Celestial Song
Glossolalia is considered as the prototype of the elements as mysterious as irrational, guaranteeing believers’ fascination for Pentecostal charismatic cults. However, our field observations in Reunion Island led us to qualify this representation : beyond the apparently anarchical nature of this phenomenon, standards and codes are associated with it. Hence, we show the influence played by the religious and organizational context on these individual ecstatic experiences. To do so, we compare three groups in Reunion Island : Pentecostal, Charismatic Catholic and Charismatic Evangelical. For each group, we proceed in an original way by studying the musical pattern of glossolalia. We place upstream these sound interventions in the context of their utterance. We connect them downstream with the dogmatic approach carried by each religious group. The differences found between these groups highlight a plurality of « celestial songs ». In the disorderly state in which the glossolalete seems to forget himself, this multiplicity allows to see how his cultural and religious tradition still interferes to influence his behavior.