Secret Society Language

I've seen much mention of secret society symbols, but do some secret societies have their own languages? If you had a fully functional, secret coded language, it would be very hard for outsiders to penetrate your society. They would need to decode the language.

The language does not even have to be a standard human language. For instance, I could imagine a language made fully of musical harmonies, or rug patterns.

According the Saphir-Worf hypothesis, languages can influence how you think. Cults often create their own jargon, and this is common in many areas.

Which secret societies have their languages? Are their deciphered writings publicly available? Can you crack the codes? Think about it.

I don't think they have a secret language, But they do use some weird words and some phrases might be in a slightly different order.

Crowley wrote some of his stuff in codewords if i am not mistaken. you would need to know the word for the writing to make sense

Don't know about all of them, but it seems like a few of them use archaic phrases, Old English for those in a English speaking country. I don't know about any others, though.

There's a field of study called semiotics that you might find useful. I've been turned on to it recently, and have a thought or two about it.

Even when people are talking to one another in unambiguous language, with no attempt to encode any secret messages, something mysterious is still taking place between them. Language uses "signs", or labels whose meanings we take for granted as commonly understood. However, this isn't always the case.

There is a magic zone between the sign and the meaning taken by the listener/reader, wherein the listener/reader confers his or her own understanding of the sign to the sign given. For example, have you ever tried to crack a joke on a message board during a tense moment, only to have some reader interpret your joke as hostile or insulting? Then perhaps you took another look at your own post and realized that it might be possible to understand why someone might have taken the "wrong" meaning.

The listener/reader then, in effect, recreates meaning from the sign based on what he or she is ready or willing to read in it. This means that no secret code is required. Between two people who already understand one another to a sufficient degree, as well as their common agenda or positions, even something as benign as a recipe for homemade Caesar Salad can contain useful and hidden information. The signal to noise ratio isn't as clean as common language, but then again, that is the point.

reply to post by applebiter


Umberto Eco, who wrote Foucault's Pendulum (a seminal novel containing vast amounts of factual information on secret societies and esoterica), among other fantastic works, is a professor of semiotics. I seem to mention the book frequently on this board, but it's a truly amazing work. Semiotics is indeed a fascinating field.

In response to the OP, this article from an issue of Fortean Times a couple of years ago might interest you. It discusses the notion that the builders of the notorious Rosslyn Chapel, whether they were Masons, Templars or whomever, may have incorporated visual representations of musical notes, known as Chladni patterns, into the intricate artwork of the chapel.

I'm not sure if it's what you had in mind, but using music to convey information or induce an internal response of some sort is an ancient human tradition. It's entirely conceivable to me that a group of people learned in such patterns might attach meaning to them as a subtle form of communication that the average parishioner would be unlikely to interpret.

edit/ it appears you may need to register with the site to get access to the article; it's lengthy, or I would quote it here.

[edit on 7/2/08 by articulus]

[edit on 7/2/08 by articulus]

Any group of people that socialize, work, or communicate with eachother ends up developing its own language. For example, there may be acronyms or terms of art that you use in your office that somebody who does not work in your office and/or your line of work may not know about. Kids in a particular highschool may have slang words that kids from other high schools may not use.

Similarly, I would imagine some secret societies may have their own slang or their own terms of art that they use to describe various happenings with in the secret society. In my college frat we had slang words to describe unattractive women, unusual vommitting, and stupid mistakes. We also had terms to describe our activities. For example, we called the night before initiation "lights" and a portion of our weekly meeting was called "symbols." If you were not a member of the fraternity, you would not know exactly what "lights" or "symbols" meant.

A great secret language to have would be Gnnomish.

That is a language invented by Eion Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl series.

artemisfowl.fangathering.com...