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Signs & Wonders: Feature Transcript

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OUT (MUSIC magnify start) music, tambourines. shouting alleluia. "oh magnify the Lord, for he is worthy to be praised." run under and lose under next actuality

It's Sunday afternoon, and a striped tent is set up in one corner of a Saint Paul park. Inside on the dry grass are rows of folding chairs, a wooden pulpit, and an oversized sound system. The people are here to learn to speak in tongues. They want to be, as believers put it, filled with the holy spirit. This old-time Pentecostal revival meeting is designed to help them do that. There are hymns and preaching, clapping and shouting, all moving to the point where members of the congregation will come forward to the altar.

OUT (HORN this is where) This is where the battle begins. Not with the singing, not with the preaching, it's at the altar call. it's where the battles begins. That's where the miracles begin to happen . that's where God begins to work in people's lives. at the altar. we need your prayer support right now. you got the holy ghost back there you have power to bind the devil, you have power to cast it out of this tent.(begin fade down) you have the power to do it, and we beseech you that you will do it (fade down and run under, crossfade tail with head of next actuality)

The congregation drifts to the front of the tent and kneels down. Ministers lay hands on the bowed heads, and pray in tongues and in English that those kneeling in the grass before them will be filled with the holy spirit and will be able to speak in tongues.

OUT (BARCUS I know) I know Lord God that you are here to help and to bless and to fill him Lord God allelujah, thank you Lord for the hunger that's in his heart. (speaks loudly in tongues) hallelujah hallelujah. (speaks in tongues, ) yes yes yes. (alternates between tongues and English)...I'll hear Harold when he speaks in tongues Alleluia for I will hear him speak in tongues.

OUT (HORN.b to receive) To receive the holy ghost, it's like a little boy is told by his father to get on the edge of the diving board, and he says OK son now jump.

Greg Horn is one of the ministers. He first spoke in tongues more than 20 years ago. At the time, Horn was an alcoholic, a former heroin addict, and in trouble with the law. He was hitchhiking when he was picked up by three ex-convicts.

out: 2:42 (HORN.b they told me) They told me about Jesus Christ, gave me a tract, said that they were like I am but God's changed their life. So that night I went to church stoned, I rolled a big joint about the size of a Havana cigar, got stoned out of my mind, went to church, and man they were rocking and rolling for Jesus, so I thought I want to get high like they were. So I went back not being stoned and eventually I received the holy ghost and was baptized, and my life was totally changed. and I started living for God, I cut my long hair off, and I got in a suit, and started living for God, and I actually kept a good job for awhile; for a long while.

Horn says in some ways, the feeling he got from speaking in tongues was like the brief high he once felt from heroin. It gave him a tremendous sense of well-being.

OUT (HORN when I received) 8:23 When I received the Holy Ghost, I heard myself speak in other tongues, (edit) at that moment I also felt a tremendous amount of joy, and that correlates with the Bible First Peter one and eight where it says "joy unspeakable and full of glory."

OUT (BETTY I quivered)11:15 I quivered at times and my head felt hot and large and I tried to form a word but all I could think of was "ballica" and it sounded so silly, but I said it anyway.

Betty Denny reads a description in her diary of the first time she spoke in tongues.

OUT (BETTY my jaw) My jaw felt hard and my cheeks felt drawn forward. The words came then, hard at first but finally steadily coming forth. Never have I been so uninhibited, so unselfconscious, so completely relaxed. I felt as though I was released from everything except a very real consciousness of trying to communicate with God. And there was a deep sense of well-being such as I had never known, and a desire to never stop.

OUT (KEPPLE.b? all of a sudden) And all of a sudden KABOOM! I got these tongues, and it just came out and every time I took a breath it was still there.

John Kepple first spoke in tongues after many unsuccessful attempts. He was overjoyed when the sounds finally tumbled out.

OUT (KEPPLE.b it was just so exciting) And it was just so exciting the hair just stood up on the back of my head. And it was 100 miles an hour, there are tongue you can speak em slow and you can speak 'em fast; speak 'em high and you can speak em low and you can sing em and do anything you want with them, But I was going (SPEAKS LOUDLY IN TONGUES) it was just that fast.

A genial, easygoing retired sales engineer, John Kepple is completely unselfconscious about his ability to speak in tongues. He regards it as a gift from God.

OUT (KEPPLE.b right now) Right now I could give you a poem in tongues. Or sing in tongues, on the way up I was singing in tongues. (Losure: " OK, do it.") zuni pami ah bahm dee ay. (sings in tongues) We usually sing in the third or fourth harmonic. But when I sing alone, I can do anything. (sings) I can do other tunes, you know. (sings.) Or anything that comes.

(Losure: "and it's a gift that makes you happy?") Oh yeah. oh yeah it's mine, MINE (pounds chest). I mean it's, you know, you know one thing, that God can give gifts. Because you got one!

