3. The tongues-speaking changes over time apparently as a function of the attenuation of hyper arousal dissociation.

4. Tongues-speaking is lexically non-communicative. The utterance of the tongue-speaker and his listeners do not share a linguistic code. What it does communicate is, initially, the commitment to the group, and later on, a sharing of its ritual behavior with all that this involves on the personal and social side (Ibid., p. 132).

5. Tongue-speakers have a high frequency of repetition in their speech; similar sounding syllables are repeated over and over again.

6. Tongue-speakers' utterances are very similar to their own language background.

7. Tongues-speech usually contains excessive use of one or two vowels.

8. Tongues-speech does not have any specific language structure.

9. There is a markedly greater length of the interpretation as compared with the length of the tongues utterance.

10. There is much inconsistency in the interpretations of the same tongue utterance.

11. In many groups, there is a predominant King James style English in the interpretation (Dillow, p. 168).

As noted earlier, there is a marked similarity between the disposition of some tongue-speakers with those who have been classed with neurotic disorders. In addition, a comparison of the actual utterances of tongue-speakers with other human utterances of a non-religious background reveal that certain psychiatric patient's vocal patterns resemble modern glossolalia. Of several vocalizations assembled of patient's speech patterns, those produced by chronic schizophrenics resemble in every way a classical tongues utterance (Ibid., p. 125). Since tongues are not a normal experience, it is not surprising that terms such as hysteria, partial catalepsy, neurosis, and similar expressions frequently occur in analysis of this subject (Smith, p. 105). Unfortunate examples are cited of individuals who have spoken in tongues and have been so overwhelmed by the experience that they never again regained psychological equilibrium (Kelsey, p. 207).

Often, after the tongue speaker has been exercising the experience for a few years, there are certain internal temptations he meets to deny its genuineness. The first temptation is to say to oneself, "I am just making this up." Forceful instructions are given by the leaders to dispel this belief. Secondly, after the initial joy and enthusiasm has worn off, tongue-speakers often feel that the experience is no longer benefiting them and consequently they often neglect it or allow it to fall into disuse. A third crucial factor is the disillusionment and loss of confidence in the authority figure who introduced them to tongues, which eventually results in the cessation of tongue-speaking for the individual (Smith, p. 99). Kildahl writes: "While glossolalia is not the same as hypnosis, it is similar to it and has the same roots in the relationship of the subject to the authority figure" (Kildahl, p. 55). In the battery of psychological tests administered by Kildahl, he interpreted them as revealing that tongue-speakers are more submissive, suggestible, and dependent upon a leader than those who do not speak in tongues. Moreover, Kildahl concludes that the benefits reported by tongue-speakers are dependent upon acceptance by the leader and other members of the group, and upon their evaluation of the significance of the experience rather than upon the actual experience itself.

Evidence has also been discovered that tongues has an unusual appeal for individuals with weak egos and other psychological inadequacies. From his psychological testing, Kildahl concludes:

"Anxiety is a prerequisite for developing the ability to speak in tongues, and anxiety-free individuals were less apt to seek this kind of experience, while those with a low level of emotional stability tended to be extreme in their affirmation of the benefits of glossolalia...the more integrated the personality, the more modest are the tongues speaker's claims regarding the significance of tongues" (Ibid., pp. 58-60).

Although the above psychological results are persistent among most of the researchers, other researchers report that, as a whole, tongues-speakers are probably as healthy mentally as other people (Hamilton, p. 39). But even these favorable assessments nearly always add a "nevertheless," or some other qualification (Kildahl, p. 65).

An interesting comparison between socio-psychological theory and glossolalia has been put forth by Wayne E. Oates. Oates uses the theories of Jean Piaget and Harry Sullivan on language development in children, comparing them to the psychological motivations of tongue-speakers. This study is particularly significant because of its association to the allusion St. Paul makes to "speaking as a child" in reference to tongues (1 Corinthians 13:11).

According to Piaget's theory, a child's speech is of two varieties, ego-centric and socialized. In ego-centric speech the child is oblivious to his hearers. It is speech in which the presence of other serves simply as a stimulus to speak, called the "collective monologue," and it expects no response from the listener. Oates has classified the act of speaking in tongues in the collective monologue category. Socialized speech is when the child begins to exchange ideas with other people. Oates attributes the conversations among tongue speakers about the art of speaking in tongues with socialized speech. As tongues-speaking becomes more acceptable in any given church, and as the movement matures, Oates see this as a shift in the emphasis from the ego-centric character of tongues to its social value (Oates, pp. 84-89).

