The idea of deciphering the images rather than the text is what I'll post here. We may be able to gain some insights into the purpose of the Voynich manuscript.

However, this is research that is in the realm of theoretical at this point in time.

We will need to go into the subjects of alchemy, biodynamic agriculture, and Rudolf Stiener.  This cannot be helped, and I will explain as best I can.

Let's begin with this image from the Voynich manuscript.

   

What we see here is what seems to be a cat like creature in the position of the underground portion of the plant, the roots.  Instead of the head, there is a flowering plant form which would be above ground.  So a mixed creature that is animal and plant in one.

Now, I don't really want to post the same content in two different threads, so to gain an understanding I suggest the reader takes a look at the Shadow People thread in conjunction with this thread.

Over on the Shadow People thread we are studying a similar thing. At this point in the thread The Carbon Connection a shadow creature is introduced that is similar to the image from the Voynich manuscript.

Here it is:

   

This drawing was made by a young lady who can see the shadow creatures in her garden.

This is what we call a 'shadow tube cat' that has the forward portion of a cat that extends from garden shrubs as a black tube. My thoughts are we are looking at two different stages in the evolution of similar creatures. The 'tube cat' is very simple, only the forward portion has developed, whereas the Voynich image the creature is more complex having developed both the animal and the plant. Perhaps what may be called a chimera.

The connection of carbon and sulphur with shadow creatures, introduces the concept of alchemy.  Which in turn may help explain the images in the Voynich manuscript.

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(06-07-2025, 10:19 PM)NobodySpecial268 Wrote: The idea of deciphering the images rather than the text is what I'll post here. We may be able to gain some insights into the purpose of the Voynich manuscript.

I did mess around before with some things like numerology, symbolic meanings from alchemical traditions, and position/alignment (lack of symmetry in the plant itself) using AI, but didn't think it was informative enough to make a post on it. Since you're looking more at it from that angle, maybe it will be informative to you. It specifically mentioned the root resembling an animal and I hadn't even noticed really prior.

The problem with the numerology and symbols is that unless we have some idea of the specific school, and have records from them, there's a whole world of possibilities for each sets of numbers (like the number of leaves per stalk, the number of flowers, the number of petals on the flowers). Some numerology is also pretty vague, like Chaldean. The symbolism may be clearer to somebody that knows more about the various schools, but my knowledge of it is just from doing broad surveys of the systems. To me they're all sort of similar and mostly indistinguishable unless they have specific nomenclature that's catchy enough for me to remember.

The AI offered that it could be showing ascension, starting with the primordial animal (root bulb) and culminating in the heavens (the trumpet-like flowers), from the perspective of some alchemist schools at the time. It had reasons for it, but I didn't find them compelling as far as solid evidence. It did mention that it wasn't uncommon for herbalists (which if they were doing manuscripts were probably also what we would consider alchemists) to portray the roots of plants as an animal aspect that represented the qualities of the plant's healing (or harmful, I suppose) nature. I would guess that follows the general alchemists model with earth, air, fire, and water... then the tria prima (trefoil symbol in alchemy) of sulphur, mercury, and salt, which would eventually become part of the foundations of ritual magic. In my opinion, of course.

Now that you got me writing about the analysis it occurred to me there is a plant family called trefoil as well, with flowers that are close... but no cigar. Interesting though that we have a trefoil like flower, forming three flowering heads, at the top.

   
Credit for the picture

Quote:I did mess around before with some things like numerology, symbolic meanings from alchemical traditions, and position/alignment (lack of symmetry in the plant itself) using AI, but didn't think it was informative enough to make a post on it. Since you're looking more at it from that angle, maybe it will be informative to you. It specifically mentioned the root resembling an animal and I hadn't even noticed really prior.

The problem with the numerology and symbols is that unless we have some idea of the specific school, and have records from them, there's a whole world of possibilities for each sets of numbers (like the number of leaves per stalk, the number of flowers, the number of petals on the flowers). Some numerology is also pretty vague, like Chaldean. The symbolism may be clearer to somebody that knows more about the various schools, but my knowledge of it is just from doing broad surveys of the systems. To me they're all sort of similar and mostly indistinguishable unless they have specific nomenclature that's catchy enough for me to remember.

In the later part of the Voynich manuscript, it looks like it gives the planetary and astrological influences in the fold out sections. There is a book by the (Steiner) biodynamic agriculture folk called Planetary Influences Upon Plants by Ernst Michael Kranich that gives a lot of info about the role of planetary and astrological in the formation of the plant. That may be helpful if we get that far. Probably better to leave that to the experts out there.

