Religious Behavior:

Glossolalia and Ecstatic

Dance
SHARON CARNAHAN
WITH DATA FROM A CLASS PRESENTATION BY
JONO MAJHANOVICH, 2006
What is glossolalia?
Greek : glosso – tongue
lalein – to speak

Typology (May, 1956)

•Language of spirits
•Sacerdotal language
•Language of animals
•Rough sounds (phonations frustres)
•Xenoglossia
Glossolalia in History

•Samaria (853 BCE)

•Old Testament (9th – 8th Cent. BCE)
•Herodotus: (484 – 425 BCE)
•Virgil: (70 – 19 BCE)
•Later Han Dynasty: (196 CE)
•St. Hildegaard: (1098 – 1179 CE)
•Quakers: (17th Cent. CE)
•Mormons: (19th Cent. CE)
•Helene Smith: (1892 CE)
 Glossolalia around the World

A survey of Glossolalia and Related

Phenomena in Non-Christian Religions,
by L. Carlyle May (1956)

•Found on every Continent

•Outside of major world religions…
•Paganism/animism use glossolalia as a
medium to cure, exorcise, and prophesy
History in Christianity
Two Primary References:
Acts 2:2-6: “each one heard them speaking
in his own language” (Acts 2:6)
1 Corinthians 12-14: “if you, because of
speaking in tongues, do not not utter
intelligible speech, how will anyone know
what is being said?” (1 Cor. 14:9)

Modern Development:
Charles Parham: 1900
Azusa Street Revival: 1906
Charismatic Movement: 1960
Glossolalia Today
It’s NOT a minority behavior!
Roughly 2 Billion Christians in World
•Between 115 and 400 million
Pentecostals in world, in over 11,000
denominations
According to World Growth at 19 Million a
Year (1998):
•Growing at 19 Million a Year
•Most in Asia, Africa, and Latin America
•25% of world’s Christians are Pentecostal
U.S. : 20 Million Pentecostals
Church of God in Christ (1991): 4.5 million
Assemblies of God (2002): 2.7 million
 Is glossolalia a known language?
Xenoglossia: most numerous cases of
glossolalia in literature

Sherrill (1964):
Truck Driver in Seattle – Mandarin Chinese
Harold Bredesen – Polish & Coptic Egyptian
Jacob Rabinowitz – Irishman prayed in Hebrew

Biggest problem: little objective study –

most cases told 2nd and 3rd hand

Bredesen studied by government linguistics & a group knowing 150

languages in Toronto : “highly improbable” resemblance of ANY language

One Exception: Stevenson (1974) – Jewish housewife (aka Jensen Jacoby)

confirmed to have spoken Swedish
 Is it a language?
Language : 1) vocabulary
2) grammar

Glossolalia: completely “neologistic,” but culturally shaped. Longitudinal

studies confirm consistency in an individual’s speech

Samarin (1968) “if a glossa is meaningless, this does not mean it is

gibberish”
-Sounds like it has rules: organized into segments (sentences and
words) and phonemes (sound units)
-In US and Canada: many people in US follow pattern consonant
(s, sh) + vowel + consonant (nt, nd) + vowel (ka shun di, shawn-
dye, ah-shon-da)

Conclusion: Most likely not a human language

Individual Differences
Average age of Pentecostal glossolalic: 14
years . Not seen in all members of a group.
“Not all who seek, receive!”

Few scientific studies.

Smith (1977):
Nonglossolalics more intelligent (IQ’s of 112.3 compared to 107.3)
Nonglossolalics more educated and of higher SES

Kildahl (1972): Using Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), found

glossolalics to be “more suggestible, submissive, and dependent.”

Hyperexcitability: yet to be validated through direct measures

 Life Situation
Bradfield (1979): 5 types of deprivation:
economic, social, psychic, ethical, &
organismic

Those who became glossolalic

experienced pyschic, ethical, &
organismic deprivation in life
recently

90% reported to have found a new

sense of purpose and meaning in life

Family Background correlates highly with experience of glossolalia

Today’s glossolalists more acculturated—less ecstatic characteristics
like jerking, fainting, etc.

How would we design a study to test this hypothesis?

Glossolalia is an ecstatic state involving altered

consciousness and physiological changes which are
entirely physical
Does Glossolalia involve altered states
Swanson (1978): “Trance and possession are often considered
of consciousness?
exotic, but they seem to me to be common experiences and central
to our lives as human persons.”
Points to Consider

 How does behavioral science view glossolalia?

 How does the expansion of the Pentecostal faith

worldwide affect both your own worldview and
the view that society is becoming increasingly
more secular?

 Thinkof some of the manifestations of your own

world views—rituals, superstitions, etc.—what
have you felt and seen?
Serpent Handling Sects

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name they
shall cast out devils; they shall speak with other tongues;
they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the
sick, and they shall recover. Mark 16: 17-18
“Sign-Following” Churches:
THE HOLY GHOST PEOPLE
1. INTRODUCTION TO
DOCUMENTARY
2. WORSHIP SERVICE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nX0irC4Bgs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_FutyQJuGA&feature=related
Questions

 What is the most parsimonious explanation of glossolalia?

Social Sources

 Socioeconomic status
 Town size
 Parent’s religion
 Gender
 Ethnicity
Influences on Religious Belief
and Practice
 Ecological Model
 Believer in center
References
Malony, H. Newton, and A. Adams Lovekin. Glossolalia: Behavioral
Science Perspectives on Speaking in Tongues. Oxford: New York. 1985.

Martin III, Ira Jay. “Glossolalia in the Apostolic Church.” Journal of Biblical
Literature. Vol. 63, No. 2 (1994): 123-130.

May, Carlyle L. “A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in Non-

Christian Religions.” American Anthropologist. Vol. 59, No. 1 (1956): 75-96.