RE: The Hoax Theory (was: VMs: Codex Seraphinianus...?)

["Don Latham" <djl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

HI GC and Nick as well: I deliberately used quotes on "paranoia" for the
very points you have raised. Certainly most, if not all, alchemical
treatises used "insider" language/symbology as well as some enciphering (?).
I, too, think the VM to be a world view, thought out, and expressed in an
organized way.  OCD folks very often make good performers, but not too often
organized writers (my neck way out on this one).
Points well taken
Don

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of GC
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 9:44 PM
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: The Hoax Theory (was: VMs: Codex Seraphinianus...?)


What classifies as paranoia?  A feeling that everybody is out to get you?
Would people trying to live a normal life under Saddam be classified as
paranoid, or one attempting to gain an education under Henry VIII?  When
Edward died suddenly and Mary took over, would the average professed
"protestant" have felt and acted "paranoid"?  I think you're exercising a
modern definition that does not reflect daily life in the time frame we're
discussing.  In this time frame, there were very few who didn't exhibit
"paranoid" traits, possibly because there was a lot to be "paranoid" about.
How does that go?  "If you're not paranoid, you're simply unaware of the the
facts."

GC

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Nick Pelling
> Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 7:25 PM
> To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: The Hoax Theory (was: VMs: Codex Seraphinianus...?)
>
>
> Hi Don,
>
> At 17:35 17/07/2003 -0600, Don Latham wrote:
> >IMHO, having studied a very little psyc., the VM is far too organized for
> >glossolalia. In fact, glossolalia would look much like noise
> when subjected
> >to analysis. If, on the other hand, a person with a strange but organized
> >world view, and what is commonly referred to as a "paranoid" personality,
> >might very well hide the strange view with encryption or code.  In that
> >casae, there would be no desire to pass on the knowledge, hence
> no written
> >down key. If the world view were strange enough, there would be
> no referent
> >in, say, herbals or astrology of his time.  If a code, the
> "codebook" would
> >be well hidden.
>
> Certainly, the VMS' code / secret language might seem to indicate
> paranoia,
> or maybe anxiety: but perhaps its repetitious dain/daiin-iness might also
> seem correlated with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Alternatively, its
> numerous nymphs (and the rubbed-through hole in one folio) might also
> suggest a driving obsession with sex: or the whole MS could be the
> long-term result of a "lone gunman's" schizoid (or perhaps schizotypal?)
> personality disorder... etc etc.
>
> Personally, I see the Voynich as a quite remarkable, rationally-conceived
> and deliberately-executed document - and so suspect that looking
> for flaws
> in its author's psyche to explain the apparent language structure
> might be
> something of a "cop-out"... a much easier answer than admitting the
> distinct possibility that the author was rationally able to out-think you.
>
> Might it be safer to conclude that, as the VMS can be interpreted as
> indirectly exhibiting aspects of so many very different psychological
> pathologies simultaneously, it is in fact more likely to have been the
> product of an utterly balanced mind? :-9
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
>
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