19.4.07

The Voynich Manuscript


Now this is intriguing! The Voynich Manuscript was written in an unknown language and script by an unknown author, and covers many varied topics - most of them magickal, from an herbalism to alchemy and astrology . To me, this looks like a grimoire written in code! And what a better way to write a grimoire at the height of the church's power than in an indecipherable code? Check it out
here! I'd love to get my paws on a copy of that text . . . even if I couldn't read it per se. Here's some of the text (below)
Here is a great link where you can see the entire text in high resolution photos! Here is an Amazon list with books about the Voynich manuscript! I ran out last night and purchased a book called The Voynich Manuscript by Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill, and it's a great buy. The Voynich Manuscript is filled with mystery. The next time I'm in that area, I want to go to Yale university and see the manuscript for myself. This is an exciting discovery with a rich history. Something interesting I found out is that it is theorized that it belonged to Roger Bacon, whom I believe to be of the same Bacon family as Sir Henry bacon, who was a friend of my Great, great, great, etc. Grandfather. Or uncle or something. I'd have to ask Mom. My family tree is more like a rat's nest. :p However, it is also proposed that it was written by John Dee, a famous occultist and author of many staple occult texts. Whomever wrote it, I feel a strong connection to the book, and whether that is due to my strong desire to understand the unknown and rare, or it an ancestor of mine wrote it, I don't know. Don't care either. I want a copy. In fact, I want to find out if I can make scans of the book and make a binding for the new pages. It would be a very interesting task.
On the right is the book I purchased on the manuscript. As far as I know, it is the best out there. You can find it here.
And now, I must do more research. *re-inserts nose into book*

Meren heart,
Nefabit :3

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there... I came across your blog searching for occult texts, since I'm working on my own admittedly fake grimoire. I've gotten pretty good at artificially aging laser paper. But the question is what to put in the book.

The consensus appears to be that the Voynich Manuscript may have been a fake grimoire, with the text hand-generated by following an algorithm. With that in mind, considering that we can force our silicon spirits to perform algorithmancy, we can do the Voynich authors one better: Markov Text! With this algorithm, you can generate an infinite amount of realistic-looking text.

I implemented a version of the algorithm and used the works of Shakespeare as source text (from Project Gutenberg), using order-3 statistics. Here's a fun sample:

Disguise the time by he Eastaffection,
And herence and the Des. They fore our which yours of ques
Deere to At to greast hus:
But plucking
But speart,
more dustoressocke with Imo. Oh, there the King Heaue moren intoo, an the from to away in a sick stand to then comes; what
in thee mult to my Lobbin my wher to sures,
To th'd thrower what hear. World her mine their I dayers Lordinance, I the
King

(What is "Lordinance"? The Holy Hand Grenade?)

Order 4 might have looked even better, but my machine ran out of memory, and I wasn't in the mood to make the program more efficient. But it's good enough for what comes next...

Find a suitably occult-looking font -- I particularly like . Now just print your text in that font. Really, it's a simple substitution cipher, and anyone could crack it, but it looks sufficiently occult. Cyclopean. Squamous. Rugose. And imagine some amateur crypographer's surprise to find nothing but pseudo-Shakespearean verse :D

Anonymous said...

Do you think the images are copyrighted? I have been looking at Codex Seraphic if you've not yet seen it's beautiful and there are images all over the web now.

Anonymous said...

See for examples of translations www.google.nl