Abstract

The High Church Heresy

The article presents information on Christian practice of glossolalia. Religious historians, barely mentioned about it before the seventeenth century, when it had a vogue in France. The theological panic about glossolalia may give the impression that it is manifested by cackling, or gurgling, or shouting across the moors, or all of these, combined with convulsions and foaming at the mouth. However-at least in the "high Pentecostal and middleclass Protestant denominations - glossolalia usually emerges in a pleasant, undulating, open-voweled speech. Sometimes it sounds like calypso singing. It is considered a way of praising Jesus. Usually the head is bowed and the eyes are closed when the non-words push out: then the face turns sky-ward and after some moments looks washed clean both of pain and of the elation usually associated with earthly enjoyment.