Voynich Manuscript

This is Faustin Bray for Sound Photosynthesis.

Brian Wallace is recording, and today we have the good fortune to talk with Terrence McKenna.

He has chosen a subject that has been interesting to him for quite a while,

and the title of this tape is The Vonage Manuscript.

What I'd like to talk about today and what's brought me to the edge of my chair recently

is the Vonage Manuscript, which is something that,

though I had read in occultism fairly deeply and in alchemical literature and that kind of thing,

I had never heard of this until about a year and a half ago,

and a friend of mine, Ralph Abraham, who's a mathematician at Santa Cruz,

began pushing this at me, mentioning this encoded manuscript

that people were interested in trying to figure out what it said,

and since I had never heard of it, I dismissed it.

I assumed that he was misinformed or that if this thing existed, I surely would have heard of it,

but eventually I tracked down the references that he gave me,

and I discovered a very curious cul-de-sac in the history of ideas.

First of all, it is a manuscript.

That means it's written in longhand.

It's not a printed book.

Only one copy is known to exist.

It's at the Benecke Rare Book Room at Yale,

and it was deposited there by the estate of Mr. Alfred Vonage when his wife died.

The Vonage Manuscript, here are the known facts.

It first appears in 1586 at the court of Rudolf II of Bohemia,

which, if you know that court in that period,

this was the mad Rudolf of Bohemia,

this guy who was surrounded by astrologers, alchemists, cryptographers,

all the intellectual foment of occult Protestant Europe was centered at this court,

and into this situation comes an unknown person,

a courier, who sells this manuscript to Rudolf for the equivalent of $14,000,

300 gold ducats, which is an enormous amount of money to pay for something like this.

And it was in his possession.

It's encoded.

It is not written in any known alphabet.

It is written in what scholars call Vonage Script,

of which this manuscript is the only known example in existence.

And part of the problem of the Vonage Manuscript

has to do with locating instances of Vonage Script somewhere else.

It's over 275 pages long.

It has over 150 color illustrations of plants in one category,

what appear to be astrological diagrams in another category,

and then a completely unclassifiable set of images,

which seem to be basically little naked ladies bathing in strange fountains,

or perhaps dissected flowers,

or it isn't clear what it is.

The emperor would not have paid so much money for it

if he hadn't been convinced that there was something going on with it.

He had cryptographers at his court

who were very adept at decoding manuscripts.

None of them were ever able to make any progress with it.

When his court collapsed in the incident of the Winter King and Queen of 1619,

the manuscript passed to his botanist, a man named Marcy,

and at his death, it passed to an unknown party who owned it for 20 years.

And the next place where it's picked up is in the library of Athanasius Kirscher,

who was one of the great polymaths of the 17th century,

and a man who himself worked on artificial languages and synthetic languages.

And letters exist of his inquiring after this manuscript,

and eventually it came into his possession.

But there's no mention of it in any of his known work on artificial languages.

At around 1635, he decided to join the Jesuit order

and gave all his books to a Jesuit college south of Rome,

where this book apparently sat on the shelf for the next, what is it, 230 years,

until 1906, when Mr. Alfred Vonich bought the entire library,

a rare book dealer, shipped it back to Brooklyn,

and in going through this stuff, came upon this manuscript.

Now, what's so great about a book which nobody can read?

Well, first of all, it's very unusual, books which no one can read.

Codes, immensely powerful methods exist for breaking codes,

because this is a matter of military intelligence and defense concerns,

and very sophisticated computer techniques exist to analyze any supposed piece of code

and extract meaning from it,

determine whether it is, in fact, encoded language or not,

whether you can tell what it says or not.

And the Vonich manuscript has become a kind of conundrum of the intelligence community.

Retired intelligence officers take it on and attempt to crack it.

In fact, one of the best books written about the Vonich manuscript

is called The Vonich Manuscript, An Elegant Enigma, by Mary D'Imperio,

and it is only available from the National Security Agency,

Central Security Office, Fort Meade, Maryland.

This is what your tax dollars are being spent for,

it's to decode this 400-year-old manuscript.

Okay, Vonich script, the most sophisticated computer analysis

shows that the manuscript definitely is a language.

There is meaning, the occurrence of prefixes and suffixes,

certain internal rules of grammar have been identified,

but the meaning has eluded all comers.

