The Voynich Ninja

(28-11-2018, 05:55 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I really don't want to enter this discussion, but it would probably be almost devious to let (parts of) it run on without pointing out the long-known case of folio nr. 42.

I've been studying their writings for years and I can fairly say that they did not do anything haphazardly. Lots of planning and forethought went into every stroke of the pen.

I think the overwriting of a plant could have been avoided either by placing the number in the middle of the page or by reversing the order of pages so that the corner plant fell on a page that did not require a number. Thus, I surmise it is possible that they wanted to draw our attention to the number "42", that this number might have some significance for the decoding effort.

In the 12th and 13th centuries (postulated for the creation of the VMS encryption system), the number 42 did have importance and appeared frequently in the literature of the epoch. Specifically, the mystical name of God had precisely 42 letters.

Meanwhile, the 42nd section of the Bahir (a mystic classic written in that epoch) might also have relevance. I'm here citing Scholem's book called Origins:

“To this syzygy also corresponds the symbolism of letters in section 42. Every letter has a "partner," if one counts the alphabet each time, forwards and backwards.”

This here is a clipping from the wheels of the Merkabah on f57v:



Note that the first and third wheels have a 'start line' marked by a single bar, But the inner wheel (the one which contains the all-critical transliteration alphabets) has two start lines marked by a double bar, allowing one proceed either forwards or backwards.

(01-12-2018, 08:10 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-12-2018, 05:36 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Morten, I've created FOUR transcripts of the VMS script. I have looked at EVERY SINGLE glyph in the manuscript many many times and there is nowhere in the manuscript where [font=Eva]m is drawn like that or combined like that. [/font]

It does not look like [font=Sans-serif][font=Eva]m[/font] at all (or [font=Eva]m[/font] combined with long-c). It does look like a normal medieval rotated-m or z. I've looked at THOUSANDS of manuscripts so I'm familiar with what they did and what they didn't do and your idea is quite far outside anything I've seen in the VMS.[/font] A few of the glyphs are a bit mangled, but they are not mangled like that. They vary in predictable understandable ways. Your glyph idea simply isn't close enough to reality.

Other than the "c" which is a normal Latin letter, the letters in this word do not look like Voynich glyphs. There IS a possible Voynich glyph in the next word.

I think we are both seeing what we want to see.

So far, I have found the symbol half colored-in in the marginalia of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. but it is fully colored-in on f17r:



It seems you are unable to envision a colored-in eight-figure on the top of your rotated m and my biggest gripe about your viewpoint is that I am unable to detect any separation between the c and the rotated m. This causes me to  assume an elongated c which is a VMS symbol and not a Latin letter, and if the elongated c is a symbol then likewise for the following character. Or are you saying that there are two macrons, one connecting the c and the rotated m and another one above the two of them?

Perhaps you have these figures in a better resolution than what I have (which is horrible)? If so, please post it and maybe you can convince me.

It is precisely because I can envision a globbed-in eight figure that I can see the rotated m/z is not EVA-m.  Look at your example. It is NOT like the rotated m. The loop goes ABOVE the other letters. You can't ignore this.

And I've already told you it is NORMAL for medieval text to connect a long-cee to the next letter (or symbol). You keep implying that this is something special. It's not; it's a common ligature.

But I also know that EVA would NOT be connected to a cee in this way. You are shifting EVA-m down so that it can connect (and removing the initial loop). This is cheating. Whoever wrote the Voynichese did not do this. When they connected, they connected normally, as one would see in Latin, not in a Mortenesque move-the-letter-down way.

(02-12-2018, 03:36 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is precisely because I can envision a globbed-in eight figure that I can see the rotated m/z is not EVA-m.  Look at your example. It is NOT like the rotated m. The loop goes ABOVE the other letters. You can't ignore this.

And I've already told you it is NORMAL for medieval text to connect a long-cee to the next letter (or symbol). You keep implying that this is something special. It's not; it's a common ligature.

But I also know that EVA would NOT be connected to a cee in this way. You are shifting EVA-m down so that it can connect (and removing the initial loop). This is cheating. Whoever wrote the Voynichese did not do this. When they connected, they connected normally, as one would see in Latin, not in a Mortenesque move-the-letter-down way.

