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I ran across an article on the researchgate website by one Fletcher Crowe and dated November '22, claiming to have cracked the Voynich Manuscript. The basic claim is that the language is a somewhat encrypted form of Arabic treating of Cathar themes. The folks on the "voynich ninja" site savage Crowe's efforts. Has anyone else dipped into the matter? The 'teens of the 21st century seemed to have a "translation" of the manuscript every couple of years, all pretty quickly discounted.
I remember seeing a documentary years ago about an older Turkish man and his son who were translating it? Thought it was about agriculture if I'm not wrong.
I remember seeing a documentary years ago about an older Turkish man and his son who were translating it? Thought it was about agriculture if I'm not wrong.
After all these years of bated breath, it'd be a kicker if the book turned out to be a proto-Farmer's Almanac. The Snopes website as of 2022 was saying "no one knows." I generally take my Snopes with a grain of salt, thank you. But generally when a writer confesses to puzzlement, a puzzlement is where he finds hisself.
In some occult private-eye series there's a "Book of Srem" that appears to the beholder in his native language. Could be the Voynitch book has this much in common with it: whoever has a mental itch can scratch it by translating Voynitch into whatever he wants. Seems hard to fathom folks claiming the same writing is "really" Turkish, Arabic, proto-Romance, etc etc.
Im starting to believe that manuscript was a milennial practical joke to seekers of truth and knowledge Even the plants depicted in it are not known anywhere (at least not in this planet!)... Whomever wrote it must be having the laugh of centuries!!!
There are no credible claims to have decoded the text, but there's a lot of illustrations that you can infer from. I'll post the description of the images from wikipedia:
The illustrations are conventionally used to divide most of the manuscript into six different sections, since the text cannot be read. Each section is typified by illustrations with different styles and supposed subject matter except for the last section, in which the only drawings are small stars in the margin. The following are the sections and their conventional names:
Herbal, 112 folios: Each page displays one or two plants and a few paragraphs of text, a format typical of European herbals of the time. Some parts of these drawings are larger and cleaner copies of sketches seen in the "pharmaceutical" section. None of the plants depicted are unambiguously identifiable.
Astronomical, 21 folios: Contains circular diagrams suggestive of astronomy or astrology, some of them with suns, moons, and stars. One series of 12 diagrams depicts conventional symbols for the zodiacal constellations (two fish for Pisces, a bull for Taurus, a hunter with crossbow for Sagittarius, etc.). Each of these has 30 female figures arranged in two or more concentric bands. Most of the females are at least partly nude, and each holds what appears to be a labelled star or is shown with the star attached to either arm by what could be a tether or cord of some kind. The last two pages of this section were lost (Aquarius and Capricornus, roughly February and January), while Aries and Taurus are split into four paired diagrams with 15 women and 15 stars each. Some of these diagrams are on fold-out pages.
Balneological, 20 folios: A dense, continuous text interspersed with drawings, mostly showing small nude women, some wearing crowns, bathing in pools or tubs connected by an elaborate network of pipes. The bifolio consists of folios 78 (verso) and 81 (recto); it forms an integrated design, with water flowing from one folio to the other.
Cosmological, 13 folios: More circular diagrams, but they are of an obscure nature. This section also has foldouts; one of them spans six pages, commonly called the Rosettes folio, and contains a map or diagram with nine "islands" or "rosettes" connected by "causeways" and containing castles, as well as what might be a volcano.
Pharmaceutical, 34 folios: Many labelled drawings of isolated plant parts (roots, leaves, etc.), objects resembling apothecary jars, ranging in style from the mundane to the fantastical, and a few text paragraphs.
Recipes, 22 folios: Full pages of text broken into many short paragraphs, each marked with a star in the left margin.
(Balneological = "the study of medicinal springs and the therapeutic effects of bathing in them")
Given that eg Paracelsus and many others included astrology in their medicine diagnoses and treatments, this really seems like a medical text to me. I feel like there'd be a heavy burden of proof to claim it's anything else. (Alchemy being plausible, it often uses naked figures to symbolise various substances and processes - but if so, it's not using any existing/known alchemy symbolism because experts would have noticed)
With computational linguistics as developed as it is, and the processing power available these days, I don't buy that it's encrypted Arabic or any other well-documented language - that would be easily provable in a way where many other computational linguists would be like "oh yeah, i ran it through the same analysis and got the same results". There would be a whole school of thought backing up that idea, not just one guy. I feel pretty confident the whole language is fabricated, including the grammar.
