The Voynich Ninja

The VMs has survived more than a century of proposed interpretations. You may know the story of Newbold's interpretation of the VMs cosmos (f68v3) as Roger Bacon's telescopic representation of the Andromeda Galaxy. The façade is something that is seen but not properly understood.

If the solution to the VMs is like finding a needle in a haystack, then you'll be looking at a lot of hay. Hay is the façade. And given the material removed from the VMs already, the needle could be long gone.

The fact that the VMs cosmos is easily passed over by investigators who are not familiar with the comparative historical illustrations [and who, in their right mind, would be familiar with those manuscripts??], it is that lack, that absence of information, that is the façade. That is what hides the reality disguised in the artistry.

(12-03-2026, 11:15 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The VMs has survived more than a century of proposed interpretations. You may know the story of Newbold's interpretation of the VMs cosmos (f68v3) as Roger Bacon's telescopic representation of the Andromeda Galaxy. The façade is something that is seen but not properly understood.

If the solution to the VMs is like finding a needle in a haystack, then you'll be looking at a lot of hay. Hay is the façade. And given the material removed from the VMs already, the needle could be long gone.

The fact that the VMs cosmos is easily passed over by investigators who are not familiar with the comparative historical illustrations [and who, in their right mind, would be familiar with those manuscripts??], it is that lack, that absence of information, that is the façade. That is what hides the reality disguised in the artistry.

1.

Thanks for clarifying that sentence. Now I better understand why you were asking the question and it is a good one to ask. I did not actually know much about the Newbold interpretation, but reading about it, find it utterly unconvincing and for good reason it has been debunked. I did not know that even in the VM research some have espoused "micro coding" solutions, let alone "galaxy" interpretations.

Unfortunately, such efforts (like more recent decoration or hoax theories, whether textual or visual), while understandable, only take time away time and attention (of even their own espousers) from more fruitful explorations. I wish them the best while not having any interest in engaging with them.

One way to answer your question is by using your example of f68v3, which I believe (as you know better) has been found by VM researchers as having been inspired by Oresme's diagram. Another way is to comment on your façade/secret or haystack/hay metaphor.

I will comment briefly here on both but hopefully in more detail later when I am ready to share any bird's eye solution I may have.

2.

When we use the metaphor haystack/hay, we can imagine it as itself existing in different ways. One way would be to imagine the hays as parts mechanically separate from the whole, or imagine them as organic parts of the whole. This is where limitations of the metaphors or analogies we use can cause confusions when we want to use the visuals of the VM as the primary field for investigation.

In a commonly metaphor of the haystack as separate hays, to find a hay would be more challenging admittedly, since the hay is regarded as not also co-existing with and in other hays. But if the hay is considered to be organically linked, then any place in the haystack can give us hints to that particular hay, and vice versa. This is the same situation with a façade/secret duality.

In the case of the VM visuals, I think what we have is an organic whole of visuals, not Newtonian separate billiard balls of them. There is a relation of superposition between the part and the whole, each of which is also the other, and therefore can help find the other.

This is one reason I have noted that short attention spans cannot solve the puzzle, since they tend to treat each part as if it can be learned by itself. If we treat hay and haystack in terms of a particle/wave non-duality, then finding the hay can be easier, since any other hays offer hints to its locational meaning. The haystack is the hay, the façade is also the secret we are looking for.

3.

f68v3 is hinting to more than just its own chart. It is pointing to the whole of VM's visually expressed astrological imaigination. It is a building block of the whole book.

The bulge on the left in the center of the diagram is not an incidental "stupid scribe" decoration error. It is of the essence to the diagram, and in many ways to the whole manuscript's reason for existing.

Obviously the author could draw a perfect circle, judging by the wider chart circle. She did not, and this has a lot to do with the number of stars in each section. All have five. The left section has six. The bulge, however, may not be because it has one more star. It may be that it has one less than it should be, that is, seven stars of the Pleiades cluster. The missing star's story as part of the Pleiades mythology, therefore, becomes now an organic part of the haystack of the Voynich manuscript.

So, the chart is pointing to a cosmic birth chart ailment that needs to be healed in the chart of someone. So, we cannot understand this f68v3 without considering other charts of the VM, since they are telling the story of a talismantic effort being made to heal an astrological challenge faced by someone.

4.

This is where the radical critique of Oresme is being depicted in f68v3.

In his chart, the elements of water (bottom half), earth (right top quadrant), and air (left top quadrant, where birds are used for its depiction), are suggesting that even if the earth rotates, all elements are rotating with it. Although he himself did not fully endorse it, he suggested that the sphere's turning above may be a result of the earth turning itself. 

