by Rev.Graves.
Ouranian Barbaric FAQ
Version 3.00
01 February 2000
Written and maintained by Fenwick Rysen. If you have any questions not answered in the FAQ, ideas for expansion, or corrections to be made, please conact him at fenwick@chaosmatrix.com
This FAQ or its latest release is available on the web at: http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/texts/obfaq.html
Special Thanks are due to those who have helped me learn Ouranian Barbaric and answer my multitude of questions, and to those who helped contribute to the FAQ. They are, in no particular order, Fireclown, Joseph Maxx.555, Hine Nui Te Po, Tzimon Yliaster, Peter Carroll, and several others who remain more anonymous. This wouldn't have been possible without their help.
This document Copywronged (x) 1998-2000 by Fenwick Rysen. Feel free to copy, hack, splice, mangle, mutilate, spindle, twist, tear, or re-post, print up however many damn copies of it that you want, and give them to whoever the hell you want to, as long as this copywrong notice remains intact.
The answers to the questions in this FAQ are non-authoritative, and individuals are encouraged, as with everything, to take what they will and discard the rest.
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I ORIGINS
1.1 What is Ouranian Barbaric?
1.2 What does the word "Ouranian" mean?
1.3 Why is it called Ouranian "Barbaric"?
1.4 Where did Ouranian Barbaric come from?
1.5 What is the source of the Ouranian Barbaric Dictionaries on the net?
II GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX
2.1 Does Ouranian Barbaric have a standard syntax?
2.2 Why is the word for "I" and "We" the same?
2.3 Why are all verbs in the form "do (verb)"
2.4 How do I turn Ouranian nouns into verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and vice versa?
2.5 What do the "T+" and "T-" with some of the words mean?
2.6 Why are Ouranian words always capitalized?
2.7 How do you pronounce some of these words?
III MISCELLANIA
3.1 How does one create more Ouranian words?
3.2 Where can I get a Ouranian Barbaric Dictionary?
3.3 What should I do with new Ouranian words that I create?
3.4 What does it mean to use Ouranian like "The Alphabet of Desire"?
3.5 Are the words in Peter Carroll's "Masses of Chaos" Ouranian?
3.6 Are there other barbarous languages out there?
3.7 What Ouranian resources are there on the net?
3.8 Is there a gematria for Ouranian Barbaric?
3.9 What is the relationship between Ouranian Barbaric and Psychic Censor?
3.10 Is there a Ouranian Barbaric alphabet with its own letters?
IV UPDATE HISTORY
4.1 Dictionary Updates
4.2 Changes to the FAQ
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SECTION I: ORIGINS
1.1 What is Ouranian Barbaric?
Ouranian Barbaric is the proprietary language of chaos magick. That is, it is a language, more technically a jargon, that is used exclusively by the chaos magickal community for use in their workings. It is not spoken as a real language, but instead is used in place of the magician's natural language in order to distract the conscious mind and bypass the psychic censor.
It has been said that Ouranian Barbaric developed out of a need to express more modern concepts that were absent in other magickal languages like Enochian (from the sixteenth century) and relevant to Chaos Magick. Things like "Planck's Constant" and "Heisenberg Uncertianty Principle" are obviously absent from Enochian, which also ommitted some very useful concepts such as the planets. Peter Carroll says that he created it because "I liked the sound of enochian, and I wanted to demon-strate that an arbitary magical language works just as well as one with a supposedly mysterious history."
1.2 What does the word "Ouranian" mean?
The word "Ouranian" is the adjectivized form of "Ouranos". Ouranos is an old form of the word Uranus, and was chosen to avoid the "Your Anus" stigmatism associated with the modern spelling.
Symbolically, Ouranos is the same as Uranus. It is harder to describe its symbology better than in a planetary working called The Ouranos Rite, which describes it thusly:
"It is the eighth body, outside of the sphere of classical planets and the god forms or thought form attributed to them. Thus it forms an ideal symbol for that which encompasses all the gods within its orbit: the magical personality. It represents not the power of the magic itself, which is attributed to Pluto; but rather the desire to be a magician, and the personality required to live as one. Astronomically, this equates with the curious orbit of Ouranos which, with its polar axis tilted at an eccentric angle, almost on the plane of the ecliptic, symblolizes the antinomian character of the magician, ever delving into that which is weird, occult, and perverse, to unlock its secrets. Ouranos can also be thought of as the dark side of the Sun. Whereas the classical bodies orbit the sun, the bright center of human personality; Ouranos represents something dark, and perhaps devious, creeping round in the darkness outside of the normal."
