(07-01-2025, 06:17 AM)GlennM Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And this last comment makes me want to circle back to my original idea of fakery. If the manuscript is a collection of unobtainable plants written about in an idiosyncratic script, then nobody can do anything other than ponder the meaning of it. And that is the point! The manusript is an entertainment, a whimsy, not a working document. Its purpose is to stimulate curiosity, wonder, amusement and the promise that decipherment will reveal arcane wisdom. It is just the thing for a bored king to puzzle over, provided he buys the book.Why not, knowing the elixer of life, fertility and happiness is a strong draw and worth the price of the book.

I think it is amazing that we have so many interpretations, it is like thousands of Schrödinger's cats...they are all real and all fake at the same time, to different people, until someone can prove something one way or the other to everyone's satisfaction. The things I see in it seem to be only for me. The things others see in it seem only to be for them. It is everything. We should make a list of all the different things anyone has ever suggested about each page, in the end you would have the greatest encyclopedia ever, with the vms as its index.

(07-01-2025, 06:17 AM)GlennM Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The manusript is an entertainment, a whimsy, not a working document.

Many people believe this also. However there are also many people who have a secret ambition that they might be the next Jean-Francois Champollion or the next Michael Ventris and who persist in believing that the manuscript text is meaningful and may be deciphered one day. The community seems to be split into two camps. Neither appears to be making much progress.

(07-01-2025, 06:20 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However there are also many people who have a secret ambition that they might be the next Jean-Francois Champollion or the next Michael Ventris and who persist in believing that the manuscript text is meaningful and may be deciphered one day. The community seems to be split into two camps. Neither appears to be making much progress.

It's not as clear cut a division. I'm probably closer to the second camp, at least I'm trying to decipher it. On the other hand, I admit that the whole MS could be a weird hoax, with no meaningful plaintext.

Speaking of secret ambitions, I had to look up both figures you mentioned   Probably I've heard about them before, but the names didn't ring any bells.

I think deciphering a single manuscript is nowhere near the level of unlocking a whole culture. So, unless VMS turns out to be something completely unexpected, I'm not sure it's comparable to the deeds of those very noble dudes.

On the other hand, I see no problem spending time on various attempts to decipher VMS, even if I'm not sure of the outcome. Could be meaningful, could be meaningless. Who cares if the process is so much fun?

(07-01-2025, 06:58 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We should make a list of all the different things anyone has ever suggested about each page, in the end you would have the greatest encyclopedia ever, with the vms as its index.

This reminds me of something.

Quote:By 1944, all forty volumes of the First Encyclopedia of Tlön have been discovered and published in a library in Memphis, Tennessee.

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I learned that all behavior is motivated. With regard to the making of the VM, what is that motivation? One could argue that it is a compendium of herbal remedies. Unfortunately, most illustrations are imaginary at worst, or a second hand interpretation of someone's description at best. Add to this the fact that there is not just one, but numerous botanicals. Does this suggest that long ago somebody was willing to sit down and describe in detail some foreign exotic plants to the author? Would that justify the encryption of the whole volume? It seems, to me,  doubtful since what was told  (or sold) to one author could be done to another, nullifying the need for encryption.

Then, which came first, the method of encryption or the illustration of the botanical? I am thinking the VM was a picture book first with writing to follow later on. For me, the implication is that as long as the author remembers what needs to be written, he/she can spend a month of Sundays cobbling together an alphabet, a language, and a cipher. It is a lot of trouble for something that actually does not exist. That, of course implies there was meaning to any of this. The brightest minds for several centuries could not figure out the message . That in itself speaks volumes. 

Occams razor. Making a fake herbsl book for profit with a bevy of fun loving nymphs is a lot quicker than trying to obfuscate meaningful second hand information regarding material that actually does not exist, nor ever did.

(07-01-2025, 06:59 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's not as clear cut a division. I'm probably closer to the second camp, at least I'm trying to decipher it. On the other hand, I admit that the whole MS could be a weird hoax, with no meaningful plaintext.

There's a fence between the two camps. I know - I'm sitting on it...

I don't think it's helpful to think in terms of camps. More like a big field with a hundred individual tents on it. Most people rarely leave their own plot.

The imagery of a camp, or field is useful to remind me that we avoid communication in a manner similar to the parlor game of " telephone", things get lost in communication. Thankfully, the primary document is available for all.. It is clear that unless someone has success with translating one of the zodiac symbols or a constellation into an understandable tongue, the VM Rosetta stone remains elusive. The late Steven Bax was on to something, but it has not matured into anything so far.
 
This brings me, late to the party, to discern the scribes motive as filtered by modern sensibility.If the VM was intended as a secretive reference book for the discovery and use of herbs, it seems wrong that so much is written about and around occult flora in advance of finding any. If they were once extant, now extinct, that is quite a few too many, I think.

The encoded script, then could be about the promise of the benefit of the herb, once found. Yet, there is no space given over for editing the original script. I am thinking ruled lines or bracketed space for additional factual information .Would marginalia be sufficient? Since the plants can't be found, the margin notes can't be written as a test. As written, the text of the VM appears to be the final word on each illustrated image. Not convincing to me. Neither do I embrace the notion that the plant anatomy like the text was deliberately obfuscated. The decjpherment key would constitute an other entire volume. Why do it?

If the VM was sold as a reference book, it is worthless without a key. If it was a faked construction, using a minimalist alphabet of 8 consonant characters and slapdash artistry, it could be written and sold as a curiosity.  As much as it pains me to say it, the VM and the Oak Island treasure are more similar than not. Each has tantalized and consumed people just as the biblical Eve hungered for knowledge. Can you blame  her or us? Its human. 

The fun is in the quest. That is the secret of the VM, Is submit.

Work progresses as we speak. While many investigations have gone astray, particularly if the attempts to *read* EVA are included, real progress happens occasionally. The very recent discovery of the Meßkirch bull is a great example. These new results advance the Taurus investigation and show the value of the VMs ninja community. In addition, those results are compatible with investigations in other areas. That's progress.

"Fakery" is not a comfortable term for me. At the same time, I would contend that trickery is clearly being used. The use of intentional duality in VMs White Aries is uncontested. It is clear evidence of disguise - the creation of a façade and a hidden reality.

The VMs is a puzzle. Does it have a solution? Did it have a solution that was cut out? Or is it a puzzle intentionally made without a solution? Rubber food for old people with time to kill - as they say.