Critiques said if the earth turns, air would be left behind causing winds in a way that is not seen. Oresme counterargued that air also turns. That is why he has all of them at the center of the diagram.

But the critique by the VM of Oresme is taking the notion of the air around the Earth and therefore the question of wind generation to a wider spiritual level. She is reminding him that there are also spiritual winds involved that go even behind the cosmic nebulae, to God himself.

5.

Oresme also was skeptical about astrology, suggesting that since the motions of planets cannot be exactly measured (since he thought that mathematically they followed irrational numbers) astrologers could not exactly locate (let alone predict) motions.

In f68v3, the author is challenging the view that earth or even cosmic motions can be understood apart from the broader divine participation. It is not about just quantity, but also of quality. She is radically critiquing that view as a part of her spiritual philosophy of nature, visually expressed. She is truly demonstrating her brilliance in that diagram.

So, she is depicting a whirligig/spinner wind of spiritual influence that goes beyond the nebulae circle, depicting how the motions are subjected to a greater spiritual whole that can aid in healing disharmonies in cosmic motions and even collective and individual birth charts, such as the the bulging deformity related to the "weeping sisters" Pleiades cluster in a birth chart. The sisters have faced troubles, and are in need of a healing.

She is offering, in other words, a deeply holistic, feminine, critique of Oresme, affirming that there is truth to astrological influences (in her view in the mindset of her times), including the role humans can themselves willfully in resisting the challenges faced in tendencies found in astrologically perceived realities (again, in the mindset of their times).

6.

It is feminine, because it is refusing to separate human procreative nature from spirituality and from human personal lives and willfulness, since, in her view, by way of relating spiritually to God and angelic star souls, one can participate in governing one's personal and collective lives. She is telling her sister(s), "You can be godesses of your country/world" (Aga Tentakulus).

That is why "words" are used in the charts, as if being part of the divine plan. Prayers and spiritual effort are not just reflective, but transformative, of the realities faced by humans.

So, "air" being left behind as a challenge to Oresme's scheme itself critiqued by way of a wider reminding of the readers of the spiritual winds that can help harmonize human world as well as individual birth chart challenges.

She is offering a conceptualist critique of Oresme, I think.

William Ockham (Occam) was inclined toward a conceptualist view of reality, meaning that in his view our thoughts are not just reflective, but are and can be transformative of the realities we face.

So, the author is also in this respect siding with that viewpoint, and for this reason the Voynich manuscript is not just telling a story, but is trying to heal a historical one in both contemporary as well as a longer term legacy keepsake.

The hay to be found, therefore, is the haystack, and vice versa. The façade offers the key to the secret of its parts, and vice versa.

Before the elephant eats all the hay, there are other sources as part of the cosmic comparison. The other Oresme source is BNF Fr. 1082, which has some similarities with BNF Fr. 565. The lower half is 'pictorial' water and there is a strong but irregular cloud band / cosmic boundary in 1082, not the highly regular, scallop-shell design of 565. 1082 is seen as an earlier version, drawn by a different artist. It has no field of stars.

Oresme died in 1382, while the 565 ms. is dated c. 1410, Paris, and was owned by Jean, Duke of Berry (d. 1416), then by his daughter, Marie, Duchess of Auvergne (d. 1434).

Several cosmic illustrations are also found in Harley 334. Compared to 565, they have the same sort of pictorial representation of an inverted T-O, elemental Earth, a nearly identical blue field with golden asterisk stars, and a cosmic boundary that is nothing more than a plain, colored line. The scallop-shells are all gone. The ms. is dated second quarter of the 15th century, Paris. The text is by Gautier de Metz, but the illustrations differ from those found in his previous works. The simplified, inverted T-O, planetless, 43 undulations type cosmos is a very limited, historical edition, based on the artist, not on the textual author.

Harley 334 also has the generic mermaid and companions, sort of like the VMs. (Another story)

But there is more to the VMs cosmos. Out beyond the limits of the cosmic boundary, the VMs artist has drawn a circular band connected to and through the nebuly band, like a wheel with eight curved spokes. 

The only valid, historical construction similar to this is Shirakatsi's Eight Phases of the Moon diagram. Not my discovery, I simply acknowledge that this is the best available interpretation. And while the original provenance may be distant, history provides many opportunities for this text to come into the VMs C-14 era in Europe.

The VMs artist knew both parts of the f68v3 cosmos and has drawn them on the page. Now, the reader comes along - but what is the result??