JP, By no means am I trying to argue facts with you. I can see that it looks like the Latin cz. I agree that the z drops below the c as it would in Latin, whereas the VMS z rises above the c. But that's not the point. The point is that the marginalia wasn't written by the original authors of the VMS but rather by people who are trying to inform how to decode the thing.

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, it wasn't feasible to the print the contents of the VMS because of its script. If the Inquisition got their hands on it (which remained an ever present danger in England until the end of the Thirty Years War) and were able to read it, they would surely burn it and it would be gone forever. However, if the Inquisition couldn't read it, chances of VMS survival would be greatly increased . This essentially explains why the marginalia (written a secret society created to fight the Counter Reformation with their pen as well as to publish the VMS prophecies) is so devious.

Let's sum up my conclusions regarding some of the other marginalia:

1. The red coloring on the stars, both the full coloring and the dots, are marginalia. There are 162 red stars marking out, in between them, the 161 prophetic verses that I identified many years ago.

2. Star tails are also marginalia. They point to (or end at) the lines where the underlying language would be Latin or a Romance language, particularly Old Spanish. Cryptologists should concentrate on those lines because the other lines likely encode Middle Eastern and native American languages that could be much more difficult to decode.

3. The marginalia on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. points to a specific prophecy in multiple ways and simultaneously points to a specific line on a page of stars. On that VMS page, a change from full red coloring to red dot coloring, along with the star tails, allows us to identify four individual lines of VMS script that convert into the four lines of the prophecy.

All that remains to be done is to figure out the mechanism whereby we get from those four lines of VMS script to its published output in the Latin alphabet, and that is where I am looking to the marginalia on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for help.

It seems clear to me that the cz under the bar should function like the te and ve under a bar for the zodiacal marginalia octebre and novebre, that is, the cz would represent two consonants and one vowel; specifically, I have found indications that cz could stand for either pn or pō, producing pon.

But how do the c and the z get paired together? Here we might have to look to the wheels. For one of many possibilities: if you run a line of script to the right around the blank wheel above the alphabet wheel, and then the same line of script to the left around the blank wheel below the alphabet wheel, for most of the wheel three symbols will be aligned. If one is the c already on the wheel and two are z from the script, perhaps we can assume the c and z go together? But even simple tasks like that are difficult for me, which is why I am looking for help.

(02-12-2018, 01:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.move-the-letter-down way.

JP, By no means am I trying to argue facts with you. I can see that it looks like the Latin cz. I agree that the z drops below the c as it would in Latin, whereas the VMS z rises above the c. But that's not the point. The point is that the marginalia wasn't written by the original authors of the VMS but rather by people who are trying to inform how to decode the thing.
...

[/quote]

This is pure supposition.

You don't know if the marginalia is contemporary with the creation of the VMS or not. The handwriting is old, possibly as old as the early 14th century. It may have been someone who proofread or reviewed or advised on the VMS. It may have been the first owner after its creation, sometime who knew the creators. It may have been someone who knew how Voynichese worked, or it might have been the first person who acquired it who didn't know how Voynichese worked and was trying to figure it out.

The column of letters on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. right-hand side looks far more like an effort at decoding the VMS than the text on 17r.

Morten St. George,

(02-12-2018, 01:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The point is that the marginalia wasn't written by the original authors of the VMS but rather by people who are trying to inform how to decode the thing.

Let me to disagree with you, Morten.
I read also some medieval manuscripts (in french only).
For me, the VMS marginalia have been written between 1440 and 1460.
It's probably the first author of the VMS who wrote marginalia.

(02-12-2018, 01:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, if the Inquisition couldn't read it, chances of VMS survival would be greatly increased . This essentially explains why the marginalia (written a secret society created to fight the Counter Reformation with their pen as well as to publish the VMS prophecies) is so devious.

I don't know a lot about "Holy" Inquisition. Was he powerful in the middle of 15th century ? Did he exist at this time ?
What is sure, there was a good reason to encrypt this text. Probably to avoid to be attacked by the governement or the Religion.

When you write about a secret society, are you thinking about Rose cross ?
This secret society existed but was founded in 1614.

(02-12-2018, 01:42 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(02-12-2018, 01:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The point is that the marginalia wasn't written by the original authors of the VMS but rather by people who are trying to inform how to decode the thing.

