SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confession

[WordWolf]

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.

There are, of course, undocumented and unconfirmed claims that some of THOSE people produced

an actual language they didn't understand. Hokum.

When it comes to claims of the superstitious and occult, the vast majority have been nothing

more than wishful thinking, showmanship, and gullible people seeing what they expected to see

or WANTED to see.

So, really, here's what that looks like.

"I don't want to believe we were deceived and I'm being deceived now.

I insist SIT accounts really ARE supernatural and produce languages.

Since non-Christians are supposedly doing the same thing, instead of saying it's not supernatural

in either case, I will insist it's supernatural in BOTH cases!

So, non-Christians who do that are tapping into a devil or are possessed!"

Most of us think it's more likely that:

small children, acting students, televangelists, witch doctors, and devout Christians are all doing the same mundane activity, each for different reasons,

than

small children, acting students and witch doctors are all getting possessed (or partly possessed),

while televangelists and devout Christians are tapping into God, and it looks EXACTLY THE SAME

and works EXACTLY THE SAME as the children and the acting students.

Not getting that doesn't make you more devout or steadfast.

Getting it doesn't make us any less devout.

[Raf]

Well, you could dispute my premise, ww. If Biblical SIT is not what I think it is, every conclusion I draw can be questioned.

Ok, I'll stop messing with you guys.

I am Word Wolf.

Just kidding.

[WordWolf]

Well, you could dispute my premise, ww. If Biblical SIT is not what I think it is, every conclusion I draw can be questioned.

Actually,

I think I'll wait a month or so before starting a thread that looks over that premise

from the verse-by-verse end. (A Doctrinal thread in that forum, of course.)

If the results go that way, I reserve the right to dispute it-

but I'll wait until I have something more substantial than

"I don't like your conclusions and I like my conclusions",

which is pretty much all I have to go with today.

Well, you could dispute my premise, ww. If Biblical SIT is not what I think it is, every conclusion I draw can be questioned.

Ok, I'll stop messing with you guys.

I am Word Wolf.

Just kidding.

"I'M Spartacus!"

"I'M Spartacus!"

I may point this to the Mrs and see if she wants to reply to that one!

On a serious note, Paw's met us both face-to-face, as have a few

other posters down the years. (Paw's met me and Raf, not me and my Mrs)

[Raf]

Perhaps I skipped over something.

Raf posted-over 100 times- that "modern SIT is not a language" AND "that is a proven fact and undisputed"?

IF, by "over 100 times," you mean "not a single time. That's a lie." Then yes, yes, that's exactly what I did.

[WordWolf]

IF, by "over 100 times," you mean "not a single time. That's a lie." Then yes, yes, that's exactly what I did.

So, you're claiming the absence of you having posted that.

The burden of proof is on chockfull to link to even one post where you said exactly that.

If chockfull can do that, it's a slam-dunk.

Really, burden of proof, in principle, is easy to understand.

We have an accidental example of it right here.

[Raf]

And again, more opinion as fact. Please show me where there is incontrovertible proof that they are producing the same thing. The only thing observed SINCE NONE OF THE LANGUAGES WERE UNDERSTOOD (except in medium's cases), were that they phonetically sounded the same. Which you have already beat that point to death getting at your opinion that just because they were phonetically similar doesn't prove anything.

See? Again. No, they were NOT understood in the medium's cases.

Crap, you're not even reading this stuff, are you?

This is what I'm talking about. You're not reading the studies. You're trolling through them looking for gaps that you can cast doubt on and claim that the truth about SIT would be understood if we only had the information to fill in those gaps. You have every right to do that, but read the bleeping report before you declare a gap where solid ground exists.

[waysider]

[geisha779]

I think it would be great to see some of this energy and anger directed at Raf's questions ....redirected at the false teachers who hide in plain sight in the charismatic movement, who abuse people using these supposed gifts....to me, that would be a genuine Godly motivation. It is not just a few here who question modern tongues.....it is many many Christians. Are we going to get angry at all of them? These studies and the glaring reality that there are no documented cases of modern tongues producing a language speak to more than just a few on this thread. It is everywhere.

