The Voynich Ninja

(15-01-2026, 12:42 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.7) Speaking of Rudolph, I feel that John Dee and Edward Kelley were somehow involved. In the past I considered that it was them who faked it but now I think they were just involved.  Karl Widemann who presumably sold the books for 600 ducats/florins to Rudolph was a buddy of Kelley. And I feel it could be Dee and Kelley who suggested Roger Bacon. They were English just like Bacon and it seemed reliable that they were experts in English manuscripts and could find some rare one. In fact they perfectly realized that VM is not English, found it somewhere else and cheated Rudolph assigning it to a famous man for a better price.

Does it make sense?

I don't see it personally, for me, a big part of why is the letters. 
Dee owned around 50 Bacon pieces. He was about as expert as you could imagine on Bacon.

In my mind there is no way Raphael remembers a 600 ducat sale, for a book including a bacon sold by Dee and doesn't include Dee as provenance above his own. Dee would have said it was a Bacon and was the expert on them. 

Another thing, why I do not think it is a thing. Is that Rudolph chucked Kelly in a cell. I'm still reading all the letters of Kelly while he was in the cell, but I've read a fair few and there is no talk of a book sale. He loves showing off about things he can remember from books, who said what and how great they were and why that info means he is right.. but never mentions the book sale that got him "banged up" or just the deal in general?

Also did you know, Dee basically abandoned Kelly and travelled back to England to plead with the queen to have Kelly released. Seems like a good plan for a book sale gone wrong, right? Kelly gets banged up for Alchemy nonsense (and some say selling the VMS and it turns out to be useless), so Dee goes to call the cavalry. This actually worked, in so that the queen names Kelly as part of her court, and so Rudolph was obliged to set him free by her command... only, Kelly decided to murder a guard, so Rudolph said "Certainly!.. though he is still imprisoned on murder, of which you can't absolve him  "  (Paraphrasing). If this was part of some plan, deciding to murder one of Rudolph's guards is.. well you just wouldn't right. This (abit OT) probably also dispels some of what was said of Kelly, would a man so disgraced at having his ears cut off by the law be admitted to the court of the Queen of England.. and also btw he was made a member of the Court of Rudolph. It's near impossible. There is quite a lot said about Kelly and Dee that is, well, nonsense. On Dee, he had basically no interest in Alchemy until Kelly and even then it was more "helping a friend", also he is noted as a "necromancer" though his interest in this subject was from what I have seen, purely in the hunt for medicine. Anyway I'm going very OT  , but basically no, I don't think Dee or Kelly were involved with the creation or the sale. Maybe they saw it.

(15-01-2026, 11:50 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Was it always the "Cipher Manuscript" as it is called now (as its "wonder") or did it's label change over time and have different "wonder"?

Barschius apparently believed that it was just an unknown language in an unknown script.  He sent a partial copy to Kircher after seeing his book on the Coptic language and script (which was sound work) and/or his decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs (which was total bullshit).  That is, because he saw Kircher as an expert in "deciphering" foreign languages.

On the other hand, whoever wrote the letter table on page f1r apparently thought it was some kind of cipher.  It may have been Marci, perhaps by influence of his friends Raphael, who wanted to be known as an expert cryptographer.   Could it have been Kircher, or some Jesuit after him?  It does not fit the idea I have of Sinapius.. Maybe some other owner before him?

All the best, --stolfi

(16-01-2026, 12:15 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Dee basically abandoned Kelly and travelled back to England to plead with the queen to have Kelly released.

Was it Dee, or some other English diplomat in Prague?  

Dee's breakup with Kelley is described in Dee's diary.  It was the episode that changed my view of the European Middle Ages from a depressingly boring time to a most interesting one.  

Dee took Kelley into his household because Kelley claimed to be able to talk to "angels" through a crystal ball, something that Dee had been trying hard but with no success.  Kelley kept duping Dee all the time, through their trip to Prague and continuing after Dee was banished from the city.  The thing Dee most wanted to know from the "angels" was how to decipher the Tables of Soyga (that were cracked by Jim Reeds just ~25 years ago).   The "angels" kept telling Dee that he was not "ready" yet, but they would reveal the key in due time.  

Dee kept asking Kelley to talk to the "angels" when they were in Bohemia.  This apparently annoyed Kelly since Dee was at that point only a liability.  So one day Kelly told Dee that the "angels" had ordered that he and Dee should swap their wives.  (It was only a coincidence, of course, that Dee's wife was much younger than Kelley's.)  Dee was quite upset, but he was so desperate for the "angels'" advice that he actually asked his wife to do it.  Which she naturally refused.  Only then Dee admitted to himself that he had been tricked. (IIRC he still kept trusting Kelley and blamed the "angels" instead, as being evil manifestations or whatever).  But anyway that was the end of their "collaboration".

All the best, --stolfi

Writing from the Phone So i will be concise. 
1.i believe Dee and Kelly actually swap Wives. Only Later Dee decided it was enough for this strange "friendship"
2. Did Kelly rerlly murdered a guard? Some how I missed it totally and I Read about him
3. Why couldnt Dee decipher Book of Soyga? He created it himself

(16-01-2026, 10:22 AM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.1.i believe Dee and Kelly actually swap Wives. Only Later Dee decided it was enough for this strange "friendship"

Back around 2000 I read the story above in what I believed was Dee's diary.  But it may have been edited...

Quote:2. Did Kelly really murdered a guard?

That did not match may recollection either.  Maybe there was confusion with Rudolph's crazy son, who brutally murdered her commoner lover and was then locked up in a castle for life?