What the VMs artist has done was to put a modified "Oresme's" cosmos inside of Shirakatsi's wheel - an imaginative pairing of incongruities - the creation of a cosmic oxymoron. Would that have been accidental or intentional?

(16-03-2026, 09:11 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Before the elephant eats all the hay, …

Recalling Newbold regarding f68v3 suspiciously looked like a "trick question" hay to feed, but Oresme and Shirakatsi are relevant topics to digest, so thanks for pursuing this topic. I will use this post to also offer a few updates about my ongoing findings about the Voynich manuscript, for those who may be interested.

1.

Your statement "Before the elephant eats all the hay …") is an amusing note to make but I am afraid it tells of a continuing problem in matters of interpretation.

The problem is, the elephant has already eaten the hay, and neither you nor I can do anything about it.

But the hay has not vanished.

On the contrary, it is now even more present in the elephant, just in a spread-out form, since it has been digested and is in its DNA everywhere. (Sorry the "needle in the haystack" would be too painful to metaphorize for the digestion analogy; looking for a specific hay rather than a needle in a haystack would be even more difficult, so the analogy still holds).

2.

Before commenting on your last post, I must add to my last post that, for the same reason I mentioned—i.e., that the visuals are to be treated as an organic whole, the façade being the secret, the haystack the hay, the issue of missing pages can still be remedied to some extent, if we consider the entire visuals of the VM to be the façade as an organic whole.

The "forgers" who removed those pages for marketing the VM to Rudolf II were misled, thankfully, thinking they could just cut out the authors' identifying information, not realizing that traces of the missing pages were already digested and present in other parts of the remaining visuals in a spread-out way.

So, even the birth chart(s), if there were any in the VM, which I think they were (and must have been, given the specific way the remaining charts are depicted, and given that without it the astrological prescription being filled would not have been effective) can be recovered to some extent based on the left-over data footprints in other charts.

Plausably, I think I have actually recovered the birth chart with interesting results, which I will hopefully share at some point in future posts. Even if not convincing to you or others, at least it will serve as a heuristic device for demonstrating the difference a birth chart could make in explaining the existence, nature, and purpose of the Voynich manuscript.

3.

Relatedly, I must also add here that the notion that there are no "planets" in the VM, even as it partially remains, is just a myth and absolutely an error in judgment.

From a hermeneutic point of view (putting ourselves in the shoes of the authors and their times), the Sun and the Moon were regarded as planets at that time and there are plenty of them in the VM. We are the ones today who don't regard them as planets, mistakenly applying our contemporary lenses to the study of the VM and concluding that there are no planets in it.

That is another example of the fact that "the absence of information" you mentioned in your earlier post is not just about what is or not out there, but also about what is or not in here, in our own gathered information toolbox. And this lack of attention can happen when we spend too much time (even in this forum) chasing secondary incidentals rather than studying the important astrological worldview that is and informs the skeleton of the VM elephant.

The idea for this thread "to see the elephant in the room" is not just about the elephant, or the room, but also and especially about the ways of "seeing." No matter how big the elephant and lighted the room, if we don't have the lenses needed to see it, it will still not be seen. Then we (wrongly) attribute it to the "abscence of information" when the absence can be existing in our own studies for whatever reason, often inadvertently.

4.

Because it has been a while since I shared my thoughts on the authorship of the Voynich manuscript by Countess Margaret "Maultasch" of Tyrol, I need to also briefly update things here a bit before coming back to the topic of this post.

I am using the plural "authors" now because of an important conclusion I reached recently following the discovery that Adelheid (1317-1375), the older sister of Margaret of Tyrol (1318-1369) did not die young, but actually outlived Margaret (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). That changed a lot in my bird's eye view of the elephant. It also explained a lot more that I had even anticipated.

Now I strongly believe that the VM was a collaborative project by Margaret and Adelheid and in fact the latter may have played a primary role, serving as Margaret's spiritual astrologer-in-chief, and putting the final touches as a tribute to her. This was done amid the Domincan nuns sisterhood of which she was a lifelong distinguished member/sister as a chronically (most likely just physically) ill patient, since Adelheid and their ancestors actually founded it and, like Adelheid herself, are buried there (female ones), along with others.

Adelheid must have been doing something during all the decades of resting in the Maria Steinach cloister at Algund (Lagundo, in South Tyrol), and it seems to me now that she was not as marginal to the story of Margaret's life as it may seem. The VM is in many ways her brainchild (as well). She must have been a behind-the-scenes advisor and support for Margaret in all the ways she could. After all, she would have been the sole heir, had it not been for her illness, and must have greatly empathized with what Margaret experienced.

