Speaking in Tongues Is Viewed By Psychologist as "Learned"

 By Edward B. Fiske Special to The New York Times, Jan. 21, 1974

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19—John P. Kildahl, a clinical psychologist and professor at New York Theological Seminary, said here today that the Pentecostal practice of speaking in tongues constituted “learned behavior.”

He rejected assertions by Pentecostal Christians that the practice, also known as glossolalia, was inherently spiritual and said that its religious significance depended entirely upon how it was used.

Speaking in tongues, “often brings a sense of power ‘and well‐being,” he said, but it can also “lead to excesses resulting in community disruption.”

“The use of glossolalia determines whether it is constructive or not,” he declared. “I hope that the practice. of glossolalia will be conducted in the context of what Micah called true religion: doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.”

Dr., Kildahl was one of the major speakers at a two‐day conference on the charismatic renewal movement at the Washington National Cathedral (Episcopal). Some 1,500 persons attended. Co‐sponsors were the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, the National Presbyterian Center and the Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church.

Some 250,000 Adherents

The charismatic renewal, neo‐Pentecostal, movement has attracted an estimated total 250,000 adherents in the last few years in the Catholic and major Protestant churches, including the Episcopal Church.

Members stress Bible study, close personal relationships, emotion in worship, and experiences of the Biblical “gifts of the Spirit,” such as prayer, prophecy, spiritual healing and speaking in tongues. The latter is a practice in which an individual, often seemingly in state of ecstasy, utters sounds that seem like a foreign language.

Dr. Kildahl, an ordained Lutheran clergyman and former chief psychologist at the Lutheran Medical Center Brooklyn, recently published study of glossolalia undertaken with a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

In his address, he said that on the basis of his research and extensive correspondence with charismatic Christians appeared that five elements were normally present ‘When someone began speaking in tongues. These are a “magnetic” relationship with a group leader, a sense of personal distress, an “intense emotional atmosphere,” a supporting group, and the prior learning of a rationale of its religious significance.

In the case of people who begin to speak in tongues when they are alone, he said “these five conditions have been present in the days or weeks preceding the initial experience.”

The situations of personal distress preceding the initial experience of glossnlalia, he continued, often involve “a fundamental shaking of one's personal and professional identity, with the loss of meaning and purpose for one's existence.

“The onset of glossolalia then becomes a focus for one's life, with a sense of dependence on that experience, almost as a reason for one's being. Psychologically, it appears at times that glossolalia serves as the central confirming experience of one's existence:

Intensification of Faith

Dr. Kildahl, who teaches pastoral psychology at the seminary, said that the experience frequently leads to “greater intensity” of religious faith. “However nebulous it may be to Measure,” he said, “it appears that most glossolalists evidence a greater love for mankind than before their tongues experience.”

He added, however, that he had also observed “negative fruits,” notably a “mechanistic” dependency on a leader, arrogance, elitism and “rather histrionic displays of emotion and behavior.”

Dr. Kildahl said that speaking in tongues was a “neutral” experience that had been reported in nonreligious contexts and that any spiritual significance depended entirely upon how it was interpreted and used. “If it edifies and contributes to love, then it may be a religious sign,” he said. “But it is certainly not uniquely the result of God intervening in human speech.”

Other speakers during the conference disagreed with Dr. Kildahl. The Rev. Dennis Bennett, rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Seattle, for instance, denied that glossolalia was any kind of “psychological trick.”

“Why is it so strange that if God lives in me He should give me the power to talk in words beyond my understanding?” he asked.

The conference ended with a liturgy marked by speaking and singing in tongues.