The Voynich Ninja

Ok, Bluetoes101, you are so good at it that you figured it out in 0.1s. Some of us are not that good, at least I am not. You are 15 years ahead of me, perhaps even more than you can imagine. Good for you. But I am not yet convinced of your logic:

“I am innocent, sir.” Judge: “No, you are not, I have seen many who have claimed to be innocent, but they were not”. “Why? I am innocent, sir, someone else may have done it and framed me inadvertently, and wish to be proven to be presumed innocent, before proven guilty, what is your proof, sir?” Judge: “Well, I know many have done that, and I can prove to you that you are guilty, because I can do the act myself, here it is, I can rob someone like this”? “But, your honor, you just proved it can be done by others or even yourself, can you prove I did it” Judge: “Believe me, I have been around 15 years being judge, and can prove in 0.1s you are guilty. Take him and put him in jail. No need for the jury.”

I am not on Facebook, because I don’t like it. I am on this forum, because (so far) I have liked it and thought those in it, or at least most, do not jump into conclusions about something, and can offer a reasonable explanation. If that thread had not been available in public, I would not have even seen it. I saw it. I saw those in the thread are pleading with David Landino to offer more information. Even the thread moderator was doing so, still. I don’t know Landino, or anybody on that thread. So, I assumed he had legitimately been trying to re-trace it, having put his reputation on the line asking for that question. In my land, people are presumed innocent before being judged guilty, contrary to how some are judging him here.

What Rod Kinnison did (posted after I had seen that thread for first time) was not convincing and still is not. His first two examples are utterly unlike the presumed fake, and not having been good at it, he tried the third example, and it was even worse, he copied and pasted the same presumed fake in a stretched way so poorly that even the margins are duplicated! That is not a good way of proving something fake, and some on this forum relied on his try as a criterion, and they too were not convincing. He is an expert I am sure in his field, but these efforts he made did not convince me.

Oshfdk, you did not have to take the trouble of making a fake to prove to me or others it can be done. Yours being better than Rod Kinnison, had a disadvantage that someone in the future doing a google search will find your example fake having been shown on voynich.ninja.com, and not reading the details because they don’t have time, will likely post it in FB or elsewhere, wondering where it came from. Rest assured, your fake page is not in google memory.

I strongly urge you and others not to make fakes and post it in this forum. I suggest to the moderators to delete them. If the David Landino’s image I posted is proven to be a fake also, you should do so as well, but he did not claim he did something for fun or to prove something by faking it, and in my view, he was asking for help with his research. I did not post it to prove fakes can be done. I did so to ask those of you who are interested to help find the manuscript.

When I saw the post first time, I saw a comment by Monika Pal-Stumpp about it that made me interested to pursue it further. She has deleted it now, or I can’t find it, perhaps because Rod Kinnison claimed (unconvincingly) it is a fake, or for any other reason. I am sad to see she deleted it, but I respect her choice and won’t copy her comment here, which I kept for my own notes. Hopefully she will realize that whether the image is proven fake or not, her comment was helpful for me. If you are reading this, Monika, I think you had a good observation.

I have never liked the attitudes of those who prejudge others, following a guilty until proven innocent logic. If this is what this Forum stands for, I must then be in the wrong place, so I will be out of here in 0.1s and not take more of your time.

This is no longer about a document being fake or not. This is about the way you go about doing research in a way that is respectful, helping others to do the same. I have absolutely no problem with someone proving that that page is a fake, and helping David Landino (and me) to realize the same. But you need to do it in a way that is not prejudgmental and assumes since you have been around for a long time you must be correct.

If it were a photo of a real MS, then that MS has to be somewhere. 
The person who 'took that photo' should be eager to explain where it is.
Let's just wait for that.

In the meantime I am equally convinced that it is AI.

(Possibly this digression can be split off).

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Hasn't it always been that way? But in the past, you had to pick up a real pen.

Regarding the “letter column” formatting on pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. most likely), I am now inclined to believe that they are poems. Apparently in medieval times, they used a first letter separated system as a sort of paragraph starter for lines when writing poems. 