The co-authorship idea also can plausibly explain the Courier A and B "languages" ("A" as being likely associated with the contributions Adelheid and "B" as Margaret made per their division of labor in creating and using the work). It also plausibly explains the sisterly secret language they must have constructed and used to create and use their handbook amid the life-threatening political environment they lived in.

The cloister Dominican sisters must have also played a key role in scribing the 1300s parchment to the vellum later in early 1400s for the durability of their distinguished patrons' legacy, after the immediate enemies of the sisters had left the scene. The sisterly collaborative efforts may even explain some of the "pairing" patterns we find in the VM, and more.

Anyways, there is a lot to be learned and shared still.

5.

As I defined it in a previous post, for me a bird's eye solution to seeing the whole elephant in the room will be sufficient. What does a "bird's eye solution" mean? It means finding sufficient textually and contextually reliable evidence across all the themes as defined in this forum's topic structure, to explain the whether, what, why, and how of the Voynich manuscript, without yet having succeeded in knowing and claiming all the rest of its details (yet).

As I noted earlier, the visuals of the VM are sufficient to arrive at a bird's eye solution to its puzzle, because the visuals are the authors' way of explaining to others what their text actually means.

Let us say you solve the text puzzle of the VM and can read it. But that would still be just a beginning of that finding. You could read a poem and still not understand what it means as intended by its author.

The text would need to be interpreted, and if the authors were around and you could ask them, the best way they could explain it for any audience speaking any language would have been through the visuals. And they have already given you that, and the visuals are the meanings in the room of the elephant, and had it not been for those "removals" you may have had even less of a difficulty understanding what the VM was about.

But even if it was complete, you would not be able to understand it without putting yourself hermeneutically in the shoes of their authors. That is what explains why the existing visuals have not served well (yet) in our understanding them and the problem is not with "absence of information" in the seen, but the problem in our seeing the information already given.

If such a solution is achieved, it would mean more details will hopefully be found on that basis, and even if corrections or adjustments are called for, the bird's eye view will still hold. I have done sufficient other research to notice when a solution is in the right track.

It has certainly been the case that the more details I find reliably about the VM, they shed new meaningful light on more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and how they fit together. Even when they disprove what I thought before (i.e., "Adelheid died young"), the new finding begins to make even more sense and explain even more things I had not even considered before.

A "bird's eye solution" does not and should not imply that any good findings you and all have achieved are irrelevant. On the contrary, if there is a grain of truth in any theory expressed by anyone, they will discover that the solution would accommodate it, though in ways that they did not anticipate before.

6.

Now, back to the topic of this post, regarding for the Oresme sources you cited, please note the following.

The edition variations you noted are not limited to the MS 565 or MS 1082, as you know (since they have been cited elsewhere online as well), and there must have been many others we don't even know about.

MS 565 or MS 1082 actually have a precursor dated around 1365-75 (at St. John's college, as MS 164 in Oxford, that is available in full here, at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). I have included two images from it below this post, but you can consult the source itself for more information.

What this tells me is that the manuscript must have been scribed in many different editions, especially given it was a royal funded work, and it just happens that we have seen the MS 565 and its nebulae/earth illustration, thinking that it must have been the one inspiring the VM.

Since the VM scholars have been focusing on the 1400s timeline for the VM creation, naturally they thought the 1400s editions were the ones inspiring the VM, if it was the case (which actually I am not sure, since it could have even been the other way around as a remote possibility).

Those days they did not have printing presses that could create identical copies, as you know. So, given the royal-funded and widely read academic status of the manuscript, many scribal copies could have been made of it, and each volume's scribes and artists could have rendered the graphics differently.

So, it is possible that even the MS 565 edition could have been inspired by earlier 1300s editions that depicted that graphic with the nebulae borders and stars and elements design, and now we don't have access to those earlier variations.

7.

The diagram in MS 1082 (see image B in the collection posted below) that you compared with the MS 565 illustration (image A) is depicting the same idea, but differently, admittedly without the nebulae border (or it is depicted differently but lacking the stars). Instead of a separate "air" third section in the center, it is depicted as the blue border around the earth and the water (with fish in it). Yes, the stars and the nebulae border as expected is missing, but that is just because of the style the artist used for that specific edition.

