Voynich theory: Tolkien, Atlantis, Satan, Nazis, the Pentagon… we live in hell?

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Do you sometimes find rationality soooo boring? Well, I think I might just have the perfect Voynich theory to fit your fickle mood: & it runs like this…

“After destroying Atlantis, the alien Sauron changed his name to Jehovah […] His most recent appearance was in Berlin where Adolf Hitler was brain washed into thinking he could conquer the world. Sauron knew that the true king would be returning to earth and that he would be born from among the Jews in Eastern Europe. Now we know the real reason behind ‘the Holocaust’.”

“After the Nazi’s were defeated, Sauron the Dark Lord ( in the gold box known as the Ark of the Covenant ) escaped to South America and from there to North America and into a building which was specifically built for him. That building is called ‘the Pentagon’ …. and that is where he is in hiding as we speak.”

At first glance, you’d think we’re doomed, for our life on Earth is literally passing time in Sauron’s Hell. But wait, we have one tiny chance for redemption…

“The people of Atlantis were defeated and their continent was sunk. Some survived and passed one thing down to us, an account of their story. This is the book known to legend as ‘The Holy Grail.’ One copy of that book is the ‘Voynich Manuscript.'”

“The holy grail provides the instructions for constructing a weapon …. to kill Satan.”

Apparently Tolkien [“a member of the Illuminati“] knew all this, and constructed “The Lord of the Rings” as nothing less then “a TRUE version of history“. So now, if anybody asks you why you’re trying to decipher the Voynich Manuscript, you can say: “I’m fighting against Satan, f&*^wad“. Very reassuring! 🙂

Chrysopoeia versus Mythopoeia…

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Fingers on buzzers for a quicky historical quiz: name these three historical characters and the unusual link they share…

  1. A 13th century speculative English monk
  2. A 14th century Parisian bookseller (and his wife)
  3. A 15th century Bohemian disbeliever in alchemy

How did you do?

The first one’s easy, particularly for Voynich Manuscript devotees – it’s the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon. The second one’s also pretty easy, especially for Harry Potter fans – it’s Nicolas Flamel (and his wife Peronelle). The final one is next to impossible (unless you just happen to be Czech) – it’s Jan z Lazu (whose name has come up here in recent days). But what fine historical filament connects these three very different people?

The simple answer is that they were each declared to be famous alchemists long after their death, with their printed alchemical works well-read across Europe. Bacon’s supposed “Speculum Alchemiae” was translated into English in 1597; Flamel similarly first made the transition from obscure Parisian bookseller to noted “alchemist” in the late 16th century / early 17th century; and even though Jan z Lazu is recorded as having been “lucky to get away alive” when he told ex-Empress Barbara Celska (1390-1452) that the alchemy she was practising in Melnik (post-1441) was “fraudulent”, yet suddenly around 1611 printed works appeared in Prague attributing great alchemical secrets of the Philosopher’s Stone to him.

However, the more complex answer is (I think) that in each of these three cases alchemy was falsely attributed to the person in the decades around 1600 in order to further nationalistic quasi-historical purposes. Hence, the actual purpose of many alchemical texts from this period is not so much chrysopoeia (“gold-making”) as mythopoeia (“myth-making”) – people perceived that there was a pressing political need for an historical English / French / Czech alchemist to have existed, and so pressed existing historical figures into service. It might not make a lot of sense to us now, but that’s how it definitely worked way back then.

Incidentally, when in 2008 I asked the alchemy expert Adam McLean about Flamel-themed pseudo-alchemy, his response was well-nuanced and thoroughly helpful when considering this whole genre:-

Although contrived they are not "fakes" in the modern sense, rather
they are attempts to reconstruct the past, by devising an object
apparently emerging from a personality they wished had existed.
PS: J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a poem called Mythopoeia in 1931 (even before The Hobbit was written!), which certainly touches on a lot of themes eerily familar to both alchemy historians and cipher mystery aficionados. Voynich list-member Anthony was sure that Tolkien had seen positive rotographs of the Voynich Manuscript, which gives the following few lines an added resonance:-
[...]
and as on page o'erwitten without clue,
with script and limning packed of various hue,
and endless multitude of forms appear,
some grim, some frail, some beautiful, some queer,
each alien, except as kin from one
remote Origo, gnat, man, stone, and sun.
[...]
Yes! `wish-fulfilment dreams' we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!

Voynich Manuscript in existing novels…?

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From the apparent tsunami of Voynich fiction about to crash down on our literary shores over the next year, it might seem that the VMs had never previously appeared in a novel. Yet this is not exactly true…

For example, “Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone” (Max McCoy, Bantam Books, 1995) is based entirely around the Voynich Manuscript: set in March 1933, a mad scholar called Sarducci has stolen the VMs (which is actually a map), and so Indy chases him through Mussolini’s fascist Italy all the way to an amazing alchemical crypt in the desert… From what I’ve read of this book, it actually seems to be a pleasantly pulpy read, very much in tune with the actual VMs, and with a refreshing lack of power-mad Jesuit priests. However, I should warn you that it will be re-released on 29th April 2008, presumably to try to ride the whole 2008 Voy-niche publishing wave. *sigh*

Another pair of VMs-themed books came to my attention via the Bellairsia blog, which is devoted to books by the writer John Anthony Bellairs. His most famous novel was “The Face in the Frost” (1969), a fantasy novel in which Prospero and Roger Bacon fight against a mysterious grimoire that sounds not at all dissimilar to the VMs. After Bellairs’ death in 1991, his estate commissioned author Brad Strickland to complete and continue Bellairs’ various series: and it is in one of these that protagonist Johnny Dixon faces “The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost” (1999), which features the VMs in a starring role.

Connections between J.R.R.Tolkien and the VMs have been suggested in the past. According to Voynich mailing list member Anthony, Tolkien did indeed own a copy of at least one page of the VMs, which may have played a small part in influencing his choice of the fantasy scripts in his books. As I recall, there were a number of people in Tolkien’s Oxford circle that had an interest in early modern scientific manuscripts, so this does seem a perfectly sensible idea.

Many people have also wondered about the relationship between H.P.Lovecraft’s Necronomicon and the Voynich Manuscript: Colin Wilson based a short story called “The Return of the Lloigor” around this, and returned to the theme at the end of his novel “The Philosopher’s Stone”.

All the same, this modest pile of Voynich fiction looks set to triple in height this year… interesting times!