Yes, it's being used as a sort of escape backslash, sort of like when you do \" to have the quotation mark actually show up, or like the <pre> tag in html. That's what I thought at first too, i.e., so the #+TITLE: etc. won't be taken literally by org-mode. But I guess I meant to ask, Is this orgmode's "official escape backslash" mechanism? What about #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE ... #+END_EXAMPLE or #+BEGIN_QUOTE ... #+END_QUOTE? It seems like putting org-mode "code" inside of babel code wrapper would be something about writing a(n eventual) second, "external" org file while still the first org file. Or, simpler, I might create a library, i.e., an org file with useful org-mode templates etc. and have them accessible a la "linked data," the unique key being the #+NAME: field. But again, I'm very curious, what exactly is babel's relationship to "org code"? What qualifies as "org code," as far as babel is concerned?