MC: After due consultation they've advised me to stop using minidiscs because they don't like them as much. They like tapes. I have no clue why.
My intuitive response: the electro-magnetic properties of the medium. Although I know next to nothing about the science of it, I’d be willing to lay money.
Z. deScathach: By allowing free-form feelings to come through in the form of disassociated sound, they may be "relaxing" your communication channels.
Gypsy Lantern: When they're speaking through you, do you only get a sense of the communication coming through the actual language? If you're aware of any physical/ intuitive/ syneasthetic component to the dialogue, something non-verbal that is nonetheless a form of communication, then perhaps you could use that as a road map to deciphering the language you're channelling. I think a lot of spirit communication seems to happen at this non-verbal level, like the spirit equivalent of body language, so if you can tune into that it might give you a handle on understanding the verbal component.
MC: Or it might be that there is no message as I would understand it, that the process of making the sounds or the sounds themselves is designed to create a healing effect. I'm very language-logic oriented, so my immediate response is to try and decipher words, meaning; in this instance, though, that could be a red herring.
My experience of tongues has been very much along the lines of the three excerpts above. I hope some of this helps, I don’t know exactly how much of my experience will map across and prove relevant:
I’ve been doing tongues for at least the last fifteen years or so. It’s extremely common in the kind of Charismatic church in which I grew up, and it manifests in a number of ways. The apparently unintelligible stuff is by far the most common, and isn’t always in the form of seeming gibberish – it can be a sigh, or a primal scream; there’s a huge range of intonation and expression. Far less common is speaking a known human language of which the speaker has no conscious knowledge (I’ve only known a few accounts of this, mainly from overseas missionaries, once from a friend who spoke fluent German and knew that the person he was speaking to didn’t).
Tongues are intuitive and completely tied into the physiological manifestation of emotional states (although it’s probably a lot more than that). While language severs you from experience in order to describe it, tongues allows the speaker to speak directly, without separation. It provides pretty much instant release for the emotions, blockages, pain, as it clears the channels in you in the act of utterance.
For example, I was in a great deal of confusion, distress and pain over the weekend. On Sunday I took four hours out to pray, drum, meditate and speak in tongues. I went freeform for around three-quarters of an hour, which is when most of the emotional knots seemed to get massaged and released. This isn’t an isolated experience. Tongues always works for me, usually in a matter of a split second from when I first open my mouth. I often wander around not realising that I’m doing it. I can’t do without it.
It is possible to translate tongues. However, the translation process is as intuitive as the speaking process! This is a spirit language, and it obeys different rules to a human language. The best way I can describe it is to use a bit of Grant Morrison shorthand: speaking in tongues is to human language what spheres are to circles. Whenever you translate a tongue, you’ll get a cross section through the sphere, and you’ll need several of these cross-sections to form an approximate map to recreate the meaning.
The best way to do this is to get together with a group of people. Whether they’re magically inclined may or may not make any difference (if they are you’ll need to explain a little less!). I’ve practised this quite a lot in spiritual gifts workshops in church, and it gets pretty amazing results. The way we did it was to stand in a circle, and have one person at random speak in tongues. Then people are chosen at random from around the circle to provide an interpretation. In my experience this was done by a group leader pointing at people: you, speak! You, interpret! Now you interpret! That kind of thing. Each tongue had about three or four interpretations, which we then compared and contrasted, finding that they would slot together in surprising ways, nearly always complementary.
If you’re wondering how to run the interpretation element, just say the first thing that comes into your head, and trust what comes. Your ability to pick up nuances and increased amount of content will come from regular meditation and paying attention to your own speaking in tongues and kinaesthetic emotional responses. Practise. My gut says you’ll probably get a better response if everyone is present together at the time the tongue is uttered, but you might get decent responses from emailing an MP3 or posting tapes to trusted friends.
The following is a rough technique for how to learn to speak in tongues. I just made it up, so it may need to be refined (I’ll update in separate posts if I think of anything). I’ve used NLP terminology, hopefully you’ll be able to see the positive stuff within the jargon, but just ask if you have any questions. I’ve done it this way to separate it from the Christian context in which I learned, as I want to allow for some of you who may have issues in that area (although you may have more issues with NLP!). Anyone who wants a Christian context, just ask. Hopefully it’s not teaching anyone how to suck eggs.
1 – Identify the meta-kinaesthetic state that you wish to unblock or release, and build a complete sensory representation of that state. Meta-kinaesthetic is a term used to describe an emotion, because it describes the way in which we sort kinaesthetic data into specific categories. As an example from my experience, the meta-kinaesthetic state of confusion typically manifests as a wealth of kinaesthetic sensations located in my gut (probably due to the neurology of my digestive system, how successfully or unsuccessfully I am metabolising my experience). The term “confusion” is a descriptor of this data.
Building the sensory representation is much easier than it sounds, and involves listing the submodalities attached to the state. Submodalities are the individual building blocks of sensory experience, its structure. For example, the meta-kinaesthetic state I describe as “confusion” typically manifests as dark matter moving with aimless sluggishness with no easily definable edge in my gut area, almost like globules of increased viscosity roaming without a discernable pattern in a dark (like a murky brown) viscous fluid. I experience this churning sensation accompanied by the quiet babbling of voices, just outside of my ability to hear what is being said.
From this list, the submodalities could be listed as:
Kinaesthetic: located in the gut, viscous, sluggish, apparently aimless roaming, churning, globules.
Visual: murky brown, dark
Auditory: quiet, babbling, indiscernible.
There are huge numbers of submodality distinctions. For visual, you could ask if the representation is in colour or black and white; are the edges fuzzy or clearly defined; are the colours saturated or pale and washed out; is there a border or frame, or are the edges indistinct? For kinaesthetic; where is the feeling located; is it cold or cold; hard or soft; is there a light or heavy pressure? For auditory, is the sound close or far away; high or low pitch; clear or muffled; balanced in mono or stereo? It’s good to ask in such binary pairings to avoid feeding words to your experience, as it might manifest in accordance with your question as if it were a hypnotic command. Experience is hella plastic!
This sensory map will come in handy later. Notice if any of it changes in the act of cataloguing the various submodalities – your action as observer may have an immediate effect, especially if you focus your attention onto a different sensory channel. Often you can get amazing results from this kind of work simply by asking, “now that you have paid attention to what it looks like, how has the feeling changed?” Of course, the question is loaded because it presupposes a change in feelings. But I digress…
2 – Establish a relationship. Say hello to the meta-kinaesthetic state. You may not even have a name for it, or know why it is there. Notice the difference after you have said “hello.” This may be a part of yourself that you’ve never paid attention to, and it might not be instantly amenable to a relationship as a result! If you get nothing as a result, ask yourself, “what kind of nothing am I experiencing?” It’s highly unlikely that you can fluke yourself into a state of pure nothingness: people have been training themselves in meditation for years without being able to achieve that. Almost invariably you can push that question until a rich response is evoked (the last person who told me they had nothing actually had a yawning black chasm which trapped all light and sound. The really interesting question is whether this chasm would have existed at all had I not asked the question which presupposed that the nothing could be described, but I digress again). If you like, ask it, “What is your positive intention in being this way?” and notice the differences after asking. It’s a good rule of thumb to assume that every meta-kinaesthetic state has something positive it’d like to bring you (which may or may not be true, but notice the results you get if you act as though it’s true). Or you could ask, “Would you have any objections if I allowed you to speak through me?” It’s another good rule of thumb to secure agreement from yourself before you do any technique like this (common sense if you’ve done any shamanic work – honour everything you build a relationship with).
3 – Allow utterance. Set your intention to allow that part of yourself to speak, and focus yourself in that area, with your attention on the sensory representation you have created. Give permission to that part to speak, and turn over control of your voice. Notice what comes. Relinquishing conscious control may require practise. If it helps, realise that your heart, gut and genitals all have their own highly advanced neurology, and recent studies suggest that they may have their own forms of consciousness. These parts of you may literally think (which we’ve previously known metaphorically: “My gut tells me,” “I feel it in my womb,” “Thinking with his dick,” “What does your heart tell you?”).
Trust what comes. It may manifest in many different ways, and they may surprise you. It may appear to have grammar and syntax, it may appear structured, it may not. Simply trust what comes, accept it, suspend judgement, suspend analysis. Let it go on for as long as it feels natural – it’ll act as if it has a mind of it’s own, trust it’s judgement in this respect. You’re just surfing it as far as the wave will take you. You may never understand what has been said. Understanding is not important. The effect on your experience is what’s important.
4 – Notice the difference. This is where your sensory model, built from the list of submodalities, will come in extremely useful. Having fully represented the meta-kinaesthetic state to yourself, you can notice with far greater precision when it starts to change, and how it starts to change.
I find the change comes as soon as I start giving utterance to whichever part of myself needs it. It’s instant. From memory, the viscous fluid associated with my confusion began to rise from my gut into my chest, up my windpipe and out of my mouth, lightening and becoming less viscous the further it rose, becoming directed in motion, the voices becoming whispers directly into my ear as opposed to being sounds from my gut area. Maybe if I’d wanted to pay attention I could have heard what they were saying, but as I said, the important thing is to experience rather than understand.
You may have a very different experience. You might sigh, or wail, or cry, or laugh, or need to physically move (it might want to control other parts of you!). Do whatever feels right, and give yourself over to it until it’s run its course. Trust it and don’t be afraid (you might want to have a trusted friend or more experienced person with you when you do this).
5 – Build a new representational model of the new meta-kinaesthetic state that has arisen, using exactly the same procedure from step 1. You may find an increased feeling of peace, joy, well-being, wholeness, etc. List the submodalities of these states, then compare and contrast it with the initial feelings. You might want to list exactly how the submodalities changed, if you were consciously aware of the process while uttering the tongue. It can be really helpful to know whether certain submodalities work well for you (I find that blue and gold work wonders for me, so if I’m feeling down I either look for blue and gold or add some colourful tints to what I can see. Don’t ask me how it works, I could theorise all day).
You might also want to check in with the part of yourself that manifested the emotion in the first place, to ask how it is now, simply to build an ongoing relationship with yourself (which I highly recommend). You may have some ritual you perform to banish or gain closure, or you may have something you want to do to honour the experience. You may want to journal it.
I hope that’s helpful. I’ll post if it occurs to me that I’ve left something out. Let me know if anything’s unclear or if you have any questions.
If it’s not already clear, this is one of my favourite favourite favourite things! |