In the Oxford MS 164 edition (see image C), which I think is actually a copy King Charles I owned (given astrological birth charts in it), you can see the water, the earth, the air surrounding both, the fire surrounding the air, and then the stars. Again, the nebulae border is not there. What is interesting in that edition is the depiction of the Sun in a spiral way (see D), admittedly not interpretively significant in camparison to the spiral in the VM, because it is just a spiral way of depicting Sun rays, but it shows that it was not uncommon for artists to think of spirals to depict things. A VM author may have thought of that image and decided to use it in reverse motion (counterclockwise) for her own intended meaning other than a Sun depiction.

I agree that Harley 334 (below the image A) is more like the MS 565 illustration (without the nebulae border). But again, all these extant manuscripts are showing the extent of variations and playfulness with the basic idea.

Just because we have "incidentally" these example editions around today as being extant does not mean there were not others available in 1300s and 1400s (and later) that we don't even know about. If it had been commissioned to scribe the book in 10 or 20 or 30 copies or more, which is certainly possible for widely read and discussed texts, each could have had a different illustration style, and we don't have all of them at hand.

It will be a poor judgment to think that just because we have a 1400s edition depicting the nebulae in that diagram, that was the only one doing it. On the contrary, it could have been a copy of a 1300s edition which the VM authors may have seen, inspiring their illustration ideas.

We should also not forget that all of the above examples are just later French editions that draw on Oresme's earlier work, some written in Latin actually (the Oxford edition says it includes also Latin text, I did not check carefully to see where in the book, but must be there).

There is an excellent dissertation translating the earlier works of Oresme from Latin into English here (you may not access it since it is in ProQuest behind login, titled "The 'Questiones Super De Celo' of Nicle Oresme" (by Claudia Kren, 1965, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). I glanced through it and Oresme had shared his ideas about earth rotation and on questioning astrology earlier in 1340s, and she places its writing in the late 1340s and early 1350s. 

It is interesting that in the very book (Oxford MS 164) in which Oresme's critique of astrology is also included, the birth charts of Charles I are found!

8.

My basic point is that neither MS 565 nor MS 1082 may have been the source of the authors of the VM, if indeed they were inspired by it as a hay for their elephant's feed. Sometimes when we find these manuscripts we may ignore that there could have been other and earlier editions and variations that are not extant now for us, but were avaiable in 1300s.

As you know Oresme lived about 1320s-1382, so he was basically a contemporary of Margaret and Adelheid of Tyrol (though he was living far away in France obviously) and by late 1340s and into 1350s he had already written materials that included some in Latin, that were later incorporated into his later works. A Dominican nun's cloister hosting its noblity patron with enough means would have been certainly interested in reading Oresme.

The University of Vienna was established in 1365, modelled after the univ. of Paris and one can assume sources used in the latter would have become available in the former in short time. Margaret was in exile in Vienna from 1363 to 1369, having more time for study and reflect (along with Adelaid still in Tyrol, with whom she would have had correspondence or more, perhaps) on her legacy and what explained why she went through in her life.

Adelheid lived even longer and died in 1375. Given her status in the sisterhood, with lots of time to read over the decades and reflect in a spiritual Domincan sisterhood environment known for their intellectual interests in spiritual and astrological matters (see the image posted below of their buildings depicting the sundial clock with the wind-blowing Sun as clock hand!), I am inclined to believe she had all the intellectual resources needed in her sisterhood library and privately.

I think the VM authors must have become familiar with Oresme even in mid 1350s (around the time William Ockham was also nearby in his exile) reading him even in Latin (they would have likely known French also given it was a court language in Europe) and the fact that they use nebulae in their VM diagram is for the same reason they use the nebulae lines throughout the VM, and do so not necessarily because they were looking at a 1400s or even a 1370s Oresme which would have been impossible (though they may have had access to a manuscript that later served as the inspiration for the MS 565 manuscript illustrations in 1400s, as I noted earlier).

However, the Maria Steinach (in Algund) cloister sisters who likely scribed the VM into vellum in 1400s could have added their own touches on the illustrations such as on f68v3, perhaps seeing some of the later 1400s French editions of Oresme then available.

9.

As for your Shirakatsi's Eight Phases of the Moon diagram, I was familiar with it, having seen it in Voynich discussions.

I think your idea of "Oresme + Shirakatsi = VMs cosmos" (if you still believe in it) as far as that diagram goes is an example of not adequately considering how Voynich manuscript does its own thing with its sources (even though in your own posts you seem to be highly aware of the unique way the VM authors synthesize their sources), assuming that the hay before eating is the same as the hay digested and spread out in the elephant.

I read over again the previous discussions of the Oresme/Shirakatsi diagrams in this forum, and while I appreciate the background discussions, I was surprised to find nothing mentioned about the notion of "winds" that is so important in the astrological worldview.