None of these questions change that God is still on the throne and the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of true Christians. . . . .

[Raf]

Hey, I want credit for getting angry. I didn't see anyone responding in kind.

[chockfull]

See? Again. No, they were NOT understood in the medium's cases.

Crap, you're not even reading this stuff, are you?

This is what I'm talking about. You're not reading the studies. You're trolling through them looking for gaps that you can cast doubt on and claim that the truth about SIT would be understood if we only had the information to fill in those gaps. You have every right to do that, but read the bleeping report before you declare a gap where solid ground exists.

They were understood in the medium's case. You just haven't read the account referenced by Samarin yet. I'll leave off the other name calling to you.

On p. 56 of Samarin's article, paragraph 2, he references Albert Le Baron's personal record, which was submitted to the American Society for Psychical Research by William James.

Below is Le Baron's account written in that article:

“In the summer of 1894 I had occasion, for the sake of a certain literary project, to visit a portion of our coast. At a place to which I will give the name of Shelter Island I found a group of mystics summering. I drifted into the esoteric camp with a copy of Kant's "Critique" in my valise, by way of a little light summer reading. The leader of the Shelter Island mystics, Evangel, was a spiritist of the loftiest type, a believer in re-incarnation, whose psychoautomatic "control" was her dead mother. Of practical genuine spiritualism I knew nothing. To theosophy I was an utter stranger. I found the atmosphere of the camp pregnant with a new type of the old style of millenial optimism. The World's Congress of Religions had re-awakened the hope of a new chemistry of civilisation. The pious heart of Evangel was solacing itself with the holy hope of doing something to effect a union of the occidental and oriental religions on the purest conceivable basis of Gnostic-Platonism. Occasionally, séances were secretly held, far into the midnight, for the purpose of procuring information from "invisible brethren" to carry on the work. At one of these séances I met with my first experience. We were seated under a pine tree. Clairvoyants were present. "Wheels" of light and other phenomena were said to be seen by them. I sat listening to the affirmations.

Suddenly an entirely new and strange psycho-automatic force shook through me like a gust of fierce wind through a tree. I willed myself into a state of passivity in order to observe the phenomena. I went into no trance however. The force became intelligent in action. It drew back my neck. Additional motor violence was displayed in my limbs. I was brought, from my sitting posture, down on the flat of my back. The force produced a motor disturbance of my head and jaws. My mouth made automatic movements; till, in a few seconds, I was distinctly conscious of another's voice—unearthly, awful, loud, and weird—bursting through the woodland from my own lips, with the despairing words: "Oh! My People!" Mutterings of semipurposive prophecy followed. One of the clairvoyants added additional weirdness to the experience by positively affirming that phantasms of ancient Egyptian sages stood over me.

I was so dazed and "rattled" by the experience and the motor disturbances, that, at the close of the seance, I had to be assisted to my feet, and was walked for some time to and fro in the night air to recover my equilibrium…On Sunday morning, September 30th, 1894, I had my first experience in "speaking in unknown tongues," at my residence in the suburbs of New York City. I had been conversing with the psycho-automatism the night previous, and up to that time had received sufficient deific verbiage, one way and the other, to make a small book. Suddenly, whilst conversing with it in my bedroom on Sunday morning, it changed abruptly off from English into unintelligible sounds resembling a foreign tongue, and which, had I not been, as I think, pretty level-headed at the time, I should have construed as a mental state pathognomic of mania. And yet I was not sufficiently "at myself" to immediately seize pencil and pad and write down the sounds…On Monday, October 1st, 1894, I left my home in the suburbs of New York City for the town of Levanna, N.Y. In room 12 of the hotel and on Monday night, came the following messages in "unknown tongues" together with the interpretations…As the foreign verbiage came viva voce, I pencilled it down…A very large per cent, of the words I subsequently traced in a vocabulary of primitive Dravidian, or British Indian, non-Aryan languages.” (A Case Of Psychic Automatism, Including “Speaking With Tongues” in Proceedings For The Society Of Psychical Research, Vol. 12, Part 31)

So tell me again how the languages weren't understood? If they weren't understood, then how would it be possible to "pencil them down and subsequently trace them to primitive Dravidian or British Indian?"

