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I promised the lovely Glad some contributions from left field. Well what follows comes from left and right hemispheres. Perhaps one day some contributions from the inner field!, but for now let me state my belief that speaking in tongues is bogus.Speaking in tongues (also called glossolalia)according to Dr. William T. Samarin, professor of anthropology and linguistics at the University of Toronto, it consists of "strings of meaningless syllables made up of sounds taken from those familiar to the speaker and put together more or less haphazardly .... Glossolalia is language-like because the speaker unconsciously wants it to be language-like. Yet in spite of superficial similarities, glossolalia fundamentally is not language (Nickell, 108)."When spoken by schizophrenics, glossolalia are recognized as gibberish. In charismatic Christian communities glossolalia is sacred

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 For the self professed "outsider" that you are, your posts are VERY good !

I am getting lazy or busy in my old age and so,I have cut and pasted what I believe to be a classic example of Noel's manipulation of the gift of tongues. It was one of MANY small things that finally built up to break the camel's (mine ) back with regard to the infalibility of Noel and the GRC. 

	Date Posted: 09/06/2006 10:33:16 PM
I have an example to share with you all and you can make of it what you like, because many years later, I am still scratching my head ! I am going to use loaded language in this post, and while it makes me want to vomit, I want you all to know what loaded language is. ( Someone once asked me if I was  " Standing in the spirit?" - maybe they had their loaded language a bit mixed up, but I sure looked down to make sure I wasn't standing in any dog poop!!)  Everything they say is compressed  to brief,  definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorised and easily expressed. It is designed to isolate the user from the outside world and to reinforce the feeling of "elitism". To people outside the GRC the language is boring and they are made to feel like an outsider, which is exactly what it is designed to do. It is the language of  non-thought. Different "cultish religions" have their own variety of "loaded language", so the GRC is not unique.  It was a Sunday communion meeting at the Geelong Revival Centre and it was time to "exorcise the gifts". A young man who was "on fire for the Lord" came forth with a very short gift of tongues. There were new people present and Hollin's said, "While it is obvious that our Brother has been touched by the Holy Spirit, I don't think that the blessing has quite manifest itself." ( what the?) So he then accepted a much longer gift of tongues and went on to interpret that one. Now the Brother was very upset and at the end of the meeting he went up to "the platform" and said "What was wrong with my exorcizing the gifts of tongues?"  to which Noely replied, " IT WASN"T LONG ENOUGH !" now why wasn't it long enough? Because Noely couldn't get across all the CRAP that he wanted to in the interpretation to the new people ( read Suckers ) from such a short Gift.-- that would be too obvious even to the "saved!" Now will someone tell me that Noel wasn't manipulating the situation? I DON'T THINK SO !! WHERE IS THE BLESSING? !! Cheers, Glad ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Well, there it is in entirity and for what it's worth, the alarm bells rang so hard in my head that it nearly exploded !!!!!!!!! But by that time I was well and truly a seat warmer and my " Oh, that's bullshit !!!" meter had been running for a while. C'mon people, get with the program - LIFE. Not Noel's twisted version of "The Word" which leads to so many damaged little people out there thinking they are better than everyone else. Life is here, now, not as you are living it, on the sidelines waiting. TRAGIC, SAD, CRIMINAL, HEARTBREAKING Seeya Conchie, Glad

Interesting post, Conchy. Well done.

I left the GRC about 17 years ago, and of course did the whole speaking in tongues bit. I look back on that aspect of my experience there now with embarrasment, actually. I know I shouldn't be embarrassed as I didn't know any better, but anyway...    Over the years I've only ever told close friends about my experiences there, but never mentioned the speaking in tongues bit - it's just too weird for words. How do you explain that you spent many hundreds of hours uttering gibberish, and not seem like a freak? It still makes me shudder just to think about it.

Does anyone else have anything to say about how they've dealt with this since leaving the GRC? How do you feel about the hundreds (or thousands) of hours you spent with your brain's frontal lobe in shutdown? How have your friends reacted when you mention it (or are you not game to talk about it?)

I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Sean.

