Hi, I'm new to this forum. I was looking at the VMS and I was considering the following ideas. I'm not sure if this idea has been thought about very much so I thought I should post it:
What if the paintings and drawings in the VMS are not of anything relating to the actual meaning of the text?
That would explain why a lot of the plants are unidentifiable. I've been thinking about why they might do that though. What I've come up with so far is that a lot of 'radical' philosophers at the time were persecuted by the church. So it's possible the writers were using the drawings (or at least some of them) as distraction to people who they did not want reading it.
The theory isn't super likely, in my mind, but at least it's falsifiable.
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I'm sure that this has been thought about before but the other thing I was considering is that the VMS might not be the original copy. It was easy enough to pay someone to copy something over to a new book. Also, that brings up the thought that the original text might not be in code.
The interesting thing about this idea is that it would also explain that some of the plants aren't identifiable but others are. If you have ever tried copying someone else's drawing/painting, it is very hard. Also, it would explain the colors being weird sometimes because of color matching being so difficult.
These are just some things I've been considering. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!
I think I would say this sort of thinking (there's a fair few theories along these lines) doesn't account for how people dealt with taboo subjects at the time.
What we see in the VM, if it has all these layers of secrecy, is not really something that was done.
I posted some images by a manuscript made by Michael Scot (You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.) a bit ago, and within these works are details of how to perform necromancy. This was written by an ordained priest for an emperor. I believe Roger Bacon wrote of the same things, and many others. The trick was saying "If one was to do this sort of thing, which you definitely shouldn't.. but, if you were....." and that got you more of a "side eye" from the church rather than punishment. If you wrote about things in the right way you could get away with a lot. On being persecuted, even the often quoted "Spanish inquisition" were not the rampaging murderous horde that they are painted to be, most times they told you to stop doing the thing you were doing, if you refused or carried on you may incur their wrath. Here's some chat GPT, so take with a pinch of salt (below). But in general I don't think you really had to go to the lengths people think to hide things, and by going as far as the VM does (if it does) it probably makes you more suspect if anything... oh look, a book of writing we can't read full of images we don't understand.. yep seems fine!
The Spanish Inquisition is often associated with large-scale witch hunts, but in reality it burned far fewer people for witchcraft than is commonly believed.
Here’s what historians have found:
- Witch trials in Spain were relatively rare compared to Central and Northern Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Scotland, etc.), where tens of thousands were executed.
- The Spanish Inquisition itself was skeptical of widespread witchcraft accusations and often intervened to stop local panic. For example, in the 1610 Logroño witch trials (Basque region), 11 people were burned, but afterward the Inquisition discouraged such prosecutions.
- Across its history (1478–1834), the Inquisition executed very few people for witchcraft—modern estimates suggest between 300 and 1,000 across all of Spain, with most of those coming from a few local outbreaks rather than an ongoing campaign.
So, while Europe as a whole saw around
40,000–60,000 executions for witchcraft, the Spanish Inquisition was responsible for only a tiny fraction of that total, and actually helped prevent mass witch hunts inside Spain after the early 1600s.
(03-10-2025, 03:59 PM)cmarbel Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What if the paintings and drawings in the VMS are not of anything relating to the actual meaning of the text?
My personal theory is that the Author had copied the Herbal texts from some "foreign" herbal, but not the figures. He only had a drawings of a few parts, like the root of one plant, the leaves of another, etc. Some of there are in the Pharma section.
In order to make the book more appealing to Europeans, the Author had to provide drawings of the whole plants for the Herbal texts. So he instructed the Scribe to copy the details from Pharma when available, and make up the rest of the plant, using some European herbals as "inspiration".
So the drawings of the plants are mostly fake, although each is supposed to be the plant discussed in the accompanying text.
All the best, --jorge
Quote:So, while Europe as a whole saw around 40,000–60,000 executions for witchcraft, the Spanish Inquisition was responsible for only a tiny fraction of that total
Definitely true. The interesting thing is that most witch executions were in ... Germany, the country quite strongly connected to Voynich Manuscript
And a funny fact: probably the last "witch trial" in Europe happened in UK in... 1944
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(03-10-2025, 05:18 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The trick was saying "If one was to do this sort of thing, which you definitely shouldn't.. but, if you were....." and that got you more of a "side eye" from the church rather than punishment. If you wrote about things in the right way you could get away with a lot. On being persecuted, even the often quoted "Spanish inquisition" were not the rampaging murderous horde that they are painted to be, most times they told you to stop doing the thing you were doing, if you refused or carried on you may incur their wrath.
This only seems to apply to books published under the author's name. For instance the anonymous - likely clerically authored - CLM 849 (The Munich Necromancer's Handbook) not only gives straightforward instructions for spells, but the author even claims to have performed them, including a detailed account of summoning a whole illusory castle.
In general occult books had no name attached, firstly because it was illegal.. in a you will be burned alive way. Secondly because occult is by its definition otherworldly, the powers were bestowed or revealed (or whatnot) via an angel or demon (and so on), and this is why people believed they worked. So to say you come up with something.. is basically saying you are an angel or demon... again, you will be burned alive.. and also people wouldn't accept it. It's like someone saying they found a scroll in a cave and it was a list of commandments from god in comparison to them telling you their commandments, as though they are god. Its an important distinction and why for the most part names were not attached to these sorts of works. Though usually they still had the usual disclaimers, just in case.
Unless you are Antonius of Montolmo.. who I'm honestly not sure how he avoided becoming a pile of ash (You are not allowed to view links.
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(04-10-2025, 09:25 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In general occult books had no name attached, firstly because it was illegal.. in a you will be burned alive way. ... Unless you are Antonius of Montolmo.. who I'm honestly not sure how he avoided becoming a pile of ash (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
AFAIK, the Church did not generally care about occult books, alchemy, bizarre cosmological theories, etc. So much so that thousands of such manuscripts have survived to this day. What it was very sensitive about was challenges to its authority. Galileo got in trouble because he was a very undiplomatic character and stepped hard on the toes of the astronomers of the Vatican Observatory, who were supposed to be the best in the world.
And the reason why Giordano Bruno was burned was not his theory about other planets being inhabited, but the fact that he used that theory to argue that the Pope could not claim to be the only supreme authority for all Christianity. Because Jesus must have appeared on those other planets too, to save the people living there; and He must have founded other Christian Churches there; which must have their own Popes... And Giordano was going around the courts of Europe telling that to kings and princes...
All the best, --jorge
The so-called “plants” are not plants at all.
Essentially, the manuscript is an alchemical treatise that uses botanical science as a symbolic language applied to women’s physiology.
It treats the female body as a living herbarium — its organs as vegetal analogues.
The drawings express that idea visually. For instance, the text might describe how a particular plant requires warmth, water, and light to mature — and then explain that the same process can be mirrored within the human body.
It is, in essence, vegetal alchemy applied to human regeneration.
Example passage (from my ongoing translation)
“Water and leaf are cooked beneath the feminine light;
the gentle fire preserves their virtue,
and the soul shapes the body within that clarity.”
This short segment illustrates the internal logic of the work: the union of elements — water, plant, fire, and light — as both a natural and spiritual medicine.
It conveys the idea that the female body reflects the cycles of nature and that balance of heat, moisture, and purity restores both health and wisdom.