WordWolf

Ok, I was just going to leave the other thread as a link, but apparently, I was expecting too much from my fellow posters to think they'd READ SOMETHING BEFORE COMMENTING ON IT. (Proverbs 18:13King James Version (KJV) 13 He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.) So, I'll text-dump some of the contents here. This is about the mechanics of "free vocalization", what it is and is not. I think this is a subject worth discussing by itself- that got buried in a previous discussion addressing a lot more. So, I've meant to start this thread for some time. Ok, first of all, how we get the names for things. All names, as far as it goes, are made up. Someone finds a new concept and starts using a new name. Sometimes the new name catches on, sometimes a different name catches on, and sometimes nobody uses it and it fades into obscurity. So, if someone has a new idea or discovers something new, it's fair to try to come up with a decent name for it. For that matter, bad names become famous, too- the "googol" is 1 followed by 100 zeroes, and exploring caves is "spelunking", from "speliation" (cave studies) and a sillier ending for the word. So, the phrase "free vocalization." It wasn't a phrase coined to promote a specific agenda. When studying different things and discovering they were the same thing with different window dressing, someone coined the phrase in order to discuss it better. The name "free vocalization" refers to a speaking, thus, a vocalization. It is a speaking that is not directed in any formal sense of speech, thus it is "free" (unguided) in the same sense as free verse. So, what, exactly, is it? Free vocalization is actually a pretty common practice, used under a number of concepts. When children pretend to be speaking and pronounce nonsense syllables, they're doing this. (No, not when babies are starting to speak- when older children know they're not speaking a language and intentionally PRETEND to do so to amuse themselves and their friends.) Actors do this as well when studying acting. They will study how to move, and how to intone, and that can be studied independent of dialogue. Much can be portrayed by tone, movement, and gesture even if no language is held in common- or no language is used at all. My study group surprised our acting teacher with how complicated a concept we conveyed in such a scene-where 5 people got together, decided the scene, and acted it out- all speaking without actual words but with lots of speaking, intonation, movement and gestures. But that's drifting off-topic...the point is that actors will do this very thing while learning- as practice with other things, and it is not difficult once you get the idea. Some people have pointed out similarities between those practices and each other- because they differ only in intent, and are the same activity concerning language and cognition (thinking.) Vern Polythress: "In short, it seems that the capacity for free vocalization is a normal, God-given human capacity. The person who was unable to do it would be unusual. We regard free vocalization as abnormal only because, in our modern Western cultural milieu, people usually cease to do it after childhood." "Can the average person be taught to produce free vocalization? Yes. Learning to free vocalize is easier than learning to ride a bicycle. As with the bicycle, the practitioner may feel foolish and awkward at first. But practice makes perfect. Moreover, though at first a person may feel self-conscious, after he has learned he may sometimes forget that he is doing it. It is something that he can start or stop at will without difficulty. One easy way for a person to learn is to pretend that he is speaking a foreign language. He starts speaking, slowly and deliberately producing syllables. Then be speeds up, consciously trying to make it sound like a language would sound. Once he is doing well, he just relaxes and does not worry any longer about what comes out." "Picture this...You're in improvisation class and the director hands you a prop. He says, "Make up a language and sell this to Joe." Can it be done? Yes. I've seen it and done it myself. Is it really a language? No, but, it sounds like one." "Theatrical training frequently includes exercises in improvisation. In one type of improvisation, the actor invents a "language" (on the fly) and has his/her character use that language in a conversational context. I posted an example of Andy Kaufman doing this in one of my earlier posts. It's not Biblical, it's not spiritual, it's not evidence of anything other than a latent ability of the human mind. It's not difficult to do. It can, however , present a stumbling block for participants who have inhibitions that impair their ability to do it. That's why it's included in improvisation classes. I personally saw this being done by a wide variety of subjects, some of whom I am quite sure were not Christian. (Oy Vey! Am I being vague enough on this point?) Decidedly, not everyone can overcome their inhibitions to do it but, the possibility to do so is still there." "Any acting student will encounter these exercises-and sooner rather than later. (I encountered them, and my acting studies were very short-which means they're pretty much around the beginning exercises.) I've been in classes where it was done. I've seen stand-up comedians do it on television. I've seen SMALL CHILDREN do it for entertainment- which they came up with on their own. None of them CALLED IT "free vocalization", but that's what it was. Any acting teacher (and most students), for that matter, could set up an exercise where the students set up a skit, setting it in a religious revival, church meeting, or whatever, announce the holy speaker, and have the actor do free vocalization. With enough props, it would look and sound exactly like any modern SIT church usage. With a different setup, the same exercise would be indistinguishable from a twi meeting complete with "manifestations." For that matter, lots of people who do things CLAIM they do them "supernaturally." Some of them-who are non-Christians, claim to "speak in tongues" (by that name or another) and do free vocalization dressed up to look special and holy. It's no different than the actors doing it-except this person MIGHT actually THINK it was supernatural and not mundane. This doesn't make it any less mundane." "Please note that in acting, it's referred to as "gibberish." There's no OFFICIAL, FORMAL name, but "free vocalization" works better for discussion. Some people disagree as to the meaning of "gibberish", and will count it as gibberish only if it is obviously nonsensical, or meant only as a child's game, and will mean something else when discussing it. So, it is important to know what is MEANT by a term as well as the actual word. (It's like the word "spirit"- does the person mean an alcoholic beverage, or emotion, or some entity?) "

