[The piece below is a 2,400-word extract from a detailed 13,000-word section on speaking in so-called “tongues”. In the whole chapter, it is shown what the real gift of languages was all about and why it was given at the time, plus I show conclusively that the gibberish which people are speaking in and calling “tongues” today has nothing whatsoever to do with what took place in the Book of Acts, chapter 2, but is a replica of what has been spoken in pagan cults, mystery religions and under the influence of psychotropic drugs for millennia. In this extract, I show that this gibberish “tongues-speaking” is all part of the apostasy rather than a supposed sign of devotion and closeness to God, through providing examples of the fake gift in action. This piece has a 13-minute read-time].

THE INFLUENCE OF EXPERIENCE-BASED RELIGION has been especially prominent in regard to the next aspect of the ‘Crisis Experience’ induced at Charismatic or Pentecostal gatherings today — the art of speaking in ‘tongues’. We have already looked in detail at the so-called “Baptism with the Holy Spirit” and shown that to be a wholly spurious, psychologically-induced experience. Now we turn to what is perhaps the most controversial area of the ‘mind-sciences’ to examine, due to the widespread normalisation of its practice, and consequently it is now an uphill struggle of immense proportions to persuade people to take an objective look at the biblical evidence. This is because their subjective experience is more precious to them than the truths of the Bible, which is a terrible indictment. Indeed, speaking in these bogus “tongues” has almost become the benchmark for genuine Christian experience in these circles. But what does the Bible reveal?

The spiritual gift referred to in the New Testament which people call “tongues” can be translated literally as “varieties of languages”. [As the central and specific purpose of this chapter is to examine the use of the ‘mind-sciences’ in the churches, I will not be discussing all the spiritual gifts which are mentioned in the New Testament. For a full examination of these and their relevance to today’s Church, see J. Edgar, Miraculous Gifts (Loizeau Brothers, 1983), 394pp.; Victor Budgen, The Charismatics and the Word of God: A Biblical & Historical Perspective on the Charismatic Movement (Evangelical Press, 1985), 281pp.; P. Roberts, The Gift of Tongues, Interdisciplinary Bible Research Institute, 1991; Douglas Judisch, An Evaluation of Claims to the Charismatic Gifts (Baker Book House, 1979), 96pp. See also my own 2023 eBook, Signs, Wonders and Divine Revelation, available freely here: https://diakrisis-project.com/2023/05/13/new-book-signs-wonders-divine-revelation-the-gifts-of-the-spirit-their-abuses-in-todays-churches/ .] In the seventeenth century when the King James Version was written, the word “tongue” — the word which has come most to be associated with this gift — meant an identifiable human language. Similarly, an in-depth study of the Greek word γλῶσσα, glōssa, still strangely translated with the archaic word “tongue” in many Bible versions, shows that it must refer to an identifiable human language of actual ethnic origin (see, e.g., Revelation 5:9; 9:11).

When we look for clear texts elsewhere in the New Testament which will provide us with examples of this gift in action, we see that it indeed functioned as the supernatural ability to speak in previously unlearned, identifiable human ethnic languages. The spiritual gift of ‘Languages’ had nothing whatsoever to do with speaking gobbledygook, gibberish or some kind of ‘private prayer language’, as is claimed today. In our search for such a text, we find that Acts 2:1-13, for example, gives us a superb practical model of the biblical gift of “varieties of languages”.

However, there is not a scrap of evidence in Scripture which would support the notion that the biblical gift of ‘Tongues’ (or the gift of ‘Varieties of Languages’, as it should be known) involved the commonplace gibberish which one can witness across the world in both Christian and non-Christian circles alike. This is why I used the expression, “so-called tongues”, because the word “tongues” has come to have a certain weird mystique or ‘woo-woo’ attached to it. Most likely many do not even know that the word “tongues” is simply the ancient word for languages rather than a mystical babbling. The gibberish babbling which people practise today has been a hallmark of heathen religion from the earliest times of humanity. It is an intrinsic part of human psycho-physiology to be able to enter such a state. Even practitioners of Kundalini yoga can find themselves uttering that gibberish (as I noted earlier in Chapter 9, §1, sub-section 3). Professing ‘Christians’, as partakers in the same flesh, are not exempt from the ability to reproduce this experience if they let themselves be open to it (which they should not). It is actually an incipient trance-like condition brought on through powerful suggestion or auto-suggestion, in which there is increased Alpha-Wave activity of the brain (which is why the modern form of gibberish ‘tongues-speakers’ usually feel so good when they do it), coupled with a stimulation of the part of the brain which governs articulate speech, known as “Broca’s area”.

