1 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,960 Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:13,600 Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, are you welcome to 3 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:15,720 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb 4 00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:18,320 Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and we are back with part 5 00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:21,400 Speaker 1: two of our exploration of the Voytage Manuscript or the 6 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:25,240 Speaker 1: Vantage Manuscript. We've been saying both this medieval manuscript that 7 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:31,000 Speaker 1: has fascinated UH scholars cryptographers for for decades now, or 8 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,959 Speaker 1: actually not just decades, for centuries, but especially since it 9 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:37,720 Speaker 1: was reintroduced to the world around nineteen twelve and has 10 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:41,240 Speaker 1: become the subject of intense interest because it is full 11 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:45,760 Speaker 1: of this text that has not been successfully decoded if 12 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:49,159 Speaker 1: it is in fact a code, or has not been translated, 13 00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:52,560 Speaker 1: if it is in fact a language, accompanied with these 14 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: amazing strange illustrations of alien plants and and women bathing 15 00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:04,040 Speaker 1: in these strange horns with crocodile ten drils. Is this 16 00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:08,000 Speaker 1: absolutely captivating document that is in a library at Yale 17 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:11,119 Speaker 1: now and today. We wanted to go further by exploring 18 00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:14,280 Speaker 1: the history of people trying to understand this document, to 19 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:16,399 Speaker 1: come up with a theory of its origin, or to 20 00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:20,000 Speaker 1: explain what it says if it says anything. Yeah, So again, 21 00:01:20,280 --> 00:01:23,200 Speaker 1: definitely listen to part one if you have not. Absolutely 22 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:25,800 Speaker 1: this is definitely a part one, part two scenario. Yeah. 23 00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:28,119 Speaker 1: I think you'll probably be very confused if you try 24 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:29,920 Speaker 1: to jump in in the middle here, So go back 25 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:33,240 Speaker 1: to part one first. But so I thought we should 26 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:39,319 Speaker 1: start off today by separating the different theories of of 27 00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:43,640 Speaker 1: this manuscript into two basic camps. And then within these 28 00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:47,160 Speaker 1: camps there will be different theories. But the two main camps, 29 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:50,240 Speaker 1: I think we should look at our signal theory and 30 00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:54,440 Speaker 1: noise theory. And so signal theory looks at the Voyage 31 00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:58,440 Speaker 1: manuscript and proposes that there is some underlying meaning to 32 00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:02,000 Speaker 1: the text that it could, at least in theory, actually 33 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:05,680 Speaker 1: be translated to yield a signal signal or a message. 34 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:08,480 Speaker 1: And of course it's not necessarily saying that we have 35 00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:11,280 Speaker 1: understood what the messages, or that we ever will understand 36 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:13,480 Speaker 1: what the messages, but at least in theory it could 37 00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:18,120 Speaker 1: be understood. It says something that's signal theory. Noise theory, 38 00:02:18,200 --> 00:02:22,000 Speaker 1: we would say, proposes that there is no underlying message. 39 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:27,239 Speaker 1: It's just gibberish, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Yeah, And and 40 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:29,080 Speaker 1: an indeed, that does cut to the chase. Either this 41 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:32,360 Speaker 1: is a document that means something or it means nothing, 42 00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:35,919 Speaker 1: and and both are are kind of enthralling possibilities. One 43 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:39,320 Speaker 1: is filled with wonder and old and and gives way 44 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:42,120 Speaker 1: to all sorts of you know, conspiracy theories if you 45 00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:44,280 Speaker 1: gaze into it long enough. And the other is is 46 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:48,359 Speaker 1: kind of equally terrifying that this thing that has captivated 47 00:02:48,480 --> 00:02:53,320 Speaker 1: and just and overwhelmed so many you know, intensely intelligent 48 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:56,440 Speaker 1: and in many cases that you know, very well educated individuals. 49 00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:59,240 Speaker 1: They could old, but it could ultimately be a work 50 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:01,520 Speaker 1: of nonsense, that it's just you know, it's kind of 51 00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:04,480 Speaker 1: like just pure chaos. And there could be multiple reasons 52 00:03:04,520 --> 00:03:06,280 Speaker 1: why it could be a work of nonsense or at 53 00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:09,600 Speaker 1: least nonsense to us. And I think we'll explore these individually, 54 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:11,200 Speaker 1: But first I think we should look at some of 55 00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:16,200 Speaker 1: the possibilities for understanding this document under the signal theory, 56 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:18,640 Speaker 1: the theory that it actually does say something. So what 57 00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:21,320 Speaker 1: would some of these explanations be. Well, one of the 58 00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:24,200 Speaker 1: big theories is that the cipher theory, the idea that 59 00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:27,639 Speaker 1: the text is protected by a letter based cipher. It's 60 00:03:27,639 --> 00:03:30,079 Speaker 1: a very popular approach to trying to figure out what's 61 00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:32,400 Speaker 1: going on with a vantage manuscript. Right, So the idea 62 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:36,520 Speaker 1: could be that it's something like a letter substitution system. 63 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,920 Speaker 1: So these characters that we don't recognize, that you know, 64 00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:42,800 Speaker 1: roughly maybe fifteen to twenty five or up to thirty 65 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:46,200 Speaker 1: characters that are used to make the words in this 66 00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:51,600 Speaker 1: book somehow correspond to letters in a known language, or 67 00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:56,400 Speaker 1: letters in some coded language or or something like that 68 00:03:56,400 --> 00:03:58,880 Speaker 1: that that there's a way of breaking the code and 69 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:03,280 Speaker 1: it detrains and it can be retranslated into an actual language. Ye. 70 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:06,240 Speaker 1: Getting into the idea here that it could be in 71 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:08,520 Speaker 1: a code and it requires a codebook, and since we 72 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:12,000 Speaker 1: don't have the codebook, it's the cryptographers, uh, you know, 73 00:04:12,360 --> 00:04:14,560 Speaker 1: a goal to try and figure out what the code 74 00:04:14,640 --> 00:04:17,039 Speaker 1: might be. Oh okay, So a codebook could mean that 75 00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:20,279 Speaker 1: it wouldn't even necessarily have to be a straight like 76 00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:24,120 Speaker 1: letter substitution type cipher. It could just be that there 77 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:28,120 Speaker 1: are you know, like known translations of certain word forms 78 00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:32,040 Speaker 1: or something like that to other known words. Another possibility 79 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:35,880 Speaker 1: is that it's written in some form of shorthand that 80 00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:40,440 Speaker 1: that we have you know, lost understanding of. There's also uh, 81 00:04:40,839 --> 00:04:44,839 Speaker 1: the the idea of steganography. This is the idea that 82 00:04:44,880 --> 00:04:48,719 Speaker 1: the text itself is meaningless, but key signs would indicate 83 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:54,640 Speaker 1: hidden useful information, like little details on the illustrations or 84 00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:57,840 Speaker 1: the text itself, or some combination. Um. This would be 85 00:04:57,920 --> 00:04:59,640 Speaker 1: kind of, like, I guess, kind of like a you know, 86 00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:03,720 Speaker 1: a cheap spy novel. Version of this is like counting 87 00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:06,359 Speaker 1: the dotted eyes on a page sort of thing, and 88 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:09,240 Speaker 1: that tells you something. Sure. Yeah. Another variation that is 89 00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:12,440 Speaker 1: brought up is that you could obtain the necessary info 90 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:16,320 Speaker 1: info by placing a plate um over the page with 91 00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:20,520 Speaker 1: spaces in that plate to reveal the important characters. Oh yeah, okay, 92 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:22,480 Speaker 1: so this would be you know, like one of those 93 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:25,440 Speaker 1: uh uh, you know, decode or ring kinds of things. 94 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:28,080 Speaker 1: Oh no, that that actually I think is letter substitution. 95 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:31,840 Speaker 1: There are there are codes like this like this in 96 00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:34,400 Speaker 1: toys and stuff that you can buy that like, you 97 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:36,560 Speaker 1: put a plate over it's got certain holes on, and 98 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:38,840 Speaker 1: you read the letters that appear in the holes. Right. 