The “tongues” Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians are producing today is an entirely self-created phenomenon. It is non-cognitive non-language utterance; random free vocalization based upon a subset of the existing sounds of the speaker’s native language, and any other language(s) the speaker may be familiar with or have had contact with. This is one of the reasons why no two ‘tongues’ will ever sound quite the same and why people think they are able to produce more than one “tongue” (they’re just drawing on another subset of those existing sounds). There is *nothing* that these ‘speakers’ are producing that cannot be explained in natural linguistic terms. Conversely, there are no Biblical references to ‘tongues” that cannot be explained with respect to real language. People seem to forget that “tongue(s)” is just an archaic word for “language(s)”. It was the more popular/common term used in the 17th century when the KJV was written. Replace “tongue(s)” with “language(s)” in these passages and the whole modern concept of “tongues” begins to sound considerably less mysterious and mystical/angelic. Indeed, it begins to become difficult to posit the modern Pentecostal/Charismatic concept of ‘tongues’. Pentecostal and Charismatic ‘tongues-speakers’ look for Biblical references for what they are doing; however, they are simply not there. The resulting implicit theology is not a synthesis of revelation and philosophy, but rather a synthesis of trying to make sense of the experience in light of the narrative of Scripture. In other words, a way to legitimize the modern phenomenon by ‘proofing‘ it in the Bible, despite the obvious overwhelming absence therein of anything resembling modern tongues - call it what you will, but the result was a virtual re-definition of Scripture with respect to the understanding/justification of modern “tongues” for this group of Christians. “Tongues” It is simply not what its ‘speakers’ want/need it to be. Modern tongues is just another tool, like chanting or meditation, etc.; a way by which one may establish a closer relationship with the divine. In this respect (i.e. as the tool it is), it can be quite powerful to accomplish this goal. Known by many different names, “tongues” is practiced by many cultures and religious beliefs from all over the world; it is relatively new to Christianity and certainly not unique to it.
Two counterpoints to this: 1) The natural linguistic research on spiritually induced, non-discernable utterances, i.e., theories of glossolalia, are probably valid in their conclusions. The strings of utterances studied by the relevant linguistic researchers of glossolalia are indeed syntactically incoherent, and therefore lack any meaning based on our modern schools of linguistics. However, their arguments are premised on the communicative function of language used between human beings. So then there's two salient and fallacious methodological issues that I can think of. First, the unfounded assumption that the structures of human communication and spiritual communication (conducted between a person and an a priori divinity) are the same. And the idea that speech begets thought is hardly universally accepted (see Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). Secondly, the assumption that the research samples were accurate samples of biblical glossololia. After all, Dr Neufeld's point (12:58) is that those instances of glossolalia without syntactic form *are* fake. In truth, as Dr. Neufeld also mentions, scriptural instruction of speaking in tongues isn't exactly laid out in explicit criterial format. So, it's hard to determine genuosity objectively. That said, spiritual matters are of an entirely subjective nature, psychologically, phenomenologically, and philosophically. The lens of a social science like linguistics perhaps offers us a blurry picture. Depends on your worldview, though. So, those studies don't really disprove glossolalia as a spiritual phenomenon. If anything, they accurately point out a lack of syntactic structural coherence within a variety of cross-regional samples, which is to say glossalalia does not identify as a human language. Now whether you look at this secularly, on the Charasmatic side, or other, it is important to note that there is a Biblical distinction drawn between regular "tongues", that is common parlance used for communication between people, and spiritual communication. So your point about "tongues" being an archaic word for language perhaps needs more unpacking. Also, I'm not sure if you're responding to what Dr. Neufeld is saying here about the difference between glossalalia (what he terms as angelic tongues) and xenoglossia, which is the spontaneous utterance of previously unlearned foreign languages. Biblically, xenoglossia occured during Pentecoste. I don't know if you take the Bible as an accurate historical record, but