OUT (SINGING in tongues) 13:26 hymn Jesus thou art the mighty Kings of Kings, the mighty King of Kings etc. etc.

This is an evening prayer service held by tongue speaking believers at the church John Kepple attends. It's a large Lutheran congregation in the prosperous Twin Cities suburb of Roseville. The standard Lutheran hymn books sit in the racks in front of the pews, but the people at this service aren't using them. Instead, they sway to a simple, repetitive hymn projected on a screen at the front of the church. Their arms are raised overhead, palms upward, waving from side to side in an ancient gesture of prayer. The effect is slow and dreamy, as though the scene is underwater and the arms are sea plants waving in the current on the ocean floor. Then, as if on cue, first one, then many, begin to sing in tongues.

OUT 14:10 - hymn goes to singing in tongues. bring up full, hold till near the end. then fade down under and lose under next actuality.

Like the others who are here, John Kepple believes that the ability to speak in tongues is only one of a number of supernatural gifts from God. Others include healing, prophecy, telling good from evil spirits, and interpreting tongues. Sometimes Kepple stands up in church and speaks in a burst of tongues. Another member interprets what he says. Believers regard this as a communication from God.

OUT (KEPPLE.b it's supposed) Well it's supposed to be a message for the church, and I'm fighting with myself should I really do this so I say something like, "Lord, give me the first two syllables," and he'll give me "tee coo," or something like that and it goes on from there.

(Losure: What do you think when you hear the interpretation?)

Well, I think, wow! is that what he said, through me? You know, fantastic. Marvelous!

Just as Kepple sees God directing his life, he believes other forces are at work as well. He encounters them often, for example, when he answers phone calls on a local prayer hotline.

OUT (KEPPLE.b you get calls) You get calls from everything you can imagine, somebody's got a sick cat, or somebody can't sleep, or the neighbor's got demons or it just goes on and on and on; or they're under attack . I talked to a lady one time whose dad was from Jamaica and she was into voodoo; he put a curse on her. (edit)29:42 But I said I can break this curse if you want me to try. So I came against this curse and I broke it in the name of Jesus and I could see in the back of my head firecrackers going off: boom boom boom, and I said hey, something happened there, and she said "I know it did," and she said "I'm free!" and I said terrific, praise the Lord. That's all she needed. Away she went.

OUT (HEALING longer) quick fade up healing service. (loud tongue speaking) The spirit of God is moving here. Say I received life, I received health, every judgment that is against me, I now break. (fade down and run under, bring up after copy)

Back at the Lutheran church, when the tongue singing is over, a woman kneels at the altar rail, hoping to be healed of an illness she believes is caused by evil forces. Her voice quavers as a visiting minister prays with her, casting off the evil.

OUT spirit of death, bondage, spirit of infirmity I say come off of me woman repeats after him. And I say I break your curse, in the name of Jesus

(Tongue speaking, Fade down under next paragraph.)

To an outsider, it's unsettling to hear people babbling incomprehensibly, casting out demons and breaking curses. Speaking in tongues is strange, and it's easy to suspect people who do it are a bit crazy. For years, scientists believed speaking in tongues was pathological, because they observed it largely in mental patients. But in the 1960s, tongue speaking began to spread into mainstream denominations such as the Catholics, the Episcopalians, and the Lutherans, and scientists began to take a second look at the idea that tongue speakers were mentally ill. Dr. John Kildahl a New York City-based psychologist and theologian, researched the issue for the Lutheran Church and for the National Institute of Mental Health.

OUT (KILDAHL we did a study) 4:06 We did a study of a fairly large number of tongue speakers and equated them as best we could with equally religious people who were not tongue speakers. And fortunately we found out that on average their mental health was equal in both groups.

Other research supports Kildahl's findings. One study even compared tongue speakers who handle live snakes in Appalachia to a group of Rotarians. It found on the whole, the snake handlers scored better on psychological tests than the Rotarians did.

Ruling out mental illness as a motivation for tongue speaking, Kildahl's study examined other psychological explanations - for example, the need for approval and acceptance. Kildahl says the great joy that believers feel the first time they speak in tongues is due to approval from other tongue speakers - a select group of people who believe they have been blessed by a special sign from God.

OUT (KILDAHL when you believe): 9:02 When you believe that God has singled you out to do this very unusual and special thing, why just think of the best compliment you ever heard in your life, from the most treasured mentor that you can recall; I mean you felt relaxed and wonderful.

Other studies have looked at the phenomenon of tongue speaking itself, rather than the motivation behind it. Some studies have shown glossolalia, as scientists call speaking in tongues, is simply a learned skill. For example, researchers taught a group of college students to speak in tongues by playing them tapes of tongue speaking. Canadian linguist William Samarin says there's nothing extraordinary about glossolalia; it's simply a meaningless, largely random series of syllables.

