SNOW CRASH
The Babel/Infocalypse card is resting in the middle of his desk. Hiro picks it up. The Librarian comes in.
Hiro is about to ask the Librarian whether he knows that Lagos is dead. But it’s a pointless question. The Librarian knows it, but he doesn’t. If he wanted to check the Library, he could find out in a few moments. But he wouldn’t really retain the information. He doesn’t have an independent memory. The Library is his memory, and he only uses small parts of it at once.
“What can you tell me about speaking in tongues?” Hiro says.
“The technical term is ‘glossolalia,’” the Librarian says.
“Technical term? Why bother to have a technical term for a religious ritual?”
The Librarian raises his eyebrows. “Oh, there’s a great deal of technical literature on the subject. It is a neurological phenomenon that is merely exploited in religious rituals.”
“It’s a Christian thing, right?”
“Pentecostal Christians think so, but they are deluding themselves. Pagan Greeks did it-Plato called it theornania. The Oriental cults of the Roman Empire did it. Hudson Bay Eskimos, Chukchi shamans, Lapps, Yakuts, Semang pygmies, the North Borneo cults, the Trhi.speaking priests of Ghana. The Zulu Amandiki cult and the Chinese religious sect of Shang-ti-hui. Spirit mediums of Tonga and the Brazilian Umbanda cult The Tungus tribesmen of Siberia say that when the shaman goes into his trance and raves incoherent syllables, he learns the entire language of Nature.”
“The language of Nature.”
“Yes, sir. The Sukuma people of Africa say that the language is kinatuns, the tongue of the ancestors of all magicians, who are thought to have descended from one particular tribe.”
“What causes it?”
“If mystical explanations are ruled out, then it seems that glossolalia comes from structures buried deep within the brain, common to all people.”
“What does it look like? How do these people act?”
“C. W. Shumway observed the Los Angeles revival of 1906 and noted six basic symptoms: complete loss of rational control; dominance of emotion that leads to hysteria; absence of thought or will; automatic functioning of the speech organs; amnesia; and