Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[MarcoP]

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>Hello, Adam!  I know about your extensive knowledge of alchemy.  Mary
>D'Imperio, in her survey of VMs studies up to 1978, thought that alchemy
>might be the key to understanding the VMs.  However, current
>voynich@xxxxxxxx list members, including myself, see little if any
>alchemical content in the VMs.  None of us, however, are experts.  
>
>What is your opinion on this.  What alchemical imagery can you see in
>the VMs?

Dear Dennis

All I can say is that I have never seen an alchemical manuscript with the same imagery and pictures as are found in the Voynich. The plant drawings in  the 'Herbal section' have many forerunners some  going back centuries before the Voynich, as has been extensively  documented. The drawings in the Astronomical section again seem to have many parallels in known manuscripts.

The main 'alchemical' resonance is supposed to be the 'balneological' section, but here I find no parallels with alchemical manuscripts, except in a very general way. If this was an alchemical work one  would expect to find some other alchemical manuscript with similar drawings - but I do not know of one. The drawings after all are not in code!  

I have an open mind on the subject, but have yet to see any real parallels. Perhaps one day I will find a manuscript that I recognize has common features with the Voynich - but not so far.

My view is that we can only 'crack' the Voynich when we can put it into  some context.
The herbal section is probably the most amenable to this approach as there are many early herbals with similar structures .
It really needs someone to make a study of the semiotics of herbals, and see if any of these features can be recognized as patterns in the Voynich text. Such things as repetitions of phrases, maybe things like "collect the fruits in the month of" or "this plant is for the lungs" . If the Voynich section is a herbal then it should share some of such phrases, and one might be able to find repetitive elements that give us a clue to the way in which Voynichese is structured and written.

I don't think I could  find any way at present to use alchemical manuscripts or ideas to throw light on the 'Balneological section .
It may be that it will be someone with a background in semiotics rather than cryptography that will first read the Voynich MS .
I don't think it  will be a scholar of alchemy.

Best wishes,

Adam McLean