Re: D!

[Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dark MaP wrote:

< much that puzzles me snipped >

> I'm talking about... if one alchimist,
> 4-5 centuries ago, developed and undecyphrable method... why... WHY we (a
> lot of cool minds) cannot do the effort?? (Or you already did it in the
> past?)

	Here I can only add a clip from the Historical
Precedents list I keep:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> [EDITOR'S NOTE:  Adam McLean is probably the world's greatest expert
> on Western alchemy.   Therefore, this note is probably the last word on the
> subject. ]
> 
> Subject: Re: Your Expert Opinion on the VMs
> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 17:36:43 +0000
> From: Adam McLean
> To: Dennis Stallings
> 
> 
> At 09:40 AM 11/19/98 -0600, you wrote:
> >Hello, Adam!  I know about your extensive knowledge of alchemy.  Mary
> >D'Imperio, in her survey of VMs studies up to 1978, thought that alchemy
> >might be the key to understanding the VMs.  However, current
> >voynich@xxxxxxxx list members, including myself, see little if any
> >alchemical content in the VMs.  None of us, however, are experts.  
> >
> >What is your opinion on this.  What alchemical imagery can you see in
> >the VMs?
> 
> Dear Dennis 
> 
> All I can say is that I have never seen an alchemical manuscript
> with the same imagery and pictures as are found in the Voynich.
> The plant drawings in  the 'Herbal section' have many forerunners some 
> going back centuries before the Voynich, as has been extensively 
> documented. The drawings in the Astronomical section again seem to
> have many parallels in known manuscripts. 
> 
> The main 'alchemical' resonance is supposed to be the 'balneological'
> section, but here I find no parallels with alchemical manuscripts,
> except in a very general way. If this was an alchemical work one 
> would expect to find some other alchemical manuscript with similar
> drawings - but I do not know of one. The drawings after all are not in code!
> 
> I have an open mind on the subject, but have yet to see any real parallels.
> Perhaps one day I will find a manuscript that I recognise has common
> features with the Voynich - but not so far.
> 
> My view is that we can only 'crack' the Voynich when we can put it into 
> some context. The herbal section is probably the most amenable to
> this approach as there are many early herbals with similar structures.
> It really needs someone to make a study of the semiotics of herbals,
> and see if any of these features can be recognised as patterns in the
> Voynich text. Such things as repetitions of phrases, maybe things like
> "collect the fruits in the month of" or "this plant is for the lungs". If the
> Voynich section is a herbal then it should share some of such
> phrases, and one might be able to find repetitive elements that give
> us a clue to the way in which the Vonichese is structured and written.
> 
> I don't think I could  find any way at present to use alchemical manuscripts
> or ideas to throw light on the 'Balneological section.
> 
> It may be that it will be someone with a background in semiotics rather
> than cryptography that will first read the Voynich MS. I don't think it 
> will be a scholar of alchemy.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Adam McLean

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>  Where were the entry
> point for the Arabic sciences? 

	It may simply be that traders dealt with both Arabs
and Franks, and sold Arabic manuscripts to interested
Franks (as they called all Westerners then).

> Can we add the 'oriental' influence in the
> Iberian peninsula for about 800 long years? 

	That's even better.  I've even read that the
troubadours of 1200 or so got their love songs from
Muslim sufis who often spoken of God as a woman and
used earthly love between man and woman as a metaphor
for mystical union with God.  I've also heard that this
is how the cult of the Virgin Mary in the western
Church got started.   

> I hope we get it cracked before an extraterrestrial live being comes and
> said, "don't you guess fool?" and easily crack it by taking notes in a
> paper....  E.T.!!!! come back!!!

	Here's a good one for that:

Asteroid Landing
http://www.justsaywow.com/asteroidlanding.htm

Dennis