As indicated in my previous post, the Volvelle that seems to have generated the book tokens is based on or is a variation of the "Za'irajah of the world". Using the Jaccard we can compare the architectural features of the two devices. However, why stop there? As a control, we should include as many medieval computations devices as possible, the astrolab, the apian volvelle, the alberti cipher wheel and others. Permutation tests were done across all 9 different devices. The nearest scores a 0.625, while the Za'irajah scores a Jaccard value of 1.0. The zairaja, which is a variation of the za'irajah scores incredibly high in the matrix as well. This shows that mathematically, the devices share the same features and functionality.
For the healer, there was a procedure to follow, a poem to be sung. This is step one and cannot be stressed enough that this requirement must be met. Ask the question in rhyme, get an answer in rhyme. Otherwise you will receive a "normal" answer. This meant that a true divinational request required that the poem be sung and rhymed. This was required for the mechanical aspects of the wheel. 28 Arabic letters and 7 wheels for celestial bodies equals the mod 35 that the machine is based on. Without this rhyme structure, the arithmetic does not provide a coherent answer. Ibn Khaldun explicitly stated, "Without the bayt comparison, the method does not produce a rhymed answer."
Step two consists of resolving the poem into the fixed carrier that the original pangrammic provides, all 28 letters exactly once. The machine will then cycle through both the question letters and the chord letters and compare them against this verse. The shaddah, or the tashdid is one of the diacritics indicating a consonant doubling, making the total letter count 43, not 28. This is the mechanism that fires in my model, the shadda and the tashdid are the same mark, name and function in the device. The carrier poem is shown below and is in the pdf’s list in the end. This poem is required to assemble the question for the individual.
سؤال عظيم الخلق حزت فصن إذن
غرائب شك ضبطه الجد مثلا
Step three is where the za'irajah adds in the 7 astral or planetary governors, the seven classical planets, the sun, moon, mars, mercury, jupiter, venus and saturn. We accept the original question in the form of 28 and then add in the 7 dials here to receive our modulus 35 for the emission. Mod 35 is the alphabet and the heavens.
In step four these letters become numbers, which is where the abjad comes into play. Each Arabic letter has a fixed numerical value under the Eastern abjad which it appears the Voynich volvelle is based on. qaf = 100, ra = 200, sin = 60, ya = 10 and the 28 letters collapse to 5 class values under mod 35, absorb (0), vowel (10), gallows (15), conson (25), and process (30). These are required for step five where we drive the machine using these values. See the image for the look up table, while hard to see, shows roughly ~7200 internal values.
We are at the stage where we need to drive the machine. Step five allows the LCG to mechanically advance the state of the machine. The gallows detent physically selects the multiplier. With no gallows, a = 20 and we have a 2 cycle vowel <-> consonant. With GtB gallows, a = 6 and has the same 2 cycle process. In GkB gallows, a = 24 and this allows the machine to escape out of the sequence and process into a different orbit. Finally at GkM gallows, a = 3, and we are in our process attractor mode of the machine. This two cycle process is modular arithmetic, and not a vowel consonant alternation. It produces this pattern because 10x20 mod 35 equals 25 and 25x20 mod 35 is 10. This pattern was observed in the manuscripts linked in the post.
The last stage is the divinational aspect of the wheel. This is where our answer appears in the system. The cycle class above allows us to select the value class, and the outer wheels which provide the prefix, suffix and walk state select the specific grapheme within that class. That is the two stage look up, the LCG gives you the row, the outer selectors give you the column. In the za'irajah the cycle arithmetic gives you the index, this is entered into the pole verse and whatever letter appears you write it down. Do this 13 times, with a repeating cycle and you get the output phrase. For the Voynich, we have the same process by the 28 letters expanded to 90 suffix positions and the output is a pharmaceutical recipe line instead of a rhymed divinatory answer. Again, this recipe line is not one we are likely familiar with and is just the mechanical output of the machine. For the Voynich Volvelle we receive the tokens from the Voynich manuscript as an output and which are assembled from the viewing area.
So if we know that this "Za'irajah of the world", is the driving force behind the Voynich volvelle and is providing an answer, then how can we use this? How can we verify that what we are seeing from this machine is telling us to use these methods? Can we verify these values out of the machine correspond to medicines? Compounds? Seasons? We cannot translate it, we do not know what it is saying, so how can we be sure that what we are seeing is really an output of the device? One method I am exploring is using the old manuscripts from the OAT era that were specifically for medical purposes. Taking the core fact that the machine is built from the tri lateral roots that form the OAT language, it gives a targeted approach to look at the building blocks that might make the tokens. Using the words with unique consonants that match the consonant skeleton that is being drawn from the machine, the Jaccard matches overwhelmingly indicating medical recipes that line up with very specific compounds within the manuscripts. This is a direct correlative aspect from the Za’irajah and can be looked up in the books listed below.
As part of the battery of adversarial tests the Codex Seraphinianus was used to determine the Jaccard closeness to the consonant skeleton.
In the attached images in this chapter are the Za’irajah wheel and the look up table. The look up table has been feature matched to be able to target the letters and content inside of the table for any potential recovery. The Jaccard similarities for the currently replicated Voynich Volvelle and the other devices similar to it and the operating procedures. There is an open scad rendering of the machine itself.
Note: the volvelle viewer in the previous post is an automated viewer for replaying the original folios through the Vonich Volvelle and is based on an earlier version without the apparatus layer. This layer can be seen in the OpenScad model of the machine. The OpenScad model represents the current development path and the viewer a presentable, functional model that explains the Voynich Volvelle.
Thanks for your time reading this post. Please feel free to send questions or comments.
Sean Rice
Research books used to identify and discover the above information. This data comes from real history and real books that indicate these historical aspects
Prior art for the Za’irajah of the world, its operating procedures and poems showing a historical reference. I have reached out to the library in Morocco which holds the manuscript that has the personal account of the device itself by its creator. There are no digitized versions of this manuscript and this would be the final closing aspect on the Za’irajah. There is first hand information on the device itself from the books we have from Franz Rosenthal. Those links are listed below.
Requested Manuscript:
Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc / former Bibliothèque générale de Rabat
Manuscript inventory no. 491
Catalogued by Évariste Lévi-Provençal as no. 478 in Les manuscrits arabes de Rabat, Première série, 1921
Section: Astrologie et Sciences occultes
Composite manuscript / recueil
Target item: II. Ouvrage de gadwal by Gamâl/Jamāl ed-Dîn Abd el-Malik b. Abd Allah el-Marjānī
Folios 7–29
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.