99 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:41,360 Speaker 1: And it's my understanding that if if those plates were 100 00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:43,680 Speaker 1: random enough, that in and of itself could make it 101 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:47,880 Speaker 1: extremely difficult, if not impossible, to crack the code. Uh 102 00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:51,080 Speaker 1: you know the vantage managecript. Sure, but then there are 103 00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:54,240 Speaker 1: other theories that are less about code and that might 104 00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:56,640 Speaker 1: still present to us as codes, but maybe it wasn't 105 00:05:56,680 --> 00:05:58,800 Speaker 1: intended as a code. Yeah. Like a big one is 106 00:05:58,839 --> 00:06:01,600 Speaker 1: that it is some form of natural language that has 107 00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:06,440 Speaker 1: been forgotten in various possibilities from Eurasia have been presented. Yea. 108 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:09,359 Speaker 1: So the idea here would just be we've got no 109 00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:12,960 Speaker 1: other documents written in this language or written in this uh, 110 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:17,400 Speaker 1: in this transliteration of the language. Right. And then another idea, 111 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:19,520 Speaker 1: to come back to something we discussed in the last episode, 112 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:23,240 Speaker 1: is that it could be a constructed language, so like 113 00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:26,640 Speaker 1: a language that somebody made up on purpose, like Klingon 114 00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:30,080 Speaker 1: or doth Rocky, but the fifteenth century version of that 115 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:34,000 Speaker 1: right now. And now, another intriguing idea, and this was 116 00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:39,240 Speaker 1: apparently presented by Jerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill, that it 117 00:06:39,279 --> 00:06:43,320 Speaker 1: could be a what is what is called a glossal alia. Yeah, 118 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:46,360 Speaker 1: so this would have been essentially like a work that 119 00:06:46,480 --> 00:06:50,120 Speaker 1: is a stream of consciousness, work that is created via 120 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:54,400 Speaker 1: speaking in tongues, similar to the work of Christian mystic 121 00:06:54,640 --> 00:06:57,880 Speaker 1: Hildegard of Bingen. Yeah, this would be uh, I mean 122 00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:00,560 Speaker 1: you could look at it as a form of automatic writing, 123 00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:03,440 Speaker 1: you know that that's so there there could be a 124 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:08,400 Speaker 1: this could be a weird transcription of spoken gloss alia 125 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:11,520 Speaker 1: like speaking in tongues, or it could be a written 126 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:14,000 Speaker 1: version of it. Directly, it would be kind of weird 127 00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:18,400 Speaker 1: if it was a transliteration of sounds made orally by 128 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:21,880 Speaker 1: gloss alia into a script that didn't exist anyway. But 129 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:25,040 Speaker 1: you can imagine it's certainly being like automatic writing of 130 00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:27,120 Speaker 1: some kind of people, that the spirits are writing through 131 00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:30,240 Speaker 1: my hand. And I think that would mean in this 132 00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:32,680 Speaker 1: case that while it might not be meaningless to the 133 00:07:32,680 --> 00:07:36,080 Speaker 1: person writing it, it would be meaningless to any reader. 134 00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:38,880 Speaker 1: So I think this would fall under the noise category 135 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,200 Speaker 1: right that there would be there is no way to 136 00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:45,040 Speaker 1: understand what this says because there is no underlying signal, 137 00:07:45,160 --> 00:07:48,760 Speaker 1: because in this case, presumably the context for the piece 138 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:53,000 Speaker 1: would be very personal and then also would probably deal 139 00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:56,560 Speaker 1: a lot with personal reevaluation of the text. You know'd 140 00:07:56,600 --> 00:07:59,680 Speaker 1: be it's almost like like less than a dream journal 141 00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:02,320 Speaker 1: in a way, you know, where the dream is not 142 00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:06,520 Speaker 1: even even taken and put into the into the form 143 00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:11,280 Speaker 1: of language, but like the dream is is in language. Yeah, 144 00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:13,760 Speaker 1: it would be like if if you had a dream journal, yeah, 145 00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:16,920 Speaker 1: where you never translated it into any real language, You 146 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:20,400 Speaker 1: just made notes about your dreams in random other symbols 147 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:23,080 Speaker 1: that don't mean anything to anybody else. And then, of course, 148 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:26,120 Speaker 1: another big idea is that it's simply a hoax, right, 149 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:29,240 Speaker 1: that it doesn't mean anything. There's no encoded signals, just 150 00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:34,200 Speaker 1: noise because somebody was intentionally trying to create an object 151 00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:38,040 Speaker 1: that would maybe confuse people or trick them, or maybe 152 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:41,840 Speaker 1: just trick them into thinking that it did say something. Right, 153 00:08:41,920 --> 00:08:44,480 Speaker 1: And if and if that is indeed the reason for 154 00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:48,400 Speaker 1: the origin story of this document, then it is still succeeding. 155 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:51,800 Speaker 1: It's it's probably succeeded remarkably well, because if it is 156 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:54,800 Speaker 1: a hoax, it is still tricking people to this day. 157 00:08:55,520 --> 00:08:57,920 Speaker 1: Another idea is that if it were a hoax, if 158 00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:00,840 Speaker 1: it were a completely fraudulent document, you could also make 159 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:02,480 Speaker 1: a case that it was a you know, a way 160 00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:05,120 Speaker 1: to try and make a quick buck off of, you know, 161 00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:08,600 Speaker 1: a cult fanboys with a lot of money, such as 162 00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:11,960 Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Emperor who who purchased it, so we 163 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:14,079 Speaker 1: know it was sold to Rudolph the Second. We think 164 00:09:14,120 --> 00:09:17,720 Speaker 1: around fifteen eighty six. That's when the historical records indicate. 165 00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:21,400 Speaker 1: But the carbon dating of the vellums says that this this, 166 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:25,120 Speaker 1: this parchment at least was probably produced in like the 167 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:28,920 Speaker 1: early fourteen hundreds. Now maybe maybe we think like it's 168 00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:31,880 Speaker 1: possible to parchment the vellums sat around for a long 169 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:34,480 Speaker 1: time before it was made into this document. But if 170 00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:36,960 Speaker 1: you think that the creation of the pages on which 171 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:40,120 Speaker 1: it was written was sometime close to when the document 172 00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:42,840 Speaker 1: was written, then it would have been written long before 173 00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:45,280 Speaker 1: there was a chance to sell it to Rudolph the second, 174 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:46,800 Speaker 1: So it would be hard to imagine that it was 175 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:50,319 Speaker 1: created specifically for that purpose. Now, one of the things 176 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:53,200 Speaker 1: is that people have tried to do various kinds of 177 00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:58,200 Speaker 1: statistical analysis of the text to say, okay, does even 178 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:01,400 Speaker 1: though we can't translate it yet, does this look like 179 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:04,160 Speaker 1: a natural language? Does it look like it could somehow 180 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:08,400 Speaker 1: be decoded to or translated to a natural language? And 181 00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:11,360 Speaker 1: I would say that the answer there is inconclusive. There 182 00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:14,840 Speaker 1: are pieces of evidence pointing both ways, right, Like one 183 00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:19,080 Speaker 1: commonly cited weird feature of the text that really makes 184 00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:22,160 Speaker 1: it look like not a natural language is the fact 185 00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:25,880 Speaker 1: that in some cases words are repeated in line up 186 00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:28,880 Speaker 1: to three times in a row? Is that normal for 187 00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:33,400 Speaker 1: a language? Is that normal? Normal? Normal? Not really really really, 188 00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:38,280 Speaker 1: I mean I don't know poetically lyrically uh shanty shanti shan. 189 00:10:38,400 --> 00:10:41,480 Speaker 1: I mean we can all think of examples from songs 190 00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:45,640 Speaker 1: and poetry and writing where that's interesting. You know, something 191 00:10:45,679 --> 00:10:49,520 Speaker 1: maybe said three times to to add emphasis. But I mean, 192 00:10:49,559 --> 00:10:52,560 Speaker 1: I I am not I'm not the expert comment commenting 193 00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:56,880 Speaker 1: on this from it's saying Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. This does 194 00:10:56,960 --> 00:10:58,840 Speaker 1: remind me though, when I was a kid, sometimes I 195 00:10:58,840 --> 00:11:01,920 Speaker 1: would like trying eight like documents that looked like they 196 00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:04,720 Speaker 1: were you know, magical documents in another language, you know, 197 00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:08,559 Speaker 1: with weird rooms. Um. And actually I do that still sometimes, 198 00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:10,960 Speaker 1: like doodling, you know in the corners of a page, 199 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:13,960 Speaker 1: if I'm supposed to be taking notes on something. Uh. 200 00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:15,880 Speaker 1: But I even even as a kid, I would I 201 00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:17,520 Speaker 1: would look back at what I had done and I 202 00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:20,360 Speaker 1: would realize, what this This doesn't look like language like, 203 00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:24,280 Speaker 1: it doesn't like there's not enough variety in the the 204 00:11:24,280 --> 00:11:27,960 Speaker 1: the signal, little signals that I've I've concocted, or something 205 00:11:28,040 --> 00:11:30,640 Speaker 1: that just essentially pulled out of my head they're like, 206 00:11:30,679 --> 00:11:33,640 Speaker 1: it's not matching up with what one would expect from 207 00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:36,560 Speaker 1: any kind of writing or coded writing system. Yeah, so 208 00:11:36,640 --> 00:11:38,520 Speaker 1: I mentioned in the last episode there was a good 209 00:11:38,600 --> 00:11:41,440 Speaker 1: article about this from two thousand eleven and skeptical inquirer 210 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:45,880 Speaker 1: by the German computer scientist Klaus Schmai who who I 211 00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:48,920 Speaker 1: think he looked at a lot of the statistical qualities 212 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:51,960 Speaker 1: of the text from a cryptography point of view, and 213 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:54,960 Speaker 1: it seemed like he said, yeah, there there's evidence both ways, 214 00:11:55,160 --> 00:11:57,840 Speaker 1: and we can continue to talk about some of that 215 00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,400 Speaker 1: evidence as we go on in the episode. One interesting 216 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,520 Speaker 1: claim I came across. I'm sorry that I feel like 217 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:07,480 Speaker 1: I can't evaluate whether this is a correct claim or not, 218 00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:10,560 Speaker 1: but at least it's a claim that's made against the 219 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:14,479 Speaker 1: noise theory or any theory recommending an interpretation of nonsense. 