Sacred Babble

Healers W. V. Grant, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, and other TV evangelists encourage their audiences to engage in “speaking in tongues.” This is an exact use of magical spells and incantations, an intrinsic part of magical methodology, and is indistinguishable from it, though it is called “religion” by the modern-day priests. While “speaking in tongues,” performers (both preachers and worshipers) mumble gibberish which is believed by the faithful to be a secret prayer language understood only by God—and his Anointed Ministers, of course. (Some of W. V. Grant’s magic words transcribe as “Quah talah mokos! Stee keekeenee bahkus! Dee!”) The fact that each person mumbles differently matters not a whit. God, angels, and Anointed Ministers, we are told, are able to understand. Technically, this psychological phenomenon is known as glossolalia. Early Methodists, Quakers, Shakers, and Mormons adopted it, then de-emphasized it. Until recently, there was not much emphasis on it in Christianity, and it fell into disuse until about 1830, when it reappeared in England, among “females of excitable temperament,” and now the Pentecostal sects have revived it. Scripturally, glossolalia is traced back to Acts 2:4, and a meeting of the Apostles, whereinthey were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to talk in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them power of utterance.

Non-Christian glossolalia is difficult for Christians to explain. It predates them considerably, being described in very ancient religions and known in primitive societies untouched by Christianity. It was known to Plato, who described it in use in his day: Greek and Roman oracles spoke in tongues. Virgil wrote about a Roman Sibyl who babbled that way, in the Aenead, Book Six. Moslems embraced the idea, too. Non-Pentecostal fundamentalists believe that their Pentecostal brothers might be inspired to glossolalia by Satan. Who knows? There is a biblical explanation of the fact that no one is able to understand this chatter. We are told (I Corinthians 14:2) thatwhen a man is using the language of ecstasy he is talking with God, not with men, for no man understands him ...

A Minor Test

However, some preachers ignore that declaration and offer their audiences immediate interpretations of these rantings. The interpretations are almost always snatches of scripture, truisms, and generally flowery phrases that most people believe could be sacred utterances. Many years ago, I tested a preacher in Toronto, Canada, for his ability to interpret these sacred declarations. I played for him a tape of a long discourse in a “secret tongue” which I’d recorded in a church service, delivered by one of the congregation. The eager preacher gladly provided a running translation for me, only to find—to his dismay—that I’d made that recording two weeks previously in his own church—and his translation at that time had been very, very different indeed. He blamed the whole thing on “Satanic influence,” and retired hurriedly to pray over the matter.