*sigh* Steve, the thing was assigned the name "free vocalization" because it is spoken (vocalized) and because it is undirected (free as in a free market, not as in free beer for all.) So, it was given that name to call it something. The name carries no power in and of itself other than to separate it from other terms that came before and meant different things (like "gibberish", which is what actors call it because they're not concerned with substance or giving their exercise too much thought-but the exercise is the same.) So, saying that it's Biblical because it's "free vocalization" is silly. If it had been given a true placeholder name like "semprini", it would have meant exactly the same concept. Would you, then, try to say God Almighty promised "semprini" in His Holy Word? Yes, it is possible to assign the same word or phrase to a number of different concepts. We don't do that because we want to communicate MORE clearly, rather than LESS, so new concepts tend to get their own names whenever possible. Examples of what happens when people assign one word for different concepts rather than separating them: A) I once was talking about an old myth about faeries stealing children and replacing them in their cribs with a faerie disguised as them. That was called a "changeling." When I explained that to someone, as soon as he heard the word "changeling", he stopped listening to the description, and began rewriting what I'd said already- because he knew I must have meant a shapeshifting alien like Constable Odo from Star Trek:Deep Space 9. B) In college, I tried to expound to a friend about "spirit" and the absence thereof as taught in twi. He interrupted, because he was an excitable fellow who felt he had plenty of "spirit" (as in "school spirit") so he thought there was something wrong with the explanation right there. ================================ Whether or not the speaking in Acts 2 on Pentecost COULD be called "free vocalization" or not is open to discussion-although this is the wrong thread for it. What IS wrong is deliberately assigning it that name NOW when we're already using that phrase specifically for something else in order to make the distinctions BETWEEN THEM clearer. In continuing to assign them the same name, you'll end up accidentally (I hope) confusing them one for another by default rather than actually discuss whether they might be the same thing (they're not, not by a reasonable doubt), or whether they are actually the same thing only performed by different people at different times (they aren't.) The thing twi taught was not the Acts 2 speaking-it was only labelled so. If the Acts 2 speaking-true Speaking In Tongues- is available now, I haven't seen it- and I'd sure like to! (Seriously- it would mean a lot to me and end this cycle once and for all.) I know what it isn't-and that's what twi taught. It benefits no one to confuse the two- and, if anything, provides fuel to those who think there's no power of God in people's lives- if glossalalia/"free vocalization" is the best anyone can offer as supposed Power of God, I could see why some people would conclude it's all a hoax. Just a wild guess, but I'm betting that you just read the LINK and the opening I posted, and didn't actually CLICK on the link and read the (very short) thread at the other end, is that right, Steve?

See, there's 2 mistakes you're making. 1) You're "Guessing" and not EVALUATING. When this thread began, I was firmly in the "it's the real thing" category, but I EVALUATED and it failed to hold up under scrutiny. I certainly didn't change my opinion out of peer pressure or anything else. 2) You're lumping the mechanical process we were taught in twi ("modern sit") with what was done at Pentecost and by Paul ("Biblical sit.") Stop for a few minutes and compare what the actual Scriptures say on the subject rather than what you were told they say on the subject. IF what you're doing is a fake compared to something real they did, wouldn't you really want to know that sooner rather than later? IF what you're doing is real rather than a fake, some honest scrutiny and evaluation would only REINFORCE that rather than UNDERMINE that. In this particular case, the thing we were taught only resembles what we were told it was in that it was LABELLED as the same thing.

Prayer works. What twi peddled was often at odds with what God said. What twi peddled was often labelled as what God said-while being the opposite. What twi taught was something atheist actors and small children do. All twi did was slap a pious label on it and convince people it was the same thing that was introduced at Pentecost- despite having virtually nothing in common with it.