Something more like one of Tolkien's created languages, more sophisticated than Enochian (which has had the computational linguistics treatment and is clearly English grammar and structure, with a new dictionary. If angels spoke to Kelley/Dee, they borrowed language structures from his brain, they weren't speaking in their native tongue)
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Agriculture fits as well (eg the "baleological" pipes etc could be irrigation or hydroponics or something) but the isolated plant parts doesn't fit as well (also, the writer's decision to make it secret). It would have to be a landowner who took an overly close interest in what his actual workers were doing. (The farmers themselves wouldn't have had the time or education to make the manuscript)
I heard a reasonable theory that it may have been specifically about womens health, including herbal abortifacients. That would give you a reason for the secrecy. (Not just the abortifacients but also the general feeling that it's private and shouldn't be seen by wider eyes).
Because even highly educated women were less included in collegiate society, a language fabricated by a woman might be less likely to influence and be influenced by other language modes around at the time, making it harder to crack now.
These are only "on the balance of probabilities, maybe that's more likely", not anything resembling proof, but speculation's all we got at the moment.
There are no credible claims to have decoded the text, but there's a lot of illustrations that you can infer from. I'll post the description of the images from wikipedia:
The illustrations are conventionally used to divide most of the manuscript into six different sections, since the text cannot be read. Each section is typified by illustrations with different styles and supposed subject matter except for the last section, in which the only drawings are small stars in the margin. The following are the sections and their conventional names:
Herbal, 112 folios: Each page displays one or two plants and a few paragraphs of text, a format typical of European herbals of the time. Some parts of these drawings are larger and cleaner copies of sketches seen in the "pharmaceutical" section. None of the plants depicted are unambiguously identifiable.
Astronomical, 21 folios: Contains circular diagrams suggestive of astronomy or astrology, some of them with suns, moons, and stars. One series of 12 diagrams depicts conventional symbols for the zodiacal constellations (two fish for Pisces, a bull for Taurus, a hunter with crossbow for Sagittarius, etc.). Each of these has 30 female figures arranged in two or more concentric bands. Most of the females are at least partly nude, and each holds what appears to be a labelled star or is shown with the star attached to either arm by what could be a tether or cord of some kind. The last two pages of this section were lost (Aquarius and Capricornus, roughly February and January), while Aries and Taurus are split into four paired diagrams with 15 women and 15 stars each. Some of these diagrams are on fold-out pages.
Balneological, 20 folios: A dense, continuous text interspersed with drawings, mostly showing small nude women, some wearing crowns, bathing in pools or tubs connected by an elaborate network of pipes. The bifolio consists of folios 78 (verso) and 81 (recto); it forms an integrated design, with water flowing from one folio to the other.
Cosmological, 13 folios: More circular diagrams, but they are of an obscure nature. This section also has foldouts; one of them spans six pages, commonly called the Rosettes folio, and contains a map or diagram with nine "islands" or "rosettes" connected by "causeways" and containing castles, as well as what might be a volcano.
Pharmaceutical, 34 folios: Many labelled drawings of isolated plant parts (roots, leaves, etc.), objects resembling apothecary jars, ranging in style from the mundane to the fantastical, and a few text paragraphs.
Recipes, 22 folios: Full pages of text broken into many short paragraphs, each marked with a star in the left margin.
(Balneological = "the study of medicinal springs and the therapeutic effects of bathing in them")
Given that eg Paracelsus and many others included astrology in their medicine diagnoses and treatments, this really seems like a medical text to me. I feel like there'd be a heavy burden of proof to claim it's anything else. (Alchemy being plausible, it often uses naked figures to symbolise various substances and processes - but if so, it's not using any existing/known alchemy symbolism because experts would have noticed)
With computational linguistics as developed as it is, and the processing power available these days, I don't buy that it's encrypted Arabic or any other well-documented language - that would be easily provable in a way where many other computational linguists would be like "oh yeah, i ran it through the same analysis and got the same results". There would be a whole school of thought backing up that idea, not just one guy. I feel pretty confident the whole language is fabricated, including the grammar.
