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+--- Thread: Paracelsian spagyric medicine (/thread-5749.html)
Paracelsian spagyric medicine - pmw57 - 16-05-2026
I'm working on a theory that the book was a workshop manual, where each letter represents a certain part of the process.
For example, t for toglie (take), o for olio (oil), r for riposo (rest).
From my exploration of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the four sections match up really well with four main aspects of spagyric medicine, those being separation, purification, recombination, and fixation into a final substance.
I am getting really promising results, and I'm now working on grounding them in historical accuracy.
Has anyone delved much into that area before?
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - JoJo_Jost - 16-05-2026
what kind of results?
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - pmw57 - 16-05-2026
I wrote the following for my dad as a way to help provide some grounding for my syllabic contractions theory.
It might be of interest to others here too. I think that the AVA alphabet based on recognised plant names, may help to provide an improved way to recognise such syllabic contractions.
Decoding and encoding of high stakes information
A primer on encodings and decoding info in a modern setting.
To help understand the manner in which information is thought to exist in the Voynich manuscript, it can be worthwhile to examine modern day examples that use a very similar system.
Such systems are in professional use today so that skilled people can benefit from the cloaked information, while keeping what it means out of the hands of the uninitiated.
Decoding
The hospital is an effective modern example of cloaking terms for procedural brevity, which helps to create a professional barrier, and prevent patient panic.
Syllabic Contractions: STAT . R . TT
Technical: Emergent right tube thoracostomy
Instruction: Hurry up and put a tube in his chest before his right lung completely fails!
An elevated instruction to be sure. The cloaked instruction helps to provide a professional barrier, and also results in preventing patients from panicking.
To the unskilled, they might know that STAT means fast, but if they see or hear PTX they would have no mental library from which to expand it to its actual meaning.
Encoding
When the military are in the field, they might need to get something done quite urgently.
Instruction: Drop a bomb right now on that building, even though it’s very close to us.
Technical: Close Air Support. Danger Close. Target Reference Point 102.
Syllabic Contractions: CAS . DC . TRP102
Coded: Standard Charlie-Alpha-Sierra protocols in effect. Maintain Delta-Charlie clearance for Tango-Romeo-Papa one-zero-two.
Even though this military coded is relatively thin, it helps to act as a credentials check in that it helps to identify the speaker as being a validated user. If a voice came over the radio saying, "Hey, drop some bombs near the big rock at point 102," the commander would likely give second thought to the instructions.
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - pmw57 - 16-05-2026
(16-05-2026, 01:00 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.what kind of results?
The full text translation is looking to be incredibly consistent with spagyric medicine.
Paragraph 1 separation
Paragraph 2 purification
Paragraph 3 recombination
Paragraph 4 fixation
I have to sleep now as a girl has invited me out swimming tomorrow morning (it's not a trap, I hope), and after I'm taking people to tabletop games for the afternoon before hosting a 6 player game of Root in the evening.
if I don't drown I'll work further on it and try to come up with some concrete findings in the matter.
As Italian favours using tl and cl, we see all over in the script. Not direct evidence but enough to point my nose in that direction.
Pretty much all language possibilities have been exhausted, it’s a good bet that some kind of abbreviation was being used, similar to Mercantesca at the time.
In brief, Mercantesca was being used at the time to do some very heavy abbreviation of text.
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In one of the sections on that page called “common letter shapes”, we see the two letter “a” variants, one without a tail and one with a tail, just as Edith Sherwood used in her AVA alphabet. And also we find I’m the same place the EVA q or AVA v symbol is used to mean “per”
Others have been finding evidence of some kind of process being encoded in the script.
If I were going to put money on it, I’d say it’s an alchemical workshop manual.
I only have to solve a 600 year uncrackable script to prove it.
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - JoJo_Jost - 16-05-2026
Well, have fun then...
twenty years later....
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - pmw57 - 16-05-2026
Have we any italians versed in Mercantesca?