The Story of Stone Soup Once upon a time, somewhere in post-war Eastern Europe, there was a great famine in which people jealously hoarded whatever food they could find, hiding it even from their friends and neighbors. One day a wandering soldier came into a village and began asking questions as if he planned to stay for the night. "There's not a bite to eat in the whole province," he was told. "Better keep moving on." "Oh, I have everything I need," he said. "In fact, I was thinking of making some stone soup to share with all of you." He pulled an iron cauldron from his wagon, filled it with water, and built a fire under it. Then, with great ceremony, he drew an ordinary-looking stone from a velvet bag and dropped it into the water. By now, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers had come to the square or watched from their windows. As the soldier sniffed the "broth" and licked his lips in anticipation, hunger began to overcome their skepticism. "Ahh," the soldier said to himself rather loudly, "I do like a tasty stone soup. Of course, stone soup with cabbage -- that's hard to beat." Soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a cabbage he'd retrieved from its hiding place, and added it to the pot. "Capital!" cried the soldier. "You know, I once had stone soup with cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a king." The village butcher managed to find some salt beef . . . and so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for all. The villagers offered the soldier a great deal of money for the magic stone, but he refused to sell and traveled on the next day.

The moral of the story? Tongues is the magic stone... they put it in the soup, but it's just a meaningless thing that gets vegetables and meaning boiled up with it. The really successful con-men are the ones who sell you a product that doesn't exist (The Reserve Bank has been doing this for years). The sad fact is that the following generations believe in the stone and keep putting it in their children's soup.

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Hey GRC gang,I can't say that I understand what went on in that church (I went to the revival fellowship), so I think I may be out of the loop on alot of what you are talking about. Nonetheless, speaking in tongues is an interresting topic to me and I would like to put in my two cents if I may.I was ten years of age when I recieved the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. Nothing new, but this may be: I had never heard anyone do it before me and was not informed on what would happen, my father heard about it and relayed the info on to me simply stating I would 'speak in tongues'. As I remember (and as the all so well known story goes), I said a clear hallelujah, paused, then spoke in tongues. My father had no interaction with me while this happened, he was just watching.What may be interesting for you is this. Now, I think the spectisim comes from the way peopl

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Well - you remember making some stuttering noises when you were 10. I guess that disproves all the liguistic research that's being discussed in this thread.

Here's a challenge to all the GRCulters out there:

Prove it. Prove it's a language. We're all waiting. Anecdotal evidence (ie. heresay) doesn't count. Prove it once and for all and we'll shut up about it.  A language, by definition is recognizable, so proof should not be too hard. Grab a video camera (most mobile phones these days have one), and post the proof on this site with a translated transcript of someone 'speaking in tongues'.

I already know that this is not going to happen. Why? Read the first post in this thread. The research has already been done.

And Josh, sorry for sounding harsh in response to your post, but really - heresay is any cult's best friend. Let's have proof. By the way, welcome to the forum

Sean.

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I was ten years of age when I recieved the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. Nothing new, but this may be: I had never heard anyone do it before me and was not informed on what would happen, my father heard about it and relayed the info on to me simply stating I would 'speak in tongues'. As I remember (and as the all so well known story goes), I said a clear hallelujah, paused, then spoke in tongues. My father had no interaction with me while this happened, he was just watching.

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True the research has been done, but the glossallaliac won't give those studies any credibility; they'll simply ignore it. Ironically, Revivalists attribute tongues as a proof of the Holy Spirit and a proof of miracles, yet this proof cannot be proven apart from a small handfull of urban myths about visitors from another countries who happen across the tongue speaking and understand it.

Most Christians who do it actually believe it and convince themselves they are speaking an existing language, but it isn't. Usually it's just a repetitive string of phonisms. The first thing revivalists truly need to confront is that the amazing ability to verbalise random noise from their mouths is not miraculous. I truly convinced and persuaded myself, without doubt, I was doing something only 'supernaturally empowered' people could do. I made this real in my head, and I had the misfortune of hanging around a hundred other people who also let themselves believe in this remarkable over-rated ability to make nonsensical 'sounds'. Together we built a huge noisy straw man and worshipped it.

This is a process called 'confabulation' - and it's not the same as lying. It's when people combine fact and fiction to produce fantasy. Christians want to feel really special and 'super-powered' so they attribute fanciful meanings to basic things... People lie, sometimes they don't even know they're doing it.

It's not uniquely a Christian practice

Several of the mystery religions of the Greco-Roman world record the same phenomenon. 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.

It should be frightening to all Christians that what they see now in the Church, resembles these occurrences of ecstatic tongues that took place in these ancient cults before the day of Pentecost and that what took place at Pentecost does not in any way resemble those occurrences. At Pentecost, it was unarguably the speaking of foreign languages.