It took work to surround himself with easily-suggestible, naive youth! An expert/master manipulator "primes the pump" by pre-selecting his audience and aiming for the most gullible, the most suggestible. vpw spent long years looking for them. As soon as he read about the House of Acts Christians in Haight-Ashbury, he ran over there to con them into thinking that himself was some great one and getting them to all give heed to him. So, he prepped "the full act" for years. When he was able to hunt up the "right" audience, he let them have his manipulation act, and many well-meaning Christians fell for it, and worked for him, thinking they were working for God. It's also how they ended up believing some odd doctrines he peddled, thinking they were from God rather than a con-man.

The last page has been pretty slow, but based on the dates, it hasn't "died" except for the last day, which is what it looks like you're suggesting (which you may not be.) I'm ok with getting recappy with some cut-and-paste of highlights from months of discussion, for those who arrived late and are too lazy to catch up. For just a discussion of "free vocalization", why it has that name, what it is, and what relevance it has to our experience, we split off a discussion into Open here:

As someone who is confident about the power of God in people's lives, I do not feel threatened in calling out a fake for a fake. The thing we were taught to do in twi, IF YOU WERE TAUGHT IT IN SOME ATHEISTIC ACTOR FASHION, you could SO have done before confessing Jesus as lord. We know that because atheistic actors and children who never confessed Jesus as lord do it all the time. Children do it as a game, without any instructions. Actors learn to overcome inhibitions about looking silly and learn to do it as well. In fact, it's an EARLY exercise for BEGINNING actors, not even something for "advanced" actors. So, if, somehow, you didn't fake it, congratulations. However, you darn well COULD have faked it, and many of us who were trying to serve God accidentally faked it because we did as we were instructed- and we were instructed to fake it while being told "this is genuine." If the real thing is possible today, I don't know. I know I didn't do it, and I know twi's instructions were on how to produce a fake.

As those of us who participated in the past 100 pages understood, many of us thought we were faking it at the time, and many more did as we were instructed- which was faking it at the time and now we say "Hey-I was taught to fake it!" We tend to resent having been lied to, but there it is. We didn't mean to lie or fake it, we trusted unreliable instructions, and a conman who meant for us to trust him-so we did.

I'll just say you're right and we can move on. I know the Disney one definitely had it, I'm unsure about the others.

Is that "Phantom of the Opera"?

Yeah, I was planning on going with that movie, also. Wayne's World Brian Doyle Murray Groundhog Day

"Magic Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?"

King Ralph John Hurt Spaceballs

"The old Rocker wore his hair too long, wore his trouser cuffs too tight. Unfashionable to the end, drank his ale too light. Death's head belt buckle, yesterday's dreams, the transport caf' prophet of doom. Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams in his post-war-babe gloom." "He once owned a Harley Davidson and a Triumph Bonneville. Counted his friends in burned-out spark plugs and prays that he always will. But he's the last of the blue blood greaser boys all of his mates are 'doing time': married with three kids up by the ring road sold their souls straight down the line. And some of them own little sports cars and meet at the tennis club do's. For drinks on a Sunday --- work on Monday. They've thrown away their blue suede shoes."

"Monster Mash", by Bobby "Boris" Puckett and the Crypt Kickers. I was planning on using this one next. :)

Batman Jack Palance City Slickers

Boris sent me.

This is a difficult category, especially with us all knowing different songs. Here's one I know..... "The old Rocker wore his hair too long, wore his trouser cuffs too tight. Unfashionable to the end, drank his ale too light. Death's head belt buckle, yesterday's dreams, the transport caf' prophet of doom. Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams in his post-war-babe gloom."

That's it. I usually try to revisit that song each October.

"Driving Miss Daisy"?

"You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run. You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun. You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl. But all the while you hear the creature creepin' up behind You're out of time."

BZZZT! INCORRECT!

"Put another nickel in, in the Nickelodeon. All I want is loving you and music, music, music!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music!_Music!_Music! "The Nickelodeon mentioned in the song is obviously a coin-operated music maker — player piano, jukebox, or radio — and "Nickelodeon" is usually capitalized in the printed lyrics as though it were being used as a brand name. However there is no prior record of "Nickelodeon" being used as a brand or common name for any coin-operated device, and the trademark owner was a chain of silent movie theaters that operated from 1905 to 1915. All uses of "nickelodeon" to refer to a jukebox appear to trace directly to this song." For the pedantic, actual "nickelodeons" were tiny 5-cent movie theaters, and never any coin-operated devices like the Kinetoscope or mutoscope. After the song, the meanings all got blurred. You can read up here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelodeon_(movie_theater) So, yeah, "Guys From Another Country" could work as a band name, don't you think?