1.3 Why is it called Ouranian "Barbaric"?
As in barbarous words, a term used by Crowley and others. It is one of the fundamental concepts of evocatory magick and is an incredibly complicated subject. Any language that you don't understand with full consciousness and that can be chanted in a manner that distracts the conscious mind is considered to be "barbarous". In the terms of Chaos Magick, chanting in a language not understood by the conscious mind (such as Ouranian Barbaric) lets the ideas (memes) represented by the words bypass the Psychic Censor and penetrate the subconscious mind of the magician. Barbarous words can also serve as foci free of conscious meaning, exalting the mind during ritual chant. Crowley says in Chapter IX of "Magick in Theory and Practice":
"It may be conceded in any case that the long strings of formidable words which roar and moan through so many conjurations have a real effect in exalting the consciousness of the magician to the proper pitch - that they should do so is no more extraordinary than music of any kind should do so."
Anyone further interested in Barbaric Languages are here referred to Chapter IX of Aleister Crowley's "Magick in Theory and Practice", and to Kenneth Grant's "The Magickal Revival."
1.4 Where did Ouranian Barbaric come from?
It was created by Peter Carroll and possibly some others around 1989-90. It was leaked out of the IOT Pact onto the World Wide Web by a disgruntled former member of the UK Section. It is not supposed to be in the public domain, and the IOT has chosen to remain, for the most part, closed-mouthed about it, even though other chaotes have made extensive use of it and continue to add to it (see section 3.1)
1.5 What is the source of the Ouranian Barbaric Dictionaries on the net?
It was leaked onto the World Wide Web by a disgruntled member of the UK Section of the Illuminates of Thanateros. Its maintenance has fallen into the hands of Fenwick Rysen, and the master copy with all updates is maintained at http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/ob.html
A mirror of this dictionary is maintained by Milos Babic at http://www.sezampro.yu/~babbage/Ouranian.html
The sources of the words in the updated dictionaries are the original words created by Peter Carroll with others appended to the list throughout time by other chaos magicians who created new words to fill any needs that were not already filled by currently existing words. Both dictionaries continue to grow as that language evolves.
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SECTION II: GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX
2.1 Does Ouranian Barbaric have a standard syntax?
Properly speaking, Ouranian Barbaric is not a language, but a jargon with no rules of syntax, sentence structure, or tenses, plurals, or possessives.
It is often said that Ouranian should be written and spoken in V-Prime. In his book _Liber Kaos_ Peter Carroll says:
"It is worth noting here that chaos-magical languages are usually now written in V-Prime before transliteration into magical barbaric form. V-Prime or Vernacular Prime is one's native tongue in which all use of all tenses of the verb "to be" is ommitted in accordance with quantum metaphysics. All the nonsense of transcendentalism disappears quite naturally once this tactic is adopted. There is no being, all is doing."
What this means is that you have no forms of the verb "to be" anywhere in your sentences in Ouranian Barbaric. Instead, you "do" things. It is not "I will die" but instead "I do death". "There is no being, all is doing."
Other simple rules are that definites articles ("the", "a", etc.) can be implied such as in Latin, and that when possible things should be in the present, active tenses. Should any problems be encountered, one is reminded that what few rules do exist are not hard and fast. Feel free to break them, make your own, or do as spontanaeity urges. Make the language your own.
2.2 Why is the word for "I" and "We" the same?
The reason that "I" and "we" are the same word is derived directly from the idea of the "multiple nature of the self". In other words, every individual is a collection of personas -- a colonial being, if you will. Furthermore, any collective of personas can also be seen as a single individual (also with many personas). Thus, the words I and we are conceptually equivelant in Ouranian Barbaric.
2.3 Why are all verbs in the form "do (verb)"?
This has to do with the syntax of Ouranian (see sectin 2.1, above). This has to do with the fact that Ouranian has no verb "to be" based on the anontic concept of no being, and thusly that "there is no being, all is doing." There is a subtle change in consciousness that occurs with this that any magician is advised to pay attention to. Those interested in the topic are also encouraged to research E-Prime, a version of English that eliminates "to be" and its permutations from the vocabulary, accomplishing the same thing in English that OB does in its grammar.
2.4 How do I turn Ouranian nouns into verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and vice versa?
Short Answer: However the hell you want to.
Long Answer: There are no rules. Make the language yours. Use the same word, invent your own prefixes or suffixes, create completely new words, surrender to spontanaeity, or do whatever else you can think of that feels right to you.
