Given that (a) I’m somewhat overstretched right now (imagine Doctor Who fighting Daleks and Cybermen with the Tardis and his underpants on fire, and you’re 10% of the way there) and (b) I’ve got a whole heap of Voynich-related bits to work through, it’s time for another Voynich miscellany post. Yes, just like last year’s one. Only better! 🙂
Firstly, the Voynich theories
Don’t inhale too deeply!
* If you first read about the Voynich too late at night through a haze of smoke, you can end up with some pretty hazy theories. Like this one, where the nine-rosette page is “a map of the general functioning of the multiverse. If you look closely, you can see eyeballs. This represents the observer effect, and the craziest part of all.” Moreover, “the manuscript is a guide for how to extract entheogenic substances or mixtures from plants, or to graft them together to create novel substances. I believe the author learned the theory of everything from a psychedelic trip, and that’s why there’s a clear galaxy picture.” Like, yeah, it all makes sense now, cool.
* The Federation of Light would like to let us know that the Voynich Manuscript was accidentally lost by “a child from Orion ( peacefull breed ) in training as a botanist“. Which is, of course, a great weight off all our minds. 🙂
* Here’s a channelling session with an entity called “Master Ruanel” who gets asked about the Voynich Manuscript. He thinks it’s nonsense! That was easy… now to solve the Euro crisis. 🙂
* Oh, and there’s a claimed Voynich decryption (“BE A RAS RABBLE”, really) on YouTube, if you like that kind of thing. Not my bag, sorry!
* Might the Voynich Manuscript actually be visual music? Composer and sonic contemplator Dan Wilson wonders so… it’s true that projecting cymatics back into the Quattrocento seems a bit of a stretch to me, but you may have a different opinion!
…and now all the other Voynichiana:
* Here’s a nicely composed photograph by Espen Gleditsch entitled “Voynich Manuscript 2009”, which basically looks like my own desk half the time (except I haven’t got a copy of Levitov’s book here).
* Pineal’s “A Key To Voynich” MP3 is available for download on Amazon. £0.89 buys you over 7 minutes of pulsing electronic dance stuff!
* However, that’s as nothing compared to “Manuscript 408”, the first track on Ice Dragon’s “Tome of the Future Ancients”, whose meatily metallic slice of bass-heavy doom rrrrock weighs in at over 10 minutes, and at whatever price you name. Basically, if you have long enough hair to flick and a virtual plectrum to air-guitar with, this could well be The Ultimate Voynich SoundTrack For Your Life:-
Words written down so long ago / In a language already gone
From hand of scribe / Down through the pen / And marked into vellum
Cloaked in darkness / The secret remains / Hidden from us for all time
The ravings of a madman / Or learned scholar / We may never know why
Brought forth while in possession / Of knowledge from other realms
Through supernatural process / One may obtain / That which is withheld
The scryer, the seer / Can talk to beings / Who remember the ancient days
When men were more / When they weren’t lost / In their mathematical ways
32 gone, 240 remain / Torn out by a dark mage
Who knew of the power / Held within / They are in use to this day
Herbal / Astronomical / Biological / Cosmological / Pharmaceutical
When all combine / Madness of the mind / Destroy all life / And reset time
When all combine / Madness of the mind / Destroy all life / And reset time
* E6 Town Hall Hoursong has released Volume 8 Voynich Manuscript, containing a number of Voynich-themed tracks. It’s all a bit experimental, you might like it, who knows?
* Here’s a nice picture by artist Barbara Suckfüll, more than a tad reminiscent of the Voynich’s nine-rosette page. (Click on it to see more detail).
* My favourite link of the day is to Rigid Hips Stockholm Motorcycle Space Sect (I kid you not), who writes that “The herbal, medical, astronomical/astrological, balneological and mechanical secrets of the Voynich Manuscript is basicly what keeps me going, and ofcourse the live albums the Ramones did in the late 70’s. […] The Ramones didn’t play all downstrokes, that’s a myth, if you analyse most their live albums Johnny and DeeDee goes 16 downstrokes / 4 up and down / 16 downstrokes / 4 up and down, and for some reason that is really important to me.” Now that’s someone with a finger on their own pulse, which I can really admire. But the real question is: would Rigid Hips like Ice Dragon? 🙂
So, what did y’all say and do this year at Villa Mondragone besides going around and around in circles?
Were any of the above-mentioned people in the audience, by any chance? Were any of them, maybe, at your rare books and manuscript seminar? If so, for either event, would they qualify as fans of yours? Did anybody at either event ask for your autograph?
I do recognize a lot of “punk” snideness in the various entertainment venues. On the other hand, remember the saying “Imitation is the best form of flattery”. I don’t necessarily agree with that idea, but there are a lot more disagreeable and hateful alternatives “out there” in cypberspace.
Keep on keepin’ on! Rah, rah, sis boombah! But no, I ain’t gonna sit nekkid in a tub and wave a striped banner, nor keep a star tethered to a string. (This last comment was in reference to my last post on your “Rare books” page.)
