Can People Learn to Speak in Tongues?

The first time I ever heard anyone “speak in tongues”, defined as a seemingly miraculous occurrence of speaking in a language they had never learned, it did indeed appear miraculous as the person began speaking in tongues spontaneously with only minimal encouragement from others who were praying with them. That was in 1968 at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle. I was 15 years old.

Decades later, around 2003, I listened to a Pentecostal Catholic priest not just encouraging others to speak in tongues but actually instructing them in how to do it, and also modeling this behavior by speaking in tongues himself. This experience suggested that speaking in tongues (also known as glossolalia) may, at least in some cases, be a learned behavior. Motivated by this suggestion, I went searching for any scientific evidence one way or the other. Thus, I came upon this experiment confirming that speaking in tongues can indeed be learned.

This confirmation does not mean that all instances of speaking in tongues are learned of course. Some such instances could be miraculous: as far as I know, there is no way to prove they are not.

Abstract

Sixty 18–44 yr old undergraduates listened to a 60-sec sample of glossolalia (defined to them as pseudolanguage) and then attempted to produce glossolalia on a 30-sec baseline trial. Afterward, half of the Ss received 2 training sessions that included audio- and videotaped samples of glossolalia interspersed with opportunities to practice glossolalia. Also, live modeling of glossolalia, direct instruction, and encouragement were provided by an experimenter. Both the trained Ss and untreated controls attempted to produce glossolalia on a 30-sec posttest trial. About 20% of Ss exhibited fluent glossolalia on the baseline trial, and training significantly enhanced fluency. 70% of trained Ss spoke fluent glossolalia on the posttest. Findings are more consistent with social learning than with altered state conceptions of glossolalia.

Citation

Spanos, N. P., Cross, W. P., Lepage, M., & Coristine, M. (1986). Glossolalia as learned behavior: An experimental demonstration. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95(1), 21–23.

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