What does "speaking in tonges" mean according to the spirits. (André Luiz)
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| Gustave Dore's Pentecost. |
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Acts 2:4
Whoever reads the Bible is frequently impressed by the passage of Acts 2:4 in the New Testament, which describes the episode of Pentecost (1). The so-called “gift of tongues”, also referred to as the “charism of glossolalia” (2), is considered a capacity or “grace” that existed among the first apostles as a “gift from God,” and which enabled members of the early church to communicate the Christian message to other ancient peoples. Some modern Christians (neo-Pentecostals) believe that speaking anything in “strange tongues” would prove their union with God, since they would be speaking the “language of angels.” However, what follows in the cited chapter of the Acts of the Apostles actually refers to human languages.
In the book Mecanismos da Mediunidade [1], one of the earliest lucid interpretations of this fact perhaps appears, as described by the spirit André Luiz:
“And, continuing (Jesus) ministry, the apostles who remained faithful to him became remarkable mediums on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–13), when, with their forces joined together, as they were ‘all gathered,’ the Lord’s spiritual emissaries, through them, produced physical phenomena in great abundance, such as luminous signs and direct voices, including instances of psychophony and xenoglossy, in which the teachings of the Gospel were dictated simultaneously in various languages to Israelites of diverse origins.” [1] (emphasis added).
Thus, Spiritists should read Acts 2:4–13 as an ancient description of the overt presence of mediumship among the apostles. Recently, in an interesting work [2], C. Tibbs (2016) presents the modern scientific view of this passage, which we analyze in this post. He does so in a critique of another work by Craig S. Keener [3], which we also recommend reading.
The passage of Acts 2:4 can be seen as yet another example of an episode of “possession” among early Christians. By “another episode,” it is meant that it is one more within the rich phenomenology studied by modern anthropology regarding the phenomenon of “spirit possession.” In fact, there are two anthropological phenomena studied today that we can associate with mediumship: so-called “trances” and “possessions” [4]. Trance is considered an “altered state of consciousness,” whereas “possession” refers to a culturally inherited belief.
Tibbs summarizes recent anthropological findings in this way:
Anthropologists have discovered that spirit possession manifests in two ways according to the disposition of the possessed individual: (1) "negative possession" that is characterized as "involuntary possession" or "uncontrolled possession" because the possessing spirit is not "welcome" in the individual's body and, for this reason, is construed as an invasion by an undesired spirit who, if not properly rid, might cause physical and mental harm and illness; and (2) "positive possession" that is characterized as "voluntary possession" or "controlled possession" because the possessing spirit is a spirit guide or an ancestral spirit or some other "higher" power who acts as a source for supramundane knowledge and healing powers. Persons who experience positive possession do not seek psychiatric help, while those who experience negative possession often do. [2, p. 175]
The meaning of the word “possession” used in anthropology is not the same as in spiritism. Clearly, these findings reinforce the idea of mediumship as something universally widespread, and when applied to the passage in the Acts of the Apostles, they confirm what André Luiz stated. The connection with “possessions” is recalled by C. Tibbs in Acts 19:13, which mentions the existence of “Jewish exorcists,” indicating that first-century Jews were aware of so-called “demonic possession” (the first case listed by Tibbs above). At this point, it is also relevant to emphasize that the word “demon” originates from the Greek term for “spirit” and, through a later shift in meaning, came to be associated with supposed entities entirely devoted to evil. Obviously, the ancients had only a limited understanding of the process of mediumistic communication, and with the rejection of Greek and Roman culture during the rise of the Romanized version of Christianity, what little was known was lost because it was entirely suppressed.
Early church fathers were divided on the issue of spirit possession. On occasion, invasive possession by a spirit was construed as the work of an evil spirit only. For instance, the third-century church father Origen noted that the indwelling of a spirit was the primary sign that the possessing spirit was evil. According to Origen, good spirits influenced human beings from without; only evil spirits took full possession of men and rid them of their intellect, as was evidenced in the possessed's subsequent amnesia. Possession amnesia, that is, the inability of the possessed person to recollect what the spirit said and did while possessed by it, was not unique to demoniacs, however. Although not found in the NT, possession amnesia is recorded by Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman authors to have occurred in the presence of both good and bad spirits. [2, p. 178]
In fact, ignorance prevailed among them on the mechanism of mediumship. They confused “possession” with “mediumship trance." Today we know that there is, in fact, no true “possession,” but rather a spiritual influence that is not characterized by “ownership” of the body. The spirit acts upon the medium’s nervous system, which controls movement, creating the impression of "possession." It is also not true that remembering or not remembering the delivered message is a sign of the spirit's "evilness." Allan Kardec was one of the first to realize that some mediums are fully conscious of the communication process, while others remember nothing (see The Book on Mediums, item 188), and this has nothing to do with the moral nature of the spirit. Furthermore, today we understand that there are no entities entirely devoted to evil and that spirits are nothing more than the souls of human beings, capable of influencing, for good or ill, those who still have a material body.
