This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 5, Issue 3, from 1991.
There is a New Testament miracle that can be witnessed any Sunday in every population centre large enough to sustain a Pentecostalist church – that of ‘speaking with tongues’. The phrase is biblical and describes a process whereby a worshipper springs to his feet and spontaneously pours out a flood of sound that resembles a language and was originally thought to be ‘tongues of men and of angels’. This phenomenon is technically known as glossolalia (or glossolaly) and xenolalia (or xenoglossy). The former is patterned gibberish, not language, but ‘language types’, the latter the alleged paranormal speaking of identifiable foreign tongues.
The practice of speaking in (or with) tongues is an integral part of Pentecostalist worship and is sometimes carried on privately or in groups by charismatics (that is, those who believe in the conferring and practice of a divine gift or power) in other denominations. Pentecostalism bases its belief in the necessity for tongues on a theology derived from New Testament passages that speak of baptism with the Holy Spirit with signs following. Its adherents believe that, following a conversion experience, Christians must seek Holy Spirit baptism, the mark of which is an exhibition by believers of a spiritual gift. The gift most recognisable by a congregation is that of Speaking with tongues, and this has come to be the standard sign by which worshippers prove that they have received the baptism. Charismatics in other churches use tongues as a form of private worship without accepting Pentecostalist theology.
The New Testament passages upon which the theology leading to the practice is based are Acts, Chapters 2 and 11 (plus some minor references) and 1 Corinthians, Chapters 10 to 12. These recount experiences of the first generation of Christians and comment in some detail on the use of tongues in the congregational worship of the Corinthian church. Since the tongues can now be recorded and analysed, a researcher can discover their nature and compare them with what can be surmised from the Biblical accounts of similar phenomena.
The feast of Pentecost – our Whitsun – some six weeks after the Passover at which Jesus Christ was crucified, was the first occasion on which ‘tongues’ occurred. Acts, Chapter 2, which recounts the experience, was clearly written not by an eye-witness, but, although the details are vague, there is no reason to doubt that xenolalia occurred as recorded, partly because of the great influence the experience had on the early church, partly because modem knowledge can explain how it could have happened. Some background information is needed to understand both the experience and the explanation.
Pentecost was one of the Jerusalem Temple feasts which every Jew from all over the then known world was supposed to attend. Such a requirement was obviously impracticable; nevertheless, contemporary censuses show that between two and three million visiting Jews attended the major festivals. These would have used as their native tongues every vernacular spoken in Mediterranean Europe, North Africa and the Near and Middle East Pilgrims often travelled to Jerusalem in national groups, chanting in their own languages religious choruses and probably some of the Davidic psalms of praise. Jewish religious regulations allowed substantial parts of the Temple liturgy to be repeated in any language, and in the special week preceding Pentecost the disciples would have heard religious addresses, acclamations, prayers and hymns in many tongues. As conscientious Jews living not far from Jerusalem they would, over the years, have attended as many of the great feasts as circumstances allowed and would therefore have been exposed to hearing the praises of God expressed in dozens of languages without necessarily understanding a word of any of them.
Every Jew was required to worship in the Temple at some time on the Day of Pentecost. The gates were opened at midnight, nine hours before the hour of public worship, and it is probable that like-minded groups, such as Jesus’ disciples, would worship together, occupying one of the rooms affixed to the interior of the Temple courtyard wall. There certain phenomena occurred. A ‘rushing mighty wind’ was heard. An appearance of fire separated into individual tongues that flickered over the heads of the worshippers who were seized by an ecstasy that caused each to burst out into praises of God expressed in foreign languages. If the surmise that these events occurred in one of the Temple’s assembly rooms is correct, one can further reasonably suppose that as each of the disciples emerged praising God in a different foreign language, those whose tongue it was gathered around to listen. Their astonishment was the greater when they discovered that all those speaking were Galileans, who would have spoken their own language with a marked provincial accent, ‘We hear them telling in our own tongues the great things God has done’.
The disciples praised, not preached. There is no suggestion that the gift of tongues outlasted the ecstasy, that their content was Christian or that the speakers understood what they were saying. It needed a vernacular sermon from Peter, addressing the crowd attracted by the noise, to give a Christian interpretation of what had happened Christians and others have misunderstood the record and thought that the tongues were given miraculously so that the first missionaries could preach to all nations in their own tongues; but there is no indication that the first Christians either thought this or tried to practise it.
