Voynichese is a numeric cipher?

[ololololo]

If the VMS indeed used a codebook cipher, I expected that its encoding of the numbers would be quite different from that scheme.

I don’t rule out a modified substitution, as it’s easier to reproduce special effects like LAAFU.

IIRC correctly, someone did find a book (a Masonic "missal"?) that was entirely in codebook cipher.  But I don't recall how long it was, and I wonder how many other examples there have been.

If we’re talking about the same book, then only the verbs are encrypted there.
But they’re Masons, and for them this is generally familiar…
A witch doctor has nothing to do with it.