Now we must address ourselves to the problem — can we know what physically happens to the modern day Pentecostal? It cannot be all a hoax — they cannot be all faking? I have heard one report of definite faking in tongue-speaking and undoubtedly there are others. But, without doubt, for the greater part, as in the case of Pat Boone, something really happens. A good illustration to begin with is the recent testimony of a brother who was brought up in a Pentecostal atmosphere. He wrote,[1]
“When I was 16 I was encouraged to try and get this experience. One evening a special prayer meeting was held for this purpose and for about two hours prayers were said, hands were laid on me continuously, there was much singing and chanting. I concentrated my mind to the one single purpose and knelt with hands tightly clenched, so very, very tightly, in an all out endeavour to receive this ‘gift’. You see, I felt I had to get this gift, if not I would have felt I’d been rejected by God! A strange atmosphere seemed to build up. It was a tension you could almost touch. And then, as far as I was concerned, I blacked out. The only impression on my mind was a vision of two tightly clasped hands. My next really conscious moment, it only seemed like seconds, was of still kneeling with clenched hands and realising it was 10.30 p.m., and being told I had spoken continuously in tongues’ for 2 1/2 hours!! — a “mighty blessing” I was told! My sister who heard me, said she thought I had ‘gone bonkers’….
“I might be asked of what value was this ‘gift’ to me? Well, they told us to use tongues in prayer and thus praise God in His language I did this sometimes, I never again spoke in tongues at church: only at home, by myself. I did not go unconscious on these occasions. It is hard to explain what happens, it is as though you throw a switch in your mind — utterances come from your tongue without making any effort to mentally control or direct what you are ‘saying’. It is all unintelligible of course, but there is no mental effort involved to deliberately speak ‘mumbo jumbo’. I suppose one is in a kind of light trance. Since coming to a full knowledge of the Truth I have tried to do this sort of thing on a couple of occasions without success. It appears God has cured me from His ‘Gift’!”
Another example of a description of what actually happens is contained in the testimony of a brother who became involved with Pentecostals and who “received the Gift” at one of their prayer meetings with the laying on of bands. He wrote,[2]
“After sitting down for quite some time, praying, praising God, asking for the Holy Spirit (incidentally, which I had done in my own personal prayer of a night for up to six months anyway) determined that I was not going to speak of myself or even try to, no jumping up in the air, no getting emotional and het up. I felt and knew it was there, a hot sensation, not unbearable (very warm), feeling throughout my stomach area, then realising what it was, opening my mouth and then just speaking, not quietly, but loudly, and quite clear, conscious all the time of what was happening around me. No mesmerism as I had my eyes closed, and certainly no excitation of the mind as some anti-Holy Spirit expositors try to make out, but power from on high.”
Those who claim this experience, nearly all speak of the release of tensions which accompany it. For example, Sherrill lists some of the comments he had recorded,[3]
- “It was like being flooded with joy.”
- “I started to praise God in the new language I had been given. There was at the same time a feeling that my spirit had taken wing; I was soaring heavenward on a poem.”
- “I started laughing. It was a strange thing to do, but I just wanted to laugh and laugh the way you do when you feel so good you just can’t talk about it. I held my sides and laughed until I doubled over. Then I’d stop for a while and start again. Laughing. Laughing.”
- “For the first time I discovered tor myself why the disciples were accused of being drunk at Pentecost. That’s the way I felt at my own Pentecost: in the highest spirits. Just drunk with joy.”
- “With me there was peace. Just a wonderful, quiet, steady, deep peace.”
Now let us try to analyse what all these reports mean. In every case I know of intimately, or have read of, the person seeking “tongues” has prayed, seen others do this and desired, sometimes with great mental effort, to participate in the same experience. It was very much different at the first Pentecost. There is no indication that the disciples, locked away in their room, knew very much at all what to physically expect. That some thought them drunk (Acts 2:13) is true. But this was just the “mockers” — the fact that visitors from many parts heard them speaking of “the mighty works of God” in their “own native language” (vv. 8, 11) is no evidence that they were splitting their sides laughing!!! The claims to feel “peace” and “joy” have of course, much more appeal. But is this the effect which the “gift” had in the first Century? Only by giving a slant to one or two isolated texts can this inference be drawn.
What is the explanation? Pentecostalists are very anxious to refute any suggestion that their experience is a kind of self-hypnotism. The present Writer made this remark to the brother who became involved with them and was earnestly rebuked. “Hypnotism is a form of witchcraft” he said. Hence the point behind his testimony that it was “no mesmerism as I had my eyes closed.” A leading international Hypno-therapist has recently written,[4]
” … the hypnotist started with the subject’s eyes closed. To some people this may be surprising, for it is popularly assumed that causing the subject to close his eyes as a result of suggestion is an essential first step in the inducing of hypnosis. Nowadays hypnotic induction relies mainly upon verbal suggestion.”
Another interesting comment this writer makes is[5] — “the hypnotic subject may say that during hypnotic induction he `experienced being warm all over’, or that `I seemed to be looking at a rapidly receding square of white light’.” Now this is an interesting parallel with the testimony quoted previously — “a hot sensation, not unbearable (very warm) “, while the reference to a white light is interesting in the light of Sherrill’s description of his “baptism” being preceded by a “light blazing through my closed lids” [6]allowing for some imagination generated by the enthusiasm of the memory of the event!
It is of added interest that Kurt Koch in his researches into this subject cites examples of descriptions of “Spirit Baptism” made to him, three of which speak of feelings of warmth?[7] “He experienced a warm sensation going through him and he began to speak in tongues.” Two friends prayed for the “Spirit” — “After intensive prayer it was as if something hot came over them. They felt very excited inside”. “She then experienced a warm feeling that she regarded as the second blessing.” According to Koch not one of the above examples remained in Pentecostal circles. Two later renounced the experience as not of God, the other two eventually lost all “assurance of faith” and had given away religion.
