04-07-2021, 09:39 PM
04-07-2021, 09:39 PM
04-07-2021, 09:54 PM
Yes! I'm glad you bring that up. How liberating is the ability to change one's mind. I can recommend it to everybody. Normal in science, but a rarity in Voynich studies, where defending one's near-arbitrary views is more important than considering evidence.
Come to think of it though, I would still say the VM's iconography is far from traditional, so even though I changed my mind about its meaning, I would still agree with this statement.
Come to think of it though, I would still say the VM's iconography is far from traditional, so even though I changed my mind about its meaning, I would still agree with this statement.
05-07-2021, 02:28 PM
(04-07-2021, 09:54 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.How liberating is the ability to change one's mind. I can recommend it to everybody.
Amen. This reminds me, thank you for your recent kind words on this matter, Koen. Saying “I don’t know” and “I stand corrected” with grace is sadly a dying art, in a world divided up into social media echo chambers.
06-07-2021, 08:16 PM
Quote:The manuscript does not contain standard religious iconography from any of the three main Abrahamic religions known to 15th century Europe.I still stand by that remark
I also think Koen may be on to something.
These two statements are not mutually incompatible!
Mind you, we need to carry on with these "statements we can agree upon" series. They were fun.
10-07-2021, 09:59 PM
Searcher and Koen (and almost everyone else), I do think you are onto something, and that your interpretations and my own, for that matter, are not incompatible at all. The most likely candidate for author of the VMS, after all, given other writings of the period, is a Christian Hermetist. I was convinced of the hermetic piece, and Koen has persuaded me of the Christian. So I've done a little more research.
One point that R.Sale brought up: I think most of us incline to the idea the author is being intentionally cryptic in both text and image. I certainly believe it. But I do wonder if the apophatic tradition is not also at play here as part of its intentional mystery. (Thinking about the empty mandorla, the empty path, absence of identifiable religious figures).
I mean, apophatic imagery is almost an oxymoron, but it's possible an attempt might account for some of the choices the author has made. ( And I don't know about you, but I have from the beginning considered the text's absences one of its more intriguing aspects. Empty spaces in the text, for instance, or the almost total absence of five-pointed stars, or hard geometrical shapes, or men for that matter. If I totted just these examples up, I'd say we might be looking for a male magician of the Pythagoran school! And maybe we are, who knows, but where does that get us?)
As I said, I had noticed these, and other, absences - I think I made a list somewhere - but if there was a tradition of this kind of writing back then, I didn't know of it.
But since reading Koen's blog, and reading a bit on my own, I think there is an interesting possibility here that the, very possibly Christian, author is consciously using ideas from the apophatic tradition of inferred presence from absence. You are much more experienced Voynich researchers than me, has this been raised as a possibility, and regardless, do you think something like this might be at root here?
One point that R.Sale brought up: I think most of us incline to the idea the author is being intentionally cryptic in both text and image. I certainly believe it. But I do wonder if the apophatic tradition is not also at play here as part of its intentional mystery. (Thinking about the empty mandorla, the empty path, absence of identifiable religious figures).
I mean, apophatic imagery is almost an oxymoron, but it's possible an attempt might account for some of the choices the author has made. ( And I don't know about you, but I have from the beginning considered the text's absences one of its more intriguing aspects. Empty spaces in the text, for instance, or the almost total absence of five-pointed stars, or hard geometrical shapes, or men for that matter. If I totted just these examples up, I'd say we might be looking for a male magician of the Pythagoran school! And maybe we are, who knows, but where does that get us?)
As I said, I had noticed these, and other, absences - I think I made a list somewhere - but if there was a tradition of this kind of writing back then, I didn't know of it.
But since reading Koen's blog, and reading a bit on my own, I think there is an interesting possibility here that the, very possibly Christian, author is consciously using ideas from the apophatic tradition of inferred presence from absence. You are much more experienced Voynich researchers than me, has this been raised as a possibility, and regardless, do you think something like this might be at root here?
