The Voynich Ninja

[Theory] RITE — Ritual Instrument of Textual Esoterica
Thesis. The Voynich Manuscript is an authentic early-15th-century object whose unreadability was the point. It functioned as a Ritual Instrument of Textual Esoterica (RITE)—a performative prop that looked like language and conferred authority on its owner in consultations/rites—rather than a book intended for general decoding.

That's my TL;DR. If it intrigues you or reminds you of something that has come before of which I am unaware, read on...

Motive. The same motive as many medieval forgeries: money.
How I got here. Statistical work persuaded me the text isn’t straightforward natural language. A recent Voynich Day 2025 talk by Michael (“Magnesium”) showed that historically plausible 15th-century methods can generate Voynich-like strings from meaningful text. That demonstrates feasibility of a ciphered surface. It does not establish an intent to decode. My claim: unreadability was a feature for performance, not a bug to be solved. (Modern analogue: Joseph Smith’s plates—power via exclusive “translation.”)
Function, not content. I use “rites” broadly—any performative act (divination, healing, religious consultation) where the owner interprets an unreadable authority object for a client. Images anchor recognition; unreadable text supplies mystery; performance supplies authority.
Historical timeline (why RITE fits the period)

• Creation (1404–1438 vellum window). Late-medieval Europe supported markets for “books of secrets,” astrological images, and esoteric medicine. A convincing pseudo-language manuscript could be produced relatively cheaply yet serve high-value ritual and consulting roles.
  
• Use phase (15th century). The manuscript shows wear consistent with handling. Unreadable/arcane texts could operate openly: monastic settings, itinerant healers, court astrologers.
  
• Shift and decline (post-1517). The Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation hardened attitudes toward “magical” books and spurious relics. An unreadable prop without sanctioned theology becomes risky for Protestants and Catholics.
  
• Afterlife (16th–17th centuries). As “duping the locals” gets harder—and penalties greater—the manuscript’s functional value collapses. It survives as an exotic curiosity, eventually sold when it’s no longer useful (or safe) as a working prop.
  

Section-by-section: how RITE could operate in practice

• Herbal (plants/roots). Healer points to a strange plant with dense glyphs: “The remedy is written here.” A potion is prescribed. Plant imagery makes it feel concrete; the text signals hidden expertise.
  
• Astrological (zodiac, stars). For divination: gesture to a zodiac wheel—“Your house this year aligns thus; the text confirms it.” Recognizable symbols guide the client’s imagination; unreadable labels make it authoritative.
  
• Balneological (nude figures, pipes, baths). Esoteric therapies: “These are purifications for health/fertility.” The imagery implies procedure; the script implies exact doctrine only the interpreter can unlock.
  
• Pharmaceutical (jars, roots, compound lists). “Codified pharmacy.” Point to a jar vignette, narrate a “translation,” mix a preparation. The book serves as the credential behind the recipe.
  
• Recipes/Stars (short paragraphs, star markers). Performative instruction: “Each star is a step.” Trace lines as though following a protocol, then deliver a chant, cure, or prognosis. Structure without readability.
  

What would falsify RITE

• A coherent, page-level decipherment that preserves known statistics and yields content matching the imagery domains—showing the book was meant to be read beyond its maker.
  
• Provenance tying it to a didactic or bureaucratic purpose inconsistent with staged opacity.
  
• Material/ink sequencing inconsistent with extended practical handling.
  

What would strengthen RITE

• Documents describing unreadable “books of secrets” used in healing/divination ca. 1400–1500 (especially Central Europe).
  
• Inventories, bans, or trials referencing pseudo-alphabet manuscripts pre-/post-Reformation.
  
• Close analogues (e.g., Trithemius/Dee) where cipher-like text doubled as a ritual prop.
  

Bottom line. RITE doesn’t deny the possibility of meaning; it argues the manuscript’s purpose was performative unreadability. It was used for something—authority in rites—then lost cultural utility as the religious/intellectual climate changed.