The gibberish nonsense tongues is a recently new thing

Believe it or not, tongue speaking as seen in the Church today is a fairly recent phenomenon in Christianity only becoming common in the 20th centure. It came about in four waves.

• The 1st wave of tongue speaking started around 1901 and was founded in the traditional Pentecostal movement by Charles Parham of Bethel College, Kansas.
• The 2nd wave, neo-Pentecostalism or the Charismatic movement entered most Churches in the early 1960's in Van Nuys, California, under Dennis Bennett, Rector of St Marks Episcopal (Anglican) Church. In ten years it spread to all major Protestant families of the world, reaching a total of 55 million people by 1990. It included the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics and many others.
• The 3rd wave, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1967 among students and faculty of DuQuesne University, and by 1993 it touched the lives of over 100 million Catholics in over 238 nations.
• The 4th wave of speaking in tongues, the Evangelicals started in 1981 at Fuller Theological Seminary with John Wimber. By 1990, 33 million in the world were moving in signs and wonders, though they play down labels such as "Pentecostal" and "Charismatic".

Paul was instructing his preachers foreign language etiquette... not how to unintelligibly babble

1 Timothy 6:20: "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings..."

We are able to speak and flap our lips around to enable the effective communication of thoughts and ideas. In a church context where a gospel is encouraged to be spread and shared what would be the use If those present do not understand your communication - keep silent. Why is it when those Revivalists and others who teach speaking in tongues go to other countries to do some form of mission work that they have to learn the language?

The belief of there being a heavenly prayer language comes mainly from 1 Corinthians 14:14 where Paul says, "For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful." This is interpreted by some to mean that when Paul prayed in the Spirit, he used a "heavenly tongue" and did not himself know what he was praying. First of all, this raises an important question. How would they ever know if their prayer was answered? What would be the point? Does God's own Spirit just pray to Himself as some would imply?

It's an awkward translation of Greek to English. Paul actually seems to make some logical sense when you consider he was giving some practical advice on how to pray and communicate in a land where there are many languages, "If I pray in a language those around me do not know, I might be praying with the Spirit, but my thoughts would be unfruitful for those listening."

Gross mistranslation of a very simple word

The term tongues when used in reference to speaking just simply means "language". The Greek word is "glossa" and means "tongue, language," and the verb "laleo" means "to speak", producing the word "glossolalia". Here is the definition from the Strong's and Thayer dictionaries:

Strong's Definition: "glossa", pronounced "gloce'-sah" Of uncertain affinity; the tongue; by implication a language (specifically one naturally unacquired): - tongue.

Thayer Definition: "glossa"
1) The tongue, a member of the body, an organ of speech.
2) A tongue.
1a) the language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations.

References:
http://www.speaking-in-tongues.net/

To quote one example, in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, two men as an experiment (again apart from religion) spoke in tongues after repeating "Timbucktoo" in the right emotional setting. One in just a few minutes and one partly after two hours! (Modern New Tongues" p. 59 - A.S. Hill).

Speaking in tongues Linguistic Study

In a massive study of tongue speaking from a linguistic perspective by Professor William J. Samarin of the University of Toronto's Department of Linguistics, published after more than a decade of careful research, he rejected the view that glossolalia is xenoglossia, i.e. some foreign language that could be understood by another person who knew that language. Professor Samarin concluded that glossolalia is a "pseudo-language." He defined glossolalia as "unintelligible babbling speech that exhibits superficial phonological similarity to language, without having consistent syntagmatic structure and that is not systematically derived from or related to known language." (William J. Samarin, "Variation and Variables in Religious Glossolalia," Language in Society, ed. Dell Haymes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972 pages. 121-130)

Felicitas D. Goodman, a psychological anthropologist and linguist, engaged in a study of various English, Spanish and Mayan speaking Pentecostal communities in the United States and Mexico. She compared tape recordings of non-Christian rituals from Africa, Borneo, Indonesia and Japan as well. She published her results in 1972 in an extensive monograph (Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study in Glossolalia by Felecitas D. Goodman, University of Chicago Press, 1972).