But why and how did this ecstasy occur at Pentecost? To understand this, we have to use historical imagination to put ourselves into the position of Christ’s disciples. They were a group of men and women who, whatever modem sceptics believe, were convinced that a month earlier some at least of their number had on a number of occasions over a period of some days and in different places met, talked with and touched their resurrected leader, Jesus, who had been crucified and interred for something like 36 hours. This fact had for them turned defeat into victory, convinced them of survival of death and prepared them to expect some wonderful happening in the near future which some of them, mistakenly, thought would be the return of their Lord to set up his kingdom on earth. Elated and expectant, they formed a ‘psychological crowd’, susceptible to any suggestion that might trigger off experience.
Pentecost, the first major feast after the Passover at which Jesus had been crucified, was an occasion celebrating the power of God – and Jesus had promised them that they would receive ‘power from on high’. The festival was also associated with the giving of the Law and could therefore be the time in which the law of Christ’s kingdom might be revealed. Logically, the first major feast after the resurrection should be the time when the next step in the Messianic progress and plan should be revealed. The group was expecting something to happen.
But why whirlwind, fire and tongues? The readings and commentaries from the Law, Prophets and Psalms appointed for Pentecost are crammed with references to fire, whirlwind, power, exultation, the voice of the Lord making flames of fire burst forth and such expressions as ‘in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory’. The wind and fire may have been collective subjective hallucinations, but there is no need to doubt that the xenolalia happened as recorded.
There are literally hundreds of cases in the literature of medicine and abnormal psychology in which patients in trance, ecstasy or delirium have spoken with astonishing fluency languages of which they were ignorant in their normal states. But it can always be shown that they have been exposed to these languages in the past – living abroad or next door to a foreign family or in an enclave in their own country (an Englishman in a Welsh-speaking village, for example). Their xenolalia is nearly, if not quite always, repetition of what they have heard and absorbed unconsciously, and they are unable to carry on an intelligent conversation with a native speaker of the language or reply to questions asked in it. It has been shown above that Christ’s disciples had been exposed at intervals all their lives to the praise of God expressed in many languages, and it can be argued that if the events of Pentecost were accurately recorded, these were the sources of their xenolalia. The explanation has the advantage that it can equally satisfy sceptics and reasonable believers!
The only form of xenolalia that could be regarded as paranormal is responsive xenolalia, that is, the intelligent carrying on of a conversation in a foreign language which the speaker had never learned and to which he had never been exposed. A case of this is that of a Pennsylvania housewife who, under hypnosis, became Jensen Jacoby, speaking in a deep male voice in either broken English or Swedish. Jacoby claimed to have been a Swedish peasant who had lived some centuries ago either in Sweden or New Sweden (in America) and had met a violent death. The case was thoroughly investigated by Dr lan Stevenson of the University of Virginia (Xenoglossy, The University Press of Virginia and Bristol, John Wright & Sons, 1974) who has done more investigation into ‘cases suggestive of reincarnation’ than any other researcher in this field, and six other Swedish-speaking scholars plus one who understood Scandinavian languages. A 165-page transcript of conversations taped over seven years and a 68-page report and discussion gives the reader the data from which to form his own judgement. The case has not been without its critics, notably Ian Wilson in his Mind out of time.
The other major occasion of speaking in tongues mentioned in Acts (there are several minor references) is in Chapter II, which recounts that a Roman centurion, Cornelius, and his family were converted by the apostle Peter’s visit and preaching to them, as a result of which they received the Holy Spirit and burst out into ecstatic speech. This is likely to have been glossolalia, the more usual form of tongues and the kind which was almost certainly used in the worship of the Corinthian church, as commented on by St Paul in 1 Corinthians, Chapters 10 to 12, and is normally heard in charismatic services today.
Glossolalia is gibberish patterned into ‘languages types’, that is, formations of sound which resemble languages but have certain features that differentiate them from known tongues. No linguist can know every language that has been spoken in the history of the world or is being currently used by mankind; nevertheless, one who has studied the patterns of sound in languages and language – types of glossolalia can normally distinguish one from the other, the more so as it is now possible to record and analyse glossolalia at leisure.