Edited October 26, 2012 by chockfull

[chockfull]

So, you're claiming the absence of you having posted that.

The burden of proof is on chockfull to link to even one post where you said exactly that.

If chockfull can do that, it's a slam-dunk.

Really, burden of proof, in principle, is easy to understand.

We have an accidental example of it right here.

The burden of proof fallacy basically is "whoever said something first or loudest has to prove it".

You are mixing up the A's and the B's here. Raf started the thread. He made claim A. I thought he was full of hot air speaking about my personal private prayer life in that fashion. I stated B.

If there is a burden of proof here by the standard definition it's Raf's, as he made the big fat claim in the first 10 posts on this thread before I even entered it.

However, in reviewing the history of this argument, who started the claim on one side or the other is harder to pinpoint, so I'm saying neither side has a burden that they have to prove. I'm just tired of hearing Claim A stated as fact over and over again.

"No modern SIT produces a language". Now we have Raf saying he didn't say that over and over. So maybe I read it in an alternate universe.

[geisha779]

Hey, I want credit for getting angry. I didn't see anyone responding in kind.

I didn't realize your questions angered you too.....I sensed your frustration in how they were addressed. . . . but if you want credit....by all means take it.

[chockfull]

Psychics and mediums are faking it. They are not producing human languages.

Neither are those who SIT.

Here's an example of stating opinion as fact. It is not proven that "neither are those who SIT". So why are you stating is as fact? Or is this another case that I'm reading in an alternate universe that although I have the quote, you didn't really say it?

And by the way, I'm a little over-tired of the false accusation that I have referred to my case as "proven." I have said the testable evidence agrees with me, and that is a fact, not my opinion.

So kindly stop misrepresenting me.

There is no testable evidence that agrees with you that those that are SIT are not producing human languages. Just that nobody understood what was spoken.

[chockfull]

Without resorting to modern terminology: The Bible describes people speaking in languages they did not know. Modern SIT does not produce this.

Another example of Raf saying "Modern SIT does not produce languages". Or wait, he wasn't really saying it :blink:

One more -

So Chockfull demands: Please provide the page number in which Samarin proves that the languages COULD NOT EVER be understood BY ANYONE HUMAN.

Well, you got me. He never says that outright. The best I can say is that in the paper before us (his book, which he wrote later, should arrive in my mailbox in a few days) very strongly implies it in several places. I can give you THOSE page numbers:

Here's Raf saying in his own words of his own main source that Samarin never proves that modern SIT do not produce languages.

I know - my alternate universe again.

=======================================

All right - from my perspective I've gone back to p. 57 of this discussion, and already found numerous examples of where Raf is stating "modern SIT does not produce languages" as fact and not an opinion. That's in the last 4 pages. So until someone points out to me the difference in the alternate universe where I'm obtaining these quotes from a real universe, I'm going to go with

Raf is stating opinion as fact when he says "modern SIT does not produce languages", and that this hasn't been proven.

Edited October 26, 2012 by chockfull

[Raf]

More distortions of what I did say. I don't know how you can look in a mirror. For real.

Fortunately, folks can see for themselves how you claim I said something, we ask for proof, and you prove I said half of it over here and a third of it over there and a shred of it over here and presto! Five crucified.

In quoting James, you seem to have left out Samarin's conclusion after comparing the alleged xenoglossia to language. Wonder why you would do that.

