Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[pjburkshire]

 So according you if it is not the philosoper's stone is not alchemy.
Do you think that the medieval alchemists were dealing only with the Elixir? The alchemy did have a lot of other subjects like metallurgy, pharma, paints etc.
According to my ijnterpretation the text is alchemic.

Here again we get into the various ways of using words.  I see the Voynich Manuscript as medical and spiritual (Zodiac, God, Heaven).  I see the plants being in the manuscript because they were thought to have medicinal properties.

I think people mean different things when they use the word alchemy.  When I think of alchemy, I think of trying to turn Lead (Pb 82) into Gold (Au 79).  I see alchemy mainly as a chemistry thing, not a plants thing.  Some people may include mixing plant parts under alchemy.  I think of making medicines out of plants more as Pharmacology or Herbalism.

Mostly I see plants.  I don't see minerals, elements, or crystals – other than that blue salt cube thing on f102v2 next to the "carrot".

I don't want to quibble over English words.  I want to focus on the text in the manuscript.  Until we can clearly assign 21st century English/Latin/Czech words to the old Voynich words, we are just grasping at straws and pointlessly spinning our wheels.

Some people see Quire 13 as alchemy.  I don't.  We will never solve that debate by quibbling over the meaning of English words.  We need to know the meaning of the Voynich words.  Again I would like to point out the illustration on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at the top.  Nothing in the Voynich Manuscript has universal agreement but that illustration seems to have the most agreement.