In addition to the New Testament, it is important to note that there are other ancient sources quoting the phenomenon of “divine possession." These sources are not read by modern Christians, but they circulated among early Christians, including those of Jewish origin. As such, they help to better contextualize the passage of Acts 2:4 and point in the direction of what André Luiz wrote once again. One example is the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, a text translated into Latin by an unknown author, academically known as Pseudo-Philo. Tibbs describes this text as:
...quite revealing for evidence of divine spirit possession. The elevation of Kenaz's senses (extulit sensum eius) is the effect of a holy spirit (spiritus sanctus) that comes or leaps on (insiluit) and dwells in (habitans in) Kenaz. As a result, Kenaz begins to prophesy (prophetare). The spirit operates within him in order to speak to an audience, that is, Kenaz prophesies.[2, p. 178]
Therefore, the term “Holy Spirit” refers to a class of “possession” of a divine nature (in the anthropological sense), which came to be described as another type of “grace,” known as the gift of “prophecy.” In this way, one can take “Holy Spirit” as referring to “spirits sent from God,” rather than to the “Spirit of God Himself,” as was interpreted much later. Still according to Tibbs:
The shift from possession as both divine and demonic to exclusively demonic, as in the case of Origen, occurs periodically throughout history. Appeals to spirit possession in negative terms seem to be a cultural inter pretation of only certain possession phenomena.
In other words, the term “demonic possession” became a cultural reference used to designate any kind of influence, with the exclusion of the “divine” cases. This is why we find Christians in certain periods considering everything as demonic possession, while others recognized cases of messages delivered by spirits “from God” (spiritus sanctus), which turn their intermediaries (mediums) into “prophets.”
Finally, another piece of evidence that Pentecost was indeed a mediumistic manifestation lies in the numerous controversies among early Christians regarding the origin of the spirit being manifested. Even at that time, there were groups accusing others of receiving messages through “demonic possession” (that is, from deceptive spirits), while those same groups believed they were receiving true prophecies (from spirits “sent from God”). This is the reason for the statement found in 1 John 4:1:
Knowing that “prophets” were those possessing the “gift of prophecy,” that is, mediumship (which was not yet understood under this concept at the time), the problem of identifying the origin of the messages— as André Luiz explains—becomes clear. According to Tibbs:
the NT does not provide any data that might contribute to our understanding as to how early Christians unmasked deceptive spirits. Was it possible that by masquerading as a holy spirit an evil spirit could speak highly Jesus through a prophet? If so, then how was the deceptive spirit recognize and unveiled in such instances? [2, p.192]
In conclusion:
In the final analysis it seems that there was no fool-proof method for discerning truth-bearing spirits from false spirits. Furthermore, voluntary divine and voluntary demonic possession manifested identical symptom that to the untrained eye could be interpreted in different ways, either good or bad. There was no absolutism when inspired prophets spoke. As with radios, one may receive a clear signal in one sitting but in another sitting the signal may be lost through interference or become static and another station may clearly bleed through on occasion. The analogy with true and false prophets is not too far afield: prophets were "conductor" or "antennae" for different spirits depending on the prophet's life and attitude. The precariousness with which some viewed and understood spirit possession may have contributed to the demise of mediumistic divine possession among Christians. [2, p. 194]
No stronger comparison with mediumship could be made. It is likely that the difficulty in identifying the origin of spirits became a problem in Christianity after the first apostles died and ceased to influence the movement. In this sense, the further Christians moved away from their origins connected to Jesus, the more obscure the messages became and the more mixtures began to circulate within Christian circles—especially as they eventually aligned (or “adapted”?) with the political power of Rome. From that moment on, the mediumistic phenomenon came to be viewed with suspicion: everything was attributed to demons, and prophetic voices fell silent within its ranks—though not forever.
Etymology
(1) Pentecost: from the Greek *pentēkostḗ* (πεντηκοστή), referring to the feast of the “fiftieth” day. It corresponds to the Jewish festival of Shavuoth.
(2) Charism: from the Greek *khárisma* (χάρισμα), meaning “favor,” “grace,” or “divine gift”; Glossolalia: from the Greek *glôssa* (γλῶσσα), “tongue,” and *laliá* (λαλιά), “speech” or “talk.”
References
[1] Xavier F. C. e Vieira W. Mecanismos da Mediunidade (Mecanisms of Mediumship). Ed. FEB. Online version for download (Portuguese only): https://www.oconsolador.com.br/linkfixo/bibliotecavirtual/chicoxavier/mecanismosdamediunidade.pdf
[2] Tibbs, C. (2016). Mediumistic Divine Possession among Early Christians: A Response to Craig S. Keener’s “Spirit Possession as a Cross-cultural Experience”. Bulletin for Biblical Research, 26(2), 173-194. https://www.academia.edu/download/94730447/bullbiblrese_26_2_173.pdf
[3] Keener, C. S. (2010). Spirit possession as a cross-cultural experience. Bulletin for Biblical Research, 20(2), 215-235. http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/Keener%20Possession%20.pdf
[4] Halperin, D. (1996). Trance and possession: Are they the same? Transcultural psychiatric research review, 33(1), 33-41.
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