The Voynich Ninja

Morten, I've retracted your warning since you changed your message right away. Next time you insult someone it will result in a ban though, so.. just don't insult people anymore.

About armadillos, like I said, their defining features are mostly missing. Large front claws, armor divided in bands... I see no reason why it should be preferred over a pangolin or a fanciful lizard, and plenty of reasons to the contrary.

(09-03-2018, 05:14 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Morten, I've retracted your warning since you changed your message right away. Next time you insult someone it will result in a ban though, so.. just don't insult people anymore.

About armadillos, like I said, their defining features are mostly missing. Large front claws, armor divided in bands... I see no reason why it should be preferred over a pangolin or a fanciful lizard, and plenty of reasons to the contrary.

I see no point in continuing to argue about zoology since it plays only a minor role in Morten St. George Theory. The primary tenet of the theory is that, in the late 16th century, the VMS led to the creation of a secret society called the Rose Cross, whose initial objective was to publish some of the VMS recipes.

The Rosicrucian Manifesto (called Fama Fraternitatis) provides a cryptic history of the RC and their first publication (code name Liber M). For those of you who cannot read German, an English translation was published by Thomas Vaughan in 1652. One year earlier, Vaughan published a book on Rosicrucian philosophy in which he included a page of drawings.

In prior posts on this website, I showed how the Rosicrucians incorporated a VMS plant, VMS glyphs, VMS bird symbols, and VMS fleur de lys symbolism into their botanical writings. In this post here, we'll take a quick look at a few of Vaughan's drawings and compare them to VMS drawings.

BIRD'S NEST MOUNTAIN



Vaughan's mountain is missing the bird in the nest but that is only because his nest is at the very top of the page leaving no room for the bird. To let us know that there should be a bird in the nest, Vaughan draws a pair of wings to the right of his mountain.

CELESTIAL THEMES



Moons were normally drawn without light emission in both the VMS and elsewhere, so the single VMS Moon with writing around may have been Vaughan's inspiration. It would take an expert to distinguish VMS stars from Vaughan's stars.

HUNGRY DRAGONS



The VMS creature (left) is biting into a plant leaf and the Vaughan creature (middle) is about to bite into the tail of a dragon. Unlike the VMS drawing, Vaughan’s depicts wings and no hands, so he adds another creature (right) with VMS-like hands and no wings.

ROSIE BEADS



Both drawings depict a youth wearing a long garment and holding a ring of bead-like objects in the left hand.

Other Rosicrucian texts make use of Sephirotic spheres and of writing around concentric centers, both of which find their inspiration in the VMS.

SUMMARY

Early Rosicrucian literature was heavily influenced by the VMS exclusive of the publication of VMS recipes.

FYI, quite a few people on this forum can read German, but pointers to translations are always welcome.


You've compared the last image to a string of beads, but I think the VMS drawing looks more like a chain.

There are a couple of saints whose attributes are a chain and St. Peter is sometimes depicted with a chain in one hand and a key in the other. Notice how there is something a bit nebulous in the figure's right hand? Could that be a key that has been drawn so its identity is not too obvious?


The symbolism in the Rosicrucian illustrations are not unique to them. They borrowed heavily from other symbolic texts that came earlier (e.g., alchemy, astrology, kabbalah), so it would be difficult to say whether there's a direct link between the VMS and the Rosicrucian imagery, or whether both borrowed from other sources. One can find birds on high tors in quite a number of western and eastern illustrations.

That the Rosicrucian imagery has many parallels in earlier imagery is not surprising, since they themselves claimed that they were privy to special knowledge that came down to them from earlier sources.



I don't know if your dragon analogy is going to hold up. There are thousands of images of little dragons and dragons biting. Any manuscript with frequent marginal illustrations and many manuscripts with occult arts have them.


I know you were intending to show that there is a "pattern" of similarity in these illustrations, and the textures on the tor are good, but when two of the examples can be contested, then the argument for the overall pattern is not as strong.


The Hermetic tradition (which had already been mentioned as early as the 14th century) probably inspired some of the Rosicrucian ideas and symbolism.