Its features are as follows. In glossolalia, although the patterning of sound may superficially resemble that of real language, the phonemes (syllables and analysable sound units), micro-segments, (‘words’) and macro-segments (‘phrases’ and ‘sentences’) are more repetitions and have an inventory of sounds fewer than those of proper languages. The speaker normally reproduces the features of his mother tongue, maximising what is common in it and diminishing what is uncommon (thus, an English glossolalic could have a number of words ending in ‘shun’ on the model of ‘exaltation’ and ‘condition’ but very few, if any, with the ‘ts’ of ‘Czar’). Onomatopoeia is much used and there is a tendency towards regularity of cadence and the kind of declamation which a child would use in reciting poetry or a priest in intoning prayers. There is a preference for open syllables, those ending with a vowel or vowel sound (eeny, meeny, miny, mo). Open syllables and the use of restricted sounds are characteristic of some natural languages, but their varying cadences and structures differentiate them from glossolalia. There is no vocabulary in glossolalia – its nature is that of music rather than speech.
How does an ordinary Pentecostalist worshipper become a glossolalic? He is first convinced by his theological conditioning that baptism by the Holy Spirit with signs following is essential if he is to become a completely fulfilled Christian. He may attend ‘waiting meetings’ in which those who have not yet received the baptism pray earnestly, emotionally and expectantly for the gift. Sooner or later the exaltation engendered by the atmosphere of the meeting will cause one or more to burst out into ecstatic glossolalia and this can have a snowball effect, breaking down any inhibitions against self-expression of this kind than an individual can have consciously or subconsciously. Once the experience has come to a believer, he can then learn by practice to become more fluent. Thus, the ‘sign’ develops into a ‘gift’.
The more unable an individual normally is to express himself adequately in speech, the more incoherent he is likely to become when gripped by great emotion. We use such expressions as, ‘He sputtered with rage’, ‘She was speechless with emotion’, to express this experience. When very great ecstasy seizes someone with limited language, such self-expression as he has is choked by his inability to express the intense emotion which nevertheless demands expression if he is not to ‘burst’ with it. So he breaks out into incoherent sounds which can become strong, fluent and rhythmical as he lets himself go, encouraged by the support of his fellows and the atmosphere of the church.
Glossolalia can be very beautiful – my own interest in ‘tongues’ was inspired by my hearing many years a charwoman I knew personally to be of very limited self-expression in ordinary life pour out a flood of most majestic and lovely sound in worship. There can also sometimes occur singing in tongues, both individual and corporate. The latter can be very impressive, with spontaneously improvised harmonies produced by people with no marked musical ability – a kind of spiritual ‘jam session’. It has, in fact, been suggested that plainsong is a conventionalised form of singing in tongues.
Not all glossolalia needs an atmosphere of ecstasy. Charismatics in the ‘main line’ churches (Anglican, Methodist, etc) who use it unemotionally in their private devotions claim that it expresses what very often seems inexpressible in ordinary speech.
There are many stories in Pentecostalist literature that scoffers attending church services were converted by hearing themselves named, enounced and summoned to repentance by the xenolalic utterances of believers, ignorant of what they were saying, but who spoke in languages familiar to the unbelievers. There are also stories in which foreigners have heard Pentecostalist ministers praying in their, the foreigners’, tongues when the ministers had never been exposed to them. I have never been able to trace any of their stories to their source, met anyone who experienced conversation this way or any foreigner who has heard his language paranormally spoken, nor know any researcher in this field who has.
There are literally hundreds of cases of xenolalia in dozens of languages reported in Spiritualist literature, especially the early material. There are also a few reincarnationist instances. I know of no incontrovertible evidence of such xenoglossy – which is not to say that it does not or cannot exist (a true sceptic retains an open mind).
Glossolalia, on the other hand, exists world-wide in various forms in cultures other than Christian and can be recorded by researchers at will. If worship is a legitimate activity of the human race – which some sceptics will deny and others admit, according to their brand of scepticism – glossolalia is as valid an expression of worship as any other, provided it does not claim to be xenolalia, producing results that cannot be shown to be true.