I've marking the a's with a long descending tail with a slash, as "a/"
AVA: pceoba/ oleoba/ <!gap> bam cpceea/ latoi bai cpcoi oiam rar
Has anyone looked for abbreviated Italian in the AVA form of the text?
I'll investigate that when I return.
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - ReneZ - 17-05-2026
(16-05-2026, 11:30 AM)pmw57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For example, t for toglie (take), o for olio (oil), r for riposo (rest).
...
Has anyone delved much into that area before?
Yes, over the years numerous people have proposed such expansions from single characters to words or word fragments. It is also rather popular in recent LLM solutions.
The problem is obvious. How do we know that r is riposo and not, say, riso ?
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - pmw57 - 17-05-2026
(17-05-2026, 12:00 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The problem is obvious. How do we know that r is riposo and not, say, riso ?
That would be I suppose be where context and familiarity with the language come in to play.
In the mercantesca shorthand I'm seeing what looks to be some similarities.
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EVA a
![[Image: mercantesca-a.png]](https://italian.newberry.t-pen.org/www/images/mercantesca-a.png)
aEVA y
![[Image: mercantesca-a2.png]](https://italian.newberry.t-pen.org/www/images/mercantesca-a2.png)
a with tailEVA k
![[Image: mercantesca-et1.png]](https://italian.newberry.t-pen.org/www/images/mercantesca-et1.png)
etEVA q
![[Image: mercantesca-per.png]](https://italian.newberry.t-pen.org/www/images/mercantesca-per.png)
perThose charcterx look like they share some DNA with Voynich, with the two types of a's that are on EVA a and y which has a long tail, and the per sign that;s assigned to EVA q.
It being an abbreviated form also helps to explain why natural language prose attempts haven't been all that successful.
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - pmw57 - 17-05-2026
Two things have been getting to me while I've been transliterating page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. using Edith Sherwood AVA's alphabet.
First in general, the long-tailed a's which are EVA g or AVA a. Those were used in Mercantesca to mean something different from the a's with no tail.
The other thing that bugs me is the EVA k (ending joined c) and EVA q (looks like a 4) are also in Mercantesca, and not really seen anywhere else.
I haven't seen anyone explore this path much before.
As I've been transliterating the page script as AVA text I've added a few modifications to try and help make things easier to see from the text.
| Script | EVA | AVA | Transliteration |
| a with tail | g | a | a/ |
| c-c | ch | c | c |
| c-'-c | sh | t | {c'} |
| c-p-c | cp | ? | {cp} |
| 4 | q | v | (per) |
Doing that seems to strike a balance between readability and representing what's on the page.
From f99r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
AVA (modified) transliterated:
Code:
<f99r.15> <%>pceoba/ oleoba/ <!gap> bam {cp}eea/ l{c’}oi bai {cp}eoi oiam rar
<f99r.16> raro{c’}a/ {c’}or s {c’}or {c’}eoi tloi {c’}eoi (per)oeoi {c’}oi tloi {cl}oi {ctl}ora/
<f99r.17> bceor cr ai a/{ctl}a/ otleoi {ctl}or oram cor (per)otleeor cora/
<f99r.18> (per)otleor coi {c’}loi ceea/ coba/ {ctl}oi bam otleoia/ bam {ctl}a/<$>Is that taking representative transliteration too far?
My thinking here is that this form of transliteration should make it easier to recognise Merchantesca or Italian-style abbreviations within the text.
RE: Paracelsian spagyric medicine - Rafal - 17-05-2026
Quote:Yes, over the years numerous people have proposed such expansions from single characters to words or word fragments. It is also rather popular in recent LLM solutions.
Personally I call it "Christine Blackburn type solution" as she was maybe the first to develop something like this:
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The problem with these solutions is that if we replace Voynichese letters by some actions then we get enormously long strings of the same actions and concepts repeating over and over again like in the case of Christine:
hour hour plant sun midnight sap sap sun hour celestial orbit day sun
You are unable to say anything else. There are 20 letters so there will be the same 20 words again and again over 200 pages of manuscript.