I have been trying to learn a bit about geomancy (I had no ideas about it before) and thinking about the chart You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. more in recent days. Now, I think I have a sense of what is happening in that chart, and if I am correct, it proves that the author is doing things in a very meticulous way, as if she is trying to leave a very important message for her future despite the odds and challenges (and foes) of her time. In a way she is using the Voynich manuscript as an oracle device.
Before I share you another long (longer!) post, I must preface it by reminding us of what the fancy word ‘hermeneutics’ implies, one that I am applying in these posts by way of the method I outlined originally. It is simply about trying to know what the intention and meaning of a text FOR ITS AUTHOR was, regardless of whether we hold the same views today.
We want to put ourselves as best as we can in the shoes of the author in her times, and try to see why she was authoring this work of art; but before that ‘why’ question, we still have to get a better sense of the “what”s of the manuscript. Antonio García Jiménez in his posts in this forum as tried nearly a million-viewed times to emphasize that we will never know what the Voynich manuscript is about unless we put ourselves in the shoes of its author(s), and he is absolutely right in that.
We may agree or not with the rest of what he has said, about the text being technical or not, etc., but this point he has said is a very important part of the elephant, with which I think all of those on this forum agree — that we should learn the manuscript by doing our best in interpreting it using the cultural and spiritual views prevalent in those times, generally speaking (and of course varieties of such views even then withstanding).
So, in this post, I will try to explain what in my view is happening in chart f57v, regardless of what views you and I hold about geomancy today.
To state it most briefly, I think the chart is basically describing and is itself a geomantic divination device, sort of a geomantic time machine, or a geomantic oracle. It is being devised by the author for her own life, customized per her own questions and needs in the context of her times. So, it has implicit in it a knowledge of her own astrological chart basics.
For now, both logically and procedurally, we do not need to complicate things by considering the star list, the pharmacological section, the astrological sections, the balneological section, the large fold out vision, etc., later in the manuscript. Even in the existing incomplete manuscript we can safely assume and find that she immediately follows the plant section with the You are not allowed to view links.
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All we need to assume is that she is aware of her (for us missing in the incomplete manuscript) astrological horoscope (so the tilt we see in the You are not allowed to view links.
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In her time, thanks to worldviews inherited transculturally by way of astrological and geomantic considerations, they believed that existence is created by God by way of intelligences, to which souls (selves) are associated, setting spheres in motion. God created the world by way of the first intelligence, who wondered what it is (hence, a self-reflective soul), setting in motion (in its sphere), a search for what it is, why it exists, where it came from and where it is going.
So, down the line of the rays of creation, we ended up in the worldview with a series of unfolding intelligences. “Stars” were regarded as intelligent beings, and there were fixed or wandering (hence “planets” which at the time included the Sun and the Moon, and the known planets then of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) kinds of them. Fixed stars represent the most stable, highest, and the wisest; planets were just wandering, having their own unique attributes.
So, there is a reason there is so much emphasis on the fixed stars in the VM, because she is appealing to the wisest. But, contrary to the plants section, which may be assumed to be complete, we have unfortunately lost important sections which, in my view, included not just astrological but also more geomantic information about her own life (for example, had we seen her birth chart, we would have likely seen geomantic dots in them, whether represented by star shapes or not). So, in this case (compared to the plants section), we have to be more considerate of what is likely missing in the manuscript.
This may appear odd to us, but in my view, she believed that all the stars she was consulting for her astrological autobiography and oracle vision (which I think the VM likely is), were not just some symbolic representations of stars “out there” but representations of her own selves, representing the fixed (and wandering, including the Sun and the Moon) stars. In other words, I suggest that all the nude nymphs are actually the same person, herself, and their differences have to do with how those selves in herself are representing the universe of different stars.
If there are clearly different looking images of others, including men or other women, usually now clothed, they can be of those she knew, of loved ones, peers, or even enemies, but mostly the nude nymphs represent the different stars as represented within her own inner world, there are her own different star-linked souls.
What geomancy offers is a way of actually (in her view) communicating with, and posing her questions to, those stars that are at the same time represented in herself. And this is what makes her worldview “secretively” alternative to the dominant church perspectives of her time. She is claiming and trying to show that anyone can communicate with the angels, and this is not a privilege of an institutional church, especially one run by men historically in her times, even to this day. That is a reason you do not find institutionalized church symbols predominating the Voynich manuscript.
Now, to understand how she is devising the You are not allowed to view links.
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Before doing so, let me just say that in the chart, the innermost circle likely represents aspects of her life she was born in, her childhood, parents, her inner core, things she could not have decided on her own (perhaps her birth chart features are listed there).
The second from the center circle likely represents her grown-up mature life up to the time she is doing this geomantic exercise; it includes her successes or failures, problems or solutions, aspects of her life.
The third circle from the center includes a 4-time repeated (likely seasonal both actual or metaphorical, i.e., seasons of one’s lifetime, youth, maturity, decline, and death, something like that) series of geomantic figures. If there are some “rare” and “used” figures, is because either she avoided them on purpose, or that they did not come up in her divinations. In geomancy, if a "bad" figures comes up, you have to stop and not proceed with that divination.
And the last, outlying circle represents the future, both what can happen as prediction and what she wishes to happen, including by means of her divination, which can include why she is authoring the VM manuscript.