Such an experience has been generated in pagan religions throughout history through the use of repetitive prayer (mantras), powerful suggestion from a dominant teacher (Shamanism), wild ‘ecstatic’ dancing (Dervishism), meditation (varieties of Yoga) and psychotropic drugs. (In fact, the word “pharmacology” is actually derived from the Greek word for sorcerer, φαρμακός, pharmakos, e.g., Revelation 9:21; 21:8). All this is entirely different from the phenomenon described in the Book of Acts, chapters 2, 8, 10, & 19 (which I will be dealing with in the next sections), and bears no relation to the spiritual gift of “varieties of languages” mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.

I am now going to show you a sample of the kind of ‘tongues’-speaking lunacy one can witness in Charismatic gatherings. This is from the YouTube channel called ‘Holy Kool-Aid’, which is maintained by a religious sceptic and the sight of this type of people only makes his scepticism worse while bringing the faith into disrepute. The enormous size of the crowd laughing along with all this is also horrendous. Of course, this ‘Tongues’ banter between Rodney Howard-Browne and Kenneth Copeland will have been unintelligible to both of them, despite them pretending to understand each other. It is pure showmanship à la Las Vegas. But these are highly influential people — fathers of the modern charismatic movement. They are both still going strong. Kenneth Copeland was invited for dinner at Easter 2025 with Donald Trump in his present presidency, and Rodney Howard-Browne was part of Donald Trump’s spiritual inner circle during his first presidency and prayed over him in the Oval Office of the White House. Believe it or not, these men have a following (in real life and online) of countless millions of acolytes across the world and have been at this for many decades. Here is the internet link to the video to which I am referring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdHnlGyF4IY . Please come back to this text afterwards. Now you may say that this is an extreme version of ‘Tongues’-speaking. But it is only because they are in ‘Christian showbusiness’ that it seems like that. The same kind of gibberish is spoken by all other ‘Tongues’-speakers but perhaps not so ostentatiously and banally. I saw a comment on a YouTube ‘tongues’ video today which said:

“I remember my parents tried out a Pentecostal church when I was young. People began ‘acting in the spirit’ by speaking in tongues and falling down etc and it terrified me so much I hid under a pew in tears. Watching adults, the people I was taught to trust and respect, all acting like lunatics with a shared delusion… was horrible for my psyche at the time”.

This is why I maintain that to take children into a Charismatic environment is tantamount to child abuse. Speaking of “child abuse”, I actually saw another YouTube video of a woman who specifically teaches children to speak in this gibberish. You can see that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZQ3IbQBAJY . She tries to answer the question, “How do I know if my tongues-speaking is real or fake?” I ask you honestly, is there anything remotely spiritual about this woman’s entire presentation? Let’s face it, it’s all fake! And these people are evil. Here is a truly disturbing ‘reel’ on Facebook (from TikTok) which shows an example of the kind of abuse to which children are being subjected in very many Pentecostal/Charismatic gatherings today: https://www.facebook.com/reel/774011070444220/ . This is just one example of many. If you do a YouTube search on this phrase, “children speaking in tongues”, you will discover many more examples of this child abuse. Why has this evil not been outlawed? Because most people are only too happy to see the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints made into a mockery.

One has to wonder, when watching such videos, whether what is recorded there has tipped over from being merely psychological manipulation to being outright demonic. And if you check the comments on that last Facebook reel you will see how many think that doing this to children is a wonderful thing. Truly, we have lost the way so much. Such a huge part of the visible church involving more than half a billion people has gone ‘away with the fairies’ into, at best, psychological manipulation; at worst, witchcraft and sorcery. I believe this is all part of the great apostasy; and this is only the beginning.