The only place references I've seen references made (and I may have missed others, if so sorry) to winds is by ReneZ on his site (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), drawing on the comparisons made by Ellie Velinska between the Oxford St. Johns MS 17 diagrams (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for the original manuscript) and another chart in the VM, that is f69r, not the f68v3. But that diagram is depicting "winds" of a different kind that one found in f68v3 in my view, as it is evident in the chart itself, as I willl explain below.

It is obvious, when comparing the VM chart with the Shirakatsi diagram, that there are differences. The spirals are rotating in opposite directions (the VM spiral moving counterclockwise, versus Shirakatsi's clockwise); four of the spikes in the VM's don't go to the center when all eight do in Shirakatsi's.

Prior discussions display, in my view, a lack of attention to the substance of the Oresme (and even Shirakatsi) diagrams in the context of how they could have been digested by the VM elephant.

10.

The VM is, without a doubt, given its visuals, a work about the influence of stars on earthly events. Astrological worldview is essential to it. It is the skeleton of the elephant. Without it, it would make no sense and crumble instantly.

So, if an Oresme comes along as the latest scientist of his time, offering in mid 1350s and later a new hot worldview, saying that the astrological worldview is wrong because we can never exactly measure the motions of the heavenly objects and spheres because of the irrational ratios and numbers involved in their motions (therefore, astrologers never being able to make and prescribe astrological judgments), that would mean the the VM's purpose would simply lose its reasoning.

The Dominican nuns in Maria Steinach, including (residing) sister Adelaid and her sister Margaret as their distinguished patrons, would have been highly attuned to and likely critical of such a proposition.

In my view, the f68v3 is severely critiquing Oresme in that chart, and in its own spiritual worldview it is a brilliant critique. It is saying, "even if you say we humans cannot tell exactly where the cosmic objects and sphere are and how they move, God does, and that is what ultimately matters."

The nebulae lines, displaying a disharmonious and bulging side, are showing the boundaries of the stars, so whatever is beyond them cannot be about moon cycles in the VM chart.

In Shirakatsi, the eight spikes are all going to the center, suggesting an equal value in the rotation; why truncate four in the VM as if moon cycles differ from one another?

The Shirakatsi spiral is also moving clockwise which is a standard for movement of "planets" in astrological charts. His chart is indeed about moon phases and the spiral direction is turning correctly. Following standard birth charts, its spiral depicting moon cycles follow the standard clockwise motion.

In the VM, all the spikes go beyond the nebulae, which means they have nothing to do with Moon phases as such. Four of the longer curved spikes go from the earth center to the outer circle of the words representing God's divine sphere that represent spiritual winds that can directly affect the earth, and the other four those in between that only relate the nebulae to the outer divine circle, they affect the spheres directly, with indirect influence on earth as well.

The VM spiral is moving counterclockwise in f68v3 because the VM is suggesting that the source of creation, God, can reverse cosmic disharmonies and ailments since it is omnipotent, and we can participate in doing so by tapping into that divine knowledge by way of understanding/identifying and communicating and praying to the souls represented by the souls. We can participate in such healing.

That likely explains why the spikes are comprised also of "words"; in a conceptualist worldview, words have material power and can transmit the star influences as well.

The diagram is not only signifying the validity (in its own VM worldview) of astrological influences, but also is saying the disharmonies, say in a birth chart having challenging aspectations or planetary house positions, can be remedied by way of geomantic (on whose traces in the VM I have already commented re. to the chart f57v) and talismantic intervention.

A critique of Oresme is essential for the VM authors in the intellectual context of their times, not just for academic reasons, because their whole lives and legacies, and their healing amid the challenges of their lives, depended on it.

11.

The VM chart f68v3 is counterclockwise because it is following the counterclockwise movement of the 12-house system as universally established in astrology. Implied in the 12-house system is a spiritual progression from birth/entry of soul into the world in house 1 to death/afterlife transition in house 12.

The VM chart is depicted as moving in that counterclockwise direction as well, because it has to be cognizant of the progression of a birth chart owner's lifetime and any troubles faced therein. The conventional 4/8/12 winds depicted in astrological charts are about the material winds affecting earthly life and they are depicted in the same way the movement of the planets are depicted, clockwise.

The spiritual winds that the VM chart is trying to depict are of a different kind, because they must follow the spiritual progression, and that is why it is depicted as moving counterclockwise after the 12-house order. That is also why in the Lapidary we find them moving in counterclockwise motion, which I believe (as I explained in previous posts) is the same in the Zodiac charts of the Voynich manuscript.