Harry Sullivan, in An Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, also develops Piaget's theory. He uses the term "parataxic" to describe ego-centric speech. In parataxic speech, the child utters unintelligible words that are pleasant and meaningful to him. The task for the mother is to identify this speech with the child's specific needs. When the mother cannot understand the connection, this produces "parataxic distortion" in the child. In adult life, these distortions linger and create various types of communication breakdowns and personality disturbances. Oates concludes that glossolalia is the result of an age of mass communication breakdown in society. This forces various attempts at "childhood parataxis" in order to release the tension created by confused conventional speech (Ibid, pp. 90-91). Accordingly, it is not unusual for tongues-speaking to be prominent in groups who have more or less become disillusioned with or have withdrawn, to some degree, from the society around them.

Perhaps not unrelated to this phenomenon is the dramatic increase in tongue-speaking among the Pentecostal and Holiness movements in the early 20th century. Author Morton Kelsey has called it nothing less than a "theology of tongues." It is significant, however, that Pentecostalism did not begin as a movement until people began to think about the experience of tongues. The precursor of Pentecostalism, the Holiness movement in the late 19th century, had featured tongues-speaking at revival meetings for emotional stimulus, but it was not as much identified with the accounts of tongues in the book of Acts. The Pentecostal movement was the first to seize on the term "baptism of the Spirit" from the book of Acts to identify tongue-speaking with biblical directives (Kelsey, p. 69).

The Holiness movement developed in the wake of a growing breakdown of governmentally enforced orthodoxy in the late 18th century. The rationalism and materialism brought in by the liberal denominations from Europe had seeped into the traditional American churches. Darwin's evolutionary theory which prompted the denial of a literally inspired Bible, and Horace Bushnell's (1802 - 1876) denial of a need for a Christian conversion experience, caused many to leave the traditional churches, one of them being the Holiness group. In kind, the Holiness movement reacted against the liberal-social gospel and its accompanying worldliness. In turn, it offered a grass roots, enthusiastic, and transforming Christian experience. Stress was put on the individual and his striving for perfection. Being branded by the traditional churches as fanatical, the Holiness movement became more close-knit than ever. The individual believer was persuaded by the group to gain higher experiences with God. This pressure reached fruition in the Pentecostal movement. Now the individual was taught to strive for the third blessing of God. Conversion and sanctification were the first and second blessings, respectively, but they were to be followed by the baptism of the Spirit. Literature describing the experience began to proliferate. To prove that one was a "real" Christian over against the false Christians of the liberal churches, speaking in tongues became the ultimate standard of measurement. Later, tongue speaking was considered an added blessing from God in the new age of the "latter rain," rather than a judge of genuine Christianity. As cited earlier, this "new age" hypothesis was also brewing in the social sciences. Freud, Jung, and various socio-political historians were teaching the same idea in the secular world (Ibid., pp. 75-77).

Later, groups such as the Assemblies of God, the Christian and Missionary Alliance and the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship, all began to organize and refine their conception of the baptism of the Holy Spirit for display to the rest of the world. As the movements progressed in the early 20th century, tongue-speaking was introduced into almost every denomination across America. It had become evident that the liberal social gospel was only an illusion and thus the return of the emphasis on the individual and his personal experience fought its way back into the traditional churches. Resistence was still maintained by the older generation but tongue-speaking continued to grow rapidly among the young (Kelsey, pp. 95-97).

Outside of the fringe groups, the first account of a so-called "orthodox" tongue-speaking was in 1960 in Van Nuys, California at a prominent Episcopal church. This report created quite a stir and it opened the door for other pastors to satisfy their curiosity about the possibility of tongues in their own churches. The movement spread to college campuses, the first being Yale University, which had previously been notorious for its agnosticism and liberalism. As tongue-speaking spread into the more educated of society, it wasn't long before polemical stands in favor of tongues were produced by prominent ministers and priests in all the traditional churches (Kelsey, pp. 126-128). When one reflects back on the societal turmoil of the mid- and late 1960's, the theories of Oates and Sullivan, previously mentioned, find fertile ground of support.