In another twelve-minute video, also from the ‘Holy Kool-Aid’ channel, the religious-sceptic channel-owner is taking the mickey out of a number of ‘tongues-speakers’, many of whom are pastors of large congregations. Really, all this brings the faith into terrible disrepute. I am appalled to see what I hold to be precious and true being tarnished by these charlatans on such a massive basis. In the following brief video, you will see many examples of this blasphemous pagan gibberish, including a strangely hilarious but mind-bending clip of a podcast host phoning in to Joel Osteen’s ‘Prayer-Line’ and being greeted by a barrage of lunatic gibberish which so many think is representative of what is in the Bible, plus a disturbing clip of children being brainwashed into speaking this gibberish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZIrU7m0gx0 . This is taken as being normal by so much of what calls itself “Christianity” today. But if this is Christianity, then I’m a banana! Does anyone dare call all this for what it really is: One part of a whole package representing apostasy on a massive scale?

In the 1990s, Rodney Howard-Browne was known as “the bartender of the Holy Spirit” — a phrase based on the idea that one should get ‘drunk’ on the Holy Spirit and people can deal that to you like a drug. I can just imagine the following words being ignorantly spoken right now (as they have been to me on a number of occasions): “But weren’t the disciples ‘drunk in the spirit’ at Pentecost in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles?” No, they most certainly were not! Moreover, to compare the behaviour of those who undergo the so-called ‘slain in the Spirit’ ritual in Pentecostal/Charismatic churches today with the miraculous event recorded in the Book of Acts, chapter 2, shows a complete misunderstanding of what was taking place, as I will show below.

If you are saying, “Well this was thirty years ago. RH-B, the “Holy Spirit Bartender”, must have changed today”, I can assure you that this is not the case at all. He is now even worse, as I just witnessed in a YouTube video of a ‘service’ at his church in Florida which is not only a classic example of Mesmeric suggestion and psychological manipulation but is surely demonic in its outworking. You can view that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgokaTkYf7k

Coming back to Acts 2 and the claims that the disciples were “drunk”, may I remind you that this was the inauguration of the New Testament Church. Is it at all feasible that God would have his disciples behave like a band of town drunks at a time when establishing the honour and integrity of the Church was all important? Those disciples were “declaring the wonders of God” (v.11), not exhibiting the kind of religious phenomena which could be found in the many pagan and mystery religions abounding in the Mediterranean countries in those days. If the disciples at the gathering at Pentecost in the Book of Acts, chapter 2, had been behaving like the lunatics we see in many churches of today, then this would have made the Ekklesia indistinguishable from those fanatical pagan cults and would have brought the faith into disrepute and made the Apostles out to be a laughingstock.

It is true that some of the bystanders (and it was only some) said that the disciples seemed to be “drunk on new wine” (v.13). But this was purely by way of mockery and had no substance to it. They were simply trying to ridicule the disciples in a spirit of unbelief. For this reason, it would be most unreliable to base our understanding of the disciples’ behaviour on the taunts of such mockers. Their gibes about drunkenness cannot possibly have been because the disciples were falling to the floor, or laughing hysterically, or grinning inanely, or uttering gibberish, or crowing like cockerels, or roaring like lions, or waving their arms in the air, or holding their quaking hands out in front of them, such as happens to those stricken by their phoney ‘spirit’ in Charismatic style gatherings. Such unruly, disreputable behaviour at that delicate moment of Church history would have undermined everything which was being established.

The speaking in a variety of ethnic languages at the beginning of the New Testament church was a plain reversal of the confounding judgment which took place at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). It was sounding forth that great truth that there is neither ‘Jew nor Greek…in Christ Jesus’, and was a figurative portrayal of the ‘all nations’ composition of the Ekklesia, the New Jerusalem. To cite the God-honouring events in Acts 2, in support of quasi-drunken behaviour in church services of today is not only in defiance of Paul’s dictum that all things should be “done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40), but it also makes a mockery of the biblical fact that to be filled with the Spirit is diametrically opposed to the state of drunkenness (See Ephesians 5:18).

Now we will go into all this in much more detail…

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2025
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]

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