The Voynich Ninja

Also, the whole pregnancy and birth angle would be more convincing if there were any babies.

(02-04-2024, 01:49 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, the whole pregnancy and birth angle would be more convincing if there were any babies.

If I have the opportunity, I'll suggest that they include ultrasound photographs in their next edition.

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Sorry, no baby that looks like a baby but I can only work with what I've got.

Pregnancy & the Voynich Manuscript, v. 1.0

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I watched this video before I joined this message board. As I was watching it for the first time, I was hoping Lisa Fagin Davis would say something about the Ensoulment idea. She didn't. She was still talking about stars up in the night sky. That's when I decided to join this message board.

WellesleyCollege
Friends of the Library Lecture: Lisa Fagin Davis
Nov 27, 2023

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Since watching that video for the first time several weeks ago, I have expanded my ideas about Ensoulment and Pregnancy. I just watched the video again and noticed this part that slipped past me the first time I watched it. Lisa Fagin Davis said You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. looks like "fallopian tubes and a uterus".

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24:06
So since we can't read it, all we can do is try and dig into the illustrations.
24:11
That's one way of thinking about it. So the images are tantalizingly familiar,
24:19
I see you giggling or for example here, the zodiac,
24:26
this one, there's a cluster of seven stars. Is that the platis?
24:31
If it is maybe, in which case does that mean this word right here has something in some language to do
24:39
with the name of that constellation? So that's another clue. And then we have these
24:46
that really look like internal organs. You know, the lady on the right seems to be sitting
24:52
on a bladder that is uncomfortable and in the top it looks awful like fallopian tubes
25:00
and a uterus. So it may have something to do with women's health, with gynecology, with childbirth, obstetrics maybe.


Link to 24:06 in the video:

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While I usually agree with Lisa's assessment, I believe she errs here. What it looks like is our modern view of fallopian tubes and a uterus, based on abstract textbook diagrams thereof. It does not look like the organ as it was ever drawn (and thus, we might assume, imagined) by anyone pre-1450. At least not that I know of, I'd be happy to see any evidence to the contrary.

(21-03-2024, 04:51 PM)pjburkshire Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 – 1274)

What Did St. Thomas Aquinas Believe about “Ensoulment?”

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Aquinas did say an unborn baby receives a soul 40 or 80 days after conception, depending on gender.

Just noticed this in a 15th century source, ca. 1420, the oldest manuscript of the Aurora Consurgens, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p.29 = f.14r:

Quote:... in 40 die[bus] formatur in formam hominis, in 40 die apparet in eo anima et a 40 die incipit nutriri sanguine menstruali per cursum eius ad umbilicum.

... in 40 days it is formed into the human form, on the 40th day the soul appears in it, and from the 40th day it begins to be nourished by the menstrual blood through its course to the navel.

Why this in an alchemy treatise? Because alchemists, reasoning by analogy, endeavored to imitate nature. On the same page: "in omnibus naturam imitari".

(07-04-2024, 12:39 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just noticed this in a 15th century source, ca. 1420, the oldest manuscript of the Aurora Consurgens, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p.29 = f.14r:

Quote:... in 40 die[bus] formatur in formam hominis, in 40 die apparet in eo anima et a 40 die incipit nutriri sanguine menstruali per cursum eius ad umbilicum.

... in 40 days it is formed into the human form, on the 40th day the soul appears in it, and from the 40th day it begins to be nourished by the menstrual blood through its course to the navel.



Why this in an alchemy treatise? Because alchemists, reasoning by analogy, endeavored to imitate nature. On the same page: "in omnibus naturam imitari".

Some see the Voynich Manuscript as "an alchemy treatise" but I see it as a hodge-podge collection of religious and scientific information. Space for recording information was expensive back then. People stored valuable information where they could. The "alphabets" page of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. may be on the back of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. because that was where they had room for it. It may be that the "alphabets" page of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has nothing to do with plants. Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe they had the "alphabets" page that was blank on the back and they put a plant on it.


Another question; why is Gestation in Quire 10 before all of Pregnancy in Quire 13?

My answer; because Quire 10 is about the soul or the Spiritual, while Quire 13 is about the Physical or Biological.

Some people see the Voynich Manuscript as a pre-planned work with a single goal or a single message. I see it as a collection of copies of previous works that they thought were of value. These previous source works that they were copying may have been in multiple languages from various locations. It may even be a mixture of copied material and original material. People often take existing ideas and put their own personal spin on them.

On "ensoulment" the key text must be Porphyry's 'On the Cave of the Nymphs' which, surprisingly, is rarely if ever mentioned in the context of the Voynich ms. but which is glaringly relevant, surely? (The first edition in the West is 16th C, but a summary was made in the Greek East in the 11th C. and circulated widely and must certainly have been known to Plethon and his school.) Nymphs as souls? The classical text for it is Porphyry. (A neglected text, an English translation was made by the great Thomas Taylor.)

(08-04-2024, 04:18 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On "ensoulment" the key text must be Porphyry's 'On the Cave of the Nymphs' which, surprisingly, is rarely if ever mentioned in the context of the Voynich ms. but which is glaringly relevant, surely? (The first edition in the West is 16th C, but a summary was made in the Greek East in the 11th C. and circulated widely and must certainly have been known to Plethon and his school.) Nymphs as souls? The classical text for it is Porphyry. (A neglected text, an English translation was made by the great Thomas Taylor.)

The Nymphs are NOT the souls. Why do people keep saying that? I never said that. The star-images are the souls.

I don't know anything about this Porphyry guy. I'm talking about Aristotle.