Illusions

Old Age Deceptions

Old Age Deceptions

There was a time I was heavily intrigued by the use of magic. I watched numerous fantasy movies keen to understand how magicians create illusions. One website stated that any magic was based on a simple trick. Fast forward, I was watching this TikTok comedy skit, where a black comedian dials 911. The voice sounded like Katt Williams who cracks me up every time. The caller told the 911 operator that he had started seeing sounds and hearing colours. The 911 operator attempted to understand the caller asking him to state his location and his reason for calling. The caller reverted to gibberish, using unpronounceable words to communicate. The caller went on for a while and it was too funny. I am reminded of this TikTok video, as I passed by my street. There is a church close by where a male voice could be heard speaking in tongues. I listened to the words and they rhymed with words used to pray, but to me the words were plenty gibberish. It got me to question this whole speaking in tongue thing.

Some years ago, as a new college student I got to visits from various Christian missionaries who were quick to recruit us freshmen to their various churches within the college. I noticed that most of the Pentecostal-based church organizations were big on ‘speaking in tongues.’ I got intrigued by it. I had grown up attending the Catholic church, where such a thing was never witnessed. However, there was a Pentecostal church in our neighbourhood, who held night prayer meetings characterised by loud cheerful singing, accompanied by drumming, and praying in tongues. One of my classmates went to that church and I always pestered her to teach me drumming, which she was particularly good at. Now I was in Campus and no one would prevent me from sampling the myriads of Faiths at my disposal. I quickly accepted the calls to salvation, where I was ‘born again’ several times within my first semester. A particular group from an international church organization based in Nigeria, visited our halls every Friday. I let them know of my desire to wade deeper into the spiritual waters and pray in tongues. They held my hands got into silent praying and asked me to wait for the holy spirit to pour that particular gift in me. They said it was easy and all I had to do was believe. I closed my eyes tightly and waited, swinging slightly as I felt a lit unbalanced (up to date every time I close my eyes while standing, I felt unbalance. Perhaps, I should see a doctor on that). Unfortunately, the gift never flowed in me. One of the ladies asked to me be patient as God gives the gift to some people and not others. To my surprise, one of my roommates, who had shown no interest in the prayers, was able to mumble some few words. She was elated and I grew jealous of her since. We would later join the college’s Christian Union, where my friend’s gift was enhanced. She would speak in tongues at almost every prayer meeting. She was elected our year representative to the Christian Union as she was deeply spiritual, thanks to her new gift. Mind you, I did not want the leadership position, I just wanted to be perceived as deeply spiritual by the other beloved fellowship members. Appearances have always mattered to me.

Fast forward into our third year, my friend confessed to us that the whole speaking in tongue was a pretence. She just memorised what the other prayerful people said, mixed it with her own creative gibberish and she was good to go. We had laughed our head off and practised some gibberish to each other, careful not to anger the holy spirit, lest we be struck dead. Now that I recall that incident, I can clearly hear the gibberish words being spawn about by the male voice in the neighbourhood church. Could he be making up his own gibberish to keep up appearances like my college friend, or was this fellow practicing his gift of ‘speaking in tongues’? Well, I guess we will never know, but if it true that every illusion is based on a simple trick, then ‘’speaking in tongues’’ could be very well likely be based on gibberish, which is an old age trick. You just have to get creative like the 911 caller, and remember to stick to the right intonation. If you get stuck somewhere you could just mime or sing in hushed tone and you are home.

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