Koen G. somewhere, (may be it was someone else, but I think it was his clip I saw once) in his video’s always creative clip backgrounds, has the chart You are not allowed to view links.
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The reason the other persons in the center of the chart are looking at the person on the bottom (and, by the way, they are actually representing the same person, in my view, the author) is that the bottom person is asking the geomantic question(s) on the earth (geo) ground. There is a reason their depiction is tilted, and I will explain that in later posts. But the left and right hand depictions suggest, among others, of this being a geomantic (not an astrological birth related) chart, since the East (right handed person on the right), and the West (left handed person of the left) are flipped and reverse of the usual horoscope depictions, as expected. The top and bottom persons are also depicting the north and south nodes.
Now, the way geomantic technique for communicating with the universal intelligent soul or angel “energies” of the world works is basically described generally below. It was originally done with sands (in the Arab tradition), but it can be done with anything. While meditating or calm in mind, you ask a question from whichever deity you are interested in, and for the answers, you use the sands, pen, or even leaves (see further below in some clips I have linked, how it can be done), but they can even be stars if considered in relation to a birth astrological divination in a longer term consideration of the "accidents" of what stars fall in which house when you were born, to see how the “chanced” results of your test are expressed.
Consider yourself to be comprised of four elements. Head is the fire, neck is the air, stomach the water, and feet the earth. So, for each geomantic figure, you have a binary option of one dot or two dots, which can be used to interpret stability/change, entering/leaving, open/closed attributes. Since there are four elements and two choices, you have a total of 2 powered by 4 as the entire possibilities (giving you the 16 geomantic figure possibilities, 2x2x2x2=16). So, you may have a figure in which all four are single dots, or all double dots, or any variety of choices in between. Traditionally, all the 16 figures have been named, and depending on the questions asked they may have positive or negative meanings or connotations.
I am not an expert in geomancy by any means, but you do not have to be one, to get a sense of what the technique is doing. It is using chance results of a test divination to come up with the first 4 “mother” tossing, from which you chart 4 “daughter” (by reading the “mothers” horizontally, or “nieces/nephews” by adding the mother and daughter patterns, then from the latter the two “witnesses” and then one judge). These result in a “shield” figure of patterns for each question divination, which you use to interpret what your “yes” or “no” answers have been from the “energy” you communicated with.
The best illustration of this, perhaps is the scene in the movie “Interstellar” where the future father communicates by way of gravity to his daughter in the past, sort of. You interpret the “morse codes” received, and have thus had an independent communication with your outer/inner angels (in this case a father trying to reach you!)
This notion was of course threatening to the established church, since it sort of democratizes how you can communicate with God’s angels yourself not needing an intermediary. The church was also theologically concerned about this being a way of falling under the influence of the devil, and framed its opposition in that way. But, the technique does not have to be seen as demonic. It depends on which starry angels you wish to depend on for guidance, and I do not see any indications in the VM that the author was interested in the dark or black magic or demonic assistance. She appears to be a believer in God’s created good angels and is seeking their guidance in answering her life’s dilemmas in health and legacy.
Whether there is any use of the geomantic technique in ciphering the text of the manuscript, it is hard to tell for me as a non-specialist and many among you are more knowledgeable in this area, particularly magnesium (Michael Greshko) who started a thread on the forum and published a well-received paper.
I cannot claim having read his paper carefully, but I think he wanted to show that using cards and dice, involving chance, one can turn natural text into ciphers that mimic the statistical properties of the VM. But he himself does not claim that the method can decipher the VM. I am inclined strongly to believe that the text of the VM is not super-complicated in its ciphering technique, and some basic abbreviated and short-handed language that is idiosyncratically invented and used can go a long way in making a text hard to decipher. R. Sale has perceptively noted that the VM author is clearly trying to hide messages for a reason in the manuscript, and I agree with that also.
The most interesting thing I learned about geomancy is that while it originally used sand for its divination, anything can be used for the purpose, even the fixed stars in a birth chart. Medieval European astrologers actually further developed and expanded geomancy in relation to astrological sciences of their time.
The basic information about geomancy can be learned in the following pages and some interesting clips made in an effort to illustrate some of its basic aspects.
Wikipedia page on Geomancy provides a helpful basic summary You are not allowed to view links.
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I suggest reading this Wiki page on Geomantic Figures You are not allowed to view links.
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In this interesting old clip, someone named Les Cross shows how simple tree leaves can be used for geomancy You are not allowed to view links.
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Here, he shows how just a pen can be used You are not allowed to view links.
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Here he shows in an simple way how fortune telling can be done the geomantic figures for a divination You are not allowed to view links.
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Here, someone named Paris Debono uses geomancy cards for the purpose (simplified, but helps illustrate some basic ideas) (how mothers, daughters, nieces, are constructed for each divinzation, but does not show the witnesses and judge …) You are not allowed to view links.
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Here is some information about medieval geomancy and its figures You are not allowed to view links.
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Please see the above just as a way of learning about Geomancy to understand the hermeneutics of the Voynich manuscript, not in a way that suggests you or I believe in them as such.
As I was posting the above, I read @ Mark Knowles’s new post in Voynich Talk thread (You are not allowed to view links.
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