In my early 20's I became involved with a Pentecostal Christian
church by way of my then in-laws. Most of the people there were
normal blue collar class folks, others were power hungry which
eventually led to my leaving.

Overall not an unpleasant experience, but still one that led to my
leaving organized religion behind. One of the things I witnessed
during that period of time was women supposedly speaking in tongues.
For those who don't know, and this is the explaination I got, speaking
in tongues is when an individual begins to speak fluently in a language
that they have never studied and have no history of knowing. Usually
this occured when the congregation would split into groups of ten or
so for prayer. This phenomena was accepted by this church to be a
visitation of the Holy Spirit manifested in language, supposedly Aramaic,
the language of their Christ.

I freaked me the hell out. These occurances were usually accompanied by
thrashing and eye rolling and seemed like put ons to me, calls for attention.
Almost like status symbols. " I'm so holy, watch this. "
Everyone else accepted these episodes as confirmation from God that they
were on the right track and He was pleased.

I honestly felt like many there knew it wasn't genuine but would rather
fool themselves than accept the truth and be denied their security blanket
against mortality.

Has anyone else seen this, first hand or documented otherwise ?
What are your opinions on the matter ?

Peace, RC.