And several people, if there were more time,

we could go into people whose whole careers have rested

on their supposed decoding of it.

A man named William Newbery in the 1920s

claimed a complete decipherment,

and it was later exposed to be a sincere but misguided mental derangement

that contributed to his belief that he had decoded.

Other people have made attempts,

but all of them, none, are convincing.

And so this is where the matter rests.

One edition of this manuscript exists,

it's never been decoded.

My idea about it is that

to understand the Vonich manuscript,

you have to understand the career of John Dee,

who was the greatest magus of the Elizabethan age,

the court astrologer of Elizabeth I of England,

the man who had more,

he had the largest library in England,

Elizabeth and Sir Walter Riley and Sir William Sidney

visited him to see his collection of books.

He wrote on the elements of Euclid,

he wrote books on navigation and astronomy,

but he also was an occultist and into secret codes.

He was also an intelligence agent.

He had been at the court of Rudolf

the year before the sale is alleged to have taken place.

He and his friend, Edward Kelly.

And they had brooded it about

that Roger Bacon, the 13th century English monk,

was the greatest alchemist of all time.

And they had really made a flap about Bacon

in Prague at the court of Rudolf.

Then a series of alchemical experiments

where they had promised the emperor

to make gold and had failed,

caused them to be exiled to Treblona.

So they were in Treblona

when this alleged sale of this manuscript

took place in Prague.

Now, all occult codes in Europe

are based, or at that time,

were based on the work of one man,

the bishop of Johannes Trithemius of Sponheim,

who wrote a book called the Stenographica,

which was published in 1535.

And in it, he explained numerous methods

drawn from Roman sources in his own imagination

for composing codes and encrypting messages.

And all of the occult codes which follow

are based on this.

Dee hand-copied a manuscript of the Stenographica

when he encountered it in Paris.

He was involved with a series of angel contacts

where he elaborated a language called Enochian,

which, like Volnitsch,

is not written in characters of the English alphabet,

but has a peculiar set of characters unique to itself.

Over 3,000 words have been defined in Enochian,

first through Dee's spirit contacts,

and later the Golden Dawn took it up

and further expanded it.

But in Dee's diaries,

which are deposited in the British Museum,

there are 93 pages of encrypted material,

which are columns of numbers.

And I believe that

to eliminate the possibility

that Dee was the author of the Vonage manuscript,

the encoding methods of this material in his diary

need to be computer-analyzed

and then compared to the Vonage material.

The other possibility,

which still involves Dee,

is this person I mentioned,

Edward Kelly,

his companion of many years.

Kelly's entree...

Kelly was a man of the lower classes,

a much younger man,

a scoundrel by all accounts.

And his entree to Dee

was he came to him with a book

which was in code,

which he had claimed to have found

in a crypt of a looted Catholic monastery

in Wales.

This was during the period

just after Henry VIII's break with Rome.

And he called this book

The Gospel of St. Dunstable.

And Dee worked on the decoding of it.

But we lose sight of that book

and no known copy of it,

no copy of it exists

so far as we know.

But Arthur Dee,

John Dee's son,

in his diary

talks about how

in the period

before Dee and Kelly

went to Europe,

his father spent a great deal of time

studying a book

which was covered all over

with hieroglyphics.

And I believe

one of two things,

I mean,

this is what seems reasonable to me,

that either Dee and Kelly

ponied up

a phony manuscript

which they sold

into the court of Ruth

because they were poor.

There's no question about it.

I mean,

these guys had come

to the end of their ropes.

I believe only John Dee

is the only man

who could have produced

the Vonage manuscript

if it's contemporaneous

with him.

Either that

or there is actually

some truth

to this strange story

about Kelly

bringing a book

to Dee

that he had found in Wales.

And in that case,

Welch

and computer analysis

of Welch

and looking at Welch

as the possible

basic text

of the Vonage manuscript

should be done.

And this has never been done.

So I'm seeing

a further advance

in Vonage studies

logically demands

an analysis

of the codes

in John Dee's diaries

in a true

and faithful relation

and analysis

of Welch

in relationship

to the known

internal grammar

of the Vonage manuscript.

And there are

other angles

on it.

Let me think.

What would you like

to do with it?

Well, I would like

to know

what it says.