(11-03-2018, 03:45 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.FYI, quite a few people on this forum can read German, but pointers to translations are always welcome.


You've compared the last image to a string of beads, but I think the VMS drawing looks more like a chain.

There are a couple of saints whose attributes are a chain and St. Peter is sometimes depicted with a chain in one hand and a key in the other. Notice how there is something a bit nebulous in the figure's right hand? Could that be a key that has been drawn so its identity is not too obvious?


The symbolism in the Rosicrucian illustrations are not unique to them. They borrowed heavily from other symbolic texts that came earlier (e.g., alchemy, astrology, kabbalah), so it would be difficult to say whether there's a direct link between the VMS and the Rosicrucian imagery, or whether both borrowed from other sources. One can find birds on high tors in quite a number of western and eastern illustrations.

That the Rosicrucian imagery has many parallels in earlier imagery is not surprising, since they themselves claimed that they were privy to special knowledge that came down to them from earlier sources.



I don't know if your dragon analogy is going to hold up. There are thousands of images of little dragons and dragons biting. Any manuscript with frequent marginal illustrations and many manuscripts with occult arts have them.


I know you were intending to show that there is a "pattern" of similarity in these illustrations, and the textures on the tor are good, but when two of the examples can be contested, then the argument for the overall pattern is not as strong.


The Hermetic tradition (which had already been mentioned as early as the 14th century) probably inspired some of the Rosicrucian ideas and symbolism.

I have no qualms about anything you say except that I think it doubtful that either drawing is trying to depict Saint Peter: he carried the Keys of Heaven, not the keys to unlock his chains.

My comparisons were only meant to point to the VMS as a source of inspiration for Vaughan's drawings, so it matters little that the VMS depicts a chain of rings and Vaughan only one ring.

The critical question that needs to be answered is: Did the creator of the Vaughan drawings have prior sight of the VMS?

Though, as you say, the VMS and Vaughan drawings could have had the same third party sources, consider this: the Vaughan depictions in all four comparisons are components of a larger, single page drawing, which greatly reduces the chances of coincidental similarities.

The matter is relevant to the European location of the VMS for the period from 1584 to 1912. Obviously, evidence (not meager) of a prolonged presence of the VMS in England presents a serious challenge to the traditional Prague to Kircher narrative.

By my theory, the Rosicrucians themselves broke the VMS code. They would have had no need to send the VMS to Rudolf's cryptographers or on to Kircher for that purpose. The story that Wilfred Voynich acquired the VMS from Jesuits might be false.

Why do you think there is evidence that the VMS spent prolonged time in England?

I'm not aware of any evidence that it was in England. It might have been... but it might also never have been.

(11-03-2018, 11:22 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why do you think there is evidence that the VMS spent prolonged time in England?

I'm not aware of any evidence that it was in England. It might have been... but it might also never have been.

I too have never seen an unambiguous historical record of the VMS being present in England. My theories come from interpretation of the cryptic writings of the Rosicrucians, and there can be no guarantee that I have interpreted those writings correctly.

By theory, the VMS was one of two manuscripts brought to London in the year 1584. The VMS companion volume was called Historia de los Incas.

Like the VMS, the Historia de los Incas completely vanished for three hundred years. It was "discovered" in a German university library in the 1890s and subsequently published in 1907. Apparently, this somewhat harmless book had to be kept secret as it was used as source material for an introduction to the publication of the VMS recipes, but by the year 1900 the Inquisition was no longer of major concern.

Outward signs of the presence of the VMS in London include the icons on the title page of The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, published in 1597.

In 1617, Michael Maier (once Rudolph II's physician) published a drawing of the Bird's Nest Mountain inclusive of both VMS birds, the one sitting in the nest and the one in flight. Maier, however, spent the years 1611 to 1616 in London where he moved within royal circles, and that is where he likely gained sight of the VMS.

In 1651, Thomas Vaughan published VMS-related drawings in London, though it is by no means certain if Vaughan himself made those drawings or if they were made by someone else perhaps a few decades earlier.

In 1898, Wilfred Voynich became an antiquarian bookseller in London. I believe he originally claimed to have found the VMS in an "ancient castle in Southern Europe," then changed this to an "Austrian castle," and then after his death his wife said he found it at the Villa Mondragone in Italy.