Something more like one of Tolkien's created languages, more sophisticated than Enochian (which has had the computational linguistics treatment and is clearly English grammar and structure, with a new dictionary. If angels spoke to Kelley/Dee, they borrowed language structures from his brain, they weren't speaking in their native tongue)
Post automatically merged:
Agriculture fits as well (eg the "baleological" pipes etc could be irrigation or hydroponics or something) but the isolated plant parts doesn't fit as well (also, the writer's decision to make it secret). It would have to be a landowner who took an overly close interest in what his actual workers were doing. (The farmers themselves wouldn't have had the time or education to make the manuscript)
I heard a reasonable theory that it may have been specifically about womens health, including herbal abortifacients. That would give you a reason for the secrecy. (Not just the abortifacients but also the general feeling that it's private and shouldn't be seen by wider eyes).
Because even highly educated women were less included in collegiate society, a language fabricated by a woman might be less likely to influence and be influenced by other language modes around at the time, making it harder to crack now.
These are only "on the balance of probabilities, maybe that's more likely", not anything resembling proof, but speculation's all we got at the moment.
Im starting to believe that manuscript was a milennial practical joke to seekers of truth and knowledge Even the plants depicted in it are not known anywhere (at least not in this planet!)... Whomever wrote it must be having the laugh of centuries!!!
Could be, though the manuscript itself surfaced in 1912 which makes it definitely 'pre-milennial,' as it were. Who says the late-Victorians* didn't have a sense of humor?
(* yeah, yeah---1912 would be post-Edwardian not "Victorian" times. I'm assuming the joke was some years in the preparation, if joke it even be.)
There are no credible claims to have decoded the text, but there's a lot of illustrations that you can infer from. I'll post the description of the images from wikipedia:
The illustrations are conventionally used to divide most of the manuscript into six different sections, since the text cannot be read. Each section is typified by illustrations with different styles and supposed subject matter except for the last section, in which the only drawings are small stars in the margin. The following are the sections and their conventional names:
Herbal, 112 folios: Each page displays one or two plants and a few paragraphs of text, a format typical of European herbals of the time. Some parts of these drawings are larger and cleaner copies of sketches seen in the "pharmaceutical" section. None of the plants depicted are unambiguously identifiable.
Astronomical, 21 folios: Contains circular diagrams suggestive of astronomy or astrology, some of them with suns, moons, and stars. One series of 12 diagrams depicts conventional symbols for the zodiacal constellations (two fish for Pisces, a bull for Taurus, a hunter with crossbow for Sagittarius, etc.). Each of these has 30 female figures arranged in two or more concentric bands. Most of the females are at least partly nude, and each holds what appears to be a labelled star or is shown with the star attached to either arm by what could be a tether or cord of some kind. The last two pages of this section were lost (Aquarius and Capricornus, roughly February and January), while Aries and Taurus are split into four paired diagrams with 15 women and 15 stars each. Some of these diagrams are on fold-out pages.
Balneological, 20 folios: A dense, continuous text interspersed with drawings, mostly showing small nude women, some wearing crowns, bathing in pools or tubs connected by an elaborate network of pipes. The bifolio consists of folios 78 (verso) and 81 (recto); it forms an integrated design, with water flowing from one folio to the other.
Cosmological, 13 folios: More circular diagrams, but they are of an obscure nature. This section also has foldouts; one of them spans six pages, commonly called the Rosettes folio, and contains a map or diagram with nine "islands" or "rosettes" connected by "causeways" and containing castles, as well as what might be a volcano.
Pharmaceutical, 34 folios: Many labelled drawings of isolated plant parts (roots, leaves, etc.), objects resembling apothecary jars, ranging in style from the mundane to the fantastical, and a few text paragraphs.
Recipes, 22 folios: Full pages of text broken into many short paragraphs, each marked with a star in the left margin.
(Balneological = "the study of medicinal springs and the therapeutic effects of bathing in them")
Given that eg Paracelsus and many others included astrology in their medicine diagnoses and treatments, this really seems like a medical text to me. I feel like there'd be a heavy burden of proof to claim it's anything else. (Alchemy being plausible, it often uses naked figures to symbolise various substances and processes - but if so, it's not using any existing/known alchemy symbolism because experts would have noticed)
With computational linguistics as developed as it is, and the processing power available these days, I don't buy that it's encrypted Arabic or any other well-documented language - that would be easily provable in a way where many other computational linguists would be like "oh yeah, i ran it through the same analysis and got the same results". There would be a whole school of thought backing up that idea, not just one guy. I feel pretty confident the whole language is fabricated, including the grammar.