220 00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:18,840 Speaker 1: Is that the document uh at least appears to follow 221 00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:23,880 Speaker 1: something called Ziff's law, which concerns the statistical distribution of 222 00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:27,360 Speaker 1: words and natural languages. So basically, Ziff's law claims that 223 00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:31,160 Speaker 1: in any natural language, the frequency with which a word 224 00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:35,120 Speaker 1: is used will be directly proportional to how how high 225 00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:37,920 Speaker 1: it ranks in the ranking of most common words. So 226 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:40,679 Speaker 1: the first most common word will be used twice as 227 00:12:40,679 --> 00:12:43,480 Speaker 1: often as the second most common word, three times as 228 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:46,040 Speaker 1: often as the third most common word, and so forth. 229 00:12:46,400 --> 00:12:49,280 Speaker 1: Now this isn't exactly law in like the physical or 230 00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:52,120 Speaker 1: mathematical sense, but for some reason it does appear to 231 00:12:52,160 --> 00:12:56,440 Speaker 1: hold true for all or almost all natural languages. And 232 00:12:56,520 --> 00:12:59,280 Speaker 1: so if and and the document appears to match this. 233 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:01,520 Speaker 1: So like if you look at it from a Ziff's 234 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:04,360 Speaker 1: law distribution, it lines up pretty close. So if the 235 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:07,559 Speaker 1: frequency count of words in this document follows this law, 236 00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:10,760 Speaker 1: if that is, if that claim is correct, meaning it 237 00:13:10,760 --> 00:13:14,640 Speaker 1: has a similar distribution of words to real documents in 238 00:13:14,679 --> 00:13:17,319 Speaker 1: real languages. That seems to make it a little harder 239 00:13:17,320 --> 00:13:20,120 Speaker 1: to believe it's just total nonsense generated but out of 240 00:13:20,160 --> 00:13:24,679 Speaker 1: somebody's head. Another thing is that different words appear with 241 00:13:24,840 --> 00:13:28,000 Speaker 1: different frequencies in different sections. So remember we've got these 242 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:31,120 Speaker 1: different sections of the document, like the astrological stuff versus 243 00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:34,720 Speaker 1: the herbal stuff, and so you have some words that 244 00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:38,160 Speaker 1: might appear in the supposed astrological section but not in 245 00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:41,440 Speaker 1: the plants section, and vice versa. This would I think 246 00:13:41,480 --> 00:13:44,280 Speaker 1: be expected if these were written in a real language 247 00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:46,120 Speaker 1: with a real message, like you would have maaze. You 248 00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:49,120 Speaker 1: would probably expect the words star to appear in the 249 00:13:49,160 --> 00:13:52,240 Speaker 1: astrological section, but not in the plants section. So, just 250 00:13:52,400 --> 00:13:56,599 Speaker 1: looking at the symbols, the frequency distribution of symbols and 251 00:13:56,920 --> 00:13:59,800 Speaker 1: how they break out, and how well they resemble a 252 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:02,559 Speaker 1: real language, it seems like you can push us kind 253 00:14:02,559 --> 00:14:05,320 Speaker 1: of in both directions that we don't get a clear 254 00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:09,640 Speaker 1: reading from either way. From that, and then and again, 255 00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:13,840 Speaker 1: this just comes back to what makes this document so mysterious. 256 00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:17,520 Speaker 1: It's so resistant to unraveling. So and a number of 257 00:14:17,640 --> 00:14:20,920 Speaker 1: theories have been put put forth for the origins and 258 00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:23,680 Speaker 1: the true nature of the text. Uh, you know, so 259 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:29,800 Speaker 1: much so that in when American cryptologist and computer programmer married, 260 00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:34,000 Speaker 1: the Imperio composed the Voltage Manuscript and Elegant Enigma for 261 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:36,400 Speaker 1: the U. S Military, which is commissioned by the US 262 00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:40,880 Speaker 1: Military Cryptography. I mean, that's a yeah, of massive state importance. 263 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:42,680 Speaker 1: It is. Yeah. So this is not like some sort 264 00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:45,920 Speaker 1: of weird you know, Area fifty one type of Shenanigan 265 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:49,440 Speaker 1: going on here. But in this uh, this paper, which 266 00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:52,000 Speaker 1: is readily available online, you can find a PDF of 267 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:55,680 Speaker 1: the full thing. She admits that she quote unwittingly retraced 268 00:14:55,760 --> 00:15:00,400 Speaker 1: the steps of all my predecessors, rediscovering their sources, peating 269 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:04,560 Speaker 1: their experiments, growing excited over the same promising leads that 270 00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:08,360 Speaker 1: excited them, and learning only later that all these things 271 00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:12,560 Speaker 1: had already been tried and had failed, often several times. 272 00:15:13,160 --> 00:15:15,880 Speaker 1: And I found that to just be very, very fitting, 273 00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:18,560 Speaker 1: because this does seem to be a theme, uh is 274 00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:21,520 Speaker 1: that you know, certainly in the last century. Well, it's 275 00:15:21,520 --> 00:15:23,880 Speaker 1: not hard to see why. Again, this is like it's 276 00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:27,760 Speaker 1: sort of the holy grail of of of decoding, right, yeah, yes, 277 00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:30,360 Speaker 1: it's the mount Everest of code breaking. If you could 278 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:32,840 Speaker 1: crack it, you'd be you would be like the hottest, 279 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,560 Speaker 1: you know, code cracker in the world. Yeah. And so 280 00:15:35,680 --> 00:15:38,640 Speaker 1: code crackers have have tried, have taken a shot at it. 281 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:41,840 Speaker 1: Linguists have have have taken a shot at it. Various 282 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:45,920 Speaker 1: scholar all manner of scholars, amateurs, and of course outright 283 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:50,080 Speaker 1: quacks have taken taken their hand to the Vantage Manuscript. 284 00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:52,000 Speaker 1: I think we alluded to this in the last episode, 285 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:54,520 Speaker 1: but the Internet is full of people who claim to 286 00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:57,600 Speaker 1: have decoded the Voltage Manuscript to the point where when 287 00:15:57,640 --> 00:15:59,400 Speaker 1: we were preparing for the episode, I mean a lot 288 00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:02,000 Speaker 1: of these were just like, you know, somebody in the 289 00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:05,200 Speaker 1: last year or two has published a you know, a 290 00:16:05,280 --> 00:16:08,640 Speaker 1: YouTube video or or an article somewhere where they're like, 291 00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:11,520 Speaker 1: I did it. I cracked it. Here's the answer. And 292 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:13,880 Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know. Maybe one of these people 293 00:16:13,920 --> 00:16:16,880 Speaker 1: actually did and it just hasn't really been analyzed or 294 00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:19,200 Speaker 1: reported on yet. I have no way of knowing because 295 00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:21,760 Speaker 1: I don't have an expertise obviously in the relevant fields, 296 00:16:22,040 --> 00:16:24,960 Speaker 1: so I can't like evaluate it on my own. But 297 00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:28,000 Speaker 1: it's funny, like there's so many people trying and claiming 298 00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:30,680 Speaker 1: to have done it that you somebody could have done 299 00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:32,440 Speaker 1: it and we might not even know for a while 300 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:34,920 Speaker 1: because it would just get lost in the sea of 301 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:37,520 Speaker 1: of of all these claims. All right, on that note, 302 00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:39,440 Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, 303 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:45,160 Speaker 1: we're going to discuss the possibility, uh pretty much discredited 304 00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,800 Speaker 1: possibility that Roger Bacon actually had a hand in creating this. 305 00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:52,720 Speaker 1: Thank you, all right, we're back. Time to talk about 306 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:56,240 Speaker 1: Mr Bacon. Now, you remember from the last episode the 307 00:16:56,520 --> 00:16:59,880 Speaker 1: it came with a certificate of authenticity. Originally, when rude 308 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:02,920 Speaker 1: Off the Second the Holy Roman Emperor bought this U 309 00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:07,280 Speaker 1: bought the Voytage manuscript for six hundred ducats or Ducket's 310 00:17:07,560 --> 00:17:09,880 Speaker 1: he it came along with a letter that said, well, 311 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:12,920 Speaker 1: by the way, Roger Bacon made this. Yeah. And according 312 00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:16,200 Speaker 1: to Josephine Livingstone, who wrote a really nice piece in 313 00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:18,200 Speaker 1: The New Yorker about this, actually a couple of pieces. 314 00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:19,960 Speaker 1: One was kind of a follow up where she talked 315 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:24,840 Speaker 1: about just internet fascination with the Voytage manuscript. She points out, yeah, 316 00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:27,160 Speaker 1: that this does not seem to be the case though, 317 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:29,639 Speaker 1: uh though it was a kind of a popular idea 318 00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:32,840 Speaker 1: for a while, or it is like repopularized and you know, 319 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:37,360 Speaker 1: well before the carbon dating actually took place. But one 320 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:41,440 Speaker 1: William Romaine new Bold, a professor of intellectual and moral 321 00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:46,280 Speaker 1: philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He argued in favor 322 00:17:46,320 --> 00:17:50,320 Speaker 1: of the Bacon origin, believing it to be an anagrammed 323 00:17:50,760 --> 00:17:58,240 Speaker 1: micrographic shorthand it required transposition, abbreviation, and microscopic notation. Yeah, 324 00:17:58,560 --> 00:18:02,560 Speaker 1: his method, from what I've read, was a little over 325 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:05,879 Speaker 1: the I mean it's like he was like looking inside 326 00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:12,240 Speaker 1: the characters to see little micro like strokes of ink 327 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:17,639 Speaker 1: that may have indicated actual letters or abbreviations. Of word phonemes, 328 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:21,040 Speaker 1: and so his his method of decoding it, which he 329 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:25,760 Speaker 1: claimed was successful, was incredibly complicated. Yeah, but he claimed 330 00:18:25,760 --> 00:18:28,600 Speaker 1: that he had translated, and he provided all these details 331 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:31,439 Speaker 1: like drawing it into various you know, other writings and 332 00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:35,359 Speaker 1: ideas of Bacon. And he was apparently a brilliant individual. 