Holy laughter is a term used within charismatic Christianity that describes a religious behaviour in which individuals spontaneously laugh during church meetings. It has occurred in many revivals throughout church history, but it became normative in the early 1990s in Neo-charismatic churches and the Third Wave of the Holy Spirit. Many people claimed to experience this phenomenon at a large revival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada known as the Toronto Blessing.
Though primarily found in Protestant churches, it was observed in some parts of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, as well.[7] The practice spread to the Association of Vineyard Churches, most notably to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship in 1994. Religious revival meetings at the church became very popular, drawing 75,000 visitors that year.[8] Many attendees at the meetings spent time laughing loudly while lying on the floor.[4]
Analysis
Leaders who have promoted holy laughter said the laughter was a result of joy that was supernaturally being given to people in the meetings.[9] They said the joy was often accompanied by miraculous healing and the cessation of depression.[10]Margaret Poloma of the University of Akron has described the events of the services as a ritual facilitation of catharsis.[11] Philip Richter of STETS has drawn a parallel between holy laughter and laughter yoga.[12]
Cimino, Richard P. (2001), Trusting the spirit: renewal and reform in American religion, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN978-0-7879-5160-3
Diamond, Sara (2000), Not by Politics Alone: The Enduring Influence of the Christian Right, Guilford Press, ISBN978-1-57230-494-9
Poloma, Margaret M. (2003), Main street mystics: the Toronto blessing and reviving Pentecostalism, Rowman Altamira, ISBN978-0-7591-0354-2
Richter, Philip (1996), Stanley E. Porter (ed.), The nature of religious language: a colloquium, Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN978-1-85075-580-7
Queen, Edward L.; Prothero, Stephen R.; Shattuck, Gardiner H. (2009), Encyclopedia of American religious history, Infobase Publishing, ISBN978-0-8160-6660-5