Felecitas Goodman concludes that "when all features of speaking in tongues were taken into consideration, which is the segmental structure (such as sounds, syllables, phrases) and its suprasegmental elements (namely, rhythm, accent, and especially overall intonation), she concluded that there is no distinction in tongues between Christians and the followers of non-Christian (pagan) religions. Goodman in the prestigious Encyclopaedia of Religion (1987) wrote the "association between trance and glossolalia is now accepted by many researchers as a correct assumption". Goodman also concludes that glossolalia "is, actually, a learned behaviour, learned either unawarely or, sometimes consciously." Others have previously pointed out that direct instruction is given on how to "speak in tongues," ie. how to engage in glossolalia. In fact, it has been found that the "speaking in tongues" practiced in Christian churches and by individual Christians is identical to the chanting language of those who practice voodoo on the darkest continents of this world.

Some who speak in tongues are also becoming involved in "holy laughter, drunk in the spirit" laughing uncontrollably, falling down on the ground, rolling around, having seizure like activity, being struck dumb, or being "slain in the spirit." Jesus never behaved that way, nor did He heal that way. The only time you see anything that resembles that behaviour in the Bible is with demon possessed people Jesus delivered that were out of control, writhing on the ground. When Jesus cast out the demons and delivered them, they sat quietly with dignity. 1 Corinthians 14:40 says, "Let all things be done decently and in order." The Bible never demonstrates such disorderly behaviour in the Church.

Very few people realize the tremendous forces locked within our emotional nature. Some are more susceptible than others. With the correct environment, the long hours of praying for one thing, the music, sobs, entreaties of those around, the mind becomes weary and the emotions take over. The effects can be dramatic, almost overwhelming. This can be so even when glossolalia appears outside the necessity of such emotional props.

Glossolalia has even been manufactured by University students in America (some of whom were atheist and had no religious interest at all) as a demonstration of what can happen given the right emotional environment and the right emotional effort. To quote one example, in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, two men as an experiment (again apart from religion) spoke in tongues after repeating "Timbucktoo" in the right emotional setting. One in just a few minutes and one partly after two hours! (Modern New Tongues" p. 59 - A.S. Hill).

Its universal appeal can be seen in its evidence amongst both Catholics and Protestants, Christian and Heathen, those living good moral lives, those living in sin. All can, and do, experience this phenomena. That in these conditions "Tongues" CANNOT be a sign of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit becomes immediately evident.

Healing services and glossolalia have been, and possibly still are, being conducted in the Catholic University of Notre Dame (Christianity Today:, p.40, May 26, 1967.) And so it does not matter whether a person is a Catholic believing in the Pope, or a Protestant, a Christian or heathen. Living a good life or living in adultery, believing in baptism by immersion, or sprinkling, smokers or non-smokers. Drinkers or teetotallers, believing in the Virgin Birth or scoffing at the idea - it makes no difference. All speak with "Tongues!" Obviously the tongues are not self-authenticating. There is no sign here of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit or of anything else.

There have been instances of real foreign languages being spoken in meetings as fun or as an experiment and invariably receiving an "interpretation" wholly at conflict with what had been said! A young Dutch person entered a Pentecostal Assembly recently and rattled off a Dutch fairy story receiving an interpretation that God was asking the assembly to pray for the poor in China! A tape recording of glossolalia will receive totally different interpretations from those purporting to have the gift of interpreting. This is all very sad.

Another aspect that is very noticeable is that an English Pentecostal speaking in tongues, though it may be quite unintelligible, is still recognizably English in intonation and syllable construction. Essentially he is still speaking "English." So also with other nationals. A Scotchman is still "Scottish." A Frenchman still is "French" in intonations and syllable construction. Obviously, however sincere these people are, the whole thing becomes a sham and a fraud. Many become victims of their own emotions "aided by the great deceiver."

It is clear Pentecostals, which we once were, have no right at all to use the term "Pentecostal" for at Pentecost real recognizable languages were spoken whereas amongst so-called "Pentecostals" this never happens.

Pentecostals and others engaging in tongue speaking as seen today normally say any or all of the following;

1. Tongues are a sign of Baptism in the Holy Spirit - but the Bible never says that.
2. All should speak in tongues - but the Bible never says that.
3. The initial experience of tongue speaking at the Baptism is different from the later "gift of tongues" - but the Bible never says that.
4. That tongues are, or can be a heavenly language - but the Bible never says that.
5. Tongue speaking is for the benefit of believers - but the Bible never says that.
6. Tongue speaking is for the most part unintelligible - but the Bible never says that.
7. These unintelligible tongues are Christian - but the Bible and history indicate that they are heathen.