333 00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:39,760 Speaker 1: But but no one could take his solution and reproduce 334 00:18:40,080 --> 00:18:42,919 Speaker 1: the same results using these methods. Right, it required so 335 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:46,879 Speaker 1: many subjective judgment calls about what he was seeing on 336 00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:50,159 Speaker 1: the page in these micro notation marks, and what that 337 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:55,400 Speaker 1: was supposed to correlate to. Yeah. Medieval medievalist John Matthews Manly, 338 00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:59,280 Speaker 1: one of the the Army's chief cryptologists during World War One, 339 00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:03,800 Speaker 1: conclude did that the quote decipherments were not discoveries of 340 00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:07,199 Speaker 1: secret hidden of secrets hidden by Roger Bacon, but the 341 00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:11,679 Speaker 1: products of new Bold's own intense enthusiasm and his learned 342 00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:16,359 Speaker 1: and ingenious subconscious. According to Schmay's article and Skeptical enquire 343 00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:20,160 Speaker 1: new Bold's translation had revealed that Roger Bacon already had 344 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:23,560 Speaker 1: a telescope in the thirteenth century, predating the known invention 345 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:26,119 Speaker 1: of the telescope in the first decade of the sixteen 346 00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:29,639 Speaker 1: hundreds by like centuries, and that Bacon had used this 347 00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:33,040 Speaker 1: telescope to discover the spiral structure of the Andromeda galaxy. 348 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:35,720 Speaker 1: It's just hard to believe though, that like you could 349 00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:41,440 Speaker 1: generate generate text that complex, you know, just by subjective 350 00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,560 Speaker 1: interpretations of tiny things. And then of course, as we're saying, 351 00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:47,760 Speaker 1: like nobody else could could come up with the same 352 00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:51,280 Speaker 1: translations based on what he had. So I don't know, 353 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:54,400 Speaker 1: it just seems like he was he was looking for 354 00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:57,040 Speaker 1: the text he wanted to find, almost like like it 355 00:19:57,119 --> 00:20:02,760 Speaker 1: spells like new Bold is great. Yeah, you know, another great, interesting, 356 00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:06,320 Speaker 1: insightful description of of this. Uh. This incident with new 357 00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:09,920 Speaker 1: Bold comes from Terence McKenna, who wrote about the manuscript 358 00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:13,239 Speaker 1: for Nosis magazine in nine eight in what is, by 359 00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:17,480 Speaker 1: the way, a purely historical linguistic article that has nothing 360 00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:19,840 Speaker 1: to do with any of his writings on psychedelics, although 361 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,240 Speaker 1: I can absolutely see why McKenna would be interested in 362 00:20:22,320 --> 00:20:26,040 Speaker 1: the subject because it's this it's this manuscript that seems 363 00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:28,800 Speaker 1: to sit at the intersection of primitive science and magic 364 00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:32,720 Speaker 1: and plants. Yeah. Uh, this, this particular article is you 365 00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:35,440 Speaker 1: can find it online in PDF form. It's also collected 366 00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:38,280 Speaker 1: in the archaic revival. It is you know, dated. It's 367 00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:42,639 Speaker 1: so he was written prior to carbon dating. But he 368 00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:45,359 Speaker 1: sums up the new Bold case by saying, quote, the 369 00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:48,240 Speaker 1: problem with all of this was no one else could 370 00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:51,679 Speaker 1: extract the same plain text using Professor Newbold's method. It 371 00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:54,800 Speaker 1: involves so many choices from pools of letters at every 372 00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:57,800 Speaker 1: given point along the way that one could demonstrate that 373 00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:00,399 Speaker 1: hundreds of different messages could be extract it from the 374 00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:05,480 Speaker 1: same passages. Nubold died a broken man, disgraced, his career shattered. 375 00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,800 Speaker 1: He had gone too far, and the Vontage manuscript had 376 00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:13,280 Speaker 1: claimed its first victim. Now McKenna is not actually arguing 377 00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:16,040 Speaker 1: that there's a curse on the document or anything here, 378 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:18,159 Speaker 1: but I think he does get a little magic here 379 00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:25,439 Speaker 1: with it. Later on, I mean time Will talks in 380 00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:27,840 Speaker 1: this particular paper. He doesn't really tie it into any 381 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:32,960 Speaker 1: of his more um you know, spiritual shamanistic ideas. It's 382 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,280 Speaker 1: it's ultimately pretty straightforward, though again a dated piece because 383 00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:40,399 Speaker 1: when it was written, um but but but but he 384 00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:42,679 Speaker 1: does touch in this on this idea of it claiming 385 00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,800 Speaker 1: its first victim, on a pattern that one sees to 386 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:49,480 Speaker 1: this very day in vontage research. It draws so many 387 00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:52,119 Speaker 1: people in and certainly, while there are quacks and conspiracy 388 00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:54,280 Speaker 1: theory makers in the mix, you also see a lot 389 00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:58,480 Speaker 1: of very intelligent, educated, and disciplined people diving into the 390 00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:02,160 Speaker 1: text and initially claiming victory, only to realize that they 391 00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:04,520 Speaker 1: two have failed to see through its mysteries and and 392 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:07,960 Speaker 1: in some cases are kind of broken on the manuscript. Again. Yeah, 393 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:09,760 Speaker 1: mckenn i also tell I wish I could remember the 394 00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:12,440 Speaker 1: name of this, but he tells an anecdote. I don't 395 00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:14,760 Speaker 1: know if this is one of the commonly circulated stories 396 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:18,040 Speaker 1: about the translation attempts, but he tells an anecdote about 397 00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:20,919 Speaker 1: this one aging scholar who was in his nineties who 398 00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:25,000 Speaker 1: claimed to some colleagues to have cracked the code to 399 00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,440 Speaker 1: you know, to understand what it says. And then when 400 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:29,680 Speaker 1: somebody was trying to follow up with him about that, 401 00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:31,840 Speaker 1: they were like, okay, we'll fly down to meet you. 402 00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:33,800 Speaker 1: But by the time they got there, he had died 403 00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,040 Speaker 1: of a heart attempt. Yes, that's something he relates in 404 00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:40,480 Speaker 1: the Noses piece as well. So whatever information that expert 405 00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:42,920 Speaker 1: may have had, it was lost with him when they died. Well, 406 00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:45,800 Speaker 1: I think the the implication is that the expert had 407 00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:48,640 Speaker 1: not actually solved it and just happened to die right 408 00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:51,640 Speaker 1: in time to not get found out. Certainly the more 409 00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:55,320 Speaker 1: likely scenario given everything that we've discussed here. Now I 410 00:22:55,359 --> 00:23:01,480 Speaker 1: mentioned John Matthews Manly earlier, the War One Army cryptologist. Well, 411 00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:06,120 Speaker 1: he ends up turning Army cryptographer William F. Friedman onto 412 00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:10,560 Speaker 1: the manuscript. In William and his wife Elizabeth worked on 413 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:14,000 Speaker 1: the project for forty years. Friedman was considered one of 414 00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:16,480 Speaker 1: the greatest cryptographers of his day. He and his team 415 00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,520 Speaker 1: cracked Japan's Code Purple during World War Two, but they 416 00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,640 Speaker 1: were never able to figure out the manuscript either. UM, 417 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,000 Speaker 1: though Friedman did seem to believe that it might have 418 00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:29,680 Speaker 1: been an attempt to construct an artificial or universal language. 419 00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:34,800 Speaker 1: Robert S. Brumbach, also of Yale University, took a crack 420 00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:38,480 Speaker 1: at it as well and produced some confusing decipherings that 421 00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:43,440 Speaker 1: ultimately lead nowhere UM. But also Alan Turing apparently took 422 00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,720 Speaker 1: a crack at it as well, the King of code breakers, 423 00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:49,720 Speaker 1: and even Turing couldn't make any sense of it. Now. 424 00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:57,120 Speaker 1: Another interesting case here, in one Dr Leo Levitov presented 425 00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:00,359 Speaker 1: the idea that the book was a liturgical man annual 426 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:04,200 Speaker 1: for the the Catherine religion of the Middle Ages, basically 427 00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:08,200 Speaker 1: the only surviving document of the Catherine heresy, a sort 428 00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:12,800 Speaker 1: of Gnostic revival movement was effectively decimated by the Alba 429 00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,640 Speaker 1: GenZ And Crusade of the early thirteenth century, and much 430 00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:19,840 Speaker 1: of our understanding of this religion is lost. But Levitov 431 00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,919 Speaker 1: makes the argument that it's a book of Catherine sacraments, 432 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:27,760 Speaker 1: including a euthan asia practice or perhaps in a ritualized 433 00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,639 Speaker 1: act of suicide known as endura um, which of the 434 00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:36,680 Speaker 1: illustrations is supposed to show that the bathtubs, so yeah. 435 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,919 Speaker 1: He Levitov argues that we're seeing a discussion of the 436 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,280 Speaker 1: vantage in the vantage of endura as a right of 437 00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,840 Speaker 1: ritual opening of the veins and a hot bath as 438 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,440 Speaker 1: a means of consentually ending one's life in a sacred fashion. 