External text lookup

[Mark Knowles]

This type of cipher is only conceivable in the presence of reasonably easily available printed books, i.e. well after the creation of the Voynich MS.

I am not sure if that is absolutely necessary though it seems that much easier with standard printed books.

As an example text one could in a English context consider the Magna Carta, this is a well defined text. Or maybe the Lord's Prayer or some standard universal Christian text. Or standard political/governmental text like the Declaration of Independence.

I can see plenty of problems with this idea as there ought to be lots of specific vocabulary found in the Voynich not in a standard text. So some kind of manipulation would be necessary on top of the lookup. It would also be unbelievably slow to read and write. Though the shorter the lookup text the easier it would be.