In the examples copied below from this link You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  (in English context) you can see how the formatting is used to suggest a poem is in the works (you can even see the rhymes of the poems in the example image given, of course not implying the VM is in English!). 

However, I am still mindful of Koen G.’s good point that the VM may be doing its own thing with the format style. 

Since sometimes we find a gallow both as separated letter and as the beginning of its corresponding line, this leads me to consider what others had suggested for the column of letters being an indication of an acrostic poem, or somehow making words for things such as the title of the poem, etc, written in a vertical way. 

Interestingly, on f49v, the first 4 letters in the column are repeated three times down their line (ambiguities of the 2’s withstanding), and it is possible to consider that there is a message being given in a vertical way about the text, such as its title as a poem. Until we can read the text, of course, we can never know for sure.

It may also be the case that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is different from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in that the letters in the column use some of the rare letters found on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart’s third circle from center. In that sense, it may be the case that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a poem, but You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. not entirely, or that their vertical title is serving another purpose as well. In f49v, the number of letters on the column match the number of lines of text (26), when it does not on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (34 letters, 32 lines of text). 

In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. letters are mostly lined with the lines, but in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. they are not exactly. However, it is possible that there may be some scribal errors in lining them in f66r, not realizing what they could have stood for in the author’s original, or that for some reason one of the text lines is double-lines (such as text lines 11, or there is an extra o for line 18). 

If the “poem” interpretation is considered plausibly, then, this is what I think could be happening in the herbal section. 

The author is assembling a catalog of plants that can have both medicinal and even political-military relevance for her (knowledge of poisonous plants to watch out for, or employ if needed as a last resort). She has fertility and pregnancy needs also as a continuing interest, since it is also not just health-wise, but legacy-wise, important to her.

In doing this assembling of her catalog of medical-political plant information handbook and arsenal, in whose drawing symbols she may even be inserting some symbols about herself, she reaches and flags those two plants in particular for personal and biographically significant reasons. 

Following what I shared before regarding Aga Tentakulus’s and ReneZ listed and Edith Sheerwood’s identifications, I am still inclined that the “ambiguity” of the two plants may be still a subject of her reflections, and she is realizing how a Water Lily (intentionally or by mistake) could have affected her life as a plant causing sexual impotence for someone (for f49v) and an error in identifying You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as Chamomile, could have caused harms for a loved one she knew or even herself, thinking that another plant was being used in favor of pregnancy, rather than one that induced abortion instead. 

I am of course speculating, but my intention is to show, in the context of a personally reflective handbook, those two texts can make sense as poems.

Whether You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. text has any relation to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart (third circle) as a geomantic consideration, it may have, but the geomantic consideration for that chart can have its own significance for understanding some of the “what”s of the Voynich manuscript, on which I may comment on later.

[attachment=13641]

It is funny how these AI fakes mix Voynichese with standard writings.

If people hand't invent chimeras, computers would have do it.

I have been trying to learn a bit about geomancy (I had no ideas about it before) and thinking about the chart You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. more in recent days. Now, I think I have a sense of what is happening in that chart, and if I am correct, it proves that the author is doing things in a very meticulous way, as if she is trying to leave a very important message for her future despite the odds and challenges (and foes) of her time. In a way she is using the Voynich manuscript as an oracle device.

Before I share you another long (longer!) post, I must preface it by reminding us of what the fancy word ‘hermeneutics’ implies, one that I am applying in these posts by way of the method I outlined originally. It is simply about trying to know what the intention and meaning of a text FOR ITS AUTHOR was, regardless of whether we hold the same views today.

We want to put ourselves as best as we can in the shoes of the author in her times, and try to see why she was authoring this work of art; but before that ‘why’ question, we still have to get a better sense of the “what”s of the manuscript. Antonio García Jiménez in his posts in this forum as tried nearly a million-viewed times to emphasize that we will never know what the Voynich manuscript is about unless we put ourselves in the shoes of its author(s), and he is absolutely right in that.