439 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,560 Speaker 1: And this ties into like ideas of the Cathy's believing 440 00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:56,080 Speaker 1: like that the physical body was inherently you know, debased, 441 00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,680 Speaker 1: and therefore like the it's part of, you know, the 442 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,919 Speaker 1: of ensuring that a refined soul, you know, travels beyond 443 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,440 Speaker 1: this plane of being, that sort of thing. But then 444 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,840 Speaker 1: he also connects uh, Catholicism to the worship of the 445 00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:13,120 Speaker 1: goddess Isis and he uh, you know, he believed that 446 00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,760 Speaker 1: that it was not encrypted at all the manuscript, but 447 00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:18,520 Speaker 1: it was written in this uh this you know, this 448 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:23,119 Speaker 1: this mixture of medieval Flemish and old Fringe and old 449 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,840 Speaker 1: High German loanwords all kind of you know, formed into 450 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:32,440 Speaker 1: this amalgamation of language. Um. But while some saw promise 451 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,480 Speaker 1: in Levitov's argument, there are plenty of people who had 452 00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,439 Speaker 1: numerous problems with it. A big one is that, uh, 453 00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:44,520 Speaker 1: the enduro was definitely a thing. According to Costas Siamus 454 00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:48,119 Speaker 1: in writing for the Journal Religion and Health in t. Sixteen, quote, 455 00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,639 Speaker 1: the enduro was the prerequisite act of repentance that allowed 456 00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,840 Speaker 1: the fallen soul to return to heaven. But pretty much 457 00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:58,959 Speaker 1: everybody agrees that it was. It was basically a fast. 458 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,920 Speaker 1: It was not a a tool suicide or euthanasia. So 459 00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:06,720 Speaker 1: another one is this whole isis connection. This doesn't pop 460 00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,920 Speaker 1: up anywhere else. And years later, you know, when we'd 461 00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:13,240 Speaker 1: finally get some carbon dating that didn't dismissed. Uh, you know, 462 00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,400 Speaker 1: the idea that a bacon a bacon origin was possible 463 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,000 Speaker 1: and certainly a pre Bacon origin of the text was 464 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:24,520 Speaker 1: equally unlikely or impossible. Yeah, I'd say that's fairly impossible, 465 00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,119 Speaker 1: given that the vellum was not from before the early 466 00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:31,800 Speaker 1: fifteenth century, unless again we're dealing with like a copy 467 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,800 Speaker 1: of an earlier text, which again it doesn't necessarily look like. Now, 468 00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,000 Speaker 1: when we look at other theories as to you know, 469 00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,840 Speaker 1: where it came from, um, you know, they're there have 470 00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,920 Speaker 1: been various and most of them haven't really endured. There 471 00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:48,639 Speaker 1: is the interesting notion that sixteenth century occultist mathematician and 472 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,720 Speaker 1: cryptographer John D along with Edward Kelly, may have been 473 00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,880 Speaker 1: involved with the manuscript in some some form or another. Now, 474 00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:00,240 Speaker 1: this is McKennis theory. He's got a complicated argument meant 475 00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,720 Speaker 1: that that like, yes, it probably was John D and 476 00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:09,040 Speaker 1: Edward Kelly who wrote this document. Yeah, yeah, McKenna did 477 00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:12,480 Speaker 1: present that idea that he though he also readily admitted 478 00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,200 Speaker 1: that it was just more you know, he's more basically 479 00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,640 Speaker 1: a conjecture on his part, and he had he had 480 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,560 Speaker 1: not done rigorous work to back it up, and there 481 00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:24,280 Speaker 1: were numerous potential holes in the situation. But but Kelly 482 00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:28,160 Speaker 1: and and D did dabble in not dabble. They'd more 483 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,639 Speaker 1: than dabble than occult practices. So I mean it's again 484 00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:33,960 Speaker 1: it's speculative, but it's not hard to see somebody like 485 00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,040 Speaker 1: John D coming up with a with a strange constructed 486 00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:42,320 Speaker 1: document that's got kind of magical suggestions in it. Yeah, 487 00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:44,439 Speaker 1: we have two older episodes of stuff to blew your 488 00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:46,879 Speaker 1: mind about John D that will probably be running his 489 00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,720 Speaker 1: vault episodes here in the immediate future. But yeah, he was. 490 00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:52,640 Speaker 1: He was one of the most brilliant minds of his day. 491 00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:57,200 Speaker 1: He was involved in cryptography, spycraft, occultism, and mathematics. Edward 492 00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,840 Speaker 1: Kelly has accompliced here with an it was an occult 493 00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,800 Speaker 1: and and most agree a con man or a scoundrel 494 00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:08,320 Speaker 1: of some fashion. Um it is h It's generally described 495 00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:12,199 Speaker 1: that Edward Kelly's ears were both missing, uh you know, 496 00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:17,040 Speaker 1: his punishment for some deed in his past. But yeah, 497 00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,360 Speaker 1: but between the two of them, I often have sort 498 00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:21,679 Speaker 1: of tried to figure out, like, what what is the energy, 499 00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:25,560 Speaker 1: what is the nature of of their collaboration? You know, 500 00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:27,399 Speaker 1: they're in a way they're they're a perfect duo, but 501 00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,159 Speaker 1: they're also kind of the strange duo where, uh, you 502 00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,720 Speaker 1: know D, there's nobody else like him. And then he wondered, like, 503 00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,840 Speaker 1: to what extent is uh is Kelly like taking advantage 504 00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,760 Speaker 1: of the situation? Um? Or is he able to to 505 00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:45,520 Speaker 1: actually aid D and in some of his various operations here. 506 00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:47,720 Speaker 1: But again, like the interest in cryptography, was there the 507 00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,800 Speaker 1: interest in occultism? They also both wrote of communication with 508 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:56,840 Speaker 1: angels in the Enochian tongue um, which which we have 509 00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:58,880 Speaker 1: an alphabet for, by the way, so and and it 510 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,520 Speaker 1: is not the aucky in language that we see in 511 00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:07,200 Speaker 1: the Vonage manuscript. But certainly if you're looking for people 512 00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,160 Speaker 1: at that time period, people who well, you know, would 513 00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,720 Speaker 1: have been traveling in this area and have had contact 514 00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,120 Speaker 1: with with the Holy Roman Emperor, Um, you know, these 515 00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:20,040 Speaker 1: are these are two prime suspects. Yeah, and I do think, um, 516 00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:21,400 Speaker 1: maybe you were going to get to the s in 517 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,400 Speaker 1: a minute, But I do think it's a decent hypothesis 518 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,400 Speaker 1: that even if John D didn't write this, that John 519 00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:32,000 Speaker 1: D was the source who brought the Voyage Manuscript to 520 00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,000 Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the second Yes in the 521 00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,080 Speaker 1: in the book by Benjamin Woolley, The Queen's Conjuror, which 522 00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,200 Speaker 1: is biography of D that I I read a few 523 00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:44,440 Speaker 1: years back for the Stuff of your Mind episode. The 524 00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:47,720 Speaker 1: author does mention that Rudolph may well have acquired the 525 00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:51,280 Speaker 1: manuscript from D, but he does not entertain or dismissed 526 00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,400 Speaker 1: the idea that D was involved in his production. But 527 00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,920 Speaker 1: but he at least acknowledges that it's it's possible that 528 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,880 Speaker 1: D is the individual who sold it to the Emperor. 529 00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,040 Speaker 1: And if that is the case, like, well then we 530 00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,320 Speaker 1: can we can add one more step, you know, to 531 00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:08,720 Speaker 1: the beginning of the history of the book. But we 532 00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,320 Speaker 1: still don't know where D acquired it, so the mystery remains. 