2.5 What do the "T+" and "T-" with some of the words mean?
T+ or T- is an indication of whether a word is used in the positive or in the negative. Thus when we get the Ouranian word for "Almost Certianly" we have "UTHEDUS (T+)" and "THOFAD (T-)". UTHEDUS means "Almost Certianly" while THOFAD means "Almost Certainly Not."
2.6 Why are Ouranian words always capitalized?
There is no reason. This is just the standard convention.
2.7 How do you pronounce some of these words?
There is no set way to pronounce Ouranian Barbaric words. It becomes personal preference, and no two chaotes sound exactly the same when saying the same words. Just try your best to sound those stranger ones out, and go with that. Most chaotes seem to pronounce a leading "X" (as in XIQUAL) as a "Z", but this is by no means universal.
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SECTION III: MISCELLANIA
3.1 How does one create more Ouranian words?
By creativity. The general idea is to channel them somehow. A basic rite for channeling Ouranian words via glossolalia is available on the web at http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/rites/gloss.html
It basically goes as follows: Decide what word you want to add to the Ouranian language. Take a bag of scrabble tiles, draw between four and ten, and use these as a seed word. Invoke glossolalia, and let the seed word change and evolve until you arrive at what feels like the proper word.
The original method is through an invocation of Ouranos-Baphomet and then using a created board to divine the letters of a word. This ritual is available at http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/rites/barbget.html
Regardless of method used, the critical part of the process lies in adding the vowels to the mishmash of consonants that one often receives, whether this is by inspiration, glossolalia, or other method. Peter Carroll states that:
"Half the trick of barbaric lies with the vowels added at will later, for example the phrase "the morning is not the magicians friend" yielded VLBZ, which someone wittly pointed up as vulboozo, to rhyme with ouzo."
3.2 Where can I get a Ouranian Barbaric Dictionary?
The master updated Ouranian Barbaric Dictionary with both English-to-Ouranian and Ouranian-to-English formats is available on Chaos Matrix at: http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/texts/obdict2.html
A mirror of this dictionary is maintained by Milos Babic at: http://www.sezampro.yu/~babbage/Ouranian.html
An English-to-Ouranian only version is maintained by the AutonomatriX: http://www.sfo.com/~max/newcorpus/barbdicx.htm
Tzimon's older HTML dictionary is no longer updated with new words: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/2792/ouranian.html
3.3 What should I do with new Ouranian words that I create?
Write them down. As you create more words, you should add them to your own personal dictionary. Many people feel their words are personal, and choose to keep them to themselves, oftentimes demanding something of great value before they will divulge them. However, some other people feel that their words should be shared with others. To this end, many people post their words along with their method of creation to usenet newsgroups such as alt.magick.chaos and to chaos magick e-lists, from where they spread to other sources. If you are interested in having any words you create added to the Ouranian Barbaric Dictionaries on the net, you are invited to contact Fenwick Rysen (fenwick@chaosmatrix.com), or Joseph Max.555 (maxx@address.com) with your words, their method of creation, and any other information you feel is relevant. From there they will be disseminated and incorporated into all currently updated copies of the dictionary.
3.4 What does it mean to use Ouranian like "The Alphabet of Desire"?
The Alphabet of Desire was a concept created by Austin Osman Spare that basically says to create a symbol set for your own personal use in magick. It's creation, use, and application are incredibly personal, and oftentimes hard to explain to others should such a task even be desirable. Many people use Ouranian the same way, creating their own words, coming up with their own rules for usage, and using it for their own specific tasks. Those interested in Spare's Alphabet of Desire and basic philosophy should read Spare's works, including "The Book of Pleasure" and "The Focus of Life". These can be found online at http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/
Stephen Mace's book "Stealing the Fire From Heaven" is the best guide to creating an Alphabet-of-Desire in Spare's tradition that is available to
the modern chaos magician, at a very reasonable price. Write to: Stephen Mace P.O. Box 256 Milford, CT 06460 U.S.A.
3.5 Are the words in Peter Carroll's "Masses of Chaos" Ouranian?
No, these words are Enochian. For those new to either language, one would be well advised to maintain a dictionary of both languages, and be careful not to mistake one for the other. Or, in the true vein of the chaos magickal tradition, you could purposely interchange them and see what you get. Some people have worked with Enochian spirits using Ouranian Barbaric, resulting in some Ouranian words for Enochian concepts.
3.6 Are there other barbarous languages out there?
Enochian is another barbarous language, as well as an alphabet, used in the magickal community, typically among ceremonial mages but oftentimes among others. Enochian is an "Angelic Language" that was channeled by Edward Kelley and written down by John Dee during the Elizabethan era. Enochian is much more syntactically and grammatically complicated than Ouranian, an each letter in an Enochian word represents a whole body of forces by itself. If barbarous languages are your thing, you'll LOVE Enochian.