At first,

it sounds

very mysterious

and you actually

reach out

toward the idea

that the reason

the Vonage manuscript

can't be read

is because

it is not

in code

at all.

It simply

is in a

non-human language.

It's like

an object

from another dimension

which just,

you know,

here it is.

it cannot

be decoded

because

the bridge

is too great.

But another

possible problem

is perhaps

modern people,

modern cryptographers

who deal with codes

are overconfident

of their ability

to break

any code.

Perhaps

there is just

some weird

quirky way

in which

this code

is composed

that it would

forever elude

your effort

to decoding.

I mean,

for instance,

what if

somewhere there

exists a set

of grids

which if

laid over

the pages

in a certain

way

caused

the part

of the Vonage

script

which could

then be

subjected

to normal

methods

of decoding

and would

quickly reveal

its grammar.

What does

it look like?

What does

the Vonage

manuscript

look like?

It's a small

book,

ten by seven

inches

and probably

about two

and a half

inches thick.

These

watercolor

drawings

are

extraordinarily

peculiar.

I mean,

especially

for that

period

because

all herbals

of which

there were

only about

50 or so

in existence

at that

time

drew from

a common

pool of

imagery

which went

back to

the herbals

of

Dioscorides

and that

kind of

thing.

point

in time

and yet

the Vonage

manuscript

is utterly

unique.

It's

completely

peculiar.

What are

the ingredients

of the

inks?

Well,

none of

this has

been looked

at and

should be

looked at.

This is

another thing.

A chemical

attack on

the manuscript

itself should

be mounted.

See,

Newbery,

the guy

who advanced

a decipherment

in the

20s,

he believed

because a

letter

accompanied

it that

said it

was a

Bacon

manuscript,

a Roger

Bacon,

and this

also points

at D

because D

was under

the patronage

of the

Earl of

Northumberland

and he

looted a

number of

monasteries

where there

were large

Baconian

libraries

and in

fact D

had 53

Baconian

manuscripts

in his

possession

catalogued

in his

library

at

Mortlake

only 41

of those

texts are

known to

exist in

any form

at all

today.

His

library

was

burned

while he

was

in

Europe.