(OUT SAMARIN.b there can't be) There can't be anything spiritual in the phenomenon itself, because the phenomenon itself is simply verbalization. It's not more religious than a brick, or a piece of bread, or a glass of wine, or anything. However, you can MAKE something religious out of it, and this is what Pentecostalists have done.

OUT (DRUMS and rattle) (Ga spirit tape)(drums and rattle. crossfade with voice and rattle, (SFX GA SPIRIT #1) crossfade with Ghana shout (GA SPIRIT#2).

OUT( GOODMAN.b the problem is)20:18 The problem is, the scientist has all his tools and all his approaches developed only for ordinary reality, and so feels threatened if somebody tells him that there is another part of reality, which those people who speak in tongues have experienced.

Felicitas Goodman is a scientist herself - a linguist and anthropologist based in Ohio. She believes there IS something extraordinary about glossolalia, which is found in religious rituals around the world.

OUT (GOODMAN.b field Ghana) This is fieldwork done by an American anthropologist and he gave me this tape. It is Ghana spirit mediums giving what amounts to a divination session.

(GA SPIRIT #2 full up then fade under and crossfade with YORUBA VOICE)

OUT Glossolalia is widespread, found all over the world, but it is not always explained the same way. You will have someone speaking a language and he says it is the language of the spirits, or it is the secret language of the medicine people.

Siberian shamans, Trobriand islanders in the South Pacific, yanomamo Indians of the Amazon, and many other groups practice glossolalia. Goodman thinks people who speak in tongues during religious rituals enter an altered state of consciousness - what is often called a trance. She theorizes that the glossolalia itself is a product of the trance. Drumming, singing, and shouting help people enter the trance. She saw it often during many years of field work among tongue-speaking congregations in Mexico.

(MEXICO gloss 1)Bring up under previous voice, crossfade after next cut w/ MEXICO gloss 2

OUT (GOODMAN.b the fieldwork, village) 52:06 The fieldwork for this recording was done in a village in northern Yucatan. The people use rhythmic stimulation in order to get into the ecstatic trance. People clap but mainly they shout "seal me, seal me," which in Spanish is "sejame, sejame".

(sfx. clapping, sejame sejame)

OUT (GOODMAN.b they themselves) They themselves consider it a sign that the holy spirit has arrived if their language changes, this is what they hope to accomplish. As an observer I can see that they are in a highly aroused ecstatic trance because they're perspiring profusely, their face becomes red, among the women there is a lot of tear flow, they move very rapidly up and down, and the entire motion pattern indicates they are not in the ordinary state of consciousness.

Tongue speakers from the Mexican congregation told Goodman about feeling warm rain on their shoulders, or seeing white lights around them when they spoke in tongues. Scientists who have studied trances describe changes in the chemistry of the brain that produce a powerful feeling of joy, what mystics call a sweetness. Goodman herself experienced "the sweetness" during her fieldwork .

OUT (GOODMAN.b I leaned) I leaned against the wall of the church - I had set up my tape recorder and was just basically waiting for things to start. I remembered that when I was a little girl in the Lutheran church in my hometown in the Hungarian part of Rumania, that we were taught a little prayer, saying something like: I am here now and please Lord be with me; something like that. As I remembered that instance I was gone. What I saw was that I was in a kind of an enclosure or a cave and the light was orange. I saw an orange waterfall of light that tumbled downwards, and on the waterfall there were letters tumbling down upside-down. All of a sudden I came to, and I wrote into by field notes, "Now I know what joy is." I had never experienced that kind of unearthly sweet joy before.

Human beings throughout time and across the world have sought altered states of consciousness. They use many means, including fasting, painful self-flagellation, great fatigue, drugs, meditation and prayer.

OUT (GOODMAN.b what is so powerful) What is so powerful about speaking in tongues is that instead of being a belief system it's an experience, and people experience it with their bodies. (edit) . . .And this is what changes people; this is so why they are so adamant about the importance of their experience, and this is what propels the Pentecostal movement around the globe.

(out: drumbeat faint ,then louder, then tambourine picking up rhythm of revival tent music, fade into revival tent music.)

No single theory can explain tongue speaking, but its rapid spread today does make one thing clear: the ancient desire of human beings to beat on drums; to sing and shout; to make contact with something outside the rational world is not dead in modern secular society. There is still a longing for signs and wonders and miracles.

Music; oh, magnify the Lord. full up , fade out under credits.


Credits: "Signs and Wonders" was written and produced by Mary Losure, and edited and mixed by Stephen Smith. Senior editors were Melanie Sommer and Mike Edgerly. The program is a production of Minnesota Public Radio and first aired on MPR news and information stations in May, 1996.