Enochian is perhaps the most popular magickal barbarous language. Those interested in Enochian can find an incredible amount about it written on the internet, and are also referred to "The Enochian Dictionary" by Laycock (published by Samuel Weiser) and to "The Enochian Magick of Dr. John Dee" by Geoffrey James (published by Llewellyn.) A good beginning point on the internet is at http://www.sonic.net/fenwick/enochian.html
3.7 What Ouranian resources are there on the net?
This is a list of known resources on Ouranian Barbaric or related files. If you know of any more, please contact fenwick@chaosmatrix.com for addition to the next release of this FAQ.
Currently, the number of sites dedicated to Ouranian Barbaric is diminishing. It's down to Chaos Matrix with a few other scattered files around the web: http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/ob.html
Despite rumors over the last few years that other Ouranian Barbaric pages are on their way, nothing has yet come to manifestation. If this is no longer correct, please send in the URL of any new pages for the next update to the FAQ.
3.8 Is there a gematria for Ouranian Barbaric?
No, and it is unlikely that an "official" OB gematria will ever be proposed, in keeping with the individualist spirit of Chaos Magick. Inidviduals are encouraged to create their own method for personal use if they find gematria to be a useful tool in their magickal work.
3.9 What is the relationship between Ouranian Barbaric and Psychic Censor?
The premise for the functioning of Ouranian Barbaric is that through using words unfamiliar to your mind, you are better able to bypass the Psychic Censor, and thus avoid Lust of Result and other psychological factors that become involved when one performs magick. This works well, but some have discovered that it is of limited effectiveness, because if one works with the language often he finds himself learning what all of the Ouranian Barbaric words mean. Tzimon Yliaster was the first to verbalize this:
"There's a fundamental flaw to using Ouranian Barbaric as a technique over a protracted period. After a time, it fails to do what it was created to do -- smuggle things past the psychic censor. There's really no point to having another "magickal language", as it's language itself that arouses discursive function. A seemingly random outburst would work better. Words are still words, whatever language they happen to be in, and Ouranian Barbaric, once you know the meaning of the words, really isn't any different in that. The advent of OB words like "Enochian angel", "kali" and even "Baphomet" should have be seen as a warning of this problem with it."
How one chooses to deal with this problem is of personal concern. To avoid this problem, it is recommended to refrain from memorizing the meaning of Ouranian Barbaric words, similar in process to "forgetting" the meaning of a sigil; this takes practice.
"Random Outburts" can also work well, and new experiments are being conducted with Glossolalia as a magickal tool; Steve Wilson has covered the topic best so far with his book "Chaos Ritual."
One could create new words for themselves when they discover they have memorized the traditional OB words; this could be a burdensome process however, possibly causing more confusion than it solves. Some would argue that this is a good thing, though.
Keep the Psychic Censor in mind when performing your Ouranian Barbaric work; you don't want to make the language innefficient by memorizing as much as possible of it.
3.10 Is there a Ouranian Barbaric alphabet with its own letters?
Ouranian Barbaric is most often written using the Latin alphabet for ease of reading. However, writing Ouranian Barbaric in its own alphabet can serve further to distract the psychic censor from the concepts embodied by the use of the language. You could develop your own script, or use one that has already been created.
"Ouranian Linear A" was first used by the people in the UK branch of the IOT who were also responsible for originating Ouranian Barbaric. It consists of characters that all end with an arrow, which point you towards the next character to be read. This allows it the advantage of being written in any direction: left, right, up, down, spirals, waves, etc.
Ouranian Linear A can be seen in the Barbarous Tongue Generation Rite, mentioned earlier and available online at: http://www.chaosmatrix.com/lib/chaos/rites/barbget.html
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SECTION 4: UPDATE HISTORY
4.1 Dictionary Updates
This section contains any new words that have been added to the Ouranian Barbaric dictionaries recently. These should be added to any older dictionaries on the net to keep all of them up to date. If you have words to add, see section 3.3 above.
New OB Word English Translation Date added ----------------- ------------------- --------------- BANFOJMEZ'G Mystery 01 June 1998 BASOF Art 01 June 1998 EIPO Or 01 June 1998 GEBGANDIYAD Important 01 June 1998 LAHEQUA Enochian Angel 01 June 1998 THWEP'B'HOF Book 01 June 1998 UZARFE Aethyr 01 June 1998 VAGJOROBETH Unknown 01 June 1998 WOTHLAGEN Avatar 01 June 1998 XEPAGIR Eschaton 01 June 1998