We may agree or not with the rest of what he has said, about the text being technical or not, etc., but this point he has said is a very important part of the elephant, with which I think all of those on this forum agree — that we should learn the manuscript by doing our best in interpreting it using the cultural and spiritual views prevalent in those times, generally speaking (and of course varieties of such views even then withstanding).

So, in this post, I will try to explain what in my view is happening in chart f57v, regardless of what views you and I hold about geomancy today.

To state it most briefly, I think the chart is basically describing and is itself a geomantic divination device, sort of a geomantic time machine, or a geomantic oracle. It is being devised by the author for her own life, customized per her own questions and needs in the context of her times. So, it has implicit in it a knowledge of her own astrological chart basics.

For now, both logically and procedurally, we do not need to complicate things by considering the star list, the pharmacological section, the astrological sections, the balneological section, the large fold out vision, etc., later in the manuscript. Even in the existing incomplete manuscript we can safely assume and find that she immediately follows the plant section with the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart, for good reason. She is mapping what she will do later. 

All we need to assume is that she is aware of her (for us missing in the incomplete manuscript) astrological horoscope (so the tilt we see in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. can be considered existing for that reason), and that we know there are stars out there for her later purpose. I will discuss the “tilt” issue in later posts, not below.

In her time, thanks to worldviews inherited transculturally by way of astrological and geomantic considerations, they believed that existence is created by God by way of intelligences, to which souls (selves) are associated, setting spheres in motion. God created the world by way of the first intelligence, who wondered what it is (hence, a self-reflective soul), setting in motion (in its sphere), a search for what it is, why it exists, where it came from and where it is going.

So, down the line of the rays of creation, we ended up in the worldview with a series of unfolding intelligences. “Stars” were regarded as intelligent beings, and there were fixed or wandering (hence “planets” which at the time included the Sun and the Moon, and the known planets then of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) kinds of them. Fixed stars represent the most stable, highest, and the wisest; planets were just wandering, having their own unique attributes.

So, there is a reason there is so much emphasis on the fixed stars in the VM, because she is appealing to the wisest. But, contrary to the plants section, which may be assumed to be complete, we have unfortunately lost important sections which, in my view, included not just astrological but also more geomantic information about her own life (for example, had we seen her birth chart, we would have likely seen geomantic dots in them, whether represented by star shapes or not). So, in this case (compared to the plants section), we have to be more considerate of what is likely missing in the manuscript.

This may appear odd to us, but in my view, she believed that all the stars she was consulting for her astrological autobiography and oracle vision (which I think the VM likely is), were not just some symbolic representations of stars “out there” but representations of her own selves, representing the fixed (and wandering, including the Sun and the Moon) stars. In other words, I suggest that all the nude nymphs are actually the same person, herself, and their differences have to do with how those selves in herself are representing the universe of different stars.

If there are clearly different looking images of others, including men or other women, usually now clothed, they can be of those she knew, of loved ones, peers, or even enemies, but mostly the nude nymphs represent the different stars as represented within her own inner world, there are her own different star-linked souls.

What geomancy offers is a way of actually (in her view) communicating with, and posing her questions to, those stars that are at the same time represented in herself. And this is what makes her worldview “secretively” alternative to the dominant church perspectives of her time. She is claiming and trying to show that anyone can communicate with the angels, and this is not a privilege of an institutional church, especially one run by men historically in her times, even to this day. That is a reason you do not find institutionalized church symbols predominating the Voynich manuscript.

Now, to understand how she is devising the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart as a geomantic divination device, we need to know basically what geomancy and its figures are.

Before doing so, let me just say that in the chart, the innermost circle likely represents aspects of her life she was born in, her childhood, parents, her inner core, things she could not have decided on her own (perhaps her birth chart features are listed there).

The second from the center circle likely represents her grown-up mature life up to the time she is doing this geomantic exercise; it includes her successes or failures, problems or solutions, aspects of her life.

The third circle from the center includes a 4-time repeated (likely seasonal both actual or metaphorical, i.e., seasons of one’s lifetime, youth, maturity, decline, and death, something like that) series of geomantic figures. If there are some “rare” and “used” figures, is because either she avoided them on purpose, or that they did not come up in her divinations. In geomancy, if a "bad" figures comes up, you have to stop and not proceed with that divination.

