Begin forwarded message:
From: "Claudia Gay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: August 17, 2005 12:02:13 PM CDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [thevoynichmanuscript] Holland
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In my previous message I mentioned Holland, John Dee, and Johannes
Trithemius as possible associations with VM408.
Having studied Dr. Levitov's decoding of VM408 that includes his
conclusions that it is written in Dutch and that the paragraphs are
incantations, I recalled that Johannes Trithemius's early university
education was at Holland and that he also wrote incantations.
I think that the author of VM408 was Catholic, as Johannes
Trithemius was a German abbot. The horoscopes with Capricorn and
Pisces, etc. seem to me as though they might follow the normal
Catholic practice of trying to cast Jesus' horoscope.
Also, in the seeming quotes on the first few pages of VM408, I think
one of them is a coded quote from Socrates because the attribution
resembles a notehand form of his name that I found in a Spanish
(Catholic) book on the subject of abbreviations, or codes, if you
will. I think that early page contained an error and after the
author found he couldn't erase the error, he abandoned it.
Later, in the Steganographia of Johannes Trithemius, each of the
chapters of Book I is devoted to a separate Duc or leader of spirits
who carry messages. His first leader is most unreliable, according
to Trithemius, and is not to be trusted. I see this as a possible
parallel and clue for that Socrates quote -- that it is impossible
to decode because it contains an irrepairable error.
I applied one of Trithemius's code forms to the "Socrates" quote on
the basis that it started with "Know thyself" in Greek, starting
with the first letter of the last word, and assuming that the
symbols actually stand for what they most resemble. This null code
that I was applying used the first letter of each "word", starting
from the end and working backwards. "Gnosis" is, I think, the greek
word for Know, and the first letter of the last word resembles
a "g". This "g" was repeated in the next to last word, but then the
text was unreadable, and so I abandoned the attempt there.
Also, Trithemius' symbol for Uriel is made up of the Chinese symbol
for Woman plus has the tail of a serpant. This is shown in Chapter
2 and 32 of Book I. Uriel is the name of an angel from the
Apocrypha (2Esdra)and I think the serpent refers to Hermes who was
in this form for a time. Anyway, the symbol shows that Trithemius
studied symbols from all over the world, which is consistent with
the variety we find in VM408. VM408 symbols contain one that can be
seen both in the 1st century Gospel of John and in Syriac, as well
as the obvious Greek resemblances. I think it possible for
Trithemius to have been VM408's author. He died in 1516.
Decshak
