The Jewish practice was to baptise with water - by total submission in running water. This was the way that John the Baptist is recorded as having baptised Jesus.
According the New Testament Jesus later did away with this traditional practice, and instituted baptism of the Spirit. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit, visible as tongues of fire, descended onto the heads of the disciples.
For reasons that are not altogether clear, the mainstream Church retained the old Jewish practice. The Orthodox Church still baptises by total imersion in running water, but the schismatic Roman Church deviated from this practice and now baptises in the familiar manner. A further innovation was to baptise infants, who could not possibly understand or consent to the ceremony.
For the Cathars, infant baptism with water was not merely unscriptural, it was an appanage of the bad god Jehovah, and had been expressly rejected by Christ.
Various modern Christian sects take a range views about the question of baptism, from Baptists who practice full immersion in water, to Penecostalists who believe that the Holy Spirit descends on them in the form of tongus of flame - sadly invisible to the rest of us.
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