to your point about some Christians rationalizing scripture, there is a record of xenoglossia occuring at least once in history. Again, glossolalia is not xenoglossia, but they are both instantiated. For example, take 1 Corinthians 14:2 - "For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. " Though the apostle Paul doesn't exactly call it as such, this is a description of glossolalia, as he describes a linguistic intervention of the Holy Spirit by which an individual speaks to God, not humans. By the way, speaking in tongues is one spiritual gift, and interpreting tongues is another. Since tongues are indecipherable to human ears, interpreting via the Holy Spirit is necessary for understanding the contents of the utterances. Again, biblically supported. 2) You briefly mention tongue speaking as a form of chanting. While I find this to be, at least superficially, characteristic of speaking in tongues, it doesn't exactly disprove tongues as a self-performative gesture of faith rather than a divine intervention. The way I see it, the act of chanting/meditating can be either self-derived or have spiritual causality. However, it's unclear if you are atheistic, agnostic, religious, spiritual, etc, so I'm not sure if you would believe in such things as divine intervention, or at least in this context. Given a context where tongues can be categorically subdivided into glossolalia and xenoglossia, and glossolalia is indeed a communicational medium between man and spirit that serves relationally strengthening or reconciling function, yes it is chanting I suppose. My point is that there's a difference between regular meditative chanting and chanting caused by the Holy Spirit. Also, it's a little problematic when your generalization about chanting conflates and therefore obscures the important distinctions between the various religions' conceptualization of divinity. Not that you elaborate on how Christian chanting is not unique by explaining the supposed similarities of chanting across religions... All in all, there's more to be proven (or disproven) by linguistics on the matter of glossolalia, you didn't really address xenoglossia, and there actually is Biblical evidence of both that pre-exist any denominational rationale. Then again, I actually do believe speaking in tongues may involve physiological influence rather than purely spiritual (or psychological for you materail purists). Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" offers an interesting view on glossolalia, should you be so inclined. Most importantly, I don't believe I can convince anyone of anything, by the way. Belief is God's grace. Bless you.
@@shaytardsfan202636 Going to try and make this as short as possible and still try and reference your specific paragraphs (I do appreciate the insightful, well stated response). This is written somewhat quickly, so apologies for the brevity - In response to the first two paragraphs - Yes, it can certainly be argued that linguists are looking at tongues through the ‘lens’ of human language, so to speak, but in order for something uttered to be called ‘language’ it must contain at a minimum two elements. It doesn’t matter where or by whom/what the utterance is spoken - this is a universal ‘rule’. Modern tongues-speech contains neither one. It is non-cognitive non-language utterance. The meowing patterns of cats are more definitive language than modern tongues-speech will ever be. Paragraph 3 - When it comes to something spoken, there are no Biblical references to “tongues” that do not refer to, or that cannot be explained in light of, real rational language. “Biblical glossolalia” in the sense of modern tongues-speech does not exist. Paragraph 4 - Glossolalia cannot identify as language of any kind; human or otherwise. There isn’t anything tongues-speakers are doing that cannot be easily explained in light of relatively simple linguistics. No two speakers will ever produce the same “tongue” - ever. On a more esoteric level, let’s assume tongues are indeed a heavenly language - why would there ever be a need for more than just one?? Paragraph 5 - There is only one type of Biblical “tongue”. Again, when it comes to something spoken, there are no Biblical references to “tongues” that do not refer to, or that cannot be explained in light of, real rational language. The Greek word used, glôssa, is language. “Tongue(s)” is simply archaic English. Paragraphs 6 & 7 - The concept of tongues as xenoglossy comes from the Pentecost narrative and hinges upon one assumption - that the attendees represented a linguistic diversity. Too long to go into here, but in a quick nutshell, if one examines in detail the text - where the people came from and what languages would have been spoken by 1st century Jews living in those places, something becomes very apparently - linguistic diversity at Pentecost did not exist. The apostles were not