Alchemy Theory

[DG97EEB]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

This is the Manuscript you want to look at for a Voynich/alchemy comparison... 

I note Jennifer Rampling in the Yale edition of The Voynich Manuscript seems wholly unconvinced

Edit: check out page 83 onwards of this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

And this manuscript as well You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[GracefulShinjo]

Honestly I strongly favor this theory. It would explain why it was encoded. As the Reformation approached there was a growing consensus against magic and occult knowledge, which included alchemy. If the manuscript was meant to be an alchemist’s notebook I can see the people involved creating a code to protect it from being destroyed. And ironically if that is true then the Voynich manuscript ending up in the collection of Jesuits feels bittersweet as the Jesuits are focused on knowledge (based on my experience having a grandpa who was good friends with a Jesuit priest who, by the way, actually officiated his second marriage to a woman I fondly called grandma and still miss even after her passing even though grandpa was Jewish) that a book of what the Catholic Church fought against ended up in their hands. If the book is cracked and it is a tome of alchemical knowledge it would give us a new window into the world of alchemists working in the early Renaissance. Well that and it being a tome of folk magic. I might begin to joke that those High German words were written by a distant relative of mine from what is now the Rhineland-Palatinate (hey I’m apparently descended from a famed rabbi of Lithuania so why not have an ancestor who dabbled in folk magic).

[BessAgritianin]

...
If the manuscript was meant to be an alchemist’s notebook I can see the people involved creating a code to protect it from being destroyed. And ironically if that is true then the Voynich manuscript ending up in the collection of Jesuits feels bittersweet as the Jesuits are focused on knowledge ...
that a book of what the Catholic Church fought against ended up in their hands. If the book is cracked and it is a tome of alchemical knowledge it would give us a new window into the world of alchemists working in the early Renaissance. .....

The Catholic church and Jesuits were not only against the alchemy, but its home and heart.
The Jesuits also ran an extensive network of pharmacies- Jesuit "brothers" served as apothecaries in Austrian, Bohemian and Polish provinces (17 century).
Bohemian province was a hub of pharmaceutical knowledge and expertise.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Consider the recorded evidence:

1. Albertus Magnus(1200-1280)- A Dominican friar was the most influential alchemist of the Middle Ages.
2. Roger Bacon (1214-1294) a Franciscan friar was perhaps the most famous alchemist of the medieval period
3. Thomas Aquinas 
The list is long so I will not continue. 

Maybe it  suffices  to mention  the Shakespeare"s Romeo and Juliet  example - Friar Laurence who was a Franciscan Friar and deep knowledgeable in herbs and medicinal plants?
 Remember the story takes place in medieval Italy and is based on a real story, reflected from an Italian author.

The very Athanasius Kircher, who received the Voynich manuscript for translation is the most famous example of alchemist at his time. This German Jesuit was polymath and wrote extensively on alchemy, chemistry and underground world. He proposed that the volcanic underworld formed the metals from two prima principles- sulpher and mercury...

If the church fought against alchemy, why are the most famous alchemists and herbalists Catholic friars?

[Maks1]

Hello everyone! I think you've already read this book. Are there any similarities with our plants?
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[BessAgritianin]

Hello Maks1,
Have you watched in Youtube:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It is a russian engineer who thinks (like me) that the manuscript is old Czech technical user manual? However I do not agree with her exact translation, but I do agree with the general idea- Slavic language and technical appliances.

[DG97EEB]

Hello everyone! I think you've already read this book. Are there any similarities with our plants?
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Did you get a chance to read Beasley?

I think it's fair to say that every one of his list has been poured over many many times.. Pelling, Zandbergen, MarcoP, Koen.. have written extensively on their respective sites and in here..

There are some very close examples for sure.. personally I really like Hebreu 1199 which is the same kind of pen and wash but most experts have concluded there's no direct link with Voynich...

[nablator]

The Jesuits also ran an extensive network of pharmacies- Jesuit "brothers" served as apothecaries in Austrian, Bohemian and Polish provinces (17 century).
Bohemian province was a hub of pharmaceutical knowledge and expertise.

Pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge should not be conflated with alchemy.

Consider the recorded evidence:

Be careful with the extremely widespread pseudoepigraphy in alchemy: many anonymous books were wrongly attributed to some authority of the past.

[BessAgritianin]

Pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge should not be conflated with alchemy.

I appreciate this distinction, but it is a modern one.

In the 17-th century the apothecary was an alchemist: he distilled, calcinated, sublimated and crystallized.
 The Jesuits pharmacies were not mere herbal shops, but laboratories.
 To say that "the pharmaceutical knowledge should not be conflated with alchemy" is to impose a modern boundary on a pre-modern practice.
Then what is the Iindian alchemy used even today in Ayurvedic medicine? It uses processes like purification and calcination of metals and uses them in medicine for treating diseases. It has been practiced for thousands of years and is still used today. Indian alchemy is the basis of the modern Ayurvedic pharmaceutical production.
The Rasa Schastra tradition is not a dead historical curiosity, but it is a living practised science, that unites alchemy and pharmacy in exactly the way that You try to deny.

[pjburkshire]

I think we have gone about as far as we can go with the illustrations.  People are going to see what they see.  I'm not sure that there is much more to be learned from additional examination of the materials, either.  The only hope for universal understanding is a big breakthrough in understanding the text.

[BessAgritianin]

Be careful with the extremely widespread pseudoepigraphy in alchemy: many anonymous books were wrongly attributed to some authority of the past.

Yes- pseudoepigraphy was wide spread in alchemy. Many anonimous works were falsely attributed to Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas etc.
We must destinguish between works that were pseudoepigraphic and those that were not:

Alberus Magnus- was a Dominican friar and bishop, who wrote authentically on minerals, metals and their transromation. 

Roger Bacon-a Franciscan friar-in Opus Majus dicussed alchemy, the Philosopher stone and the transmutation of metals. 

There are other examples , but I do not want this valid information to distract us from  the main question of this thread- the Alchemy in the Voynich Manuscript.