Personally, I don't think Voynich found the VMS in any of his travels. And I don't think he bought it from anyone. And I don't think he stole it.

I think the VMS was simply offered to Voynich at his London bookstore (perhaps he was told it was a Roger Bacon original) provided he met certain conditions. One plausible condition would be that he maintain secrecy on how he acquired the VMS and another would be that he make the VMS's existence known to the world, and that is precisely what Voynich did.

According to Rosicrucian beliefs, the 20th century marked the final complete century prior to humankind's demise. Consequently, approaching or entering the 20th century, it made sense to start bringing their long-concealed books into the public domain.

(11-03-2018, 11:22 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why do you think there is evidence that the VMS spent prolonged time in England?

I'm not aware of any evidence that it was in England. It might have been... but it might also never have been.

Some clarification is needed:

The Morten St. George Theory maintains that Christian Rosenkreutz was a fictional personage but the Fraternity of the Rose Cross was real, not an imaginary brotherhood as many scholars believe. However, it arose in England (created in 1585 by a small group of English aristocrats and continental scholars), not in Germany as recorded in Wikipedia though they did have German contacts.

I do not know if the VMS spent all three hundred years in England (it could have spent some time in places like Sweden or the Netherlands) but I can say with a high degree of confidence that the Rosicrucians would not have allowed the VMS to fall into Roman Catholic hands. Giordano Bruno was one of them.

Note that the Rosicrucians were master forgers, masters of deceit, and masters of fake news. Correspondence found inside the VMS and signatures written into the VMS are probably fake if they suggest that the VMS was ever physically present in either Prague or Italy.

(22-02-2018, 07:53 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

• that whoever drew the zodiac symbols either had traveled in northeast France or had seen some manuscripts from that general area (and probably consulted more than one source) and had probably had access to a library (which may have included books from the previous centuries), and who possibly traveled
  

For a moment I had some doubts that they had access to a library because they seem to have no idea what a scorpion looked like. Perhaps this could be true for people from the British Isles but hardly if they also had a library. Consider this: they seem to be quite familiar with western zodiacal drawings when it comes to fish and scales, so what's all this scorpion nonsense about?



Their scorpion looks more like a four-legged dinosaur than a scorpion. I saw a funny-looking scorpion depiction from northern Europe but nothing like this. I'd be willing to bet that you couldn't find a VMS scorpion anywhere in all of medieval literature and I think I know why.

I'm guessing that native Americans were afraid of scorpions so it made little sense to scare them if you wished to convert them to your religion.

Similarly, the Centaur of Sagittarius had to be changed into a two-legged archer because native Americans would never believe that a creature like the Centaur could exist.

As I have been saying lately: the VMS was very likely a missionary's handbook.

Any thoughts on this?

Morten, let me refer you to the "essentials" ( ) post about Scorpio:

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(14-03-2018, 07:22 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Morten, let me refer you to the "essentials" ( ) post about Scorpio:

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Thanks very much for your helpful response. Here I have little more to work with than what Google images can show me.

I see that the four-legged scorpion is dated to England, circa 1250. This does nothing to hurt my theory that the original VMS drawings were made by Cathars during the 13th century granted that the map of Cathar migration that I posted includes England.



The drawing on the right comes from England, dated 1320-1340. Note the following:

1. Both bowmen are holding the crossbow below their waist.

2. Both bowmen are wearing no armor (apparently rare for medieval depictions of crossbowmen).

3. Both bowmen are colored blue.

4. Both bowmen are wearing something on their head.

5. Both bowmen are growing hair around their mouth.

Offhand, I'd say the VMS could have some ties to England.

Indeed, Geoffrey of Monmouth (1095-1155) lived in England. By MSG Theory, Geoffrey was in possession of the VMS recipes and even wrote a book about them.

BTW, the English manuscript of 1320 includes a drawing of a Centaur with loaded longbow. Thus, the VMS may have chosen to use the English versions of Sagittarius and Scorpio, rather than the traditional images, for precisely the reason that I outlined in my prior post.