Something more like one of Tolkien's created languages, more sophisticated than Enochian (which has had the computational linguistics treatment and is clearly English grammar and structure, with a new dictionary. If angels spoke to Kelley/Dee, they borrowed language structures from his brain, they weren't speaking in their native tongue)
Post automatically merged:
Agriculture fits as well (eg the "baleological" pipes etc could be irrigation or hydroponics or something) but the isolated plant parts doesn't fit as well (also, the writer's decision to make it secret). It would have to be a landowner who took an overly close interest in what his actual workers were doing. (The farmers themselves wouldn't have had the time or education to make the manuscript)
I heard a reasonable theory that it may have been specifically about womens health, including herbal abortifacients. That would give you a reason for the secrecy. (Not just the abortifacients but also the general feeling that it's private and shouldn't be seen by wider eyes).
Because even highly educated women were less included in collegiate society, a language fabricated by a woman might be less likely to influence and be influenced by other language modes around at the time, making it harder to crack now.
These are only "on the balance of probabilities, maybe that's more likely", not anything resembling proof, but speculation's all we got at the moment.
I wanted to add, your theory has the virtue of keeping the discussion mundane. There is a tendency for folks to overreact to the odd illustrations and go full-bore xenobotanical on us---"This must have been brought by UFO's!" Seriously, why not work up your ideas and shop them around some websites.?
Even if it would be written in plain modern english or whatever language, people wouldn't understand it.
They would just interpret it as they see fit (just as with any other ancient text) and inject their contemporary modern bullshit into it to further their ego agenda.
Like how ancient greeks surely were gay and enjoyed young boys (not knowing the greeks differentiated forms of love and romantic/sexual love was different from the love between teacher and student )
Or how priests of Ištar must have been trannies (not understanding what non duality and transcending the material body means)
Or how westerners think practicing yoga is doing retarded stretching exercises (when yoga means work and is in reality work done by your mind)
It's good that it can't or wont be deciphered. At least this way it won't be perverted and dragged through the mud of the modern age like all the other "occult" and spiritual scriptures there are.
As the text can not even be properly understood today, people had different thought patterns back then and not overinflated egos like we today.
Rather try to understand ancient texts which have proper translations to english or your native language, like the Rigved. You won't or don't want to understand it anyways. This is the actual implication of this.
I appreciate the implied compliment! But it would be so much work. I don't mind speculating based on a few things I've read on a forum, but to publish publicly I would need to do a tonne more research - it's quite possible someone has already debunked my idea, or even that there's supporting evidence that it would look weird and sloppy not to include. And I can't be bothered with that!
Maybe one day something will trigger it to become a higher priority, you never know
I appreciate the implied compliment! But it would be so much work. I don't mind speculating based on a few things I've read on a forum, but to publish publicly I would need to do a tonne more research - it's quite possible someone has already debunked my idea, or even that there's supporting evidence that it would look weird and sloppy not to include. And I can't be bothered with that!
Maybe one day something will trigger it to become a higher priority, you never know
That's a fast way to test a theory: write it up in a public place and see who screeches. Let others do your research for you, as it were. Heck, Luther posting his 95 Theses was simply an invitation to debate, not an act of defiance. (In the beginning, anyway.)
Ahaha true, but not so good for the professional reputation
(Literally I got both my TV jobs from two unconnected producers reading my newsletter and going "Hey it looks like you're good at researching stuff, do you want to do research for our TV show"; this has naturally convinced me of the value of maintaining standards in one's public posting... and also why I post on anonymous forums, where I don't have to)
Even if it would be written in plain modern english or whatever language, people wouldn't understand it.
They would just interpret it as they see fit (just as with any other ancient text) and inject their contemporary modern bullshit into it to further their ego agenda.
Like how ancient greeks surely were gay and enjoyed young boys (not knowing the greeks differentiated forms of love and romantic/sexual love was different from the love between teacher and student )
Or how priests of Ištar must have been trannies (not understanding what non duality and transcending the material body means)
Or how westerners think practicing yoga is doing retarded stretching exercises (when yoga means work and is in reality work done by your mind)
It's good that it can't or wont be deciphered. At least this way it won't be perverted and dragged through the mud of the modern age like all the other "occult" and spiritual scriptures there are.