speaking any language they didn’t already know. For an in depth discussion, see the following videos (kind of long, but very in depth): ruclips.net/video/B7Vg6JRml5Q/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/z7AmdF6Ba_Y/видео.html The first is an in depth look at Pentecost, the second is a much shorter video that goes over the gift of languages (tongues), but also briefly goes over Pentecost. Paragraph 8 - 1 Cor. 14:2 is perhaps *the* quintessential verse use to evidence modern tongues speech in the narrative of scripture. Let’s paraphrase this into a more modern English, get rid of the added “unknown”, use a more accurate translation, and a more modern rendering of the archaic “tongue” - “He that speaks in a language isn’t speaking to others (or, “speaks not to people), but only to God; no one hears with understanding; however, though he’s ‘praying in the Spirit’, he’s speaking mysteries.” The whole passage is talking about real, rational language. To use an analogy - If I attend a worship service in ‘East Haystack’, Alabama two things are going to be evident: one; there’s only going to be so many people at that service (i.e. there will be a finite given amount of people there) and two; the chances that anyone in East Haystack speaks anything *but* English is pretty slim to nil. If I start praying aloud in say Lithuanian, there’s no one at that service that’s going to understand a word I’m saying. Even though I’m speaking a real language, no one _there_ will understand my “tongue”. That does not mean or imply that no one else understands Lithuanian; just no one at _that particular service._ In this sense, therefore, I am speaking _only to God,_ since he understands all languages. To everyone at the service, even though I’m praying in the Spirit (as defined below), I’m still speaking “mysteries” - just another way of saying that even though I’m praying as I ought, no one understands me; I’m still speaking in ‘mysteries’ - no one has a clue what I’m saying as no one speaks my language. “Praying in the Spirit” does _not_ refer to the words one is saying. Rather, it refers to _how_ one is praying. In the three places it is used (Corinthians, Ephesians, and Jude), there is absolutely zero reference to 'languages' in connection with this phrase. “Praying in the Spirit” should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will. In Pentecostal/Charismatic parlance however, the phase has come to be equated with modern “tongues”, i.e. when one “prays in the Spirit”, one is typically engaged in some form of tongues-speech. There is nothing in this passage that suggests modern tongues-speech nor is there anything that even remotely suggests that the speaker does not understand what he himself is saying; it is the listeners who do not understand, not the speaker - no matter how hard modern tongues-speakers want the speaker to also not understand, it just isn’t there. Paragraph 9 - In Corinthians (with the exception of the few places Paul mentions the gift of tongues together with the other gifts) Paul is simply addressing real language issues facing a multi-cultural, multi-lingual population in a major port city. No xenoglossy, no modern tongues-speech; just real, rational language(s). Paragraphs 10-13 - The point I was trying to make (the original post is over two years old and by the looks of it, written fairly quickly) is that Modern tongues is a _tool_ , remotely akin to chanting, deep prayer, or meditation, etc.; a way by which one may establish a closer relationship with the divine and strengthen one’s spiritual path. In this respect (i.e. as the _tool_ it is), it can be quite powerful one to accomplish these goals, as attested by many of those who use it. Most other cultures that practice glossolalia realize it as a 'spiritual tool'. It is only in certain Christian denominations where is it construed as something it never was. Most people who use ‘tongues’ are very keen on describing the ‘experience’. Indeed, for those that use it, it is very psychologically, physically, and spiritually fulfilling. It’s almost like primal screaming. When people practice ‘tongues’, they feel a sense of sweet release and inner peace, in that virtually all stress can be gone after the experience. People describe the experience, but in examining the “mechanics” behind it…well, not so much. When a person has experienced tongues, s/he is absolutely convinced as to the ‘scripturalness’ of his/her experience, and the correctness of his/her doctrinal beliefs - this, despite the overwhelming scriptural absence of anything remotely akin to what they’re doing. Mind you, and a point I wish to stress is that, I'm not doubting or questioning the 'experience'; as mentioned, glossolalia as the tool that it is, can be very powerful. Again though, it is important to note that this same statement can be made for virtually _any other culture that practices