(06-26-2025, 01:46 AM)NobodySpecial268 Wrote: (smile) Looking through gynaecological coloured glasses are we? 

There is more to the women folk than what meets the gynaecological eyes, and more than what has been right under his nose all this time. . .

Eh, it was just meant as a funny.  Not much of that around these days.

(06-26-2025, 02:12 AM)FCD Wrote: Eh, it was just meant as a funny.  Not much of that around these days.

So was mine.

I'm sorry FCD, I couldn't help myself.

I reckon you're onto something FCD when you say:

(06-26-2025, 01:40 AM)FCD Wrote: So, it's basically a recipe for a Masters & Johnson cake from the 1400's, with some Dr. Ruth sprinkled over it and some Larry Flynt decorations on top.

Interesting.

edit - BTW, I'm waiting for you guys to solve this!  I know you can do it.

Humour aside, you've reminded me of "glasses" and perspective when you wrote a tongue in cheek interpretation of what MykeNukem posted here.

Twenty-first century medicine had its birth not too long ago. Gray's Anatomy was first published in 1858. Before that, the church forbid the dissection of the human body. In the 1600s Malaria didn't exist, rather there was ague (Ay-goo) which was caused by bad air, and not the mosquito borne parasite as we know now. The cure of course is the Jesuits' powder.

Since our Voynich Manuscript is circa thirteenth century, we probably need to put aside our twenty-first century glasses, and pick up our thirteenth century glasses.

That's what you got me to do FCD. I'll take off my fae-coloured glasses and try to look at this in a way the authors did.

Then a drawing made sense. I've wondered about this one for some time:

   

The drawing is curious because growing from the roots are two human heads.

If we look through our twenty-first century anatomy glasses, it doesn't make sense. If we try to fit the image with pregnancy, as say twins, we should know that any thirteenth century midwife would know that the umbilical joins the abdomen, and not the top of the head.

However . . .

Back in the day, midwives, herbalists and healers would probably approach the human body as a living thing, and not the mortuary view as we do now.

So let's take another look at this image:

   

I don't know for sure, but it looks like twins to me, identical twins. They both grow from the same 'plant'.

So let's think in terms of 'soul' in relation to pregnancy for a moment.

We know identical twins are born from a division in the same fertilised egg. The same DNA and grow into identical looking kids. For all intents and purposes, they are exactly the same.

So let's take the perspective of our incoming 'soul' who wants to be born here. How would it tell there were actually two potential bodies there, it would only see one since there is no way to know otherwise.

So we would have two physical children, identical twins, sharing the same 'soul'.

A thirteenth century midwife would probably be interested in knowing that.

Interesting.  My failed attempt at humor did in fact have some reason behind it, a 'motive to my madness' you might say.  After reading over what Myke wrote, I thought...

Sex back in the 1400's was a taboo subject for discussion or writing.  Openly talking about it as an enjoyable thing was considered "dirty" (not physically, although it was probably less than pleasant by today's standards, but that's all they knew).  Thus the reference to Larry Flynt.  Then you had Masters & Johnson who were the first ones to write a comprehensive work all about sex and sexual relations, but from a scientific and psychoanalytic point of view, but given the era of the Voynich Manuscript it would have had to be deeply encoded.  The Voynich Manuscript resembles just such a comprehensive work.  Later someone comes along to try to bridge the gap between the two, decode all of the scientific and analytic mumbo-jumbo, and translate it into language and phrasing the average person could understand.  Thus the Dr. Ruth Westheimer reference (aka "Dr Ruth" at the time).

Rather than trying to explain all of that, I just distilled it down into a single sentence for the sake of levity.  

BTW - I can remember, as an adolescent kid, laying awake late at night to listen to KFI 640 AM out of Los Angeles.  Even though I lived in Wyoming at the time, many times late at night I was able to tune in 640 KFI on my little transistor radio, because like many AM radio stations the signal would "skip" off the Magnetosphere late at night.  KFI 640 was one of only two AM radio stations which was granted a license to broadcast 50,000 watts ERP in 'clear channel' (meaning no other radio stations (in the US) were licensed to use that frequency).  And you knew that if anything came up when you tuned to 640 AM, it was always KFI (because no one else could use that freq.).  The only other AM radio station to be similarly licensed was WLS 890 AM out of Chicago.  And because I was a AM radio nut at the time, I had a decent AM receiver (it was actually a shortwave radio), so sometimes I could even tune them in at night too.  Inevitably, I could get reception of one or the other.  KFI was more common.  Common to the point I knew KFI's schedule well enough to know "Sexually Speaking with Dr. Ruth Westheimer" came on at 10pm local time every Sunday.  By the age of 15, I knew more about sexual relations than most adults.  There was one other KFI program I used to tune in for, but I don't recall the name of it.  WLS was a lot harder to receive, so I don't really remember much of their programming.  Within 2 years I would get my FCC Broadcasting license and was on the air for a local AM radio station.

(06-26-2025, 08:11 AM)FCD Wrote: Interesting.  My failed attempt at humor did in fact have some reason behind it, a 'motive to my madness' you might say.  After reading over what Myke wrote, I thought...

I liked your BTW, I was wondering why a teenager would tune in to radio, then I found out : )

"Masters and Johnson" I kinda knew they had something to do with that subject.

After replying, I was up on my roof getting it ready for painting, mulling over this thread. That was when I recalled the picture from the Voynich and realised your intuition must have kicked in with what you wrote.

(06-26-2025, 08:34 AM)NobodySpecial268 Wrote: I liked your BTW, I was wondering why a teenager would tune in to radio, then I found out : )

...

