Everything Under the Moon

A controversial belief held by some denominations of Christianity is that one can be overcome by the holy spirit madre evident by speaking in tongues. It's not any specific language, it's one's soul praying directly through God without other influences.
Anyway what do y'all think of it?

I'm not sold on the idea though sometimes I was hum and sing songs with no proper words just a good made up tune and I do feel more spiritual so maybe?

Cora wrote:I'm not sold on the idea though sometimes I was hum and sing songs with no proper words just a good made up tune and I do feel more spiritual so maybe?

I do the same thing, actually. Except I also sing things, and sometimes whisper certain things that aren't real words if I want certain things to happen. They've always just sort of rolled off my tongue. That's usually in darker magics, though, and sometimes when I work with animals. Eh, may all be in my head, but the sounds help me focus things more thoroughly than my spoken tongue will allow.

It seems strange and impossible, I know. I experienced it recently though, at a Christian summer camp I went to with a few friends. It is the most extreme and all encompassing divine experience I could ever imagine. People laugh and shake their heads at the thought but it's very real-I know beyond doubt that I was being overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit and my words were not my own.

I read somewhere that people are actually channeling the people of Atlantis when they are speaking in tongues.

I don't have any proof of that, just saying it's another belief.

When I was a teenager I didn't know about Jesus (believe it or not) not to mention 'tongues' or anything else. My family went to an Orthodox church where English was not spoken but, only English was spoken at home. I didn't know WHAT was going on just that I was stuck wearing pantyhose once a week and getting dizzy with incense. When someone first talked to me about God I was deeply moved. I sought out the Divine alone and gave myself over. Nothing special happened. When I went to bed that night I felt amazing peace. I heard myself speak in tongues. I felt no fear but it was strange - like an out of body experience. Later it just became a part me. Now, that I've discovered my new path I still speak in tongues. Each person's path is unique and personal to them and God. I can only speak of my own experience.

I saw a really good program that investigated speaking in tongues ("glossolalia", they called it) . They said that when you speak in tongues you're accessing your pre-verbal mind, the part of your brain that was active before you learned language. So it's basically your right brain speaking instead of your left. If you can activate your right-brain that way it's a very effective meditative state that can make you feel ecstatic and close to God.

They did show that there wasn't the right kind of structure to it for it to be any kind of actual language, either ancient or modern, known or unknown, and that the sounds people made came from their own language but were mixed with your brain's attempt at making foreign language sounds.

But even though it wasn't an ancient language like Christians thought, they were able to measure the brainwaves and see that people speaking in tongues were doing something similar to when a monk meditates, so they were definitely in an altered state of consciousness.

They did say that it was also a learned behavior for some people, and for others it came more naturally. You could tell by their brainwaves whether they were mimicking the tongues they had heard before and just learned to speak it that way, or whether they were accessing that right-brained meditative state and were actually in trance/right-brained/pre-verbal. The brainwaves told the story.

It was a really interesting show. I've always wondered about whether it was real. I was raised Pentecostal, so one person would speak in tongues and another, usually the preacher, would interpret in our church. Now they have entire groups speaking in tongues with no one interpreting. I guess that's more in the charismatic/evangelical churches.

I prayed many times for the lord to "impart the gift of tongues" to me, but it never happened. I think I was too left-brained and basically too traumatized to be able to get into a trance state with other people around. I also was not able to be hypnotized for the same reason. Finally, years later, after I had already been gone from the church for many years, I did get into an ecstatic state of consciousness that I suspect is similar to what speaking in tongues feels like, but I still didn't speak in tongues.

This is an interesting thread. I'm glad you brought it up. Christian witchcraft is really getting very popular. I'd like to add more information about it to my website because I think it's perfectly natural for Christians to want to keep Jesus as their deity when they start getting into Wicca. If there's anyone who is interested in writing about the topic of Christian witchcraft, please get in touch with me. I'd love share any information you can provide about it.

Thank you Starwitch for that info. It is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. I wish I could have seen that program. I never fully understood what was happening but, I was thankful for the experience. After leaving the Orthodox church, then after being alone with God, I went to Assembly of God church because that's where my friends were. I never felt comfortable with the public exchange of tongues. I always felt it was an intimate act. I've been trying to read everything I can get my hands on. Although this has been a lifetime coming, I only just started. The further I go the more interested in Wicca I become. I find myself blending quite a bit. But, I know that no matter how I evolve, I will always hold on to Jesus. Call me sentimental but, my experience was beautiful and very real and I'll never let go of that. Since there does seem to be an increase of Christians crossing over, maybe a section on Wicca would be beneficial. I'm going all over the internet reading about the religion - different traditions, sabbats, etc. Trinitarian Wicca is what I think I am....I'm not sure yet (LOL) I'm still reading! Thank you for this site. It's a real blessing.

I found the article Starwitch mentioned - it was a good video about speaking in tongues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZbQBajYnEc

I think it is very interesting. I, too, grew up seeing people speak in tongues in church, and I tried to imitate it artificially, but "trying to make the sound" did not produce anything like it. So I definitely think there is something interesting going on there.

Thanks for that video Angielove. I tried putting video tags around the video URL, but that particular video can't be embedded so we'll just have to click it to watch.

Moonlit, I agree that speaking in tongues in public (in a group like I saw on TV) seemed a bit crass to me, like something that should be done in private. It seemed like the people on the show I watched may have been doing it as a way to show off how "spiritual" they were. But maybe I have it wrong... it could be like a form of mass hypnosis, where you are able to catch the energy of those around you. Plus, in the Pentecost celebration after Jesus died, the whole group of Christian spoke in tongues together.

From http://www.gci.org/bible/tongues1
Acts 2:1-4
Shortly after Christ had risen into heaven, his disciples were observing the annual festival of Pentecost (Acts 2:1). "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them" (verses 2-4).

What kind of tongues were these? They were foreign languages. "There were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: `Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?... We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!'" (verses 5-8, 11).

So back then at least, it was thought that the people were actually speaking in other languages. That seems to not be the case today, but you can't really believe everything they say in the Bible anyway (or at least I can't) so maybe they were actually speaking in the same kind of tongues people speak in today - right-brained utterances that take you back to a pre-verbal ecstatic state of consciousness where you were still connected to all of the Universe, before you had to grow up and learn that you were separate from everyone else.

That's an edited version of the program I saw. You know how 20/20 will do a program and then later Nightline will do a sort clip from it? That's the short clip (or something similar).

I see at the end they talked about what's "coming up next" and mentioned "The Secret" movie being a scam. I just watched The Secret again last night and I still think it's great information to have and use in your life. If anyone needs a copy of it, PM me please. It definitely improves your spellwork like nothing else can. I'm not saying it will work for EVERYTHING you've ever wanted, but who knows? Maybe it could if it were used properly. It definitely seemed to improve my life in dramatic ways when I used it.

Pentecostals who speak in Glossalalia are under their own excited, ecstatic trance state. This creates a euphoric sense of the divine and a heightened, self-induced "spiritual" experience. Basically they are hypnotizing themselves to believe in their own spiritually induced experience and calling it "a gift of the Holy Spirit."