glossolalia_ . Religious and cultural differences aside, the glossolalia an Evenki Shaman in Siberia, a vodoun priestess in Togo and a Christian tongues-speaker in Alabama are producing are in no way different from each other. They’re all producing their glossolalia in the exact same way. “Tongues” is to some Christian believers a very real and spiritually meaningful experience but consisting of emotional release via non-linguistic ‘free vocalizations’ at best; non-cognitive non language utterance - the subconscious playing with sounds to create what is perceived and interpreted as actual, meaningful speech. In _some_ cases, I would argue that it is clearly a self/mass delusion prompted by such a strong desire to “experience God” that one creates that experience via “tongues”. Last paragraph - There are (unfortunately) absolutely no documented cases of xenoglossy - anywhere. Thousands of examples of tongues-speech have been studied. Not one was ever found to be a real rational language, living or dead. Despite this, the tongues-speaking community is rife with such examples. Unfortunately, every one of them seems to be anecdotal at best. Things along the lines of “It happened a while ago to a friend's third cousin on his mother's side, and a visitor from West Bubbatania happened to be visiting and recognized the language.” This visitor, of course, went back home and there's no way to verify that the anecdote actually took place. Or the event happened in some remote jungle somewhere with the same results. The quintessential example circulating a few years ago was tongues coming out as Hebrew or Aramaic. It got to the point where it was almost cliché and reached virtual urban legend status. A preacher wasn’t worth his salt if s/he did not have such a story in his/her repertoire. If something that profound happened, I should think that the tongues-speaker would, at the very least, want to know specifically what language s/he was supposedly speaking and would want to ask the person who heard him/her exactly what was said. To most however, the specific details are recalled rather vaguely at best.
Beautiful talk, filled with God's love
This video was great! Such great quality!:) thank you!
You're so welcome! Blessed to hear you enjoyed it.
Thanks Dr John for the Truth from Gods precious Word. Jesus Christ the only firm foundation.! Amen
We appreciate you watching! Thank you for the kind word.
Love this program.Thanks.
Thank you for taking the time to watch the video. Be blessed today!
The Bible talks about other Apostles too
There were 500 to whom Jesus appeared to
After resurrection
Interpretation of tongues is important too. And tongues should not be hindered
what others?
Amazing words of wisdom; Thank you Pastor John
You're welcome and thank you for watching. Blessings to you!
♡아멘
NEVER,was tongues a language given to communicate adoration to God, NEVER!!!!!!!!!!! Especially at pentecost.
The “tongues” Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians are producing today is an entirely self-created phenomenon. It is non-cognitive non-language utterance; random free vocalization based upon a subset of the existing sounds of the speaker’s native language, and any other language(s) the speaker may be familiar with or have had contact with.
This is one of the reasons why no two ‘tongues’ will ever sound quite the same and why people think they are able to produce more than one “tongue” (they’re just drawing on another subset of those existing sounds).
There is *nothing* that these ‘speakers’ are producing that cannot be explained in natural linguistic terms.
Conversely, there are no Biblical references to ‘tongues” that cannot be explained with respect to real language.
People seem to forget that “tongue(s)” is just an archaic word for “language(s)”. It was the more popular/common term used in the 17th century when the KJV was written.
Replace “tongue(s)” with “language(s)” in these passages and the whole modern concept of “tongues” begins to sound considerably less mysterious and mystical/angelic. Indeed, it begins to become difficult to posit the modern Pentecostal/Charismatic concept of ‘tongues’.
Pentecostal and Charismatic ‘tongues-speakers’ look for Biblical references for what they are doing; however, they are simply not there. The resulting implicit theology is not a synthesis of revelation and philosophy, but rather a synthesis of trying to make sense of the experience in light of the narrative of Scripture.
In other words, a way to legitimize the modern phenomenon by ‘proofing‘ it in the Bible, despite the obvious overwhelming absence therein of anything resembling modern tongues - call it what you will, but the result was a virtual re-definition of Scripture with respect to the understanding/justification of modern “tongues” for this group of Christians.
“Tongues” It is simply not what its ‘speakers’ want/need it to be.