10-07-2021, 10:42 PM
Also, this idea of presence inferred from absence might have implications for the text, too: statistics of what is present in the text are invaluable, but maybe what could be looked at next by our cryptographers is what is missing? For instance, if you thought there might be a meaningful Latin text underneath the script, what is missing from the statistics to make it so? I'm sure others have thought of this though, and examined it, but I do think if we could show evidence of it in the images, there might be more concentration on it? Just throwing that out there: the furthest I've got with cryptography myself is those simple games in the Variety puzzles mags!
10-07-2021, 10:49 PM
That's a very interesting remark. I certainly agree that the VM is marked by a number of absences or scarcities. I don't know enough yet about the apophatic tradition though. I know one can make apophatic statements, like how God cannot be perceived or conceived in one's mind.
But which kind of apophatic drive would motivate something like the VM? (This question is out of curiosity, not a dismissal).
And how would that connect to avoiding certain other things as well? Scarcity of men, of clothes, of weapons or other recognizable utensils, of furniture...
The glyph set can be expressed in negative terms as well. They are almost all found in Latin manuscripts, but only a minority are letters of the alphabet. Most of the glyphs are (in appearance!) numerals, abbreviations, ligatures... Interestingly, letters from the alphabet that are included are "a" and "o". If one is philosophically concerned with the question "what can we say about God?" then "he is the alpha and the omega" is surely one of the allowed answers.
But which kind of apophatic drive would motivate something like the VM? (This question is out of curiosity, not a dismissal).
And how would that connect to avoiding certain other things as well? Scarcity of men, of clothes, of weapons or other recognizable utensils, of furniture...
The glyph set can be expressed in negative terms as well. They are almost all found in Latin manuscripts, but only a minority are letters of the alphabet. Most of the glyphs are (in appearance!) numerals, abbreviations, ligatures... Interestingly, letters from the alphabet that are included are "a" and "o". If one is philosophically concerned with the question "what can we say about God?" then "he is the alpha and the omega" is surely one of the allowed answers.
10-07-2021, 10:56 PM
Koen, in light of your Christian allegory interpretation and yours and Searcher's speculation further upthread re the right hand upper rosette. I see a lot of interpretations re maps, etc, but that upper right hand sphere has always seemed to me to represent both the Kingdom of Heaven by its castles, and the Creation (both Judeo-Christian-Islamic and Hermetic as they share many of the same characteristics). The central spiral is made of words. In Hermetic creation the Word of God enters matter to create the earth, heaven, animals, etc., and similarly the Word of God is like a wind on the waters, etc., in religious creation stories. So similar in fact that the Church fathers accepted Hermetic tracts, thought to have been written eons ago in Egypt as mirroring their own creation story, as well as foretelling the birth of Christ. So that central spiral of words has always seemed to represent the Word of God to me, and its surrounding imagery the creation's artifacts and processes.
10-07-2021, 11:17 PM
And lastly, I have yet to see anyone interpret the bottom left sphere as Hades/Hell, though I admittedly haven't touched the surface of the research. Yet that's exactly what it looks like to me, with all the areas of Hades marked out around a central throne of Judgement, with the number six a common divisor. Moreover related tangentially to a possible clock - Cronos - or the L for Libra used back then - the scales.
If the top left is related to Christ's resurrection, then it's possible the bottom left is related to the Harrowing of Hades. And that's what it was called in the Bible, not of Hell but of Hades, and Hades has very specific lands/rivers in it.. Re the Harrowing, hades or hell is a place of the dead before Christ Judges and resurrects some of them. In the hermetica, this is where God's servant demon judges and metes out punishments or rewards of resurrection as well. So it's a possibility.
If the top left is related to Christ's resurrection, then it's possible the bottom left is related to the Harrowing of Hades. And that's what it was called in the Bible, not of Hell but of Hades, and Hades has very specific lands/rivers in it.. Re the Harrowing, hades or hell is a place of the dead before Christ Judges and resurrects some of them. In the hermetica, this is where God's servant demon judges and metes out punishments or rewards of resurrection as well. So it's a possibility.