This is pure supposition.

You don't know if the marginalia is contemporary with the creation of the VMS or not. The handwriting is old, possibly as old as the early 14th century. It may have been someone who proofread or reviewed or advised on the VMS. It may have been the first owner after its creation, sometime who knew the creators. It may have been someone who knew how Voynichese worked, or it might have been the first person who acquired it who didn't know how Voynichese worked and was trying to figure it out.

The column of letters on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. right-hand side looks far more like an effort at decoding the VMS than the text on 17r.

The marginalia establishes a connection with Les Propheties de M. Michel Nostradamus (1588) and with The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597), so it is hard to imagine that it was written in the 15th century.

For f1r, do you have a complete list of the Latin alphabet with corresponding VMS symbols? The symbols are too faint for me to see but I imagine you have it in better resolution. Also, are the Latin letters marginalia? The handwriting looks different from other marginalia.

I plan to check out a column of symbols down the left side of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to see if there is something there that can be helpful. Indeed, that column looks promising because it includes rare symbols found on the wheels.

(02-12-2018, 03:37 PM)Paris Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.When you write about a secret society, are you thinking about Rose cross ?

Yes, I was referring to the Rose Cross but I try to avoid discussing it because my conclusions about this brotherhood differ greatly from its official history. My ideas about the VMS are already radical enough so, if you don't mind, let's limit debate in this forum to what directly concerns the VMS.

(02-12-2018, 05:01 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The marginalia establishes a connection with Les Propheties de M. Michel Nostradamus (1588) and with The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597), so it is hard to imagine that it was written in the 15th century.

It's not the job of a researcher to imagine when it was made and to try to force it into another time period. The style of writing on 116v/17r is 15th century whether it fits your theory or not.

Quote:For f1r, do you have a complete list of the Latin alphabet with corresponding VMS symbols? The symbols are too faint for me to see but I imagine you have it in better resolution. Also, are the Latin letters marginalia? The handwriting looks different from other marginalia.

I plan to check out a column of symbols down the left side of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to see if there is something there that can be helpful. Indeed, that column looks promising because it includes rare symbols found on the wheels.

You and I have access to the same scans. It's my opinion that the column text on 1r is marginalia. Yes, the handwriting is different from the other marginalia.

(03-12-2018, 12:38 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's not the job of a researcher to imagine when it was made and to try to force it into another time period. The style of writing on 116v/17r is 15th century whether it fits your theory or not.

JP, I was assuming that you had read my Rosetta Stone essay in which I provide ample evidence that the VMS marginalia expresses familiarity with two external publications of the late 16th century, thereby negating the likelihood of authorship during the 15th century. If not, you can find it here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  I think adopting the handwriting style of the 15th century would have made a perfect disguise for masking the time of authorship.

I believe I have identified the author of the marginalia via clues found in interconnected publications of the epoch. Though born in England, he grew up in Germany where he acquired a broad education at Tübingen University, later took courses at Oxford. I have him down as author of two anonymous classics of the German language (1587, 1614), plus using a false name for authorship of one book in Italian (1607) and one in Latin (1633), also unnamed contributing author of books written in French (1590) and English (1623). In his Will, he bequeathed hundreds of books and manuscripts (in multiple languages) that were in his possession. His writings express familiarity with German legends of the 15th century and I'm confident he could have adopted the handwriting style of that epoch if he so wished.

(03-12-2018, 12:38 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's not the job of a researcher to imagine when it was made and to try to force it into another time period. The style of writing on 116v/17r is 15th century whether it fits your theory or not.

JP, Let me clarify that the objective of my last post was only to show that, around the year 1600, there were scholars capable of imitating the handwriting styles of the 15th century. Meanwhile, there is no realistic chance that someone writing in the 15th century would be familiar with publications of the 16th century.

Neither I nor anyone else is doubting that the handwriting style seen in the VMS marginalia was in common use during the 15th century. What annoys me is that people seem to be taking that as proof of the European origin of the VMS, ignoring the massive evidence compiled by Tucker and Janick for a Mexican origin. Indeed, my esoteric sources (allegedly written by the decoders of the VMS) likewise affirm Mexico as the place of origin and affirm as well as the partial use of native American languages, undoubtedly lang A as the stars and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are lang B.