Modern tongues is just another tool, like chanting or meditation, etc.; a way by which one may establish a closer relationship with the divine. In this respect (i.e. as the tool it is), it can be quite powerful to accomplish this goal. Known by many different names, “tongues” is practiced by many cultures and religious beliefs from all over the world; it is relatively new to Christianity and certainly not unique to it.
Two counterpoints to this:
1) The natural linguistic research on spiritually induced, non-discernable utterances, i.e., theories of glossolalia, are probably valid in their conclusions. The strings of utterances studied by the relevant linguistic researchers of glossolalia are indeed syntactically incoherent, and therefore lack any meaning based on our modern schools of linguistics. However, their arguments are premised on the communicative function of language used between human beings. So then there's two salient and fallacious methodological issues that I can think of.
First, the unfounded assumption that the structures of human communication and spiritual communication (conducted between a person and an a priori divinity) are the same. And the idea that speech begets thought is hardly universally accepted (see Sapir-Whorf hypothesis).
Secondly, the assumption that the research samples were accurate samples of biblical glossololia. After all, Dr Neufeld's point (12:58) is that those instances of glossolalia without syntactic form *are* fake. In truth, as Dr. Neufeld also mentions, scriptural instruction of speaking in tongues isn't exactly laid out in explicit criterial format. So, it's hard to determine genuosity objectively. That said, spiritual matters are of an entirely subjective nature, psychologically, phenomenologically, and philosophically. The lens of a social science like linguistics perhaps offers us a blurry picture. Depends on your worldview, though.
So, those studies don't really disprove glossolalia as a spiritual phenomenon. If anything, they accurately point out a lack of syntactic structural coherence within a variety of cross-regional samples, which is to say glossalalia does not identify as a human language.
Now whether you look at this secularly, on the Charasmatic side, or other, it is important to note that there is a Biblical distinction drawn between regular "tongues", that is common parlance used for communication between people, and spiritual communication. So your point about "tongues" being an archaic word for language perhaps needs more unpacking.
Also, I'm not sure if you're responding to what Dr. Neufeld is saying here about the difference between glossalalia (what he terms as angelic tongues) and xenoglossia, which is the spontaneous utterance of previously unlearned foreign languages.
Biblically, xenoglossia occured during Pentecoste. I don't know if you take the Bible as an accurate historical record, but to your point about some Christians rationalizing scripture, there is a record of xenoglossia occuring at least once in history.
Again, glossolalia is not xenoglossia, but they are both instantiated. For example, take 1 Corinthians 14:2 - "For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.
" Though the apostle Paul doesn't exactly call it as such, this is a description of glossolalia, as he describes a linguistic intervention of the Holy Spirit by which an individual speaks to God, not humans.
By the way, speaking in tongues is one spiritual gift, and interpreting tongues is another. Since tongues are indecipherable to human ears, interpreting via the Holy Spirit is necessary for understanding the contents of the utterances. Again, biblically supported.
2) You briefly mention tongue speaking as a form of chanting. While I find this to be, at least superficially, characteristic of speaking in tongues, it doesn't exactly disprove tongues as a self-performative gesture of faith rather than a divine intervention. The way I see it, the act of chanting/meditating can be either self-derived or have spiritual causality. However, it's unclear if you are atheistic, agnostic, religious, spiritual, etc, so I'm not sure if you would believe in such things as divine intervention, or at least in this context.
Given a context where tongues can be categorically subdivided into glossolalia and xenoglossia, and glossolalia is indeed a communicational medium between man and spirit that serves relationally strengthening or reconciling function, yes it is chanting I suppose.
My point is that there's a difference between regular meditative chanting and chanting caused by the Holy Spirit.
Also, it's a little problematic when your generalization about chanting conflates and therefore obscures the important distinctions between the various religions' conceptualization of divinity. Not that you elaborate on how Christian chanting is not unique by explaining the supposed similarities of chanting across religions...