If you were studying a birth chart concerned with any disharomony or malefic aspects to be addressed and dealt with, you would have to consider the progression of the soul's journey in the 12-house systems in its counterclockwise lifetime journey, and that is exactly why we see that depicted in the f68v3 diagram.

12.

The hays are still in the elephant, in spread-out form. Those charts in the VM before the Zodiac charts (anticipaing them) are all part of the same effort at offering a talismantic remedy for a troubled birth chart and legacy. f68v3 cannot be adequately understood without the rest in that section and the manuscript as a whole.

The VM is an astrological instrument for spiritual healing, and we cannot understand its source hays individually as if still uneaten. They must be studied in their already eaten and digested form as spread out in the elephant.

If you find similar looking hays around (which folks on this forum really like to do, it seems), the task still remains of explaining them as digested by the elephant. We can't just compare other sources for easy solutions, assuming those specific sources must have been the ones inspiring the VM.

For example, what does JustAnotherTheory's recent good "pet theory" suggest, thanks to his efforts? Why put coat of arms images in the roots of plants (admittedly, in my view, not in all the plants, but in some at least, which is obvious)?

Because the authors are saying, "You think you can eliminate our legacy from Tyrol, from this land of the Alpines? No, we are in its roots, we are its plants, we helped make Tyrol what it is, we founded its spiritual sanctuaries, its vineyards, etc., whether or not we sisters end up being its last noblity rulers." This sentiment can in fact explain a lot more in the VM, including its major foldout and elsewhere, and that makes this even a longer story.

If one looks at the hays of coat of arms in general as a source for the VM, they mean just coat of arms. But, when digested in the VM elephant, they acquire their own hermeneutic meaning, and it seems that Maria Steinach kept track of the coat of arms associated with it (see image below).

"I think (in my humble uninformed non-historian opinion), that personal information about prominent noble families would be worth encyphering" (JustAnotherTheory, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) is a good observation. But is anyone listening and seeing this part of the elephant also being shown in this forum for what it is worth? Likely not, because they are chasing after other secondary incidentals.

As for Rafal's "- if it had a meaning it would be cracked till now" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) I guess we must be living in a hoaxed universe.

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You've raised a thousand questions. The comparison is based on structure, not appearance. The cosmic structure consists of three parts. There are no planets or planetary spheres.

The first part is a pictorial representation of three elements (no fire) in an inverted T-O, geocentric Earth, not a set of concentric rings. The second part is the field of generic stars. The third part is a wolkenband / cloud band and cosmic boundary - a nebuly line. The fact that BNF Fr. 565 and VMs f68v3 both show 43 undulations in the cosmic band indicates a common ideological connection.

The two BNF images and Harley 334 were all produced in Paris at different times before 1450. This very simplified version of the cosmic structure appears to be limited to Paris during the C-14 era, and particularly focused on BNF Fr. 565 produced for the Duke of Berry c. 1410.

The fourth part is the wheel with eight curved spokes - outside the cosmic boundary. Flip over the diagram and the spokes curve the other way. It's the same wheel, or maybe it's good versus evil. It's simply a matter that history provides no other equivalent, but from the Genoese entry into the Black Sea until the fall of Trebizond, history does provide some opportunity for information to travel.

As to the combination, once recognized, it cannot be taken seriously. The VMs artist is operating at an unexpected level of 'sophistication'. There is trickery and obfuscation, but the basic structure of the *Parisian cosmos* is the same, the wheel is on its other side. The VMs artist consistently represented the visual alternative - writing inside the lines instead of outside.

Speaking of heraldry, and likewise unexpected, there is the duality imposed by the structure of VMs White Aries, where the artist created the Genoese Gambit.

Sorry, R. Sale, as I said, I was also sharing updates of my study and not all of what I said was directly relating to your post (such as the point about the planets), but that topic could be used as an example regarding your statement "absence of information."

The "fire" I mentioned regarding the Oxford MS 164 (the red ring), not the MS 565 or 1082.

I did not deny the possibility of the VM authors having seen an earlier version of the MS 565 (also with the 43 'undulations'). I am not in a position to say there is only and only VM or Shirakatsi who found significance in the number 43 to draw their charts (another chart on the VM has 45 supposed crescents circling the chart). Coincidences can be misleading as well. Besides, you cannot claim that an earlier edition with such features (even the 43 loops) had not existed in 1300s. Just because it is not extant, it does not mean it did not exist, given there must have been many scribal copies of that work circulating for a long while. That is the point I was making.

