Faking the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

It has unfortunately become common place for many people to fake some of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, specifically the "gift of tongues" and the "gift of prophecy". Whether the faking of them be out of the partially good desires of wanting to feel close to God, wanting to hear God, wanting to be helpful, and/or the selfish desires of wanting to appear holy in front of others and receive attention, even without being self-aware, or to use vulnerable or caring people in order to receive financial donations and fame.

The "Gifts of the Holy Spirit" cannot be controlled by the individual.  Therefore, when performed by command or on demand, both the "gift of prophecy" and the "gift of tongues" are being faked. 

Let's start with the "gift of prophecy".

According to the original Catholic Encyclopedia posted at newadvent.org, the "gift of prophecy" correctly strictly defined is "the foreknowledge and foretelling of future events, though it may sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memory, and to present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of reason."

Some on the internet, who I will not share here as to not give their pages traffic, have without authority, redefined the "gift of prophecy" as simply "hearing God speak".  This definition is over generalized and therefore false.  Hearing God speak is a basic reality that by itself doesn't make anyone a prophet.  We need to all be working on a close friendship with Jesus the Christ and the Holy Spirit in order to be open to hearing Him when He wishes to speak with us.

Many, who may be very well intentioned, simply confuse the "gift of prophecy" with the "gift of counsel".  They mistakenly label as the "gift of prophecy" being able to give good "counsel" to anyone when he or she wants to be helpful, or whenever a person comes to them in need. This confusion occurs because either someone else present or the person giving the "words of wisdom" or "words of counsel" will automatically declare they are receiving the information directly from the Holy Spirit in the good attempt to be humble and rightly give God the credit.  The counsel could very well be coming directly from God, or coming from a combination of the person's understanding and experiences related to the topic at hand guided by the Trinitarian God, which includes the Holy Spirit; as does all Truth. Either way, this is "the gift of counsel" and not the "gift of prophecy".

According to the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, the "prophesy" St Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 14 is to declare or expound on the mysteries of the faith, not to give counsel.  And major confusion is caused by bad Scriptural translations such as, but not limited to when the word "doctrine" is replaced by the word "instruction" regarding St. Paul's explanation of "prophesy".

Regarding the "gift of prophecy", fakeness occurs when anyone who believes themselves to have the "gift of prophecy" believes he or she will always receive a prophetic message(s) from the Holy Spirit any time he or she wants, or any time someone asks for his or her help, to be prayed over, or automatically at any size private or public spiritual event.  

This "gift of prophecy" by command or on demand, is fake, because no human controls when the Holy Spirit gives him or her a "prophetic message". This pressure the person puts on themselves to always receive a "prophetic message" any time there is a human in "need" or any time they are at a spiritual event, is based, at least in part, in the selfish prideful vanity of what others think and feel about him or her, including getting honored attention, whether the person is self-aware of this or not.  This will especially occur when the person is putting themselves under the psychological "performance pressure" to increase their popularity either among their peers, or to receive support be it financial or otherwise.

In addition, if you think demons can't "help" give so called "prophetic messages", consider yourself officially fooled.  A demon can give a fake prophet all the information he or she needs in order to seem to be prophetic...and not many, not even the so called prophet themselves would necessarily, automatically, know the difference.  

Why would a demon do this?  In order to feed the sins of pride and selfish using of the so called prophet. This is why it is imperative that everyone learns how to do proper Discernment of Spirits and thoroughly checks both the life style and personal level of functioning of any so called prophet before trusting them.  As St. Paul directly states in 1 Corinthians 14:29, 31, "Two or three prophets should speak, and the others discern." "For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged."

Now moving on to the "gift of tongues". In 1 Corinthians, Chapter 14, St. Paul puts an end to the misconceptions of "gift of tongues" as he states: 

"Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to believers, but to unbelievers; but prophecies not to unbelievers, but to believers." "If any speak with a tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and in course, and let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him hold his peace in the church, and speak to himself and to God." (1 Corinthians 14:22, 27-28) Douay-Rheims.

Therefore, "speaking in tongues" is being faked by people when: 

1. It is announced before hand that people should or are going to be experiencing it

2. The person expects it to happen

3. Most in the “room” are doing it / experiencing it

4. The person cannot interpret themselves, or there is no interpreter present

5. It happens most times the group gets together

6. There are No unbelievers in the room

7. Everyone in the room is told by the leader to begin doing so.

Faking "the gift of tongues" most frequently occurs by either self-imposed "psychological peer pressure" at charismatic meetings, spiritual retreats, "festivals of praise" (FOP), and either during or after what has been inappropriately renamed "charismatic masses". 

I have unfortunately even witnessed a priest faking speaking in tongues throughout performing the consecration during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And when the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was completed, he immediately went outside to smoke a cigarette.  How do I know the priest was faking speaking in tongues and why the association with his cigarette smoking? 

First, because it is a liturgical disobedience for a priest to speak in tongues during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Therefore the Holy Spirit would not be giving any priest that gift during this time. This is further proven by St. Paul's explanation previously quoted in this article where he says there needs to be an interpreter present interpreting, which should never be done during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  

Second, smoking is a vice.  A vice is always used to badly cope with suffering rather than: acceptance, taking it directly to Jesus for healing, and offering it up as a sacrifice. A vice is an addiction and vice versa. Anyone with an vice/addiction is committing idolatry with their addiction along with being obsessed by a demon and as a result, will not be sufficiently open to receiving any Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

If you have ever participated in or been tempted to participate in these types of public displays of faking the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, one way to prevent yourself from being fooled into faking them is to pray the following daily, whether you think you need to or not: 

Jesus I'm sorry I'm tempted to imitate others, please heal me, fill me with Your graces and virtues, show me Your Truth, and help me to only want to imitate You, Thank You Jesus.

Jesus I'm sorry I want to be and am worried about what others think and feel about me, please heal me, fill me with Your graces and virtues, show me Your Truth, and help me to only care what You think and feel about me, Thank You Jesus.

Jesus I'm sorry I'm afraid if being rejected, please heal me, fill me with Your graces and virtues, show me Your Truth, and help me to only care what You think and feel about me, Thank You Jesus.

Jesus I'm sorry I'm afraid of being ridiculed, please heal me, fill me with Your graces and virtues, show me Your Truth, and help me to only care what You think and feel about me, Thank You Jesus.

Jesus I'm sorry I'm afraid of being persecuted, please heal me, fill me with Your graces and virtues, show me Your Truth, give me Your grace to accept suffering, and help me to only care what You think and feel about me, Thank You Jesus.

Jesus please give me Your gift of Discernment and teach me how to do proper Discernment; Thank You Jesus.

Amen!