All in all, there's more to be proven (or disproven) by linguistics on the matter of glossolalia, you didn't really address xenoglossia, and there actually is Biblical evidence of both that pre-exist any denominational rationale. Then again, I actually do believe speaking in tongues may involve physiological influence rather than purely spiritual (or psychological for you materail purists). Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" offers an interesting view on glossolalia, should you be so inclined.
Most importantly, I don't believe I can convince anyone of anything, by the way. Belief is God's grace. Bless you.
@@shaytardsfan202636
Going to try and make this as short as possible and still try and reference your specific paragraphs (I do appreciate the insightful, well stated response). This is written somewhat quickly, so apologies for the brevity -
In response to the first two paragraphs - Yes, it can certainly be argued that linguists are looking at tongues through the ‘lens’ of human language, so to speak, but in order for something uttered to be called ‘language’ it must contain at a minimum two elements. It doesn’t matter where or by whom/what the utterance is spoken - this is a universal ‘rule’. Modern tongues-speech contains neither one. It is non-cognitive non-language utterance. The meowing patterns of cats are more definitive language than modern tongues-speech will ever be.
Paragraph 3 - When it comes to something spoken, there are no Biblical references to “tongues” that do not refer to, or that cannot be explained in light of, real rational language. “Biblical glossolalia” in the sense of modern tongues-speech does not exist.
Paragraph 4 - Glossolalia cannot identify as language of any kind; human or otherwise. There isn’t anything tongues-speakers are doing that cannot be easily explained in light of relatively simple linguistics. No two speakers will ever produce the same “tongue” - ever. On a more esoteric level, let’s assume tongues are indeed a heavenly language - why would there ever be a need for more than just one??
Paragraph 5 - There is only one type of Biblical “tongue”. Again, when it comes to something spoken, there are no Biblical references to “tongues” that do not refer to, or that cannot be explained in light of, real rational language. The Greek word used, glôssa, is language. “Tongue(s)” is simply archaic English.
Paragraphs 6 & 7 - The concept of tongues as xenoglossy comes from the Pentecost narrative and hinges upon one assumption - that the attendees represented a linguistic diversity. Too long to go into here, but in a quick nutshell, if one examines in detail the text - where the people came from and what languages would have been spoken by 1st century Jews living in those places, something becomes very apparently - linguistic diversity at Pentecost did not exist. The apostles were not speaking any language they didn’t already know. For an in depth discussion, see the following videos (kind of long, but very in depth): ruclips.net/video/B7Vg6JRml5Q/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/z7AmdF6Ba_Y/видео.html
The first is an in depth look at Pentecost, the second is a much shorter video that goes over the gift of languages (tongues), but also briefly goes over Pentecost.
Paragraph 8 - 1 Cor. 14:2 is perhaps *the* quintessential verse use to evidence modern tongues speech in the narrative of scripture.
Let’s paraphrase this into a more modern English, get rid of the added “unknown”, use a more accurate translation, and a more modern rendering of the archaic “tongue” -
“He that speaks in a language isn’t speaking to others (or, “speaks not to people), but only to God; no one hears with understanding; however, though he’s ‘praying in the Spirit’, he’s speaking mysteries.”
The whole passage is talking about real, rational language. To use an analogy - If I attend a worship service in ‘East Haystack’, Alabama two things are going to be evident: one; there’s only going to be so many people at that service (i.e. there will be a finite given amount of people there) and two; the chances that anyone in East Haystack speaks anything *but* English is pretty slim to nil.
If I start praying aloud in say Lithuanian, there’s no one at that service that’s going to understand a word I’m saying. Even though I’m speaking a real language, no one _there_ will understand my “tongue”. That does not mean or imply that no one else understands Lithuanian; just no one at _that particular service._ In this sense, therefore, I am speaking _only to God,_ since he understands all languages. To everyone at the service, even though I’m praying in the Spirit (as defined below), I’m still speaking “mysteries” - just another way of saying that even though I’m praying as I ought, no one understands me; I’m still speaking in ‘mysteries’ - no one has a clue what I’m saying as no one speaks my language.