It

was

burned

by a

mob

incited

against

this

wizard

and

so

it

may

but

so

Newbery

believed

then that

it

was

a

Baconian

manuscript

But when

you

look at

it

13th century

everything

about it

marks it

and Bacon

of course

was 13th

century

so it's

clearly

there are

many other

angles

I mean

like D

is

implicated

in the

Rosicrucian

conspiracy

he

was definitely

involved at

the very

beginning

his book

the hieroglyphic

monad

served as

a model

for the

two primary

Rosicrucian

documents

the Fama

and the

Confessio

which were

released

secretly

in the

early

17th

century

and

it all

was coming

from

central

Europe

from

Bohemia

and

Prague

the

court

of

Frederick

the

Elector

Palatine

of

Bohemia

and

this

guy

Rudolf

II

of

Bohemia

this

court

these

were

the

alchemical

courts

these

were

where

the

alchemical

presses

were

operating

and

this

Protestant

alchemical

enlightenment

was

taking

place

that

the

coming

of

the

Thirty

Years

War

and

the

collapse

of

the

Winter

King

and

Queen

obliterated

this

hope

this

is a

very

complicated

moment

in

European

history

collapse

of the

Winter

King

and

Queen

yes

this

was

an

incident

you

see

Frederick

the

Elector

Palatine

of

Bohemia

who

was

the

patron

of

all

these

alchemical

presses

and

alchemists

wedded

the

daughter

of

James

the

First

of

England

whose

name

was

Elizabeth

and

he

this

was

around

and

he

thought

that

by

wedding

the

daughter

of

the

King

of

England

he

was

getting

the

nod

from

the

King

of

sons

to

a

Habsburg

Spanish

Catholic

Empress

to

balance

it

out

and

he

was

appalled

when

Frederick

the

Elector

began

to

move

on

this

alchemical

revolution

well then

when

Rudolf

of

Bohemia

the

guy

who

bought

the

Vonich

manuscript

when

he

died

there

was

actually

a

set

of

German

princes

who

by

election

would

choose

his

successor

and

they

chose

Frederick

and

his

queen

Elizabeth

the

daughter

of

James

and

they

moved

from

Heidelberg

to

Prague

and

ruled

in

the

winter

of

and

but

by

May

of

the

Habsburgs

had

mounted

an

army

and

they

killed

she

fled

it

was

actually

an

amazing

moment

in

European

history

Michael

Meyer

who

was

one

of

the

great

alchemists

of

that

period

died

in

the

streets

of

Prague

in

that

siege

and

one

of

the

young

French

soldiers

in

this

Habsburg

army

was

the

year

old

René

Descartes

off

soldiering

and

sowing

his

wild

oats

this

is

the

period

out

of

which

this

manuscript

emerges

a

throne

of

England

and

at

the

same

time

pursuing

his

own

peculiar

interest

in

angel

communication

and

astrology

and

Kabbalah

and

all

these

things

and

the

Vonich

manuscript

is indicative

of this

paradoxical

state

of

people

had

and

it

would

be

very

interesting

to

know

what

it

says

I

mean

it

looks

very

promising

after all

John

D

was

definitely

the

preeminent

intellect

of his

time

and

the

fact

that

he

may

have

faked

this

to

pay

the

bills

I

would

bet

that

even

at

that

there

is

sense

embedded

in

it

somewhere

but

the

key

is

D

and

D

and

the

lines

of

research

which

study

of

his

life

would

suggest

the

well

changel

the

diary

codes

all

this

are

you

pursuing

it

I'm

advising

a group

of

people

in

Santa

Cruz

computer

people

and

just

interested

people

and

my

voice

is

one

of

several

but

definitely

it's

one of

the

great

oddities

of

human

thought

and

not

much

heard

of

because

it

simply

is

an

elegant

enigma

and

so

concludes

the

interview

with

Terrence

McKenna

in

since

that

time

a

book

composed

of

interviews

by

Terrence

and

various

other

people

including

this

one

called

The

Archaic

Revival

has

been

put

about

the

Vonage

manuscript

and

he

writes

on

page

of

that

book

The

Archaic

Revival

and

there

the

matter

rested

until

and

might

have

rested

forever

but

for

the

questing

curiosity

of

one

man

enter

Dr.

Leo

Levitov

author

of

Solution

of

the

Vonage

manuscript

a

manual

for

the

Endura

Rite

of

the

Cathari

heresy

the

cult

of

Isis

Levitov

thesis

is

that

the

Vonage

is

nothing

less

than

the

only

surviving

primary

document

of

the

great

heresy

that

arose

in

Italy

and

flourished

in

the

Languedoc

until

ruthlessly

exterminated

by

the

Albigensian

crusade

in the

1230s

very

catharite

faith

and

all

the

knowledge

we

do

have

of

it

is

second

hand

obtained

from

the

records

of

the

inquisition

whose

task

was

the

destruction

of

the

cathar

society

Levitov's

translation

if

substantiated

would

throw

new

light

on

the

puzzling

rise

and

the

extermination

of

the

greatest

heretical

challenge

that

the

Roman

church

ever

in

the

bath

who

puzzled

so

many

are

for

levator

a

cathar

sacrament

the

endura

or

death

by

venisection

cutting

a vein

in

order

to

bleed

to

death

in

a

warm

bath

the

plant

drawings

that

refuse

to

resolve

themselves

into

botanically

identifiable

species

are no

problem

for

Levitov

actually

there

is

not

a

the

astrological

drawings

are

likewise

easy

to

deal

with

the

innumerable

stars

are

representative

of

the

stars

in

Isis's

mantle

Levitov's

strong

hand

is

translation

he

asserts

that

the

reason

it

has

been

so

difficult

to

decipher

the

Vonish

manuscript

is

that

it

is

not

encrypted

at

all

but

merely

written

in

a

special

script

and

is

an

adaptation

of

a

polyglot

oral

tongue

into

a

to

whom

this

language

could

be

read

that

is

a

quote

specifically

a

highly

polyglot

form

of

the

medieval

Flemish

with

a

large

number

of

old

French

and

old

high

German

loan

words

good

so

now

we

know

where

there

is

a

danger

for

Levitov

is

relief

although

A.E.