I looked for earlier posts beyond the “medieval forgery” umbrella and didn’t find this exact framing. If RITE (performative unreadability; prop-cipher use) has already been proposed, please link threads/papers/blogs—happy to read, credit, and continue there. Mods: fine to merge if redundant.
Most helpful feedback right now:

• Pointers to prior art on “prop/ritual use” models of the Voynich.
  
• Counter-arguments/falsifiers I haven’t considered.
  
• Historical breadcrumbs (inventories, bans, trials, testimonies) mentioning unreadable “books of secrets” c. 1400–1500.
  
• Method ideas to test RITE vs. alternatives (e.g., wear patterns, long-range glyph correlations, material sequencing).
  

Thanks in advance for links, critiques, and corrections. If this is old hat, I’ll fold into the existing discussion and refine accordingly

Welcome to the forum.  We have You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.that AI use must be disclosed.

You might find You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. recent thread interesting. It revolves around the idea of the manuscript being a prop for use in repeated scams.

While I do use ChatGPT as an editor, the theory and structure is mine: but the "backronym" is ChatGpt's construction based on my instructions. (I like it. The other real contender was PROP — Performative Relic Of Pseudolanguage. That didn't really sum it up as well as RITE did.)

I did ask for help distilling it into a form that was logically laid out but short enough for a post. I double checked that it didn't insert something I didn't intend. And that it did include everything I thought important in laying out why and how I came to my conclusion. It makes some strange choices sometimes in what it "thinks" is important and what can be left out.

I hope that doesn't violate the rules.

(06-09-2025, 10:02 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You might find You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. recent thread interesting. It revolves around the idea of the manuscript being a prop for use in repeated scams.

Well, that is my theory almost exactly. I really didn't think I was the first to come up with it.
But that thread went south pretty quickly.    

I hope this one doesn't. It's been years since I've posted on a forum. I loved the interaction, but I also get tired of people fighting to be "right" rather than to come up with something approaching the "truth.
"

"Theorists can be wrong 999,999 times, but the one time they are right, they are a genius! Experts don't have that privilege.".
It's not fighting to be right, but the responsibility of experts. Don't take it personally. (I'm not one).

Anyway, 

My questions would be the same to any "to sell to rich folk!" idea

1. Where are the others?
2. Why not alchemy
3. Why not just lie?

There's so much effort involved with the VM what's not needed whatsoever, but assuming it worked well (tricked some rich guy), you just stop, never do it again?

(06-09-2025, 10:19 PM)GrooveDuke Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.but the "backronym" is ChatGpt's construction based on my instructions.

I never got into looking at em dashes, but the name was a dead giveaway for me....

(06-09-2025, 11:26 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."Theorists can be wrong 999,999 times, but the one time they are right, they are a genius! Experts don't have that privilege.".
It's not fighting to be right, but the responsibility of experts. Don't take it personally. (I'm not one).

LOL
I was talking about other forums I used to post on. I don't know this one yet.

Now to your points:
“Sell to the rich folks” doesn’t really capture this. If you look at carnivals and other typical hoaxster operations, they mostly sell to regular folks. The numbers racket was specifically aimed at poor people—same with most psychics today. (Although, yeah, you’d never turn away someone willing to pay more for “exclusive access,” of course.) A friend of mine (now deceased) who was a magician used to say: “An amateur changes his tricks. A professional changes his audience.” Fly-by-night salesmen. Even medieval religious forgeries were aimed at taking alms from anyone willing to donate and moving on. So a believable guess would be a traveling "snake oil" salesman. But I also kind of think this was made by the persons actually using it at first. And that would fit more closely to the relic trade in the middle ages. So I actually think it probably stayed where it was created and use by the group that created it until it was no longer turning a profit then they sold it.

The other main topic of the last Voynich day is what got me thinking enough about this to want to interact with people more in the know and up to date. The other thing that hit me was the attempt to localize the marginalia. Way beyond my level of amateur scholarship. But it does give a place to look for the books to show up again in any context. And trying to localize it by iconography and the significant overlap of territory (if I remember right).

