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

["Don Latham" <djl@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I haven't looked into the writings as much as I should have. I think my
emphasis is rather on the mindset that causes the need for hiding content,
rather than, say, publishing it. (Although I have read some papers that seem
as impenetrable as alchemical treatises...)
Don

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Nick Pelling
Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2003 5:41 AM
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: The Hoax Theory (was: VMs: Codex Seraphinianus...?)


Hi Don,

At 21:22 18/07/2003 -0600, Don Latham wrote:
>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
(?).

Similarly, authors of magical treatises and recipes of this general period
often write the key parts of their most powerful, occult, dangerous secrets
in "the magical cipher" (replacing all vowels with the next consonant
up)... probably one of the least effective ciphers ever devised. =:-o

AIUI, some alchemists also wrote (admittedly very short) parts in Greek
letters: but the most powerful forms of cryptography they devised were
*metaphor* and what I'd call *ellipticity* (ie, indirectness or
obscureness). As this amounts to a kind of "hiding in plain sight", this
could quite reasonably be classified as steganography.

Some might argue that these "codes" have yet to be broken... others
consider that, whatever alchemical secrets might have been there in the
first place are probably irreversibly lost. Whatever.

All of this you know: all I'm saying is that alchemy - as practised -
wasn't really in significant need of encryption. When the plaintext is hard
enough to understand, why bother encoding it? :-9

Note that I'm not saying that (at least a few parts of) the VMS aren't
alchemy-related in some way: once you get past the first few quires, I
wouldn't be surprised if much (if not all) of the herbal section was
entirely unrelated to plants. My current evidence is only suggestive of
(roughly) two quires being genuinely herbal/agricultural: and I'd expect
analysis of the dialects to back this up.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....


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