Waite

says

in his

discussion

of the

Cathars

and the

Holy

Grail

the

Grail

mythos

is

like

the

veil

of

Isis

which

no

man

can

rise

rather

than

tolerate

the

suggestion

that

this

nightmare

of

faith

are

behind

it

save

for

the

Waite

lucky

turn

of

phrase

no

commenter

ancient

or

modern

has

ever

breathed

a

word

concerning

Isis

in

connection

with

the

Cathars

at

one

point

became

a

focus

of

latter

day

occultists

but

not

even

their

literature

mentioned

Isis

Levitoff

is

almost

casual

in

his

presentation

of

his

work

questioning

at

one

point

whether

now

that

he

has

figured

out

how

to

translate

the

manuscript

it

is

raised

is

to

be

seen

as

a

primary

source

showing

the

Cathars

to

be

not

at

all

what

we

have

come

to

think

of

them

students

of

Gnosticism

paganism

and the

goddess

will

have

to

digest

this

new

slant

on

the

role

of

the

Cathars

as

for

what

the

manuscript

actually

says

it

is

a

gloomy

and

repetitive

work

made

partly

so

by

Levito's

decision

to

at

its

most

lyrical

the

translation

is

quite

interesting

so

here

it

is

presented

in

this

book

by

Terence

the

person

who

is

knowledgeable

about

aid

knows

there

is

only

one

way

to

treat

agonizing

pain

he

treats

each

one

by

putting

them

through

the

endura

it

is

the

one

way

that

helps

death

not

everyone

knows

how

to

assist

the

one

with

pain

the

one

who

is

with

death

and

does

not

die

will

have

pain

but

those

who

have

such

pain

of

death

need

his

help

he

understands

the

need

he

is

also

aware

that

the

person

who

needs

help

does

not

know

that

he

says

he

says

he

is

the

he

was

aware

of

H.J.

Werner's

the

Albigensian

heresy

or

W.L.

Wakefield's

heresy

crusade

and the

inquisition

in southern

France

he states

that the

Vonage

manuscript

is

the only

primary

catharite

document

in

existence

however

A.E.

Wake

his

holy

grail

mentions

quote

there

is

fortunately

one

fragmentary

record

of

Albigensian

belief

which

has

survived

I

refer

to

the

cathar

ritual

of

lions

which

is

now

well

known

having

been

published

in

by

Mr.

F.C.

Coinbear

end of

quote

Wake

goes on

to mention

that part

of the

lion's

codex

contains

quote

certain

prayers

for the

dying

unquote

the

codex

is

in

language

docked

does

it

resemble

the

Vonage

material

we

are

not

told

if

Levitoff

is

right

we

modern

simply

overrate

the

sophistication

of our

code

breaking

machinery

and

overlook

the

possibility

that

the

manuscript

was

not

in

code

at

all

Levitoff

fails

to

mention

the

physical

manuscript

yet

it

seems

obvious

that

attempt

to

confirm

the

13th

century

origin

date

for

the

manuscript

if

the

manuscript

was

written

before

then it

is

older

than

was

claimed

by

even

the

adherence

of

the

Roger

Bacon

theory

of

its

authorship

surely

it

would

be

possible

to

determine

whether

the

manuscript

was

written

in

the

that

D

was

involved

in

the

manuscript

finding

its

way

to

Rudolf's

court

until

Levitoff

most

scholars

have

been

confident

in

placing

the

origin

of

the

manuscript

in

the

early

15th

century

therefore

Leo

Levitoff

is to

be

congratulated

he

has

made

a

persuasive

case

and

remain

modest

doing

it

now

we

need

to

hear

from

the

experts

the

medievalists

the

linguists

and

scholars

of

heresy

for

it

will

be

through

the

consensus

and

judgment

of

the

community

of

scholars

that

Levitoff

claimed

to

have

translated

the

world's

most

mysterious

manuscript

will

stand

or

fall

so

ends

this

piece

on

the

Vonage

manuscript

page

of

Terence's

book

The

Archaic

Revival

put out

by Harper

Collins

this

is

Faustin

Bray

for

Sound

Photosynthesis

finishing

the

We

have

the

information

to

this

day

of

September

Thank

you

for

listening

If

you

want

to

have

a

copy

of

this

tape

contact

Sound

Photosynthesis

P.O.

Box

Mill Valley

in California

or the

phone number

is

415-383-6712

Thank

you very

much