier, according to wiki:
"Biblical practice

There are five places in the New Testament where speaking in tongues is referred to explicitly:

Mark 16:17, which records the instructions of Christ to the apostles, including his description that "they will speak with new tongues" as a sign that would follow "them that believe" in him.
Acts 2, which describes an occurrence of speaking in tongues in Jerusalem at Pentecost, though with various interpretations. Specifically, "every man heard them speak in his own language" and wondered "how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?"
Acts 10:46, when the household of Cornelius in Caesarea spoke in tongues, and those present compared it to the speaking in tongues that occurred at Pentecost.
Acts 19:6, when a group of approximately a dozen men spoke in tongues in Ephesus as they received the Holy Spirit while the apostle Paul laid his hands upon them.
1 Cor 12, 13, 14, where Paul discusses speaking in "various kinds of tongues" as part of his wider discussion of the gifts of the Spirit; his remarks shed some light on his own speaking in tongues as well as how the gift of speaking in tongues was to be used in the church."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia

I can understand your POV, however charismatics existed long before America was discovered. The section on Church Practice in that wiki entry is particularly interesting.
Enjoy!

 

[dudalb]

When the disciples originally spoke in tongues it wasn't gibberish, but a miracle where everyone heard his own language:

Acts 2:1-12 NIV
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”


When gibberish became an acceptable substitute I can only guess.

It never ceases to amaze me that Fundies are often so ignorant of what the book they claim to follow actually says.