The Voynich Manuscript: A Research Compilation

[MykeNukem]

Great!  This is JUST what I needed...another unsolvable mystery.  LOL!

These types of things are like train wrecks for me, I don't want to look, but I can't look away.  Sigh.  Just kidding!

This is the first I've heard of this.  I haven't digested much of it...yet, but I do have a question.  One of the first things my mind jumped to was the question of...are there any mistakes?

One of the best ways to understand the meaning of something is to look for errors.  

..

Your instincts are correct. 

In the case of the VM there are basically zero errors of the scribe, which, in and of itself is very strange. Writing a text of that length with a quill and doing it error free is an achievement in itself.

[MykeNukem]

In the FL old English paragraph the word warmoude does not have many search results, especially when surrounded thus: "warmoude".

However, if we go to google translate warmoude translates into the Russian теплая атмосфера which in English means warm atmosphere. That would work with medicine because the alchemist would probably take into account the warm, and the chill.

My brain immediately jumped to 'wormwood'. Which, I've hear that the word 'Chernobyl' translates to, also a Russian connection.

Weird.

[FCD]

From the OP:


Multiple authors suggest a group who knew the language, and that they wrote it for themselves.

Thanks.  I missed that part.

[NobodySpecial268]

Your welcome FCD. All your questions got me curios : )
----------------------

I've been browsing through the manuscript and have a tentative theory of what the book is about.

Back in the days of sailing ships, there was often a ship's painter who would record the voyage and what they saw on canvas. Botanical drawings for example.

   

   

   

Those plants are all unearthly, and the "women" along with what they are doing give the impression of nature spirits and what they do.

I reckon a group of medical botanists (of sorts) were exploring the astral realm and that is their notebook. The Voynich manuscript is a field guide to astral herbal medicine is my best guess.

[NobodySpecial268]

My brain immediately jumped to 'wormwood'. Which, I've hear that the word 'Chernobyl' translates to, also a Russian connection.

Weird.

So did my mind, "wormwood". That is why I tried Google Translate to see if it was wormwood in another language. Yeah, it is odd that we thought something Russian about it.

[Nugget]

Your welcome FCD. All your questions got me curios : )
----------------------

I've been browsing through the manuscript and have a tentative theory of what the book is about.

Back in the days of sailing ships, there was often a ship's painter who would record the voyage and what they saw on canvas.  Botanical drawings for example.







Those plants are all unearthly, and the "women" along with what they are doing give the impression of nature spirits and what they do.

I reckon a group of medical botanists (of sorts) were exploring the astral realm and that is their notebook.  The Voynich manuscript is a field guide to astral herbal medicine is my best guess.

All the picture with women sure do remiind me of our reprodutive tract. Perhaps the VM is a medical manuscript.

The Chinese seem to  have a more thorough grasp on health and well-being than any other society, which makes me wonder if there could be a connection to our earliest known practitioners and healers. China really seemed to lead the world in technology, and still does as far as natural medicin and understanding of the human body/mind/spirit IMO.

[FCD]

The first picture of the women in the second plate makes me think of a figurehead attached to a sailing ship just below the bowsprit.  

So, still a nautical relation.  Although, Nugget also has a point with some of that artwork resembling the reproductive system which would be consistent with ancient alchemy for sure.  Maybe both are in the ballpark.

[Ksihkehe]

I've been browsing through the manuscript and have a tentative theory of what the book is about.

I did too and I found the idea of Cathars from the debunked decode interesting. They have come up fairly recently in discussions ol' Clif High has been having.

   

As I mentioned in another post the images might provide clues that can help with the written parts and the people in the VM do look have a similar look with posture and features from Cathar art, if a bit less polished. I have no real background in the religious art of the time though and it may be ubiquitous across the western world. I think it would take a real art historian to spot the differences because it all looks sort of similar to me.

Almost everything known about the Cathars comes from confessions of “heretics” taken by Catholic clergy during the inquisition which followed the Albigensian Crusade. The belief structure can easily be traced back to Manichaeism which traveled via the Silk Road from the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East to Europe where it became entwined, under certain circumstances, with Christian belief and symbolism.

Cathar history

They practiced Gnosticism with elements drawn from various sects going back to Zoroastrianism. That fits the general sort of beliefs that most of the alchemist of that time we're leaning toward. It wouldn't be at all out of character for their herbalist beliefs to involve nature beings as part of the lore. That explains the language as well, which would be only accessible to others from the same "school".

As you know, this is exactly the sort of book we've expected to find attached to the lost book mentioned in The Vertical Plane, though we know the author leaned more toward gnostic Catholicism.

Getting to the bottom of the translation is out of my depth, but I do enjoy the mystery. The plants are not any that I recognize and I did a bit of searching for those before as I have a fair bit of knowledge on wild edibles and medicinal plants. They look sort of like other things, but it seems nobody has discovered real world species that match. That could lend further support for your ideas on what they were recording. The plant world is very large though, so who knows if they were regional plants that either haven't been widely documented or have become exceedingly rare or become extinct.

I lean toward plants that don't exist and the authors being in touch with entities of some kind, either via their religious practices or just as part of their traditional lore. The plant images themselves may even have codes hidden in their structure. Numerology, perhaps, or symbolism related to their beliefs.