Although there had been no reports of tongue-speaking in the Catholic Church for more than a century, it became heavily influenced by the experiences of Protestant churches, especially since Vatican II (1963) had formally broken down many of the divisions between Catholics and Protestants. The first recorded experience of tongue-speaking in the Catholic Church came in 1967 at Duquesne University of the Holy Ghost Fathers. Stressing the need for the Holy Spirit in their lackluster ministries, Catholic laymen began to consort with various Protestant Pentecostal pastors who were gathering in large numbers of people. In the Fall of 1966, meetings between the two churches were held at Duquesne. By January 1967, a number of Catholic students report instances of tongue-speaking. This phenomenon also spread to the prestigious Notre Dame University in Indiana. In 1967 there were less than 100 participants in the annual Notre Dame Christian meetings, but this figure rose to 30,000 in 1974, most of whom were Pentecostal in their theology. By 1975, there were approximately 4 million Catholic Pentecostals in the world with strongholds in France and Puerto Rico. As the Pentecostal influence became more integrated within the Catholic Church, there were no official expressions of opposition from the hierarchy (Laurentin, pp. 11-22). In fact, Yves Congar, O.P., commented in the French journal La Croix: "We are seeing the beginning of a very promising movement. We must find for it a name that is beyond reproach" (January 19, 1974). By Pentecost Sunday of 1975, the term "Charismatic" had been coined. Fr. Walter Abbott, S.J., then associate editor of America magazine (noted today for its avant-garde Catholicism), wrote that "the Charismatic renewal was decisively accepted into the Catholic Church."

Archbishop of Malines-Brussels, Leon Joseph Suenens, was one of the main figures in promoting the Charismatic movement, initiating expansive policies for its growth. From 1974-1986, Suenens drafted a series of six articles, the "Malines documents," which detailed the personalities and ideas he wanted fostered in the Charismatic movement, among them being ecumenism, social action, and the strange phenomenon of "slaying in the spirit," which had its origin in the Protestant Holiness and Pentecostal groups from the beginning of the tongues movement at the turn of the twentieth century. "Being slain" occurs when a tongues-speaker, or other willing recipient, is vigorously thrown backward. The agent for the force is attributed to the Holy Spirit, yet it is clearly evident that in most cases the leader makes contact with the recipient by a hard blow to the latter's forehead. (The phenomenon of "falling backward" is associated with tongues in Isaiah 28:13, the context from which Paul quotes in regards to the abuse of tongues in 1 Cor. 14:21, which will be covered later in this essay).

In Kansas City, Missouri, July 1977, a large multi-denominational gathering of 50,000 Baptists, Anglicans, Lutherans, United Methodists, Pentecostals, non-denominational Christians, Messianic Jews and Roman Catholics was organized. The theme of the gathering centered around the "Baptism of the Spirit" and the goal was to break down denominational walls. This gathering would be hailed as the foundational meeting for the next two decades. In the same year, the Catholic magazine, New Covenant (Our Sunday Visitor Press), stated:

" This Kansas City conference brought together for the first time Christians from three traditions of the charismatic renewal, the classic Pentecostals, the neo-Pentecostals and the Catholic Pentecostals. This historic gathering was a first response to a directive word that was spoken by the Lord at a conference on the charismatic renewal in 1974. At that time, the Lord expressed his desire to bring the three streams together, a sign of hope for all Christians. The Lord called us to reach beyond our denominational walls to work and pray aggressively for a higher goal, the unification of all Christianity."

In this statement are two significant presumptions. First, it is claimed that God spoke directly to the leaders to organize the charismatic gathering, and second, that individuals outside the Catholic Church were recognized as full-fledged Christians no different than Roman Catholics and that Catholic were allowed and encouraged to mingle with them.

Dr. Vincent Sinon (Protestant Pentecostal) stated at this 1977 conference: "The three streams of Pentecostalism have come together tonight because we are one in the Spirit. At a press conference he stated regarding unity: "The place to start is with a common spirituality; and the number one thread that holds us together is Baptism of the Spirit."

In June of the Celebrate Jesus 2000 conference twenty-three years later, Vincent Sinon stated in the welcome letter to the attendees:

" This congress at Celebrate Jesus 2000 follows conferences in Kansas City [1977], New Orleans [1987], Indianapolis [1990], and Orlando [1995]. At each of these gatherings people from Christian denominations and traditions gathered to exalt in the name of Jesus, worship in the Holy Spirit, and answer the call to world evangelism in our generation."