533 00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,120 Speaker 1: But John d is a fascinating individual. I mean, he 534 00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,280 Speaker 1: is essentially not only is he the Merlin of the day, 535 00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,880 Speaker 1: but a lot of our ideas that we associate with 536 00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:27,200 Speaker 1: the mythical and fictional wizard Merlin kind of stem from D. 537 00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:30,840 Speaker 1: I think it's believed that he was the inspiration for 538 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,520 Speaker 1: Shakespeare's Prospero in the Tempest, Right, I've read that as well. 539 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,360 Speaker 1: Uh So, yeah, an astounding figure, you know, to whatever 540 00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:42,360 Speaker 1: degree he was involved with a vantage manuscript. Um, there's 541 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,920 Speaker 1: still plenty of mysterious and wonderful things about about D himself, 542 00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,200 Speaker 1: for instance, to what extent he was involved, uh in 543 00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,400 Speaker 1: in state craft and and and worked as a spy. Like. 544 00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:54,280 Speaker 1: There's some that argue that he was like totally a 545 00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,120 Speaker 1: spy and that many of these occult manuscripts that he 546 00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,800 Speaker 1: was uh, you know, peddling around and discussing occult ideas, 547 00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:05,080 Speaker 1: they were essentially codes for things um and others say that, no, 548 00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,120 Speaker 1: he was more purely on the the occultist end of 549 00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:10,280 Speaker 1: the spectrum. I I my read, and I think this 550 00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:12,240 Speaker 1: has been the read of other commentators, is that it 551 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,320 Speaker 1: is probably somewhere in between, you know, one of these 552 00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,959 Speaker 1: situations where you know, he was definitely fascinating with with 553 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,680 Speaker 1: the occult. He was definitely and I mean he was 554 00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,120 Speaker 1: a poly math, but being a poly math of the 555 00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:29,480 Speaker 1: day and the one that traveled throughout Europe he ended 556 00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:31,760 Speaker 1: up you know, and and also being a devout servant 557 00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:33,959 Speaker 1: to Elizabeth the first you know, he was he was 558 00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,520 Speaker 1: more than happy to engage in a little spycraft from 559 00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,640 Speaker 1: time to time. Another weird connection I believe John D 560 00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:43,400 Speaker 1: is also supposed to be the inspiration for Christopher Marlowe's 561 00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:47,640 Speaker 1: incarnation of Dr faust Us from from of course Dr 562 00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:49,280 Speaker 1: for you know, who makes a deal with the devil 563 00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:53,120 Speaker 1: to get all knowledge and you know, all earthly scientific power. 564 00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:57,440 Speaker 1: And then Christopher Marlowe, who wrote the English play Dr Faustus, 565 00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,800 Speaker 1: was also I believe involved in state often and being 566 00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,960 Speaker 1: a spy. I'm fascinating, all right. So there are various 567 00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,200 Speaker 1: other um origin stories that we're not going to get into, 568 00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:10,720 Speaker 1: but but just to really drive home how this is 569 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,120 Speaker 1: still a thing, How how people are still not, you know, 570 00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:17,080 Speaker 1: not only attempting to crack the Spanish script, but claiming 571 00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,760 Speaker 1: that they did. We should discuss two recent attempts, one 572 00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,520 Speaker 1: extremely recent attempts h to crack it that have also 573 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,720 Speaker 1: fallen short. Yeah, it seems like there's at least one 574 00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:30,440 Speaker 1: claim every couple of years that gets picked up by 575 00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,040 Speaker 1: real like news sites, and then it always kind of like, 576 00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,280 Speaker 1: oh no, never mind. Well, in two thousand seventeen we 577 00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:40,160 Speaker 1: saw just such a case. Um there was a history 578 00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,800 Speaker 1: researcher and television writer by the name of Nicholas Gibbs, 579 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:48,520 Speaker 1: and he published it was published in the Times Literary Supplement. 580 00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,200 Speaker 1: He believed he'd identified quote, a common form of medieval 581 00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,560 Speaker 1: Latin abbreviations often used in medical treatises about herbs, and 582 00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:58,720 Speaker 1: this led him to illustrations in other texts, and he 583 00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,000 Speaker 1: believed resembled those in the Wage manuscript. And so this guy. 584 00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:04,520 Speaker 1: This was widely covered, in large part, of course, because 585 00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:07,440 Speaker 1: it was initially published in the Times Literary Supplement. It 586 00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:10,120 Speaker 1: was picked out by picked up by numerous media outlets, 587 00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:14,720 Speaker 1: including Ours Technica. So and initially at Ours Technica editor 588 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,440 Speaker 1: Annally knew Its wrote quote this is again before it 589 00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:22,840 Speaker 1: became discredited. Quote. Gibbs concluded that it's likely the Vonage 590 00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:26,000 Speaker 1: Manuscript was a customized book, possibly created for one person, 591 00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,800 Speaker 1: devoted mostly to women's medicine. Other medieval Latin scholars will 592 00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:32,760 Speaker 1: certainly want to weigh in, But the sheer uh mondanity 593 00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,080 Speaker 1: of gibbs discovery makes it sound plausible. Okay, So it's 594 00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,680 Speaker 1: always like it helps you with the claim to have 595 00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,080 Speaker 1: decoded something if the message you decoded is not delicious. 596 00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:44,480 Speaker 1: I think it does help the other believability, because I 597 00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,800 Speaker 1: think that's that's ultimately part of the mystery, right And 598 00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,840 Speaker 1: the allure and danger of the mystery is that it 599 00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:51,880 Speaker 1: that it is solved, is it is, It's not going 600 00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,720 Speaker 1: to be ground baking anymore like the groundbreaking and the 601 00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,640 Speaker 1: amazing thing about the Vonage manuscript is not that it 602 00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,880 Speaker 1: contains something definite, but that we just have no ability 603 00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,400 Speaker 1: to grasp what it contains. Right. You'd have to be 604 00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,160 Speaker 1: more suspicious if it says, like, I know, the location 605 00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:10,160 Speaker 1: of the Holy Grail or something. Yeah, but okay, But 606 00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:12,759 Speaker 1: after this piece came out then experts began to weigh 607 00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,920 Speaker 1: in and knew it also wrote an excellent retraction piece, 608 00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:20,320 Speaker 1: uh which you know, citing the various experts who responded 609 00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:24,400 Speaker 1: to that initial Uh Times Literary Supplement paper, and the 610 00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,359 Speaker 1: various experts concluded that while they think the text might 611 00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,319 Speaker 1: actually turn out to be a medical treatise on women's health, 612 00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:34,160 Speaker 1: like that's not impossible, but they think that his translations 613 00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:38,160 Speaker 1: were not grammatically correct, and that, according to Medical Academy 614 00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:41,840 Speaker 1: of America director Lisa Fagan Davis in the Atlantic quote, 615 00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,160 Speaker 1: if they had simply sent it to the Banecki Library, 616 00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,880 Speaker 1: they would have rebutted it in a heartbeat. And this 617 00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,720 Speaker 1: is the library Yale that actually has the vantage script. 618 00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,719 Speaker 1: I think they do wantage scholarship there right, So, um so, 619 00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:56,759 Speaker 1: just I guess that's a little bit of advice out there. 620 00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,239 Speaker 1: If you were an editor potential of any kind of 621 00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:03,800 Speaker 1: publication and you're potentially um publishing something about someone cracking 622 00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,640 Speaker 1: the Vonage manuscript. Um, make a phone call, send an 623 00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,480 Speaker 1: email to the Benneck Library and see if you can 624 00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,640 Speaker 1: get somebody to to to weigh in on it before 625 00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,080 Speaker 1: you publish. Yeah, I think that would be a smart move. Now, 626 00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,360 Speaker 1: have there been any cases this year? Yes, into in 627 00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,359 Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, UM, this one prop popped up. You might 628 00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,920 Speaker 1: have seen this headline Bristol academic cracks Vontage code solving 629 00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:29,560 Speaker 1: century old mystery of a midi of medieval text. And yeah, 630 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:32,040 Speaker 1: I remember seeing this one. I want to say that 631 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,840 Speaker 1: it even popped up on a fairly notable like Science 632 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,920 Speaker 1: Release website that I use and was but then was 633 00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:44,480 Speaker 1: later removed. Dr Gerard Cheshire, research assistant at Bristol University, 634 00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,480 Speaker 1: claimed that it was a therapeutic reference book written in 635 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,840 Speaker 1: a lost language called proto romance, and this article appeared 636 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,279 Speaker 1: on the university's website, but then was later taken down 637 00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:57,680 Speaker 1: after experts chimed in and question the validity of the research. 