As pointed out by FCD, vellum and the materials for writing were not exactly something everyone had laying around. A certain amount of wealth or the access to resources was required for them to even have it. It would be a really big expense to give to a crazy person to scribble on.

[NobodySpecial268]

All the picture with women sure do remiind me of our reprodutive tract. Perhaps the VM is a medical manuscript.

The Chinese seem to  have a more thorough grasp on health and well-being than any other society, which makes me wonder if there could be a connection to our earliest known practitioners and healers. China really seemed to lead the world in technology, and still does as far as natural medicin and understanding of the human body/mind/spirit IMO.

As usual, your intuition is spot on there Nugget.

In modern days, the idea of the whole of Nature being alive and that nothing happens without the work of Nature Beings isn't popular with the scientific medical folk. They would scoff at the idea of thousands of tiny fairy fingers as the reason why sap flows in the plants and why flowers open. Vonyich is showing these processes is the impression I get from viewing the illustrations. I can't read the text, but should be able to look at the pictures and identify what is being described, like your reference to the female reproductive organs for instance. It should be noted that people use the term "forces of nature" but that is hardly descriptive. The word "force" describes the action and not what is causing it. Like saying that a force controls the automobile, instead of saying a person is driving the car.

The plant drawings need to be understood as not being earthly, but rather "astral", if I may use that word. In greek mythology, the Elysium Fields are described as the place where dead heroes go after war where they forget about the horrors of their lives. That is Hades' realm. The Elysium Fields are also called the Fields Of Flowers. At least that is what I call the place.

To understand the Fields Of Flowers is not as easy as a field of flowers in a landscape with children making daisy chains. That is a very romantic interpretation that ignores what is happening there. In the Elysium Fields, the flowers themselves work on a different level. The Field of Forgetfulness is more like it. The flowers there are very predatory and consume emotions like physical plants consume nitrogen or potassium. The plants there will draw all the painful memories of life from the deceased and consume them. Memory eaters one might say. A very different landscape from a botanical garden where people view and discuss the flowers and the trees.

There is a place I call The Garden Of Sorrow And Regret.. I took a deceased girl there once to heal her. It is the most tearful place I have ever been. I've seen a lot, and didn't escape the tears myself that time. To get a feel for the Garden Of Sorrow And Regret, the image below gives a glimpse of the feeling of what it is like to be there.

   

So in the Voynich manuscript, one would have to play the astral botanist with the view that we are not dealing with the material view of chemical substances, rather living forces that act on the body very differently. I think so anyway.


ETA: In the Garden of Sorrow and Regret, it is always raining.

[NobodySpecial268]

As I mentioned in another post the images might provide clues that can help with the written parts and the people in the VM do look have a similar look with posture and features from Cathar art, if a bit less polished. I have no real background in the religious art of the time though and it may be ubiquitous across the western world. I think it would take a real art historian to spot the differences because it all looks sort of similar to me.

Cathar history

They practiced Gnosticism with elements drawn from various sects going back to Zoroastrianism. That fits the general sort of beliefs that most of the alchemist of that time we're leaning toward. It wouldn't be at all out of character for their herbalist beliefs to involve nature beings as part of the lore. That explains the language as well, which would be only accessible to others from the same "school".

You are probably correct there, and it would not surprise me to see a Russian influence there too. From the link it seems the Cathars are extinct, or at least underground.  So the Voynich text may be a language of theirs.

As you know, this is exactly the sort of book we've expected to find attached to the lost book mentioned in The Vertical Plane, though we know the author leaned more toward gnostic Catholicism.

Yes, the historical worldwide destruction of libraries by the church and others is a consideration here.  Perhaps the Voyanich is one of the surviving books.  If one could look through time what a  story that would tell. Especially if such libraries could be accessed in some way.  The Vertical Plane (a book by Ken Webster where messages through time appear on a computer screen.) is an interesting case and perhaps relevant to the contents of the Voynich book.  Though probably worthy of a thread of it's own.

Getting to the bottom of the translation is out of my depth, but I do enjoy the mystery. The plants are not any that I recognize and I did a bit of searching for those before as I have a fair bit of knowledge on wild edibles and medicinal plants. They look sort of like other things, but it seems nobody has discovered real world species that match. That could lend further support for your ideas on what they were recording. The plant world is very large though, so who knows if they were regional plants that either haven't been widely documented or have become exceedingly rare or become extinct.

Aye, the illustrations may yield more information than the language.

I lean toward plants that don't exist and the authors being in touch with entities of some kind, either via their religious practices or just as part of their traditional lore. The plant images themselves may even have codes hidden in their structure. Numerology, perhaps, or symbolism related to their beliefs.

I think it is simpler than that and practical in nature.  Even the fold out drawings that look like mysterious alchemical cosmology are probably just a drawing of how stuff works, like the little women. It shouldn't be hard to use those as one would use a road map.

As pointed out by FCD, vellum and the materials for writing were not exactly something everyone had laying around. A certain amount of wealth or the access to resources was required for them to even have it. It would be a really big expense to give to a crazy person to scribble on.

In the OP there was reference to a few erased characters to indicate someone took a lot of care. It wasn't long ago that people wrote entire letters in what would be called calligraphic writing (copperplate). My grandfather could do that. He was also a clerk for an illegal starting price bookie (horse racing). He took great pride in the fact that the ledger was all in fountain pen calligraphic writing without even one single mistake.

People took more care in the old days.