Franciscan University of Steubenville, one of the leaders in the Catholic charismatic movement, advertised the Celebrate Jesus 2000 event as "The Streams of Christianity are Gathering" and it promoted it as the paramount gathering of the Jubilee Year, inviting all charismatics, Catholic and non-Catholic, to attend.

Celebrate Jesus 2000 listed forty-seven different speakers, mostly prominent Protestants, including Pat Robertson from the nationally televised 700 club, John Arno from the Toronto Blessing charismatic revival of 1997, and radio personality Jack Hayford. Many leading Catholic personalities were also present. The conference drew about ten thousand people, of whom the majority were Catholics.

Social Movements and Behavior Associated with Glossalalia

Until the charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church in 1967, theories of economic and cultural deprivation were accepted as the impetus for experiences of glossolalia. But the Neo-Pentecostalism that emerged in the Episcopal church, and which spread to the Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, had begun to shatter such theories. People of education, position, and means in the professional and business world were practicing tongues. In vivid contrast, early classical Pentecostalists had been anti-institutional, anti-creedal, anti-authoritarian, and anti-intellectual (McConnell, pp. 15-16).

To explain these phenomenon from a sociological point of view, an analysis of religious movements appeared in the work of Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch. Their distinction between sect and church became known as the church-sect theory. Basically, it postulates that religious movements begin as sects that break off from an existing church for economic reasons. In 1936, Anton Doisen had agreed with the church-sect theory and added what he called the "pressure of crisis situations." As late as 1972, remnants of the crisis theory lingered in the work of Paul Qualben. In Qualben's study with John Kildahl, financed by the National Institute of Health, they found that 85% of the tongue-speakers he interviewed had experienced a clearly defined anxiety crisis preceding their tongues-speaking. Their anxiety was caused by such things as marital difficulties, ill health, or financial problems.

In 1940, John Holt had stressed social disorganization, which he theorized gave rise to the Pentecostal experience in certain cities. The theory states that a migration took place from a rural to urban setting. When the rural met the urban, a "cultural shock" was precipitated. Since the rural families were originally close knit, the unfriendliness of urban life stimulated highly emotional worship services to regain the closeness lost in city life. Emile Durkheim coined the word "anomie" to define such a process (Ibid., pp. 19-24). Until Pentecostalism, and more exactly tongue-speaking, found its way into the upper classes and educated, these social deprivation theories were quite prominent.

The years from 1960-1975 were filled with honest "reconsideration" of glossolalia. All major denominations began to relax the restraints of any prohibition. In 1973, Pope Paul VI, in addressing the characteristics of charismatic renewal, specified "the taste of deep prayer, personal and in groups, a return to contemplation...a great availability for the calls of the Holy Spirit..." Since Paul VI did not admonish tongue-speaking, this was most readily interpreted as a sign of approval among its adherents (Ibid., pp. 64-65).

These various movements created an ecumenical consensus among tongue-speakers that stretched across the nation and the world. During this period, tongues-speaking and other kinds of prophetic utterances, became less and less unacceptable when judged by dominant middle class values (Ibid., p. 112). Psychological studies, which prior to 1967 were mostly negative in character, began to shift toward positive evaluations. William J. Samarin, who has the most documented studies on glossolalia, states that it is not at all unlike other kinds of speech humans produce in more or less normal circumstances, in more or less normal psychological states (Ibid., 117). As Samarin gave his approval of glossolalia on a psychological level, this dressed up the movement to become socially acceptable. Since Samarin, however, stated that glossolalia is strictly a learned behavior for both normal and abnormal people, this did nothing to support the thesis among tongue-speaking enthusiasts that the tongue-speaking experience came from the Holy Spirit.

After 1975, further studies from scientific disciplines began to exhibit almost exclusively neutral estimations of the tongue-speaking experience. Tongue was now termed "free vocalization" among some psychologists, and was said to be of non-trance origination and psychologically unharmful. Criticism of earlier psychological evaluations is common, claiming that those studies were done to measure the degree of social deviance rather than develop what free vocalization is in itself (Poythress, pp. 370-371). In the context of contemporary worship, however, it is still not clear among this new breed of psychologists just what the nature of free vocalization is, whether it be remnants of foreign languages, something resembling infantile babbling, or some type of spiritual language. For the tongue-speaker, however, it is always possible to claim that his tongues speech is in coded language which only certain persons of a spiritual mind-set can understand (Ibid., pp. 373-375). These positive psychological evaluations have led some theologians to defend tongue-speakers from abusive criticism.

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