Speaking in Tongues with Josh Brahinsky

Summary

Psychological anthropologist Josh Brahinsky explains what happens in the brain when Pentecostal Christians speak in tongues, drawing on EEG and MRI studies of nearly 100 practitioners. His research found that moments of surrender to God, which participants call "dropping in," reduce activity in the brain's motor planning and executive control regions and increase creative thinking. He argues this loosening of the mind is powerful enough to inspire social activism on both the left and the right, from the 1906 Azusa Street Revival to modern conservative movements.

Key takeaways

• 1Brahinsky's book is 'Tongues of Fire: How Charismatic Prayer Changes Evangelical Brains and Inspires Spirit-Filled Activism'; he is affiliated with Stanford University and McGill University
• 2About 500 million people worldwide belong to Pentecostal or charismatic churches; Catholics began speaking in tongues in 1968
• 3In an EEG study of 66 people, prayer blocks with more surrender to God produced higher creativity (divergent thinking) scores than blocks with less surrender, whether or not participants spoke in tongues
• 4MRI scans showed reduced activity in the pre-supplementary motor area during speaking in tongues; EEG showed frontal alpha reduction and increased brain complexity during 'drop-in' moments
• 5The 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles brought Black and white worshippers together under women leaders and inspired critiques of Gilded Age inequality
• 6Pastor Siobhan Gartrell spoke in tongues silently in an MRI and afterward delivered 'words from God' to a research assistant; host Jeffrey Mishlove proposed similar brain studies of remote viewers, a practice pioneered at the Stanford Research Institute

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

People who are speaking in tongues or even just surrendering in prayer will describe an emotional experience of release, releasing emotions, releasing thoughts, feeling and then thinking new thoughts. And so that's sort of step one, at least in our research, was like looking at the surrender of it and saying, oh, that's really interesting. You're saying you're taking a thought and you're giving it to God, right? Or you're saying that you can let go and your emotions all come bubbling up. And actually, it was amazing because we did brain measures, right? We put people in EEGs and we had them do these prayer practices. We'd be like, speak in tongues for eight minutes. And some of them would just cry for eight minutes. They would stop when we, you know, the beep would say stop. They would stop. And then they would fill out the little form which said, you know, how good was it? How much did you connect to God? And how did you feel in different ways? And at that point, they'd stop crying and they're filling out the forms. They would tell us a little bit about it. Then they would go back into prayer for eight minutes and they would cry for the next eight minutes. Keep watching to learn more. The New Thinking Allowed magazine issue 10 on UFOs and UAP is now ready for free download. And you can also order beautiful printed copies. Go to newthinkingallowed.org. New Thinking Allowed is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body, and spirit. The topics that we cover here, we are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal visit their website at CIHS.edu. ...

Excerpt from New Thinking Allowed, Oct 19, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.