It's worse than just that.  I've been fascinated with radio ever since I was old enough to turn one on.  First it was just DX/RX, and then the broadcasting thing; these were just steps along the way.  I went on to get a degree in Engineering Physics and now work in Aviation specializing in RF Communications, System Design and Implementation.  Now I do TX/RX/DX, voice, data and telemetry from ELF all the way up through the MX spectrum.

I was browsing some 16th century manuscripts and came across this anthropomorphized tuber.

   
Oxford Bodleian Library

And another whole set in same collection.

The wife suffers from some really high anxiety, and this poor girl really does.  It's not weird stuff (at all), it's just she's bouncing off the walls from the minute she wakes up, until the moment she shuts her eyes to go to sleep.  And, seriously guys, this is not some weird shit; she just gets really amped up about anything, and everything, and if you don't pay attention to her for even a second, she has a complete cow over it!!  It's not normal, and she's talked to her doctor about it, and (of course) they gave her some drugs, but when she takes those she just becomes a zombie and sleeps all the time, etc.

So, one day she comes to me and tells me she's been reading about (magic) mushrooms.  I was shocked!  Of course, she wasn't talking about recreational use, but rather micro-doses of this stuff (it's a big thing right now among some of the PSTD vets, etc).  They're legal here.  Well, if you grow some for personal use anyway.  So, she wants to try growing some (again, I'm in shock)..."okay!, Lets try it!.." (says me).  I bought her a couple nice, well written books.  Nothing weird, just some homeopathic stuff.  She has exactly zero probability of becoming a Dead-Head anytime soon!!  Now she's got a list of stuff she wants to buy and try.  Mushrooms of any sort are pretty complicated to cultivate really.  Not easy things to grow at all.  It's best if you do it outside, after cultivating soil for several years first.  Well, she's not this patient.  So, we have to resort to indoor stuff with controlled temps, special lights, nutrient circulation (like hydroponics), grow lights and the whole 9-yards.  So, I get all this stuff.  (Guys, I hope you understand, when this woman gets on a roll, it's like..."Just get out of the way, and stand back!"  BTW...she's 60 years old, but I love her to death.  Anyway, no spring chicken, no hippie flower-child, by a long shot!  We also get this special spore mixture, or "medium" (which is apparently living), as well as a bunch of other stuff.  Read all the advice, in the books and online, and we're off.

Anyway...we get all this stuff, and we get it set up.  She doesn't have any misguided ideas about our chances of success.  Our probability of success is closer to zero than it is to 100%.  Ultimately, it fails (no surprise to me, but by this time I'm pretty stoked on the whole idea).  She's ambivalent to starting over, with an even more elaborate setup, but I'm gung-ho for the whole idea.  "Meh!  It'll never work!"...is pretty much her attitude.  But I was like..."Hey!...we only tried once!  Let's give it another shot and fix this, and this other thing, and try again!".  She's like..."Meh!"  She's off onto some other new thing, like supplements, and shakes. (which I'm not into at all).  She moves on, and I'm like..."You go on ahead with your bad self, but I'm out!"  "You can make Kale shakes mixed with all these crazy vitamins and minerals all you want, but I'm not eatin' that shit!!".  Did I ever mention, I can't stand that "Ditch Weed" they call "Kale", just hate the stuff!!  Hate it with a purple passion!!  

She goes off into the Wild Blue Yonder with all this other crazy stuff, but I'm sitting back reading these volumes of books I bought on growing mushrooms, both the edible kind and "other" kinds.  Learned all sorts of stuff.  So....where I'm at now is...I'm ready to go do this right!  The correct way.  It's not all that much money, but it does take some care, and some controlled environment (heat for us, and humidity, induced.  But, I've figured all this out now, and I have the gear to do it).  So, I'm going to try it.  I became a pretty good beer meister, brewing my own beer.  I've made lots of my own wine.  I've made lots of fermented items.  And, I've even raised small crop plants, like beans, beets and larger produce, in a controlled indoor environment, with irrigation (like hydroponics, with just a growing medium and moving liquid all the time).

So, wish me luck!!  

Seriously!!  

Honestly, I don't care if I wind up with Chantrells, Morels, or what.  Heck, I'll even take some decent Elephant Ears the first time around if that's what shows up (because you never know really, what you
you're gonna get).  

I'd just like some fresh, homegrown, mushrooms!!  If I can ever plant them outside, that'll be even cooler, because mushrooms aren't like plants you can predict.  You plant the spores over here, and they pop up 50 feet away...'Over there!"...or even all over the place, especially Morels once they get established!

(08-17-2025, 10:49 PM)FCD Wrote: I'd just like some fresh, homegrown, mushrooms!!  If I can ever plant them outside, that'll be even cooler, because mushrooms aren't like plants you can predict.  You plant the spores over here, and they pop up 50 feet away...'Over there!"...or even all over the place, especially Morels once they get established!

Did you mean for this to just be a reply to the Voynich Manuscript thread? This is worth a whole thread and I think we can move it to one, maybe in the DIY section?

Outdoor growing is hard because a lot of mushrooms have pretty specific environmental needs, but even doing it in a clean environment can be hard. Outdoors it's more a matter of encouraging them or bringing in some that work in the existing environment.

Should I move this to a thread? I would very much like a thread following mushroom cultivation and I might even join in. I've been looking into growing a few different psychoactive fungi, but it sort of always gets knocked to the bottom of the list.

I just realized, I posed a completely off-topic post on this thread!!

My apologies! For some reason, I thought it fit here. I'm confident I was wrong.

My sincerest apologies!!

(Sigh)

That is all.