And the last, outlying circle represents the future, both what can happen as prediction and what she wishes to happen, including by means of her divination, which can include why she is authoring the VM manuscript.

Koen G. somewhere, (may be it was someone else, but I think it was his clip I saw once) in his video’s always creative clip backgrounds, has the chart You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in motion, as if all the circles are moving separately from one another, like a rotary. I think that is a good depiction of how she would have used this device lining up the events of her life, past, present, and future, while asking her specific geomantic questions.

The reason the other persons in the center of the chart are looking at the person on the bottom (and, by the way, they are actually representing the same person, in my view, the author) is that the bottom person is asking the geomantic question(s) on the earth (geo) ground. There is a reason their depiction is tilted, and I will explain that in later posts. But the left and right hand depictions suggest, among others, of this being a geomantic (not an astrological birth related) chart, since the East (right handed person on the right), and the West (left handed person of the left) are flipped and reverse of the usual horoscope depictions, as expected. The top and bottom persons are also depicting the north and south nodes.

Now, the way geomantic technique for communicating with the universal intelligent soul or angel “energies” of the world works is basically described generally below. It was originally done with sands (in the Arab tradition), but it can be done with anything. While meditating or calm in mind, you ask a question from whichever deity you are interested in, and for the answers, you use the sands, pen, or even leaves (see further below in some clips I have linked, how it can be done), but they can even be stars if considered in relation to a birth astrological divination in a longer term consideration of the "accidents" of what stars fall in which house when you were born, to see how the “chanced” results of your test are expressed.

Consider yourself to be comprised of four elements. Head is the fire, neck is the air, stomach the water, and feet the earth. So, for each geomantic figure, you have a binary option of one dot or two dots, which can be used to interpret stability/change, entering/leaving, open/closed attributes. Since there are four elements and two choices, you have a total of 2 powered by 4 as the entire possibilities (giving you the 16 geomantic figure possibilities, 2x2x2x2=16). So, you may have a figure in which all four are single dots, or all double dots, or any variety of choices in between. Traditionally, all the 16 figures have been named, and depending on the questions asked they may have positive or negative meanings or connotations.

I am not an expert in geomancy by any means, but you do not have to be one, to get a sense of what the technique is doing. It is using chance results of a test divination to come up with the first 4 “mother” tossing, from which you chart 4 “daughter” (by reading the “mothers” horizontally, or “nieces/nephews” by adding the mother and daughter patterns, then from the latter the two “witnesses” and then one judge). These result in a “shield” figure of patterns for each question divination, which you use to interpret what your “yes” or “no” answers have been from the “energy” you communicated with.

The best illustration of this, perhaps is the scene in the movie “Interstellar” where the future father communicates by way of gravity to his daughter in the past, sort of. You interpret the “morse codes” received, and have thus had an independent communication with your outer/inner angels (in this case a father trying to reach you!)

This notion was of course threatening to the established church, since it sort of democratizes how you can communicate with God’s angels yourself not needing an intermediary. The church was also theologically concerned about this being a way of falling under the influence of the devil, and framed its opposition in that way. But, the technique does not have to be seen as demonic. It depends on which starry angels you wish to depend on for guidance, and I do not see any indications in the VM that the author was interested in the dark or black magic or demonic assistance. She appears to be a believer in God’s created good angels and is seeking their guidance in answering her life’s dilemmas in health and legacy.

Whether there is any use of the geomantic technique in ciphering the text of the manuscript, it is hard to tell for me as a non-specialist and many among you are more knowledgeable in this area, particularly magnesium (Michael Greshko) who started a thread on the forum and published a well-received paper.

I cannot claim having read his paper carefully, but I think he wanted to show that using cards and dice, involving chance, one can turn natural text into ciphers that mimic the statistical properties of the VM. But he himself does not claim that the method can decipher the VM. I am inclined strongly to believe that the text of the VM is not super-complicated in its ciphering technique, and some basic abbreviated and short-handed language that is idiosyncratically invented and used can go a long way in making a text hard to decipher. R. Sale has perceptively noted that the VM author is clearly trying to hide messages for a reason in the manuscript, and I agree with that also.