Your “loony-tunes” fan: bdid1dr
with a smirk: %^
Thank for not including me on this list!
Looks like next year’s Voynich get-together will have to be held at Woodstock in New York instead of the Villa Mondragone in Italy so the musical theories can have equal billing . . .
Ellie: you’ll have to try harder next time… 😉
I watched something on TV the other day (Weird or What) where a British expert showed how the manuscript could have been faked by choosing a bunch of symbols and then replicating them randomly by using masks and shifting them. He had a team of 5 expert script writers show that it could have been forged in a few weeks. The idea being that people were paying big bucks at that time for “rediscovered” old formulas etc and this could have been sold as one of the rediscoveries. I have been punishing myself with Dorabella and don’t know much about Voynich, but it seemed plausible.
escher7: That was Gordon Rugg’s theory, and I agree it is plausible. I was on that production, and watching the experiment at the time it was done for the show. Speaking at length with Gordon about his work, between shoots that weekend, allowed me to understand in great detail the process which led Gordon to the system, and the reasoning behind it. It is controversial of course… but has many supporters. The calligraphers who participated, and I and the film crew, were impressed with the ease and speed at which Voynich text with close properties to the original, can be generated.
escher7 & Rich: as I’ve said many times, it’s possible but not plausible. Voynichese has far more rules than Gordon Rugg supposes, many of which his tables fail to capture. So then what? Does he invoke a whole load of arbitrary extra rules to fix up the output of his tables? Or merely accept that his tables at best generate no more than a likeness of Voynichese, what the late Jean Baudrillard liked to call a “simulacrum”?
Nick, I’ll keep trying. My next article is brewing, so to speak… It will be about grain distillates, Cyprus and Lydia politics. I’m looking for more evidence so I don’t end up next year behind the researchers from Andromeda.
Rick, I saw that documentary. The experiment was fascinating. I wonder if some of the methods used for ‘translating’ the VMS can produce meaningful phrases out of the Gordon Rugg’s pick-three-and-mix manuscript.
Here’s a good read, in which a bit of musical cipher has been discovered:
Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight “The Second Messiah”
Actually several “mysteries” in one. For those of you with a musical bent, you might like to see a small video clip. If you refer to Roslin, Rosslyn, Roslyn Chapel and find the short video re the elaborate carvings–you can take it from there (and maybe even read the book). “Somebody” out there in cyberspace did try to play the music. Their website might still be active.
Fun! %)
Well dang! I might be leading y’all to a dead end. Apparently the short film/documentary was made several years after the book’s publication.
I’ll be surfing ref’s to Roslyn Chapel’s elaborately carved interior. Basically, much of the carvings are square-shaped musical notes. Roslyn Chapel was built in the 1400’s.
Just for the record: I think the script is one of those which developed or evolved in regions of mutual Greek and Persian presence – fairly early too (Achaemenid-Parthian periods).
At the moment, I’m inclined to the Persian gulf ports, such as Falaika etc.
If anyone finds this of interest, a convenient but somewhat out of date summary of the archaeological evidence (to 1981) is online
R. Boucharlat and J.-F. Salles, ‘The History and Archaeology of the Gulf from the fifth century BC to the Seventh century AD: a review of the evidence’, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 11 (1981) pp,65-94 (Proceedings of the Fourteenth Seminar, held at Oriel College, Oxford on 22nd – 24thJuly 1980.
Cheers
What I love about the crazy theories is their basic good-heartedness. They so often try to take the salient (read ‘most obvious’) points from all the interweb’s streams and put them together – kind of ‘well chaps, we needn’t disagree. It’s all good..’ approach.
Something everyone can nod along with, even me. (I’d agree that fol.86v is a map, for example, though just what the ‘multiverse’ is I’m not sure..doubtless someone wlse will nod to that one).
Have to admit it, the term ‘rosettes’ sets my teeth on edge a bit, but as an allusion to the dissection of a map by rings of roses – well, yes, that too is possible.
Yay for woodstock!
Oh my! I just revisited Rosslyn’s great website (RosslynChapel.org): A couple of great slides of the mystery musical notes, carvings of various agricultural activities, camouflaged bee hives, and a stained glass window portraying a non-native plant (maize). Fantastic show!
Now, anyone out there up to solving the musical code? (I’m musically illiterate.)
Miscellany? (aka: “While the cat’s away, the mice will play.” ?
heh! %) bdid1dr w/big grin
Yay for “The Grateful Dead”! “Friend of the Devil” being my fave!
re Glen’s photograph, Nick –
I see it includes a printed(?) volume entitled ‘Solutions of the Voynich manuscript’ but I can find no reference to such a book.
A subtle allusion to the nano-state, perhaps.
Diane: as I mentioned in the write-up, it’s a copy of Leo Levitov’s (1987) book “Solution of the Voynich Manuscript: A liturgical Manual for the Endura Rite of the Cathari Heresy, the Cult of Isis“. Never floated my boat, but some may like it. 🙂