I don't think we need to think in terms of symbolism in the Voynich manuscript, I reckon the people who wrote the book were working in the field. If we look at a page, the illustration would have been drawn first and the text second as notes in the free space. These guys were recording what they encountered by the layout of the page.

Here is something else I realised last night. To the gardener's eye, this looks like grafting.

   

   

Now, here is a photo of four different cacti grafted on prickly pear.

   
Photo credit unknown.

So quite probably we are seeing grafting in some of these drawings. Now if we take the illustration of a feline with the head replaced with a plant, this isn't the sort of grafting done in this realm.


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Here is another curiosity that has people baffled, and I wondered myself. The little women in the bath.

   

   

In keeping with the concept that the authors of the Voynich were looking at, or at least aware of, the role of other realms and the working of the nature spirits, we may glean an insight into the baths.

This has to do with the two-dimensional objects we topologically call surfaces. The surface of a pond, has length and width with zero depth. The surface of a pond is between the water and the air.  This is the principal behind water spirits arising out of lakes and streams. One might as well call the surface of a pond a window or doorway. Not to the bottom of the pond, rather between the airy and watery realms of folklore.  Probably the alchemist's air and water too for that matter.

The analogy to understanding is Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass.

   

There are fairy beings from folklore who are often called wood nymphs. They can appear as naked human looking girls with three pairs of wings. In a way, they are also dragonflies, and may shape-shift between the two. Looking into their countenance, one doesn't know if one is looking at the face of a dragonfly or the face of a human girl.  As adorable as they are, one really needs to keep in mind they are also predators.  When these girls skate above a pond with their nose down and their butt in the air, they are not looking at the bottom of the pond, they are looking into another realm. They can also shift between the two.

   

When I looked at the picture of the women in the pond I saw a pregnant lady on the left, as is the one in the water, while the lady on the right is post-partum. I instantly thought of 'water birthing', which was all the rage a few years back.

(06-12-2025, 06:39 AM)Nugget Wrote: When I looked at the picture of the women in the pond I saw a pregnant lady on the left, as is the one in the water, while the lady on the right is post-partum. I instantly thought of 'water birthing', which was all the rage a few years back.

I saw that one too and wondered . . .


ETA:

Here is a larger image of the one in question.

   

The one in the center looks to be urinating.

I reckon you're right there Nugget, this seems to be a lady's reproductives and water works.

(06-12-2025, 06:39 AM)Nugget Wrote: When I looked at the picture of the women in the pond I saw a pregnant lady on the left, as is the one in the water, while the lady on the right is post-partum. I instantly thought of 'water birthing', which was all the rage a few years back.

Agreed, this all ties together in the image below where it seems to depict both the 'internal' and the 'external', and I'm sure a whole bunch more I'm missing.

(06-12-2025, 06:41 AM)NobodySpecial268 Wrote: I saw that one too and wondered . . .


ETA:

Here is a larger image of the one in question.



The one in the center looks to be urinating.

I reckon you're right there Nugget, this seems to be a lady's reproductives and water works.

Also brings to mind a woman with her legs spread open, multiple layers of meaning, all related, it seems.

The woman in the center may be urinating, which suggests kidneys and bladder.

Nugget's pregnancy insight refers to the reproductives. In which case we see the waters breaking.

Pay attention to the looks on the three women's faces. The illustrator took a lot of trouble to get those right. The expressions back up Nugget's suggestion that the illustration has to do with pregnancy.

(06-14-2025, 10:57 PM)NobodySpecial268 Wrote: Pay attention to the looks on the three women's faces. The illustrator took a lot of trouble to get those right. The expressions back up Nugget's suggestion that the illustration has to do with pregnancy.

There's also the Triple Goddess which is maiden, mother, crone, and it goes back quite some time. I don't know enough about their representations in art to know many of the associated motifs, but I know pregnancy is obviously one for the mother. Water also tends to be a common representation of life, I would imagine especially so in cultures that pop up in the desert. There may be some other symbols in there that are indicative, but it would need a deeper dive and some closer analysis of the rest of the manuscript. I don't know what precedes and what follows this particular image.

I find it interesting, but this is one of those puzzles that I hate to get into too much unless I know I have a good chunk of time. It's hard to jump in and out to work on it a bit at a time.