Regarding your three points:

1. Where are the others?
   Do you mean other forgeries in general, or other literary forgeries written for this purpose? A contemporary example is Joseph Smith (with due respect to any LDS members reading this). I believe he actually had plates (witnesses signed affidavits), and I also believe he forged them. When he forged them, he had no way of knowing whether anyone would believe him or join his church—though in the middle of the Second Great Awakening, it was plausible. Does this prove the Voynich did it 400 years earlier? No. But scams have a way of repeating themselves in different places with different social expectations to be fulfilled, the the basic structure is the same.
   
2. Why not alchemy?
   It could be. I’m not claiming it can’t be a coded alchemical book. I can’t prove a negative (that it has no meaning). My theory is disproved if the text is ever deciphered and the text clearly relates to the images.
   
3. Why not just lie?
   Because a great lie needs a believable backstory. The “made to sell once” forgery theories feel weak to me. Yes, there have been big cons (selling the Eiffel Tower, selling the Brooklyn Bridge), and sure, every con man dreams of the big score like Superfly (actually a bad example, I guess. It wasnt a con it was a drug deal) substitute The Sting. But most cons are small-time, repeatable gimmicks built close to accepted truths so they’re believable. Modern equivalents: the Nigerian/419 scam predates the internet; “toll road” text scams are everywhere—you get a message saying you owe a skipped toll, with a real-looking site. If you’re going to pull it off, it has to look real to the rube. A bound, consistent, unreadable “book of secrets” is a durable prop that makes the backstory look real again and again, for years. And it had to be thick because people expected it to be thick. So you have the scribes doing what little kids do when they don’t have enough to write for their essay—you put in filler. In modern times kids use bigger fonts; the Voynich seems to use pictures in a similar way, to my untrained eye anyway. I suppose scholars with more experience with medieval manuscripts would be better suited to say whether the manuscript checks the boxes the average parishioner would be looking for in a fancy book.
   
   Why not just lie?
   The following is Chat’s summation. I like to have Chat make summaries because they’re more eloquent than mine:
   Because props make lies stick. A bound vellum book with consistent glyphs and diagrams is a portable backstory. It lets you do repeat sessions for years, sell “recipes,” read charts, and rotate audiences. The up-front effort pays off as a repeatable business, not a one-shot score.
   Lifecycle I’m proposing
   • Early 1400s build → enters service.
     
   • 15th-century use → heavy handling fits.
     
   • Post-1517 decline → usefulness falls as the climate hardens.
     
   • Later curiosity (Rudolf II era) → practical use gone.
     
   Concrete checks (not vibes)
   • Wear map: uneven grime/handling in specific sections (e.g., baths or zodiac) = real use.
     
   • Rebinding/quires: signs of re-ordering and repair (a working book gets surgery).
     
   • Iconography: baths/herbals with missing furnace/retort gear → looks more like balneology/astrology than lab protocol.
     
   • Materials: inexpensive pigments/inks → “good enough for show,” not a luxury commission.
     
   That’s my lane: prop-book used in practice, not a one-off con.
   

(06-09-2025, 11:57 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(06-09-2025, 10:19 PM)GrooveDuke Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.but the "backronym" is ChatGpt's construction based on my instructions.

I never got into looking at em dashes, but the name was a dead giveaway for me....

 Yeah, it do love its em-dashes don't it! But so do I. The difference is I still have no idea where to find them on the keyboard. You can tell when I've had it edit because I use colons and it changes them to em dashes. Without fail. Oh yeah, and the phrase "book of secrets" not my phrase. it keeps rewriting and substituting that for my prefered term prop. Still, I love it and I have it proofread almost everything I do.

An issue is the MS was something like £10,000 to produce, and a years work. 
I'm sure numbers 5x lower and higher exist, but just in general and a sensible figure.
This is a long con with much at stake, its no snake oil salesman or passing carnival. 
In todays terms it would be putting a body kit on a Toyota and trying to sell it to a Ferrari collector. The odds of it working are like, zero. 

