Slightly off topic, but the weirdest occurance I’ve ever seen happened in early 2001 when I visited my friend’s church, of the Charismatic persuasion.
There was a guest minister who prayed over people, shouting “fill, fill” and the people would drop to the ground laughing uncontrollably, my friend included. I was a bit frightened and stayed just outside the room where this took place. Some people were on the floor either laughing or passed out for over an hour. I think it was related to the Toronto Blessing phenomenon.
Naw.
The Toronto Blessing thing was a very late entry into the phenomenon. Scripture has some hints of such.
The closest I ever got to experiencing such was when I was a teen during a service with a particularly heavy PRESENCE of God . . . at one point in worshiping, my legs below my knees just quit working. I was standing near a pew so I just sat/fell down in my seat.
Lots of very heavily anointed folks have prayed for me over the years—this past week a very heavily anointed Bro . . . people fall right, left, front and back of me routinely. I never have. And I HATE folks pushing at me toward falling over when they pray over me. I want the real thing or nothing.
It’s not per se passing out. There’s usually some awareness of one’s surroundings. It’s more like the focus is so intense on God and what God is saying or imparting or sending into one’s spirit, body, mind . . . that the surrounding environment just fades to nothing as unimportant, by comparison.
Most folks are aware that they could stop the experience and get up—given the beauty and blessedness of their communion with God in that state—to stop it and get up prematurely, would be absurdly stupid.
We have a fellow in our congregation who busts out robustly laughing fairly routinely when Holy Spirit touches him. WE have a very generous attitude toward people’s individual expressions as they are experiencing and touching God and as He’s touching them—as long as there’s some decency and order to it all.
So the laughing fellow is just enjoyed for who he is and his relationship with God is a joy to behold.
Besides . . . given our humanness—when God touches us—there’s plenty laughable about it, normally.