I'd been seeking Enlightenment since late 2003. I got little glimpses of it every now and then, the duration of which could be anywhere from a few seconds to several weeks. However, I was particularly frustrated when 2007 rolled around and I had not yet managed to attain Enlightenment. I had tried meditating several hours a day, contemplating divine truths and focusing on recognizing the unEnlightened me as not me. All of these activities had provoked glimpses of Enlightenment, but none permanent Enlightenment.
On January 27th, 2007, the idea occured to me to create an artificial language that would force the Right Understanding and Right Mindfulness folds of the Buddhist Eightfold Path onto the speaker. This is not to say that I expected myself to develop a language that could, by itself, force Enlightenment onto its speakers, but perhaps it could be useful in combination with meditation, contemplation and self recognition. The entire concept of Essiel, of course, assumes that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is correct.
I had already done much of the work necessary when I was working on Enviel, an artificial language whose goal was to force the speakers to think and communicate in such a way that prevented violence. However, Essiel did not need to be as complete as Enviel. Indeed, it did not have to be complete at all. The purpose of the Essiel language isn't to facilitate communication; it's to facilitate Enlightenment. Since much of common language serves to obscure the Truth, or at very least, fails to guide the speaker to the Truth, much of common language need not be paralleled in Essiel. Thus, Essiel is a very simple language to learn, but not a very useful one for communication purposes.
On February 7th, 2007, I baselined the grammar and vocabulary of the language, I began work on this webchapter explaining the language. I hope it benefits others as it has benefitted me.
These resources are available to the student of Essiel:
Last Updated: 2009-05-02
The author, Marq Thompson, wished the content of this website to be uncopyrighted after his death.
