Voynich Net Forum

I apologize if someone already announced this one, but I don't think I saw it. It was released in September of 2019, and is over an hour long. I started watching it, and right off the bat I see they have some footage of Ethel Voynich that I had never seen... so, promising start.

I'm going to watch it tonight...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UZEHBkBlalc

Rich.

Well it took me a couple of weeks after all, but I did watch this documentary.

I have to say it was fairly well produced, but does not contain any information that one can't find on the internet or in various publications, such as the recent Yale book on the subject.

It relies heavily on the Voynich.nu site, as many secondary sources like this, do, which in my opinion is both good and bad. Good, because René has a wealth of useful information there, in great detail, which goes further and deeper than any other source. Bad, because much of it is speculation based on the limited information available, but presented alongside fact, as fact. One cannot tell the difference... it is all presented as factual. This results in anyone building a book, article, documentary, such as this, relying on the .nu site, who does not do their own original research, simply repeating those opinions, unaware that there are alternative interpretations of it.

In my opinion, there is great harm in this. Because this is the "stepping off point" for most new researchers, that they will never go back and critically examine the items so confidently laid out as factual in these works, they will also never question them. I've railed against this for some time, as many know... but in short, if the Voynich is anything but a genuine 1420-ish European cipher, it will be very difficult for anyone new to realize this, as they won't look off the well-paved path laid out for them and realize this.

I'm going to single out one good example of this effect, in this documentary, but in another post. And to make it clear, I do not blame the creators of it... they did a great job, and worked with what they are told is factual.

The documentary also has a long section on the history of cipher and codes, but I admit I fast forwarded through that portion. I'm no cipher expert, but at the level in this video, there were no surprises... so I skipped it. But that might be interesting to some.

In any case, I'd say that the video gives a very good, well produced amateur production of the Voynich "1420 Genuine European Cipher Herbal" version of the story, with no surprises.

Rich.