Glossolalia - Speaking in Tongues

Very nice!

For those reluctant to download the pdf: it's just a one-page magazine article, not a big heavy journal article.
 
Oh wait, I just tried save as and it saved the pdf file.
Nice.
Thanks for the help everyone.

Regards,
Yair
 
Assuming that these people aren't completely faking it, it's interesting for me to note I sometimes have vaguely similar experiences. When lying in bed, in a hypnopompic state (between sleeping and waking) I sometimes see a book in front of me. It seems utterly real, and I'm quite aware that I'm dreaming, and I can read its pages for minutes at a time. The words are English, the grammar faultless, yet the meaning is completely nonsensical (like some of the posts on this forum). I find I can read this text as fast - or faster - than I can read a book normally, and all the while I'm thinking to myself "Where the heck is this stuff coming from?"

Maybe the babbling of the faithful is produced in a similar manner, utilising the same parts of the brain as my hypnopompic hallucinations.
 
I witnessed speaking (and singing) in tongues at a Jesus Army* things some years ago. They seemed more like over-excited children than channels for angels/holy spirits and so forth.

Also, it seemed people were waiting for permission - there was a sense of building anticipation, like everyone was waiting to be able to speak in tongues, when they were allowed to, and when the moment came, everyone did at once. Seemed odd, not really very spontaneous. Didn't see the need for fancy neuropsychological explanations, seemed to be more about social processes.

* The military wing of Cliff Richard
 
As I understand it, thisparagraph is incorrect:

Xenoglossia is a specific type of speaking in tongues where a subject
supposedly breaks out into a foreign language, an alien language, or an ancient, dead, lost, unknown-to-any linguist kind of language.
Click to expand...

I thought that Xenoglossia was breaking into a known language with which the speaker is unfamiliar, whereas Glossolalia (supposedly) involves an unknown language
 
Only experience I've had with glossolalia was a woman having a stroke. It was very clear she was trying to communicate but the words were gibberish. Fortunately her family decided that instead of having a religious experience she might be better off in the ER.




Boo
 
Wow... now speaking in tongues in unison would be impressive if they all uttered the same nonsense... even cooler if it was some long extinct language-- but I guess they don't expect that kind of sign from the benevolent omniscient overlord.
 
I had a close encounter with speaking in tongues. It was my roommate in college who was completely drunk and passed out during a floor party in the dorm we lived in. He suddenly woke up and got another beer asked for the popcorn which the last of it was still stuck on his face then suddenly started speaking as if in foreign languages. He started with something that sounded German and switched to something like Spanish and Japanese and several other variations that sounded markedly different. Then he passed out again. In the morning he had no recollection of what happened.
 
I can speak gibberish brilliantly, fast and fluently.

However, when I was a Christian I was too embarrassed to join in the speaking in tongues. It seemed pretty clear to me even as a kid that it was made-up hysterical nonsense.

Interesting article, Karen, very well written as usual...but perhaps a little short? I was expecting more debunking but it was over almost as soon as it began!

I'd like to read an extended version if you have one planned, or if this was trimmed from a longer paper.
 
RSLancastr said:
I thought that Xenoglossia was breaking into a known language with which the speaker is unfamiliar, whereas Glossolalia (supposedly) involves an unknown language
Click to expand...

The terms are often used interchangeably, or differently, but we could say that Xenoglossia refers to 'foreign languages', including supposed alien languages, etc., while glossolalia is more generic, usually referring to spontaneous, unknown language.
 
pyewhackett said:
The terms are often used interchangeably, or differently, but we could say that Xenoglossia refers to 'foreign languages', including supposed alien languages, etc., while glossolalia is more generic, usually referring to spontaneous, unknown language.
Click to expand...

I see, thanks.

By the wayl, I was saddened that your article did not include the very latest knownledge about glossolalia.

We have recently learned, thanks to Sylvia Browne's spirit guide Francine, that glossolalia is actually done using one of the lost languages from the continent of Atlantis. :boggled:

Oh, and: nice article, despite that one glaring omision. You fit a lot of information onto one page!
 
tkingdoll said:
Interesting article, Karen, very well written as usual...but perhaps a little short? I was expecting more debunking but it was over almost as soon as it began!

I'd like to read an extended version if you have one planned, or if this was trimmed from a longer paper.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

I wrote it as a column piece for Australasian Science, the 'Naked Skeptic', and have a limit of 800 words. Yes, it is succinct! I plan on getting more articles out of the topic. In fact, Alternative Tentacles (the artist's label) are sending me some more examples of 'glossolalia' to check out...

I'll post more as they are written. :)
 
RSLancastr said:
We have recently learned, thanks to Sylvia Browne's spirit guide Francine, that glossolalia is actually done using one of the lost languages from the continent of Atlantis. :boggled: QUOTE]

Wow...layers of ********!

Most would say that glossolalia is contact from 'god'.
Click to expand...
 
I used to do a fake foreign language with a friend of mine some years ago. Not the hyper-excited babble of a religious ecstasy though. I tried to make it sound normal and realistic---asking questions, making "observations" etc. And tried to have some repetition but not so much that it looked like lack of imagination.

Isn't one biblical claim of the "gift of tongues" that when the apostles spoke it was heard by people of different nations to be in their own tongue. (In other words, an apostle's babbling would be heard simultaneously as Greek, Persian and Chinese or whatever.)

Acts 2: 4-11

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?

And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?*

Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,

Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,

Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
Click to expand...
* I've often wondered in what language this utterance was spoken, and how people were able to know that other foreigners were hearing the same speech as a different language? I mean, if there were multilingual folks around to verify the incident, how come the apostles didn't just use their services? As a former professional interpreter, I'm shocked that the apostles would use miraculous powers to take bread from the mouths of honest interpreters and translators. :)
 
Great article. Thank you for posting that Karen.

Am I the first in this thread to admit that I have spoken in tongues, as an adult? :o

I am very sure that the social pressure was important. Not wanting to fail and disappoint this group of new friends who were being so nice, I followed the instructions given and found it remarkably easy to utter gibberish. I was less than convinced that this was a true miracle but I did not have the courage to even suggest that it might have any prosaic explanation.

It is with difficulty and embarrassment that I remember this phase of my life. The group told stories of specific times in the past when the leader had spoken in tongues and it was found to have been in High German or some other specific language which he had never studied. They all repeated these stories as fact. No one ever questioned the stories, myself included.

If only JREF had been around then I might have asked "Evidence?"
 
Last edited:
YoPopa said:
Great article. Thank you for posting that Karen.

Am I the first in this thread to admit that I have spoken in tongues, as an adult? :o

I am very sure that the social pressure was important. Not wanting to fail and disappoint this group of new friends who were being so nice, I followed the instructions given and found it remarkably easy to utter gibberish. I was less than convinced that this was a true miracle but I did not have the courage to even suggest that it might have any prosaic explanation.

It is with difficulty and embarrassment that I remember this phase of my life. The group told stories of specific times in the past when the leader had spoken in tongues and it was found to have been in High German or some other specific language which he had never studied. They all repeated these stories as fact. No one ever questioned the stories, myself included.

If only JREF had been around then I might have asked "Evidence?"
Click to expand...

Perhaps your posting this will give some other person to ask, evidence?

I was nearing 30 before I ever thought, "hey, you can test this stuff!"-- and it was Randi's MDC and his test of some diviners that opened my mind
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom