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I can't remember learning to SIT, just like I can't remember learning to walk or talk. I must have just picked it up when I was very small. During children's fellowships, there was an unspoken game to fake it. You got caught. It was funny. Children can tell who's faking Speaking in Tongues. As I grew older the more I resented it. I hated it. I would break a sweat in Fellowship at the idea of manifestations. When it came to manifestations, I'd rather be hit with a spoon. There's something twisted about Speaking in Tongues, or telling yourself some higher power giving you this ability. Since the feeling is subjective, nobody has reason to take your doubts seriously.

Oh, really?! So where are the places it says in the bibical text, "God can only give that which He is, which is Spirit." Or is it you, like Saint Vic, reading something in the text that isn't there? Everybody repeat after me: Add to the Word of God and you no longer have the Word of God.

Phenomena was often wheeled out as a handy dandy off-ramp, even though Wierwille taught in the Advanced Class that God only used it as a last resort when there was no one "in fellowship" enough to receive revelation. By sheer logic, this alone disqualifies his snowstorm story. Unless, of course, you're open to accepting he was out of fellowship at the time. Not good either way.

I think what struck me most about his accounts were that he viewed love as an action verb. Instead of a passing feeling, he was more about the transformative effect of love to change a person for the better. All of his definitions fit very well within what a parole board is looking for, as well as his good works. I’m sure that his environment shaped his understanding. I usually only pick up one main idea I carry away with me from a book I read mostly. In this case it was the transformative quality of love. VPW was a rationalization looking for an excuse. I’m sure he marginalized sin. I don’t pick up the same vibe from Starrs book but that’s me.

In my HS church youth group a guy who was a year older and a mentor to me went to an Oral Robert’s evangelistic meeting. There he spoke in tongues for the first time. He came home and privately led me according to how he was taught. I did it. It was just praying and doing it not all the speech mechanics BS. This led me to search for people with knowledge about it. I would say at least half the pastors in my denomination did not believe in it or do it. My home church pastor had a Tuesday night prayer meeting where people did SIT and interpretation but it was another person interpreting not the directive for the same person to interpret. I still feel that is a more accurate handling of it than TWI. When I met the TWI folks they talked up SIT so much that it impressed me as they actually knew about it. The pastor I was working with then did not. So I decided to take PFAL over his objections. All the logic of mechanical instruction didn’t get to me because I had already done it. So some curiosity over gifts of the spirit and a false display of scriptural knowledge on it hooked me into TWI for all of my youth. Since leaving TWI and thru some of our debate type discussions here I came to the inevitable conclusion that it is easily faked. For that reason I have just relegated it to my private prayer life and don’t make a big deal about it. It’s just a form of prayer. Other things matter more.

The people who witnessed to me proceeded to have a believers meeting right then and there, so I was exposed to it from the start. I had never heard anything about it before that. However, I had taken some acting classes and had heard people imitate foreign languages. I went to a couple of twig fellowships and saw more believers meetings. About a week later, I had a rather emotional personal experience and, while I was by myself, I spoke in tongues out loud. Then, at the next twig meeting, the person leading the meeting asked for someone to speak in tongues and interpret, so I did. It drew some rather puzzled responses. I hadn't had the class yet. I'm not sure if I even had a Bible. I took the class maybe 2 or 3 weeks after that. (It was over 50 years ago, so my memory may be foggy on the details.) I'm currently a casual language learner. It's really opened my eyes to the complexities of human communication. I no longer think of speaking in tongues as anything mystical or spiritual or however you care to phrase it. It's just something you can do if you lower your inhibitions. .

I never followed wierwilles instructions on speaking in tongues. Once I saw it in scripture I decided to give it a whirl. It happened instatanesously. Im more than willing to submit a sample to a language expert at any point in time. I wanna know for myself...nothing to prove to GSC.

Oh, and since, sometimes, there's people who fog an issue by misplacing where the burden of proof lies in a discussion, there's a thread on Burden of Proof- https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/24437-burden-of-proof/

In the Skepticism was "Questioning SIT". https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/23944-questioning-sit/ Also in Doctrinal was "I Cot. 12-14". https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/23207-i-cor-12-14/ In "About the Way" was "SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confusion" https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/23184-sit-tip-prophecy-and-confession/ as well as "SIT, Interpretation Prophecy and Confession, Reboot" https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/24198-sit-interpretation-prophecy-and-confession-reboot/ All discussed here, by people familiar with twi and its terms and jargon.

A.A. Twelve Steps step 4-10. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.