by Stephen Popoff
A Cal State East Bay professor of Sociolinguistics believes he has solved the mystery of what happens when those experiencing religious fervor start speaking in tongues during religious events and you might be surprised by what it is.
He recorded the brain activity of several volunteers in the pentecostal church using an EEG, MRI and other methods. Based on these studies, he came to some shocking conclusions that we will reveal later in this article.
Speaking in tongues is a phenomenon that I witnessed myself as a 12 year old boy at a church in the city of Richmond in California. (more on that later as well)
Known as glossolalia in the scientific community, it is described as the production of meaningless sounds resembling words by people in a state of religious excitement. Dr. Terushige Oshaberi spent more than a decade researching if the sounds were in fact meaningless and trying to get to the bottom of what exactly was going on.
He first gained notoriety when he dispelled the Three Stooges theory. A researcher had taken a tape recorder into a Pentecostal church in Oklahoma and recorded the utterances of the excited congregation. Upon studying the audio later, she noticed similarities between what the people in the congregation uttered and some sounds Moe, Larry, and Curly made in several episodes of the classic comedy series.
“They were strikingly similar and equally unintelligible,” she reported.
The theory was some Pentecostal preachers must have watched these episodes and practiced them over and over. She noted that of the Three Stooges, Curly was the most often imitated. They would then debut these newly learned nonsensical sounds at a moment of religious excitement at church.
“From then on, it was a matter of monkey hear, monkey say,” she continued.
After the Three Stooges study was published, Dr. Oshaberi visited several tongue talking churches over a period of three years but could not replicate the researcher’s results. It was back to square one.
There were other theories as well. An evolutionary biologist from Toronto, George Munson, theorized that human beings could not only inherit cognitive functions from their ancestors, but actual knowledge, like language.
“In moments of religious fervor and excitement, perhaps languages of long ago ancestors are brought to the surface,” he theorized. “That’s why it may be unintelligible. It could be just pieces of several languages going back thousands of years seeking an outlet.”
That didn’t make any sense at all to Dr. Oshaberi but before I reveal his latest theory, let me explain to our readers why this story is of particular interest to me. When I was twelve years old, one of my junior high school classmates asked me to attend church with him on a Sunday. We arrived at a nondescript, pink-colored church on Rumrill Blvd in Richmond. There was a firebrand preacher getting the congregation riled up and before you knew it, people started talking in a language I could not understand on all sides of me. Some were rolling on the ground and others were jumping up and down. It was scary as heck. I asked my friend what language they were speaking and he said it was Jesus speaking through them. It sounded like more than just babble. There was a fluidity to it that one couldn’t just produce by uttering random sounds. It was the first time I had ever heard of talking in tongues and I was witnessing the phenomenon myself. My twelve year old mind was filled with curiosity and wonder.
I decided to go with him the following Sunday. My friend told me if you want to be able to talk in tongues, you will need to go up to the front near the altar and the preacher would fill me with the holy spirit. I decided to give it a try. There were three adults on their knees to my left. I just stood there, my heart beating a million miles per hour. The preacher grabbed the hand of the first adult, and said something like “let the lord in, praise the lord”. The first adult began jumping up and down and speaking in an incomprehensible language. Then he moved to the second adult and the same thing happened. I was having trouble breathing. It was almost my turn. Then the guy right next to me started talking in tongues. Finally, it was my turn. I was petrified. The preacher grabbed me by my hands and said something like “let em in.” I could feel an incredible warmth entering my body that spread down my legs, arms, and up through my chest and neck. I could feel my tongue wiggling. I was incredibly scared. I released the preacher’s hands before I had a chance to speak in tongues. I wasn’t with my family. This was getting too far away from home. I basically chickened out.
I never went back to that church again but I always wondered what was going on there. Were they just babbling? Were they copying the sounds of the Three Stooges? Was it the voices of our human ancestors? Dr. Oshaberi says no to all those theories.
“It’s simply a cerebral orgasm unconnected to your sexual organs,” he explained. “In moments of great excitement, dopamine is released and spreads to the parts of the brain responsible for language, principally the left lobe. When others are talking in tongues around you, mob mentality takes over and the orgy of incomprehensible utterances begins.”
“If you were to compare it to sex, you could think of preaching as the foreplay, the hallelujahs, praise the lords, and the jumping up and down as intercourse and the talking in tongues as the orgasm or climax,” he submitted.
Looking back at my childhood experience at the church in Richmond, I now realize that in the “talking in tongues world,” I only made it as far as second base.
If you’ve had experience talking in tongues or have witnessed the phenomenon, please tell us about your experience in the comment area below. While you are here, check out our other stories accessible through the home link.