As I recall, Rudolph got tired of Kelly's excuses and locked him up in a tower until he would produce the gold he had promised.  Kelly tried to escape with a rope improvised from sheets (Queen Elizabeth's men were ready to take him out of the country), but the rope was too short and he broke his leg in the fall. He was locked up again and died from the wound.

Quote:3. Why couldn't Dee decipher Book of Soyga? He created it himself.

Maybe I got the names mixed up.  During their seances in England Kelley did create a book with a fake "Enochian" language and script that he said was dictated by the "angels", as part of his fraud against Dee.  But the book that Dee was obsessed about, from before Kelley got into the story, had several large square tables of "random" letters.  The "angels" could not teach Dee how to read it because Kelley could not figure it out either, hence the excuse that "Dee was not ready for that knowledge yet".  Jim Reeds recently discovered that each table was generated from a six-letter seed word by a simple algorithm, that we today would call a cellular automaton.  AFAIK we still don't know who created it.

All the best, --stolfi

Quote:Maybe I got the names mixed up.

It looks like all of us mixed it up 

1.
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Kelley revealed to Dee that the angels (namely a spirit "Madimi") had ordered them to share everything they had, including their wives. Dee, anguished by the "order" of the angels, subsequently broke off the spiritual conferences. He did, however, share his wife.

2.
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Did Kelly really murdered a guard?
In May 1591, Rudolf had Kelley arrested and imprisoned in Křivoklát Castle outside Prague, supposedly for killing an official named Jiri Hunkler in a duel; it is possible that he also did not want Kelley to escape before he had actually produced any gold

So maybe Kelley killed someone, maybe not but that man wasn't a guard

but the rope was too short and he broke his leg in the fall. He was locked up again and died from the wound.
but he died a prisoner in late 1597/early 1598 of injuries received while attempting to escape. However, according to the account of Simon Tadeáš, Rudolf II's geologist, he poisoned himself in front of his wife and children

So maybe yes, maybe no

3.
Why couldn't Dee decipher Book of Soyga? He created it himself.
My error. Dee haven't in fact written Book of Soyga. He just owned it, studied it extensively and tried to understand

So, as usually, we have a lot of unsure info. Very typical for the Voynich research.

(16-01-2026, 02:28 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Kelley revealed to Dee that the angels (namely a spirit "Madimi") had ordered them to share everything they had, including their wives. Dee, anguished by the "order" of the angels, subsequently broke off the spiritual conferences. He did, however, share his wife.

That is what Wikipedia says, but the quote of the diary, which is supposed to back that up, is "May 22nd [1588], Mistris Kelly received the sacrament, and to me and my wife gave her hand in charity; and we rushed not from her."

That seems to say that Dee and Kelly's wife did, erm, comply with the angelical order.  But my recollection from the diary is that Dee's wife refused.  But I may be wrong there too...

Quote:You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Did Kelly really murdered a guard?
In May 1591, Rudolf had Kelley arrested and imprisoned in Křivoklát Castle outside Prague, supposedly for killing an official named Jiri Hunkler in a duel; it is possible that he also did not want Kelley to escape before he had actually produced any gold.

So maybe Kelley killed someone, maybe not but that man wasn't a guard

I stand corrected...

Quote:[Kelly] died a prisoner in late 1597/early 1598 of injuries received while attempting to escape. However, according to the account of Simon Tadeáš, Rudolf II's geologist, he poisoned himself in front of his wife and children

So maybe yes, maybe no

So again I stand corrected, maybe not. 

All the best, --stolfi

By the way, the official entry for Voynich Manuscript at Beinecke Library links it to John Dee:

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Like its contents, the history of ownership of the Voynich manuscript is contested and filled with some gaps. The codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon. It is very likely that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English astrologer John Dee (1527-1608). Dee apparently owned the manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts. In addition, Dee stated that he had 630 ducats in October 1586, and his son noted that Dee, while in Bohemia, owned “a booke…containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make it out.”

The Beinecke entry is a bit of an embarrassment. Previous curator Ray Clemens agreed with me that it needed updating, but this was never done. See this video (direct link with timestamp) for an explanation & rant about why it is the way it is: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Source of the guard killing and attempt to excuse - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

"Meanwhile the powder, diminished by excessive projection, became exhausted; it was squandered still further in futile attempts to increase it; and when the Emperor commanded his guest to produce it in a becoming quantity, all experiments proved failures. Yet Kelly had boasted that he was an adept; he had everywhere paraded his powers; he was not the mere heir of the Stone ---he was an illuminated and proficient master. The Emperor believed all this, and he believed it even to the end; the impotence of the exhausted alchemist was attributed to obstinacy, and the guest was changed into a prisoner. He is said to have been confined in a dungeon of the castle of Zobeslau. To regain his liberty he promised to manufacture the Stone, on condition that he returned to Prague and took counsel with Dr. Dee. To that city he was consequently permitted to go back, but his house was guarded, and as fresh experiments in the composition of transmuting powder were abortive as ever, the alchemist, seized with rage, made a futile attempt to escape, which ended in the murder of one of his guards. A second imprisonment, this time in the castle of Zerner, followed his violence. Doctor Dee returned alone to England, but at a date which conflicts with many alleged incidents in the life of his seer. The two confederates seem to have parted amicably, and they corresponded after their separation.* At the instance of the philosopher of Mortlake, Queen Elizabeth claimed the alchemist as her subject, but the Emperor excused himself from releasing him on the ground of the homicide. The second imprisonment of Kelly, according to accepted dates, lasted till the year 1597, when he attempted to escape by a rope, but, falling from a considerable height, sustained such injuries as resulted in his death at the age of forty-two."

"the philosopher of Mortlake" refers to Dee.