Re: VMs: Re: What do you think about Eight?

[Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Rene

Thank you for sending the link.  I will try to wrap
myself around it as best I can and get back to you
with some gleanings.

"- it refers to an unknown (or little known) system
in use at that time or before it."

This possibility is intriguing indeed, but the idea
that this was the point of the illustrations fills me
with skepticism about their content.  It makes me
strongly suspect that the document is nothing more
than the work of a con artist, although of course I
have no proof of that so I will not jump to that
conclusion yet.

But here is my reasoning:  the illustrations are
clearly European in origin; so the person who was
thought to be adept and was writing the document was
not from some obscure far-off foreign place.  If he
had found some fascinating parchment or tome which
originated in another country, why not just acquire
it, produce it, and demand compensation?  It would
surely be mysterious enough as it stood.  Why add all
the layers of mystery?  If he had encountered people
who did not use a language comprehensible to
Europeans, how did he acquire that language?  And why
record his findings in that language when it was
incomprehensible to Europeans, then expect the
European market to foot the bill?  

Unless someone wanted to promote the document as
bearing the "secrets" of some other culture which
possessed knowledge we do not have in our culture, and
of which the seller was an initiate.  And the
obscurity of the language of the document, in that
case, would simply add to its monetary value and to
the buyer's reliance on the seller to interpret its
meaning--a "long con", as they say in the movies.
A full-time salary instead of just a one-time
transaction.  The mysterious cryptograhy and the
unfamiliarity of the comcepts it contained would be
explained by the fact that the document was actually a
fraud, and a pretty good one.

The other side of the coin to me as an astrologer is
this: my belief in the completeness of Western
astrology (or Eastern, or whatever system have you)
tells me that it may be interesting to compare
systems, but there if there is a need for something
astrology can provide within a culture, and if it can
be done, that culture's own astrology will provide a
way to produce it.  When any need for validation of a
technique arises, astrologers from the time period of
the VMs keep looking to their own roots:  They look
back to the Arabians, who look back to the Greeks, who
look back to the Egyptians, who look back to the
Babylonians, who look back to the Sumerians, who look
back to the Chaldeans, etc.

Now if the VMs author wants to point to these roots,
there are plenty of resources available to permit him
to "cite his sources", which astrologers have been
doing since the Chaldeans.  And these familiar
concepts would show up in his illustrations.  But what
he is doing does not really fit neatly into Western
astrology; at least not the eight-divided circle
illustrations, as far as I can see.

The idea that the document is the prop of a con artist
leads us to the conclusion that parts or the whole of
the written text are bogus and may not be
decipherable; or, that even if they are
comprehensible, that they were knowlingly created as a
fraud and can't be relied upon to convey factual
information.

Another possibility you mentioned:

- the 8-fold division is something the VMs author
just made up as he liked it

If we can think of a good reason for the author to
produce this volume without the intention to
communicate, this is certainly a possibility, maybe
even a likely one.  But if so, we probably need to
reduce our expectations that we will be able to
decipher the text.  

We have many examples of illuminated texts, in which
the illustrations are decorative elements and may or
may not relate to the content of the document.  But
these circle charts seem to take up entire pages and
compose a fairly large portion of the book; they are
not just drawings in the margins of the pages.  If an
author is adding decorative sections of illustration
arbitrarily without the purpose of communication, why
do we imagine he will try to find ways to effectively
communicate his message through his suspiciously
incomprehensible text?  

- the illustrations are indeed not astronomical

This possibility is the one I would most like to
pursue, at least with regard to the eight-divided
circle charts.  IMHO, it leaves the possibility of the
author's intention to communicate intact.

Those are some of my ideas.  Thanks for sharing your
ideas!  I will look over the chart on the link you
have sent.  

Warmly,

Pam


--- Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> --- Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Hi, Rene
> > 
> > The twelve signs have assigned compass directions,
> > so
> > a chart devised with the purpose of emphasizing
> that
> > fact seems, forgive me, a little redundant.  There
> > are so many ways to express direction using
> astrology!
> > Here are the directions of the signs:
> 
> What I meant was, that at any epoch another sign
> will be due south. Thus, a link between compass
> directions and the zodiac signs is not really 
> redundant.
> In reality, though, I don't believe that this is
> what
> is meant by this particular illustration, and I
> don't
> see much more than a flower-like ornament in
> the middle. 
> 
> > These don't seem to be astrological charts to me,
> > and astrological charts can convey a lot more
> > information in much less space than the VMs
> > chart illustrations take up. 
> > That's why I tend to lean in the direction
> > of numerology rather than a tie-in to astrology to
> > explain the emphasis on the number eight.  
> 
> I see several possibilities.
> The 8-fold division which appears in some
> illustrations is not typical for astronomical or
> astrological illustrations, so perhaps:
> - the illustrations are indeed not astronomical
> 
> While the last is probably the most intriguing,
> it is not at all clear that it is the correct one.
> As I wrote before, the "flower" or "starfish" in the
> middle is pretty innocuous.
> 
> The figure is pretty interesting in itself, and one
> of the better places in the MS (IMHO) to find some 
> clue to the meaning of the script, or any evidence
> at all that there is meaning in the MS.
> 
> The page:
> http://www.voynich.nu/extra/mstaur.html
> is one example. The 7 possible planet names
> in the 12 segments are another. The alternating
> scheme of red and yellow moons is yet another.
> There's also some similarity to the circular 
> astrolabe of MUL.APIN which I only know from an
> illustration in Evans: "the history and practice of
> ancient astronomy". If you're familiar with that
> it would be great if you had anything to suggest
> in that direction.
> 
> Cheers, Rene
> 
> 
> 		
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=====
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."


		
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