It is to be remembered that it was not claimed that all hypnotic induction produced a warm feeling![8] Indeed there is one testimony to the opposite, “I felt cold and my limbs felt numb” — but then again not all descriptions of the Pentecostal experience testify to warmth; the brother who was brought up in their circles did not experience any warm feeling; but the third description above much more nearly fills the bill!
One interesting feature of our brother’s case was the fact that, as he testified, he went completely unconscious while speaking in tongues. The tie up of this with Hypnotism is suggestive while not being conclusive, as far as I have been able to ascertain at the moment. Marcuse states,[9] “Roughly, however, it may be said, considering limitations, and evaluating results of thousands of reported cases, that about five to 20 per cent of hypnotic subjects reach the deepest depth (somnambulism) and that another five to 20 per cent are not at all susceptible to hypnosis. The remaining 60 to 90 per cent are said to be capable of entering light or medium hypnosis.”
There are areas of disagreement between hypnotists of the definition of “light hypnosis” — mostly such people are not good subjects. “Light hypnosis has been said to be present even though the hypnotized subject is unaware of being hypnotised”[10] — but this theory has not been proved. Arising from this the present Writer has tentatively surmised that in the case of one who went completely unconscious while speaking in tongues, this was a deep “somnambulist” trance which copied what he had seen others do; that other experiences are a form of light self-hypnosis as indicated by his testimony that he was “conscious all the time of what was happening around me.”
We can tie up this parallel a little further. The outstanding claim of modern Pentecostalists is the wonderful “peace” their “experience” brings. Dr. Ainslie Meares, who has become a universally-known Melbourne psychiatrist, has researched in many countries on the subject of Hypnosis. He has written.[11]
“There have been many theories as to the nature of hypnosis. All of these past theories have explained some particular aspects of hypnosis, but none of them have explained all the phenomena of the hypnotic state. In 1957 I published a paper outlining a new theory. it has gained considerable acceptance among many workers in this field. This theory offers a satisfactory explanation of the state of mind in both yoga meditation and auto-hypnosis. In hypnosis it (the mind) slips back, as it were, and works at a more primitive level. Our logical or critical abilities are lost or work in less degree; and we become very suggestible because suggestion itself is a primitive mechanism of the mind. When the mind has regressed a little in this way, it tends to lose its integration so that different elements of the mind come to function independently in what we know as disassociation. It is this process which produces many of the obvious phenomena of hypnosis. In auto-hypnosis the individual learns to let his mind regress and it comes to function in this more primitive way. This accounts for the absence of anxiety and the feeling of calm and ease which we experience in auto-hypnosis.”
These facts are very interesting. Perhaps we should not call them facts in the normal sense of the term, but as a widely accepted hypothesis, we can take it one step further. Auto-hypnosis when coupled with “auto-suggestion” can, we suggest, produce the modern-day phenomena we are witnessing. D. Robert Lindberg, an American Presbyterian Pastor, has recorded his experiences when he sought and received the “Gift”. At the time, he felt something of the joy and thrill which others claimed; he was later caused to re-evaluate what it all really amounted to. He affirms that he does not wish to deny that some have had a transforming experience as a result of the “gift”, but he is now convinced that it is not of God, but rather “has at its heart a false mysticism which is contrary to the word of God” and that what we see today is the result of “autosuggestion, self-induced — piously, yes, but wrongly and unscripturally.”[12]
This is just what we have seen as far as we have been able. The dedicated desire to emulate what is believed to be a Biblical experience that is available today, has led to a state of mind in which auto-suggestion, coupled with self-hypnosis produced usually under emotional conditions, has created the Pentecostal “experience”. Hypnotism in its early forms often relied on “passes” (i.e. bodily stroking with the hands) as part of the means of achieving hypnotic induction. This is so similar to the “laying-on of hands” of today. This sounds Scriptural, but one cannot imagine it being necessary for the Apostles, for example, to have laid hands on the converts in Samaria for some two hours before they received the Holy Spirit.
But is it possible for there to be some genuine gifts today? Is there a danger of going too far in denying that no gifts whatsoever operate today? To answer that, would firstly need a careful analysis of Scripture, which so far we have not attempted. There are also some other things we have not yet said on the practices of modern Pentecostalism, these in particular relate to the acts of “healing” which would appear to be the next most desirable “gift” they seek to attain. But we have more than exhausted our allotted space and these matters must await future issues, if the Lord will.
Sources
[1] CHRISTADELPHIAN SHIELD, Nov. 1971 pp. 273-4. Although not named this was written by Bro. David Voce at the encouragement of the author who ‘edits’ the section of “The Shield” in which this appeared.
[2] This is contained in answers to questions he wrote out for members of the ecclesia to which he belonged.
[3] THEY SPEAK WITH OTHER TONGUES, p. 113 Spire Books.
[4] HYPNOSIS: FACT AND FICTION, F.L. Marcuse, Pelican Books, pp. 54, 51.
[5] Ibid, p. 56.
[6] Op. cit. p. 122
[7] THE STRIFE OF TONGUES, K. Koch, pp. 17, 28, 29.
[8] Op cit. p. 81
[9] Ibid, p. 78
[10] Ibid p. 67
[11] STRANGE PLACES AND SIMPLE TRUTHS, p. 37
[12] PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN, Feb. 1965 p. 19 as quoted by A. A. Hoekema in “What about tongue speaking?” Paternoster Press.
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