“Praying in the Spirit” does _not_ refer to the words one is saying. Rather, it refers to _how_ one is praying. In the three places it is used (Corinthians, Ephesians, and Jude), there is absolutely zero reference to 'languages' in connection with this phrase. “Praying in the Spirit” should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will. In Pentecostal/Charismatic parlance however, the phase has come to be equated with modern “tongues”, i.e. when one “prays in the Spirit”, one is typically engaged in some form of tongues-speech.
There is nothing in this passage that suggests modern tongues-speech nor is there anything that even remotely suggests that the speaker does not understand what he himself is saying; it is the listeners who do not understand, not the speaker - no matter how hard modern tongues-speakers want the speaker to also not understand, it just isn’t there.
Paragraph 9 - In Corinthians (with the exception of the few places Paul mentions the gift of tongues together with the other gifts) Paul is simply addressing real language issues facing a multi-cultural, multi-lingual population in a major port city. No xenoglossy, no modern tongues-speech; just real, rational language(s).
Paragraphs 10-13 - The point I was trying to make (the original post is over two years old and by the looks of it, written fairly quickly) is that
Modern tongues is a _tool_ , remotely akin to chanting, deep prayer, or meditation, etc.; a way by which one may establish a closer relationship with the divine and strengthen one’s spiritual path. In this respect (i.e. as the _tool_ it is), it can be quite powerful one to accomplish these goals, as attested by many of those who use it. Most other cultures that practice glossolalia realize it as a 'spiritual tool'. It is only in certain Christian denominations where is it construed as something it never was.
Most people who use ‘tongues’ are very keen on describing the ‘experience’. Indeed, for those that use it, it is very psychologically, physically, and spiritually fulfilling. It’s almost like primal screaming. When people practice ‘tongues’, they feel a sense of sweet release and inner peace, in that virtually all stress can be gone after the experience.
People describe the experience, but in examining the “mechanics” behind it…well, not so much. When a person has experienced tongues, s/he is absolutely convinced as to the ‘scripturalness’ of his/her experience, and the correctness of his/her doctrinal beliefs - this, despite the overwhelming scriptural absence of anything remotely akin to what they’re doing.
Mind you, and a point I wish to stress is that, I'm not doubting or questioning the 'experience'; as mentioned, glossolalia as the tool that it is, can be very powerful. Again though, it is important to note that this same statement can be made for virtually _any other culture that practices glossolalia_ . Religious and cultural differences aside, the glossolalia an Evenki Shaman in Siberia, a vodoun priestess in Togo and a Christian tongues-speaker in Alabama are producing are in no way different from each other. They’re all producing their glossolalia in the exact same way.
“Tongues” is to some Christian believers a very real and spiritually meaningful experience but consisting of emotional release via non-linguistic ‘free vocalizations’ at best; non-cognitive non language utterance - the subconscious playing with sounds to create what is perceived and interpreted as actual, meaningful speech. In _some_ cases, I would argue that it is clearly a self/mass delusion prompted by such a strong desire to “experience God” that one creates that experience via “tongues”.
Last paragraph - There are (unfortunately) absolutely no documented cases of xenoglossy - anywhere. Thousands of examples of tongues-speech have been studied. Not one was ever found to be a real rational language, living or dead. Despite this, the tongues-speaking community is rife with such examples.
Unfortunately, every one of them seems to be anecdotal at best. Things along the lines of “It happened a while ago to a friend's third cousin on his mother's side, and a visitor from West Bubbatania happened to be visiting and recognized the language.” This visitor, of course, went back home and there's no way to verify that the anecdote actually took place. Or the event happened in some remote jungle somewhere with the same results.
The quintessential example circulating a few years ago was tongues coming out as Hebrew or Aramaic. It got to the point where it was almost cliché and reached virtual urban legend status. A preacher wasn’t worth his salt if s/he did not have such a story in his/her repertoire. If something that profound happened, I should think that the tongues-speaker would, at the very least, want to know specifically what language s/he was supposedly speaking and would want to ask the person who heard him/her exactly what was said. To most however, the specific details are recalled rather vaguely at best.