As the text can not even be properly understood today, people had different thought patterns back then and not overinflated egos like we today.
Rather try to understand ancient texts which have proper translations to english or your native language, like the Rigved. You won't or don't want to understand it anyways. This is the actual implication of this.
Ahaha true, but not so good for the professional reputation
(Literally I got both my TV jobs from two unconnected producers reading my newsletter and going "Hey it looks like you're good at researching stuff, do you want to do research for our TV show"; this has naturally convinced me of the value of maintaining standards in one's public posting... and also why I post on anonymous forums, where I don't have to)
You can float wild aerse notions anonymously. Then when they are acclaimed, you can slip back into Clark Kent clothes and reap credit. But, yeah, for the Voynitch book, you'd be talking some years of pretty unremitting effort.
Even if it would be written in plain modern english or whatever language, people wouldn't understand it.
They would just interpret it as they see fit (just as with any other ancient text) and inject their contemporary modern bullshit into it to further their ego agenda.
Like how ancient greeks surely were gay and enjoyed young boys (not knowing the greeks differentiated forms of love and romantic/sexual love was different from the love between teacher and student )
Or how priests of Ištar must have been trannies (not understanding what non duality and transcending the material body means)
Or how westerners think practicing yoga is doing retarded stretching exercises (when yoga means work and is in reality work done by your mind)
It's good that it can't or wont be deciphered. At least this way it won't be perverted and dragged through the mud of the modern age like all the other "occult" and spiritual scriptures there are.
As the text can not even be properly understood today, people had different thought patterns back then and not overinflated egos like we today.
Rather try to understand ancient texts which have proper translations to english or your native language, like the Rigved. You won't or don't want to understand it anyways. This is the actual implication of this.
Even if it would be written in plain modern english or whatever language, people wouldn't understand it.
They would just interpret it as they see fit (just as with any other ancient text) and inject their contemporary modern bullshit into it to further their ego agenda.
Like how ancient greeks surely were gay and enjoyed young boys (not knowing the greeks differentiated forms of love and romantic/sexual love was different from the love between teacher and student )
Or how priests of Ištar must have been trannies (not understanding what non duality and transcending the material body means)
Or how westerners think practicing yoga is doing retarded stretching exercises (when yoga means work and is in reality work done by your mind)
It's good that it can't or wont be deciphered. At least this way it won't be perverted and dragged through the mud of the modern age like all the other "occult" and spiritual scriptures there are.
As the text can not even be properly understood today, people had different thought patterns back then and not overinflated egos like we today.
Rather try to understand ancient texts which have proper translations to english or your native language, like the Rigved. You won't or don't want to understand it anyways. This is the actual implication of this.
Slurs are as old as language itself. Thin skins seem to be a by-product of a cocoon civilization. OP is an intelligent writer. I am guessing his point is that maladroit misreading of the past is itself even more offensive. He who hath ears to hear, let him lissen up close like.
Slurs are as old as language itself. Thin skins seem to be a by-product of a cocoon civilization. OP is an intelligent writer. I am guessing his point is that maladroit misreading of the past is itself even more offensive. He who hath ears to hear, let him lissen up close like.
I just find it bizzare that on an Forum that idiolises crowley, gives instructions on how to get an succubus/ incubuz and how to summon demons, using "slurs" is somehow the one thing that crosses a line.
i once had a vision where one of my books got taken away. i woke up looked at some on, back then , twitter and io and behold she had a picture of the voynich manuscript as header and i got blocked. little did i know about the porn industry and holy temple virgins, but then online in this time. wyrd shit, but i dont think the book was about female problems, well maybe, but im lost on that one, cause im no frigid. so maybe aphrodisiacs?
or cleaning agents for the spiritual part of healing sex? an expression of ayurvedic food and its meaning in pictures? i remember being in an argument about it with an australian female member of the order of the eastern star. she was at fault and a prude.
Like how ancient greeks surely were gay and enjoyed young boys (not knowing the greeks differentiated forms of love and romantic/sexual love was different from the love between teacher and student )
Even the plants depicted in it are not known anywhere (at least not in this planet!)... Whomever wrote it must be having the laugh of centuries!!!
