the timboucher experience

This is the main concept I’ve been messing around with in my experiments in glossolalia, xenoglossy and post-urban shamanic channeling: basically that there are root sound structures, noises which can be uttered by humans, which have meaning across languages. Sound symbolism theory, an elements of linguistics, suggests that root noises actually have *inherent* meanings, that the sound /b/ (that’s how they write it), for example, has a meaning all in itself.

What these meanings are, of course, is open to debate. The Turkish concept of Güneş Dil Teorisi, or Sun Language Theory, says that all languages derived from a common source or Ur-language - a concept which springs up again and again.

Synaethesia, I think, is probably the norm rather than the exception within the human race. I forget the name of the study, but there was a guy who would show people a drawing with a bunch of curvy shapes and one with a bunch of pointy edges, and almost invariably across cultures, the one with the pointy hard edges visually was chosen by participants to have a /Kk/ sound. Coincidence? No, the human neural system is wired poetically, as are all living things.

Which is why I think universal communication is not just a flighty dream impossible to realize. Primal communication between nations, peoples, races, and even species is entirely possible - and not just that, but already happens every day. I’m trying to tune in more consciously to it, as well as develop a handy pragmatic framework on #whatworks and what doesn’t.

Interlingual lexeme and phonemes, then, are something that work. They are noises, sounds and utterances in primal tones which convey some meaning - even if only aesthetically or emotionally - no matter who the speaker or audience is. It happens at the Pentecost in the Book of Acts, where the tongues of flame come to rest upon the heads of the Apostles, and the gathered masses each hears them speaking in their own tongue. Whether or not you accept that as a historical document, it’s a mythic telling of a potentially real event. In discussions of the Holy Spirit, the Bible exhorts the faithful to basically just open their mouth and let the Spirit do the talking.

It’s funny though, because it can feel very foolish to indulge in hours-long primal language sessions. But it can also be very liberating, because it allows you to better feel the spaces between words and languages, and the vast expanse of uncovered territory in daily communications. One of the most powerful things I’ve taken away from it is that perhaps all of nature is just engaged in one great song, one great improvisation in which all members are continually taking part, whether knowingly or not. Listen to birds and dogs jamming out with each other, with the low beautiful whir of buses and police sirens in the distance. The wind is blowing through the trees. Somewhere an alley cat shrieks.

• Underground Concept Mining
• Thunderstar Farms Family Orchestra Box Set
• Essential Writings
• The Day’s Urban Shaman Rituals
• [tmbchr] podcast s08e01 caleidoscopeia