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The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript

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jkoci

jkoci

Watcher of the Skies
APOD: 2010 January 31 - The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript

voynich_schaefer.jpg
 
Since the time I worked on a rare collection of medieval manuscripts and books collected by William Newbold, an early 20th century scholar who tried to decipher the Voynich manuscript, I have been intrigued by the mysterious document. My considered opinion is that the book is an example of asemic writing, which to me is far more interesting than the hypothesis that its language is some sort of cipher system.

Dr. Sami Saladin
Pisa, Italy
 
drsamisaladin said:
Since the time I worked on a rare collection of medieval manuscripts and books collected by William Newbold, an early 20th century scholar who tried to decipher the Voynich manuscript, I have been intrigued by the mysterious document. My considered opinion is that the book is an example of asemic writing, which to me is far more interesting than the hypothesis that its language is some sort of cipher system.

Dr. Sami Saladin
Pisa, Italy
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What are your thoughts on the illustrations?

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My assessment agrees with what most experts have observed, that is, that the illustrations seem to treat of subjects related to the general field of herbal science in the medieval period. At that time fields such as cosmology were felt to be associated with herbal science. In other words, I agree with the view that the Voynich manuscript is an herbal, which was recently carbon dated to the first years of the 15th century. What remains unique about the manuscript is its script, which as I said, I hypothesize is a specimen of asemic writing.

To say the Voynich manuscript is an herbal is not to say it is "only" an herbal; I mean that I am not trying to take away from its mysterious aspects by identifying it as an herbal. The fact is that the medieval herbal science encompassed fields of knowledge which today would be considered paranormal (e.g., astrology). If we consider the possibility that the script is asemic, then the entire manuscript could be related to the paranormal. All in all, the Voynich manuscript is a fascinating piece whose script is very likely to always remain a mystery.

S. Saladin
 
I think the Voynich manuscript is the product of a very talented artist who probably suffered from something like schizophrenia which made them reclusive. It reminds me in a way of the work of Henry Darger, who probably didn't have schizophrenia, but was a reclusive artist and writer whose massive and complicated work was unknown and undiscovered during his lifetime.
 
nameless said:
This is something different, its more like an intellectual game, an inferred imaginative proposition based on the occult precept of "above so below".
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How do you get that from an indecipherable text? It seems to obviously be a work of art created for reasons probably only the artist knew.
 
I think it could indeed be someone's personally created language. Without being knowledgeable about such things I am sure I have read about various people in history who used language they created for themselves. Twins who create a language when young springs to mind. I had an ex who was an identical twin and she claimed that too.
I suppose it could be just some kind of hoax - not a hoax in that it never happened, but a kind of joke to puzzle people?
 
trainedobserver said:
How do you get that from an indecipherable text? It seems to obviously be a work of art created for reasons probably only the artist knew.
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..er because thats what it looks like! its layed out like a hermetic grimoire and the pictures of flora resembling constellations are a big giveaway, but with loads of sight gags like the people peas in pods as if the author is saying well how far are you going to take this micro macro cosm stuff anyway! yeh you right too, "its art created by an artist", much like the codex. who ever created it knew and had access to or had seen alchemical grimoires, that much is obvious.

goggsmackay said:
I think it could indeed be someone's personally created language....
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goggsmackay said:
I suppose it could be just some kind of hoax - not a hoax in that it never happened, but a kind of joke to puzzle people?
Click to expand...


exactly, much like THE CODEX! Also its worth bearing in mind that people payed (and still do pay) alot of money for occult books and this could have been a cobbled together "mystery" to sell to an unsuspecting collector. it seeems to perfectly fit such mythic providence.

If you like this then you should look into the Necronomicon too. That itself was an excercise in "mythic grimoire" creation along the same lines.

Check out the Key of Solomon too;
Key of Solomon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


All of these books have one thing in common, false, truth, trick, treat, real, fake, ruminations on the veracity of the object help create its mythology and bring it into existance as if its given its own will and in so doing so create within the observer a kind of initiatory transformation effect too.

In fact this could be a future paracast epsiode.. Weird spooky books that do peoples heads in.
 
trainedobserver said:
I think the Voynich manuscript is the product of a very talented artist who probably suffered from something like schizophrenia which made them reclusive. It reminds me in a way of the work of Henry Darger, who probably didn't have schizophrenia, but was a reclusive artist and writer whose massive and complicated work was unknown and undiscovered during his lifetime.
Click to expand...

Mystery Voynich manuscript gets preliminary alphabet - 22 February 2014 - New Scientist
 
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