638 00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:01,239 Speaker 1: And uh another there had I looked. There hasn't been 639 00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:05,040 Speaker 1: like an additional follow up on that, but it would 640 00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,799 Speaker 1: It would seem to be the case that this is 641 00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:11,640 Speaker 1: another situation where, um, you know, someone thought they'd cracked 642 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,040 Speaker 1: it and they had not that they had perhaps, in 643 00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:19,319 Speaker 1: the words of Mary the Imperio, you know, recreated the 644 00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,400 Speaker 1: same steps and missteps of those that came before trying 645 00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,760 Speaker 1: to crack the Vontage Manuscript. And of course, in addition 646 00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:27,400 Speaker 1: to this, like we said, there's just a lot of 647 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:32,040 Speaker 1: baseless speculation surrounding the manuscript. Online, it features into historical 648 00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,520 Speaker 1: conspiracy theory. Yeah, you'll find it on in YouTube, you'll 649 00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:40,200 Speaker 1: find it on various Reddit boards. Um. According to Raymond Clemens, 650 00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,480 Speaker 1: a curator of early books and manuscripts at the Banecki Library, 651 00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,400 Speaker 1: one of the most fun examples that they've run across 652 00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,080 Speaker 1: is that the Vontage Manuscript is an alien is the 653 00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,799 Speaker 1: work of an alien visitor to Earth from the Andromeda 654 00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:55,839 Speaker 1: galaxy who was making notes about our planet and then 655 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:59,239 Speaker 1: dropped their notebook before they return. But wait, why would 656 00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:01,040 Speaker 1: it be notes about our planet if none of the 657 00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:06,920 Speaker 1: plants can be identified? Maybe alien vision, I vision, you know, 658 00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,239 Speaker 1: it's weird. I don't know, maybe they were. There are 659 00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:13,160 Speaker 1: a lot of holes in this theory. Joe's what I'm saying, yeah, 660 00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:14,799 Speaker 1: all right, we need to take one more break, but 661 00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,560 Speaker 1: we will be right back with more. All right, we're 662 00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,760 Speaker 1: back now. We've talked about evidence going in both directions 663 00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,200 Speaker 1: of people who just try to look at the text 664 00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:28,120 Speaker 1: statistically or mathematically as a text and say does it 665 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,440 Speaker 1: look like a text in a real language, even coded 666 00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:35,600 Speaker 1: in a real language, and the answer there is some 667 00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,680 Speaker 1: indications kind of point to yes, and some indications kind 668 00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:41,040 Speaker 1: of point to know. I think one thing I wanted 669 00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:42,960 Speaker 1: to look at now is something that was pointed out 670 00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:46,080 Speaker 1: in that in that Skeptical Enquirer article by Klaus Schmay 671 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,960 Speaker 1: who was who he pointed out some interesting research from 672 00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,800 Speaker 1: the early two thousands by the British linguist Gordon rug 673 00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,360 Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna read this section from SMS article. 674 00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:59,839 Speaker 1: Smy writes quote the British linguist Gordon Rugg is among 675 00:37:59,880 --> 00:38:04,320 Speaker 1: the most reputable voytage researchers. He conducted a most interesting 676 00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:09,200 Speaker 1: cryptological experiment. For his experiment, generated a table with random 677 00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:13,880 Speaker 1: combinations of characters that he used as prefixes, roots, or 678 00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:18,440 Speaker 1: suffixes of new words. He positioned a quadratic stencil like 679 00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:21,719 Speaker 1: the one used for encryption in the sixteenth century over 680 00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,719 Speaker 1: the table. In this manner he obtained a sequence of 681 00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,719 Speaker 1: letters that bore great resemblance to the text of the 682 00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:32,959 Speaker 1: Voyage Manuscript. Rugg's experiment supports the hypothesis that the manuscript 683 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,520 Speaker 1: is nothing but a compilation of meaningless lines and letters, 684 00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,480 Speaker 1: which is of course the hoax hypothesis. And then Schmidt 685 00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:45,440 Speaker 1: also points out a study by the Austrian physicist Andreas 686 00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:48,719 Speaker 1: Shinner that also supports the idea that even though there 687 00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,280 Speaker 1: are some things about this that do look like a text, 688 00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,840 Speaker 1: it's possible like a real text in a real natural language. 689 00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:58,400 Speaker 1: It's possible to generate a text like this without it 690 00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,520 Speaker 1: being based on a real language. And and Shinner's analysis 691 00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,160 Speaker 1: I think was primarily based on the fact that there 692 00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:09,680 Speaker 1: are unnatural regularities in the order of words appearing in 693 00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:14,000 Speaker 1: the manuscript that don't mirror sequences of words that appear 694 00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,400 Speaker 1: in real languages. So I don't think that completely settles it, 695 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:19,600 Speaker 1: But that's more fuel back on the on the fire 696 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,640 Speaker 1: of the side that says, Okay, this is just a 697 00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,080 Speaker 1: hoax document or glossal alia or something something that somebody 698 00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:29,080 Speaker 1: made up and doesn't correlate to real words. That makes sense. 699 00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:31,840 Speaker 1: But and then ultimately this, Yeah, this gives credence to 700 00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:35,640 Speaker 1: just the its power to break those that that desperately 701 00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,480 Speaker 1: seek to find meaning in it. Like it just kind 702 00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,200 Speaker 1: of it almost seems like it does point people to 703 00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,520 Speaker 1: the you know, near the threshold of madness where they 704 00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:46,719 Speaker 1: they make that leap and they say, I've done it, 705 00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,439 Speaker 1: I figured it out, and and believe that they have 706 00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,080 Speaker 1: you know, I mean, uh, none of the none of 707 00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,440 Speaker 1: the individuals that we've we've named here, um, you know, 708 00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:59,120 Speaker 1: from from the Avontage manuscripts. Uh, you know, recent history. 709 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,440 Speaker 1: You know, I don't think any of them have, you know, 710 00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,240 Speaker 1: have have been trying to pull anything over on anyone. 711 00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:06,560 Speaker 1: I think they have. They've reached a point where they 712 00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:10,520 Speaker 1: genuinely think they found the clue they found, you know, 713 00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:14,879 Speaker 1: the missing piece that has enabled us to understand this document. Well. 714 00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:17,319 Speaker 1: As satisfying as it is to solve a puzzle, it 715 00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:21,000 Speaker 1: is equally maddening to work on a puzzle without solving it. 716 00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,640 Speaker 1: And I think that can kind of drive people. It's 717 00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:27,960 Speaker 1: like it creates unreasonable incentives in the mind to toil 718 00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,040 Speaker 1: over a puzzle or a code for so long without 719 00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,000 Speaker 1: breaking it. Like you the desire to have broken it 720 00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:38,000 Speaker 1: becomes incredibly strong. I will say this when a lesson 721 00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,480 Speaker 1: I've taken home from all of this is friends don't 722 00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:44,719 Speaker 1: let friends claim they've cracked the Vontage manuscript. That's right 723 00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:47,359 Speaker 1: if you if you know somebody and they're like, hey, 724 00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:50,160 Speaker 1: you know, I think I've I've translated the Vontage manuscript. 725 00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:52,799 Speaker 1: I'm going public with this tomorrow. You know, talk him 726 00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,160 Speaker 1: down from that. Maybe maybe you know, to ask him 727 00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:59,520 Speaker 1: just to settle down a little and uh and rethink 728 00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,400 Speaker 1: before you go public with this this new translation. I 729 00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,120 Speaker 1: just want to say, though this is not conclusive, from 730 00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:09,000 Speaker 1: that interesting article by by Schmi about his conclusion, just 731 00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:13,280 Speaker 1: his opinion is that it's very likely it's it's possible 732 00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:15,520 Speaker 1: that it's a hoax. Of course, he thinks the author 733 00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,640 Speaker 1: was probably an anonymous artist living in the first half 734 00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,280 Speaker 1: of the fourteen hundreds. Uh, and if it is actually encrypted. 