The most interesting thing I learned about geomancy is that while it originally used sand for its divination, anything can be used for the purpose, even the fixed stars in a birth chart. Medieval European astrologers actually further developed and expanded geomancy in relation to astrological sciences of their time.

The basic information about geomancy can be learned in the following pages and some interesting clips made in an effort to illustrate some of its basic aspects.

Wikipedia page on Geomancy provides a helpful basic summary You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I suggest reading this Wiki page on Geomantic Figures You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. carefully, since it tells you the more complicated ways the figures can be interpreted. Note how some are regarded as left-handed or right-handed, how north and south nodes are considered, how east and west directions are considered and so on.

In this interesting old clip, someone named Les Cross shows how simple tree leaves can be used for geomancy You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Here, he shows how just a pen can be used You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Here he shows in an simple way how fortune telling can be done the geomantic figures for a divination You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Here, someone named Paris Debono uses geomancy cards for the purpose (simplified, but helps illustrate some basic ideas) (how mothers, daughters, nieces, are constructed for each divinzation, but does not show the witnesses and judge …) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Here is some information about medieval geomancy and its figures You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Please see the above just as a way of learning about Geomancy to understand the hermeneutics of the Voynich manuscript, not in a way that suggests you or I believe in them as such.

As I was posting the above, I read @ Mark Knowles’s new post in Voynich Talk thread (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). I agree with him that the author of the Voynich manuscript was a very smart and well-educated person with clarity and confidence about what she was doing and leaving behind for future generations.

(25-01-2026, 02:52 AM)MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ok, Bluetoes101, ..

I also don't like "I'm 5000 years old so I'm smart" as a credential. So that side is totally valid to me. 

However, I didn't comment on anyone's intent and so I'll skip over that. But to start with the vellum, stains, binding, margin, worm holes, fading and red ink staining do not look real. 
Secondly, I understand (from past projects) what Voynich text usually does. Voynich text is not entirely predictable, but if you have a whole page of it about 85% of it falls into "normal Voynich stuff" (The entropy is what it is for a reason, the text is somewhat predictable). You do not have 80% of the page being rogue in regards to structural consistency with "words".. on top of completely made up glyph shapes.

Adding all this together tells people who have spent a long time with the manuscript that what they are looking at is not authentic.
I can break this down into a scientifically acceptable observation, I guess, but is it really worth it? 

Dissecting this (for example).. I mean, do we really need to?  

[attachment=13678]

@Blurtoes101, thanks for your considerations. 

I think there is some misunderstanding going on here. I did not, nor most people who saw that page (except a few), think that page is a lost Voynich manuscript page. I never even thought of that. I just thought that some of the letters were (in my view) identical to what we find in the VM. I think you seem to be assuming that I was saying that is a page from the VM. No, I don’t think it is, even if it proven authentic. But, because it is using the same letters, as I stated in my original post, the find can be significant (again, NOT because it is a lost VM text, but a text that uses its letters and styles in a very familiar way).

Using your expression, even in 0.1s I decided that that page is NOT from the VM itself. I don’t know why someone said it may be, but I don’t believe it. If it is found to be authentic, it means somebody was using the same letters similar to VM in writing it.

BTW, I have not found any of the fake examples colleagues produced for this thread convincing at all. I would have rejected them right away and not wasted your times for it.

Many places and libraries are still digitizing their old volumes, and I would not be surprised at some point material is found in online search that uses the Voynich manuscript writing style or letters (though having nothing to do with it). I am not yet convinced that page is a fake. The jury on the original image found is still on, for me.

@Bluetoes101, sorry, that was just an inadvertent typo in my last post in your forum name (I just noticed it).

Just weighing in that this manuscript page is very consistent with what we would expect from the current generation of LLM's (probably Gemini, in this case). Unfortunately, anyone with a computer can now make these things with the click of a button, so expect to see more of them...