• Options
• Login
• Desktop Style

No text, but a visual code

• Index

  • The Voynich Ninja
  • Voynich Research
  • Theories & Solutions
  • No text, but a visual code
• No text, but a visual code

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 05-03-2026, 06:10 PM

  There are no planets because the book is about the astrology of the fixed stars of the last sphere. And it has nothing to do with human astrology.
  
  The Rosettes page, as I have explained several times, is a representation of the medieval universe from an astrological perspective. In the central sphere, we see those luxurious vessels, some of which we also see in the pharmaceutical section. It depicts the place where the essences or virtues of herbs, whether medicinal or magical, are generated. Honestly, if you don't understand this, I doubt you'll ever understand the Voynich.
  
    Regarding the idea that a book is a sum of several topics bound together, I think it is a fairly widespread misconception. I wonder why the authors used the same script for all the themes if not because there is a common thread running through them all.
  
     The herbal is not a typical herbal of the period. One could argue that the plants are poorly drawn and that's why we can't identify them, but if that were the case, the authors would at least have included the herb's name in Latin or some other recognizable language. It's a kind of botanical bestiary, which its authors believe could be real and exist in the world. This is the most coherent explanation within the book, given that God's power through the stars is capable of anything.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  pjburkshire > 05-03-2026, 09:10 PM

  (05-03-2026, 06:10 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  There are no planets because the book is about the astrology of the fixed stars of the last sphere. And it has nothing to do with human astrology.
  

  
  
  Are you saying that herbs have their own astrology that is separate from human astrology?  But herb astrology uses the same Zodiac Signs as human astrology?  And herb astrology uses the sun, moon, and the fixed stars but not the "wandering stars" of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn?

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 05-03-2026, 09:57 PM

  In his Occulta Philosophia, Agrippa compiles the ancient Hermetic current that most likely influenced the creation of the Voynich. According to him, the hidden virtues of natural things come from celestial influences. Plants, like stones, possess hidden powers because they receive them from the stars.
  
    In the Voynich Manuscript, the influences are transmitted by the fixed stars, more specifically the zodiacal stars. And the sun and the moon also seem to play a role.
  
  I know that herbal astrology also used the other planets, but it's clear that for the authors of the Voynich they played no role.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  pjburkshire > 05-03-2026, 10:06 PM

  (05-03-2026, 09:57 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  In his Occulta Philosophia, Agrippa compiles the ancient Hermetic current that most likely influenced the creation of the Voynich. According to him, the hidden virtues of natural things come from celestial influences. Plants, like stones, possess hidden powers because they receive them from the stars.
  

  
  
  Are you saying that the Voynich Manuscript is a gardening guide?  When to plant seeds, when to harvest, etc.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 06-03-2026, 08:20 AM

  I didn't say anything like that. I'm just saying that, from what I've read about Hermeticism, the Voynich seems to be influenced by this school of magical thinking.
  
    Paracelsus, another Renaissance man like Agrippa, also seems to share that thought. For him, every herb is an earthly star looking up at the sky, and every star is a celestial plant.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Jorge_Stolfi > 06-03-2026, 02:26 PM

  (05-03-2026, 09:54 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The problem with accepting a theory like mine, then, lies in accepting it for all sections of the Voynich. Anyone would say that it makes no sense for the drawings of herbs to be accompanied by astronomical symbols.

  
  Actually that would not be strange at all.  The popular You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (English, ~1650) is organized alphabetically by plant name, but devotes a lot of space in the text to astrological discussions -- his claim being that each plant is somehow related to a planet, and that connection matters a lot:
  
  

  Quote:Here in also shewed,
    ...
    2. What Planet governeth every Herb or Tree (used in
    Physick) that groweth in England.
    3. The Time of gathering all Herbs, both Vulgarly, and
    Astrologically.
    ...

  
  But a bigger problem for that theory is the last section (Starred Parags, Marginal Stars, Recipes).  If the text was just meaningless cover, why put 30 pages of it at the end, without a single figure?
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Rafal > 06-03-2026, 02:42 PM

  Quote:If the text was just meaningless cover, why put 30 pages of it at the end, without a single figure?

  
  
  I could answer it from my own perspective - it was made to cheat people  
  Nobody would make so many pages with meaningless text, right? So it must be real. Congratulations, you have been cheated. 
  
  
  But as we speak here about Antonio's theory it is indeed a problem.
  To my belief Antonio had always some fuzzy, in-between position about the thing if the text is meaningful or meaningless. It has always been:
   "it may have some meaning but its not that important, the imagery is important"
  
  Pages which are text only are indeed problematic with such approach. If text is not important that what do they contain if anything at all?

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 06-03-2026, 03:55 PM

  I never said there was text in the Voynich manuscript. In fact, this thread is titled No text, but a visual code. For me, looking for a language in the script is just a prejudice. What I have said is that the message of the book is in the iconography and that the script is secondary.
  
    I've always believed that we approach the Voynich Manuscript problem with a mindset—our own—that differs enormously from that of its creators. Among other things, I can't imagine the authors being concerned with statistics. They lived in a world where magic existed, something we've lost with the advancement of science.
  
    If we include the two missing folios in Quire 20, it's clear there were 360 paragraphs, each accompanied by a star—the same star held by the female figures on the zodiacal pages. In other words, each degree of the sphere corresponds to one paragraph. For me, each of those paragraphs contains no text whatsoever, but rather different astronomical configurations.
  
    I imagine each of the scribes who participated using a volvelle, playing at placing one symbol after another, following certain rules but occasionally breaking them. "Now I'll put the sun, then a star, now the moon in this position, then I'll move the sun, another star here behind the moon..." All by simply moving the movable hands of the volvelle, which gives the impression of Torsten's method of self-citation.
  
    What I'm saying might sound childish, but I see it as a game played by people who believed in the power of the stars.
• Next Oldest Next Newest