11-07-2021, 12:34 AM
Koen, I hit quote but nothing came up so I am just replying to your alpha and omega comment. I too looked this up when researching the mandorla. Apparently, aside from the christ or mary image in a mandorla, the inside was usually left empty with the sometimes exception of...alpha and omega.
And we have 37, not 36, moons, possibly related to a marker for a combined beginning and ending (dragon eating its own tail, intercal period, life everlasting, time everlasting, leap year, alpha and omega! etc, etc).
Until you pointed that out, I didn't realize those letters were the only identifiable ones. Makes you think, but I'm not going down the text road again. Do we know, btw, if that "or" in the mandorla's middle is just someone's random scribble?
Regarding absences, there has to be a bar somewhere I suppose. I don't find the absence of clothes, for instance, remarkable, as I see the figures as part of quintessence, celestial or terrestrial, conceived, begotten and begetting it, as some hermetist remarked. Thus, imaged as pregnant females. All celestials, planets, stars, demigods, and souls, including anima mundi the world soul, are made of quintessence, and all terrestrials contain it (if distilled! - physically and/or spiritually). More remarkable to me is the presence of hats.
This accounts for me, too, why these figures seem to both be making some substance and be the substance they're making, at the same time.
As for utensils, I don't believe they're real people (aside from a few mythic and specific characters), so the only utensils they would carry are ones that mark their specific purposes, such as the stars' role in Fate (the spindle, scissors, as health "blockers", etc), or magic (Solomon's Ring, the sacrifice, the talisman), and ultimately in health.
We do agree, I don't know if you remember, that that one line-up of figures were more specific. You stated, quite convincingly, you thought the story of Philomel was being played out, whereas I believe some mythical women were divided according to good and bad fate, so we had Jocasta as prisoner of fate with son Oedipus missing his foot and Medea on one side, and luckier ones at the beginning of the line. But I keep relating everything back to medicine of the time, and the line up reminded me of that Sphere of Life and Death according to fate that the physicians used.
I wasn't actually thinking of specific script letters when I mentioned absences in the text, though now I'm interested in alpha and omega! More of linguistic patterns.
And where has the time gone?
And we have 37, not 36, moons, possibly related to a marker for a combined beginning and ending (dragon eating its own tail, intercal period, life everlasting, time everlasting, leap year, alpha and omega! etc, etc).
Until you pointed that out, I didn't realize those letters were the only identifiable ones. Makes you think, but I'm not going down the text road again. Do we know, btw, if that "or" in the mandorla's middle is just someone's random scribble?
Regarding absences, there has to be a bar somewhere I suppose. I don't find the absence of clothes, for instance, remarkable, as I see the figures as part of quintessence, celestial or terrestrial, conceived, begotten and begetting it, as some hermetist remarked. Thus, imaged as pregnant females. All celestials, planets, stars, demigods, and souls, including anima mundi the world soul, are made of quintessence, and all terrestrials contain it (if distilled! - physically and/or spiritually). More remarkable to me is the presence of hats.
This accounts for me, too, why these figures seem to both be making some substance and be the substance they're making, at the same time.
As for utensils, I don't believe they're real people (aside from a few mythic and specific characters), so the only utensils they would carry are ones that mark their specific purposes, such as the stars' role in Fate (the spindle, scissors, as health "blockers", etc), or magic (Solomon's Ring, the sacrifice, the talisman), and ultimately in health.
We do agree, I don't know if you remember, that that one line-up of figures were more specific. You stated, quite convincingly, you thought the story of Philomel was being played out, whereas I believe some mythical women were divided according to good and bad fate, so we had Jocasta as prisoner of fate with son Oedipus missing his foot and Medea on one side, and luckier ones at the beginning of the line. But I keep relating everything back to medicine of the time, and the line up reminded me of that Sphere of Life and Death according to fate that the physicians used.
I wasn't actually thinking of specific script letters when I mentioned absences in the text, though now I'm interested in alpha and omega! More of linguistic patterns.
And where has the time gone?