"It's simply a matter that history provides no other equivalent," is a very very big claim to make, R. Sale. Is there an all-inclusive archive of everything produced in history somewhere? Are you claiming that everything produced in history has been preserved somewhere for us to judge that statement? I just copied you the Oxford MS images (which you seem not have taken seriously or as relevant). Why other copies could not have existed that you and I do not know about?

I have no problem with Shirakatsi's diagrams having travelled and even seen by the VM authors. All I was saying was that just because there is a similarity does not mean they even have same meaning. The flip of the direction for your is just a flip, even good and evil meanings could matter. For me, it can mean much more in an astrological chart, given established conventions about directions of the wheel.

Overall, I thank you for this conversation and think it is best that we rest this topic as our views have been expressed.

Having shared the material I did today (especially the broader material not related to R. Sale), it is now possible for me to consider that some of the basics I wished to share in this forum have been shared and there is no reason for me to take more of your time. As I had said, I was not planning to be around here for too long. Best wishes to all of you for finding your answers. If I ever find the time to share more, I will just do it through my site.

Take care you all.

(21-12-2025, 12:07 AM)MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My interest in this topic, as in others I have explored, is mainly methodological. But of course, that interest can be best explored in a substantive way. Having learned some things already from your contributions, I believe that you have found a lot already toward a viable solution. From past and other research experiences, I have found that there is at times a tendency in researchers to try to prove their own finding(s) and (for that reason) dismissing others, at times reasonably done, and at other times perhaps not as reasonably.

Sometimes rivalries become themselves a cause for not realizing that each is seeing a part of the elephant, so to speak. Also, given the reputation or intimidation of a long-lasting puzzle to solve, we may ignore useful contributions others have made, small or large, to solving the puzzle. This then results sometimes in not seeing the elephant in the room. So, I use (as I have done so in my other research and publications) the metaphor of the elephant in the double senses expressed above (seeing whole/parts, and not noticing some obvious issues or contributions).

I am not a linguist, nor involved in quantitative or statistical research, though I appreciate others’ contributions using those approaches. I think they will also be needed for seeing the whole elephant (in the room). My solution contributions will be informed by my sociological viewpoint, especially in the tradition of the sociological imagination, a term coined by the sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1959, suggesting that social (including personal) life can be best understood by way of exploring how personal troubles and public issues interact. I think that is helpful also in historical and hermeneutic studies.

The Voynich manuscript is an artifact that must have originated in the intimate intersection of biographical and historical contexts in which someone (or persons related) was dealing with personal troubles amid public issues of their times.

(Note to the moderator, Tavie: With greetings, if you think this post still is a talk and not yet a solution, please feel welcome to move it to the Talk section. However, I will be gradually making some solution-oriented posts following this introductory post—not sure exactly how soon but will do my best to do so in a timely way).

I believe you are correct in identifying that a lot of the clues that researchers with different details point to hay in a haystack - in other words, it forms part of a whole, and small details do not necessarily contradict a theory with an overall different purpose for the manuscript.

I think another way of understanding what "elephant" means is two fold. On the one hand, the manuscript itself most likely serves a higher purpose than the original design of it (a book on flowers, medicine, and castles with notes?) 

On the other hand, elephant can be a "mirror," in the same way a Rorschach tests reveals more about the person than the ambiguity of the artist.

This "mirror" (manuscript, elephant) could also symbolize a Tower of Babel, in that multiple languages at the time would not be able to decode an imaginary language, and by exploiting the unintelligibility (at least on first glance) of text, it can serve as a smokescreen for a hidden meaning.

The theories about the cost of vellum implying it was designated for a wealthy purchaser doesn't rule out the possibility that someone wealthy had enough vellum to allow their children (even adult age) to draw on it. However, it's also possible that the drawings, while amateur looking, still served a purpose to conceal a message if they were guided by someone else (e.g parent, uncle).

"The Voynich manuscript is an artifact that must have originated in the intimate intersection of biographical and historical contexts in which someone (or persons related) was dealing with personal troubles amid public issues of their times."

This could be true, more so in a political or religious sense than a personal sense. The "elephant" could have been a commentary about the Catholic Church, the bishop or emperor of a region, or a secret religion that was heretical, so if a person trying to decode the manuscript has no interest in any of those personally, they might not be impartial enough to notice certain symbols (if they do in fact reference a region or town). Coincidences do happen of course, and it's likely that one illustration doesn't represent both a Byzantine city and a Central European one, but how likely could it be that the illustrator merged the cities's features into appearing as the same? Quite unlikely. Even if it were a composite, someone would have been able to determine that by now. The last person to know for sure whether it was an imaginary city or a real one was the author.