[chockfull]

Here's another account of languages spoken in a tongue understood by another, courtesy of our good Catholic friends:

In The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church, (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press 1971) E D O'Connor claims several cases of xenoglossia. Sumrall (1993:126) gives an example of a man who spoke in tongues after a sermon. Another man interpreted his message. "When they had finished, a young man walked to the front and spoke in a foreign language to the one who had given the message. The brother answered: 'I'm sorry, sir, but I don't understand any other language.' The man replied: 'But you spoke my language beautifully. I am Persian.' . the brother answered: 'No, it was the spirit who spoke to you. it was God talking to you, not me.' "

More distortions of what I did say. I don't know how you can look in a mirror. For real.

Fortunately, folks can see for themselves how you claim I said something, we ask for proof, and you prove I said half of it over here and a third of it over there and a shred of it over here and presto! Five crucified.

De Nile isn't just a river going through the Amazon.

The line refers to the patently and self-evidently ridiculous assertion that free vocalization is not an innate human ability that anyone, Christian or not, can do. You might as well deny the sky is blue.

"Free vocalization" is a made up term. I'm finding that it causes confusion using it, as I'm not sure whether it is talking about people SIT, people faking it, or a medium talking to his spirit guide.

So no all of those things to me don't represent an innate human ability.

[Raf]

So tell me again how the languages weren't understood? If they weren't understood, then how would it be possible to "pencil them down and subsequently trace them to primitive Dravidian or British Indian?"

Sure. Since LeBaron had the kindness to write it down, he gave Samarin a claim and a language to test it again. Samarin rang the bulls hit alarm. Read the flipping report.

[Raf]

Re: your rejection of free vocalization. That's very nice. It establishes that we cannot gave an honest conversation because you will hurl evidence out the window if it doesn't suit your need.

[Raf]

Chockfull, you have no credibility. I will not answer you anymore. I was enjoying this for a bit, but you b.s. has pushed me too far. Keep posting what you want. I decline to sift through it anymore. I'm a reporter, not a sewer worker.

[waysider]

In The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church, (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press 1971) E D O'Connor claims several cases of xenoglossia. Sumrall (1993:126) gives an example of a man who spoke in tongues after a sermon. Another man interpreted his message. "When they had finished, a young man walked to the front and spoke in a foreign language to the one who had given the message. The brother answered: 'I'm sorry, sir, but I don't understand any other language.' The man replied: 'But you spoke my language beautifully. I am Persian.' . the brother answered: 'No, it was the spirit who spoke to you. it was God talking to you, not me.' "

It's an unverifiable anecdote.

"Free vocalization" is a made up term. I'm finding that it causes confusion using it, as I'm not sure whether it is talking about people SIT, people faking it, or a medium talking to his spirit guide

Who's confused by it? I submit that if someone has exercised due diligence in reading the contents of this thread, there should be no confusion what the term means.

[Raf]

I put all "it really happened, I swear" anecdotes into the same category as ufo abductions, Mary Mother of God sightings and Jesus on Rye sightings (although that last category at least has the good sense not to hide the toast and just say "trust me").

[cman]

the burden of proof is the spirit's

[Raf]

Here's another account of languages spoken in a tongue understood by another, courtesy of our good Catholic friends:

And now, from the people who brought you Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, and the (mighty big) Assumption of Mary, more Tales of the Uncorroborated. Here's your host, Joe Isuzu!

De Nile isn't just a river going through the Amazon.

I have no basis on which to assume you were trying to be funny rather than really making this mistake. I hope it was a joke.

[Raf]

Waysider,

Free vocalization is the rational explanation for the linguistic nonsense produced in modern SIT. Confusing is trying to come up with a coherent response to it. Clarity is gained by denying it exists.

Miss anything?

Edited October 26, 2012 by Raf

[waysider]

Experts estimate that half of all the languages in use today will be extinct by the beginning of the next century. One thing won't change, though. Whatever languages remain will serve the same purpose language has always served. They will communicate messages and knowledge and do so in a structured manner..