With the points, 
1. Yes, exact others. To my knowledge the British library have two full books written in code. One they acknowledge  . 
2. The reason I ask this is any great claim like "this is the secret to the philosophers stone! is.. every Alchemy book ever. 0 need for code. 
3. You think about it in 2025 terms. Back then no one gave a damn. 
"Bill Gates said my new processor demolishes all old tech and was totally amazed"
This was 101 alchemy type stuff, write whatever you want no one cares. It's not a "scam" there's no copyright laws
In 1420, I could say Roger Bacon said all my ideas were amazing and this list of words, as approved by him, would make clouds rain gold. 
No one could, or did do, anything about it. Write it in a book and now its real. 

So we are left with the "scam" as per 1400. 

1. It had great claims of wealth. - Alchemy. 
2. It was by someone else. - Sign the name and lie. 
3. It's really old.. stuff. - This is disproven by imagery which is clearly 15c. 

The one I would probably buy is, it was really old stuff from somewhere else. I don't even know what secrets it holds but if you are smart enough you will figure it out.  
Some sort of fake foreign magic, but even then, making a thing at such a cost is a huge risk and if it worked, there would be others    
So without a claim of power, a false writer, or conception date... what is the con.. a really expensive puzzle from far away? the market has to be slim

I guess I'll take your objections one at a time. How much did it cost to produce? This is a question I haven't dug deeply into yet or read that much about. But my question would be: for whom to produce?
I don't think someone commissioned this to use in the way I think it was used. I think it is a product of a monastery (And I think it was probably produced in that setting because that's where the scribes are). The abbot calls a few of the brothers in and tells them his idea. "Work on it during vespers, I'll cover for you." Or something to that effect. "Use that old stack of vellum we have and the cheap ink."
Yes, it still cost money, but people have been getting around accounting systems for thousands of years. Overcharge for what you sell and keep the difference. It might not have "cost" them anything. And this isn't far-fetched. We have found ancient cuneiform records that contain what were first thought to be math mistakes but are now thought to be deliberate embezzlement.
Right now, my framework is conceptual. I am an amateur and not a scholar. But my framework is: if it happened once it can happen again. If one person can encode it another person can decode it. There are people who will go to great lengths to defraud others. Even to the point of taking the secret to the grave. (Wrongway Corrigan).

1. The Church is well known to have falsified documents, charters, etc.
   
2. Your argument "why not just lie" assumes that the creators knew that alchemy was a fraud and that no one could call them out. Or no one cared. I don't think we can take that as a given.
   
3. I actually don't think I'm thinking in 2025 terms. I am not saying they were worried about a copyright claim. LOL They didn't want someone else coming along and finding their secret. Which is exactly the same reason they would write in code if it really is a code.
   

I am not following your last 3 points.

1. Great wealth is relative. As I frame it, it is a business even if fraudulent, not a get-rich-quick scheme.
   Do you remember Indecent Proposal? A comedian at the time said "Well, no I probably couldn't get someone to pay $1M for a night with my wife, but I might be able to get $100 ten thousand times." or something to that effect.
   
2. It was by someone else? Does the book claim that? Would they have had to claim that? Does it matter one way or another? I don't know what their pitch was. You lean on a trope of the time: exotica, foreign/ancient magic. So that is possible, but not necessary.
   
3. And the reason why I lean toward no meaning is the studies referenced here. The failure of major cryptologists to solve it (although, maybe it just hasn't attracted enough attention yet). The statistical analysis. All argue against language and only the last one manages to generate strings very much like Voynichese. (I am still very impressed by that, because it still doesn't allow us to totally rule out a code.)
   

This has been fun. I'm going to bed. Now I remember why these kinds of forums were so addictive. And also why I stopped frequenting them. It takes so much time to write replies and respond to every point. LOL
I won't have time to do this more than a couple times a month, if that.