735 00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:24,160 Speaker 1: One thing he points to that I think is interesting 736 00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,279 Speaker 1: is he says it's easier to encrypt a text if 737 00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:31,920 Speaker 1: the encrypted text generates far more characters than the original text. 738 00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:36,160 Speaker 1: So if a fifty thousand character original document was encrypted 739 00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,160 Speaker 1: in a way that generates a hundred and seventy thousand characters, 740 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,040 Speaker 1: then it's easier to see how it could still be 741 00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,000 Speaker 1: hiding its meaning, right if there's there's tons of If 742 00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,040 Speaker 1: there are tons of characters in there that don't code 743 00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,720 Speaker 1: out to anything like, how do you separate the coding 744 00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,120 Speaker 1: letters from the filler letters. So that's a possible explanation 745 00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:54,960 Speaker 1: for if there is a code in there, why it 746 00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,160 Speaker 1: hasn't been cracked. Yet, another thing that he does find 747 00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:00,359 Speaker 1: plausible is he finds it plausible that the is an 748 00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:04,480 Speaker 1: artificial created language. Somebody just made up a language of 749 00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,960 Speaker 1: their own, and that's why it doesn't translate to anything else. 750 00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,040 Speaker 1: Based on whatever. That also seems plausible to me. I 751 00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:15,720 Speaker 1: can imagine this being I don't know, a language unique 752 00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,200 Speaker 1: to one person who was, you know, toiling away in 753 00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,280 Speaker 1: their turret or something in a monastery, or maybe shared 754 00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:23,560 Speaker 1: by a small number of people for some kind of 755 00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:27,439 Speaker 1: esoteric purpose or some kind of a cult purpose maybe, 756 00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,239 Speaker 1: But the key being if it's an invented language rather 757 00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,480 Speaker 1: than a code for an existing language, that would explain 758 00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:36,880 Speaker 1: why it doesn't code out well. Whatever its origins, whatever 759 00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,880 Speaker 1: it's meaning or lack of meaning, it continues to enthrall 760 00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:45,719 Speaker 1: us and perplexus and uh and i'd likely will continue 761 00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:49,160 Speaker 1: to do so. I don't I do not expect that 762 00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:52,040 Speaker 1: will reach the point where we need to you know, 763 00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,239 Speaker 1: add there may be additional you know, arguments, there's some 764 00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:58,239 Speaker 1: new ideas that are brought up. But I am not 765 00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,799 Speaker 1: expecting to see anybody crack this uh in in the future. Yeah, 766 00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:03,319 Speaker 1: I will say, as much as I would like to 767 00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:07,719 Speaker 1: see it cracked, my the walls of my skeptical fortress 768 00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:11,399 Speaker 1: here have been fortified. And I now when I see 769 00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:13,719 Speaker 1: an article, as they do tend to pop up once 770 00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,279 Speaker 1: every year or two, an article about how somebody has 771 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,840 Speaker 1: cracked the Voytage manuscript, I think now I will probably conclude, Okay, 772 00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:24,680 Speaker 1: I bet that's not right. And then then another thing 773 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,160 Speaker 1: about it too, is like if it was cracked, the 774 00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:28,960 Speaker 1: magic would be gone, like the part of the man 775 00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:32,200 Speaker 1: that the whole reason we're enthralled by this document is 776 00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:35,840 Speaker 1: that we don't know what it's meaning or meaninglessness really 777 00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,840 Speaker 1: consists of. Well, it's about it's It's like how you know, 778 00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:40,880 Speaker 1: the best part of a mystery is always the middle. 779 00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:43,440 Speaker 1: It's almost never the end. When you get to the 780 00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:45,640 Speaker 1: end and you find out who done it, it's almost 781 00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,279 Speaker 1: always disappointing because there's only so many ways it can 782 00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:50,719 Speaker 1: go right, I'd say, Actually, though, to tie it back 783 00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,800 Speaker 1: to the subject, one of the only example counter examples 784 00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:55,600 Speaker 1: I can think of is the Name of the Rose, 785 00:43:55,640 --> 00:44:00,359 Speaker 1: where the solution of the mystery is supremely satisfying. Yeah. 786 00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:04,160 Speaker 1: I think there's a strong case to be made there. Yeah. Um. 787 00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,040 Speaker 1: Interesting to the other mystery book that I mentioned, Um, 788 00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:12,239 Speaker 1: the Club Duma by Perez Roverta, also a mystery. That's 789 00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:15,520 Speaker 1: the book that The Ninth Gate was based on. Uh. 790 00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:17,879 Speaker 1: And It's been a while since I've seen The Ninth Gate, 791 00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:21,440 Speaker 1: but I definitely remember enjoying the book. It's a fun little, 792 00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:24,319 Speaker 1: uh you know, ac cult themed filler, a thriller. I've 793 00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:28,000 Speaker 1: never read it. I actually check that out. How's the ending? Um? 794 00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,160 Speaker 1: Pretty good, as I recall, Yeah, it's different from the 795 00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:34,040 Speaker 1: movie again based on my my fading memory of it. 796 00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,359 Speaker 1: But I'd love to close out here with the one 797 00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:41,880 Speaker 1: one more quote from that Terence mckinnipiece from from Mostes magazine, 798 00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,279 Speaker 1: which I think he sums up a lot of the 799 00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:47,920 Speaker 1: like the power and the you know, our fascination with 800 00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:51,200 Speaker 1: this document he said, quote it is a kind of 801 00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:55,920 Speaker 1: Borhesian concept that there must be somewhere an unreadable book, 802 00:44:56,320 --> 00:45:00,239 Speaker 1: and perhaps this is it, the unreadable book. Hence at 803 00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:03,279 Speaker 1: an idea, at the idea that the world is in information. 804 00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,719 Speaker 1: We have cognizance of the world by ordering all of 805 00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,920 Speaker 1: the information we can't we come upon in relation to 806 00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:15,239 Speaker 1: information that we have already accumulated through patterns. An unreadable 807 00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,800 Speaker 1: book in a non English script with no dictionary attached 808 00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:23,360 Speaker 1: is very puzzling. We become like linguistic oysters. We secrete 809 00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,960 Speaker 1: around it, we insist it into our metaphysics, but we 810 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,000 Speaker 1: don't know what it says, which always carries with it 811 00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:33,040 Speaker 1: the possibility that it says something that would unhinge our 812 00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:37,960 Speaker 1: conceptions of things, or that it's real message is its unreadability. 813 00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,960 Speaker 1: It points to the otherness of the nature of information, 814 00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:45,320 Speaker 1: and it is what is called in structuralism, a limit text. Certainly, 815 00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:49,040 Speaker 1: the Vontage Manuscript is the limit text of Western occultism. 816 00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:52,120 Speaker 1: It is truly an occult book, one that no one 817 00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:56,560 Speaker 1: can read the literal meaning of occult. Yeah, it's a 818 00:45:56,640 --> 00:46:00,279 Speaker 1: mystery in the dark, absolutely all right. So there have it, 819 00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,920 Speaker 1: the Vonage Manuscript. Obviously, we would love to hear from 820 00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,520 Speaker 1: everybody out there, because I have you have you cracked it? 821 00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:09,919 Speaker 1: I there's it's very possible we will hear from someone 822 00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,680 Speaker 1: who believes that they have, or at the very least, 823 00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:16,040 Speaker 1: perhaps you can turn us on to some other wild theories. Uh, 824 00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,120 Speaker 1: some of the crazier theories that we didn't get into. Uh, 825 00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,960 Speaker 1: you know, involving it's its origin. Uh yeah, there's there 826 00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,760 Speaker 1: are some other ones we didn't discuss. And what involving 827 00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,719 Speaker 1: like the uh you know what, the various other like 828 00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:33,120 Speaker 1: occult conspiracy theories, the Rosicrucians and stuff. McKenna talks about that. 829 00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,680 Speaker 1: So certainly, if you have idea, have any of those 830 00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:38,920 Speaker 1: ideas you want to chat with us about, uh, you 831 00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:40,640 Speaker 1: can reach out to us. In the meantime, check out 832 00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:42,719 Speaker 1: more episodes of Stuff to Bow Your Mind at Stuff 833 00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,000 Speaker 1: to Well your Mind dot com and make sure that 834 00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,720 Speaker 1: you have subscribed to the podcast. Make sure you subscribe 835 00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:51,239 Speaker 1: to Invention as well. Inventions are in our step by 836 00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,399 Speaker 1: step journey through human techno history and you can find 837 00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,200 Speaker 1: that an Invention pod dot com. Wherever you listen to 838 00:46:57,280 --> 00:46:59,319 Speaker 1: our shows, just make sure that you have rate, rated 839 00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,680 Speaker 1: and reviewed him because that helps us out immensely huge 840 00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,040 Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producers, Maya Cole 841 00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:08,719 Speaker 1: and Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get 842 00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:10,840 Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or 843 00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:13,040 Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, to 844 00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,920 Speaker 1: show us your code, your your method of decoding the 845 00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,560 Speaker 1: Voytage manuscript, you can email us at contact at stuff 846 00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:31,960 Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your 847 00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,200 Speaker 1: Mind is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff Works. 848 00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:36,200 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio is at the 849 00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:39,040 Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 850 00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:39,840 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.