WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Voynich Manuscript, Part 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.080 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:13.240 Time to go into the old vault. Uh. This time 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.280 we're following up the episode that played last Saturday, so 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.479 we're bringing you The Voyage Manuscript, Part two. This was 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:27.440 originally published on September nineteen. We hope you enjoy Welcome 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.120 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:38.080 Heart Radios How Stuff Work. Hey, you welcome to Stuff 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.279 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.720 I'm Joe McCormick, and we are back with part two 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.680 of our exploration of the Voyage Manuscript or the Vantage Manuscript. 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.800 We've been saying both this medieval manuscript that his fascinated 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:55.640 UH scholars cryptographers for for decades now, or actually not 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.200 just decades, for centuries, but especially since it was reintroduced 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.240 to the world around nineteen twelve and has become the 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.760 subject of intense interest because it is full of this 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:10.280 text that has not been successfully decoded if it is 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.600 in fact a code, or has not been translated, if 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.520 it is in fact a language, accompanied with these amazing, 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:24.280 strange illustrations of alien plants and and women bathing in 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:29.000 these strange horns with crocodile ten drils. Is this absolutely 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.400 captivating document that is in a library at Yale now 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.399 and today we wanted to go further by exploring the 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.680 history of people trying to understand this document, to come 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.120 up with a theory of its origin, or to explain 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.200 what it says, if it says anything. Yeah, So again, 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.400 definitely listen to part one if you have not. Absolutely 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.920 this is definitely a part one part two scenario. Yeah, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.320 I think you'll probably be very confused if you try 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.120 to jump in in the middle here, So go back 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.440 to part one first. But so I thought we should 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:03.480 start off today by separating the different theories of of 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.800 this manuscript into two basic camps, and then within these 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.360 camps there will be different theories. But the two main camps, 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.440 I think we should look at our signal theory and 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.640 noise theory. And so signal theory looks at the Voyage 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.600 manuscript and proposes that there is some underlying meaning to 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.200 the text that it could, at least in theory, actually 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.840 be translated to yield a signal signal or a message. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.680 And of course it's not necessarily saying that we have 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.519 understood what the messages, or that we ever will understand 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.720 what the messages. But at least in theory it could 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:42.280 be understood. It says something that's signal theory. Noise theory, 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.200 we would say, proposes that there is no underlying message. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:51.400 It's just gibberish, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Yeah, and and 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:53.240 and indeed that does cut to the chase. Either this 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.520 is a document that means something or it means nothing, 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.040 and and both are are kind of enthralling possibilities and 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.480 is filled with wonder and old and and gives way 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.240 to all sorts of you know, conspiracy theories if you 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.440 gaze into it long enough. And the other is is 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.519 kind of equally terrifying that this thing that has captivated 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.519 and just in overwhelmed so many you know, intensely intelligent 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.600 and in many cases that you know, very well educated individuals. 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.440 They could old, but they could ultimately be a work 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.679 of nonsense. That it's just you know, it's kind of 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.640 like just pure chaos. And there could be multiple reasons 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.440 why it could be a work of nonsense, or at 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.720 least nonsense to us. And I think we'll explore these individually. 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:35.360 But first I think we should look at some of 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:40.360 the possibilities for understanding this document under the signal theory, 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.800 the theory that it actually does say something. So what 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.520 would some of these explanations be. Well, one of the 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.400 big theories is that the cipher theory, the idea that 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.520 the text is protected by a letter based cipher. Uh. 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.000 It's a very popular approach to trying to figure out 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:56.240 what's going on with a vantage manuscript. Right, So the 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:01.080 idea could be that it's something like a letter substitution system. Right. 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.080 So these characters that we don't recognize, that you know, 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.960 roughly maybe fifteen to twenty five or up to thirty 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.360 characters that are used to make the words in this 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:15.760 book somehow correspond to letters in a known language, or 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:20.600 letters in some coded language or or something like that. 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:22.960 That that that there's a way of breaking the code 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.080 and it de tran and it can be retranslated into 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.120 a an actual language. Getting into the idea here that 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.080 it could be in a code and it requires a codebook. 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.880 And since we don't have the codebook, it's the cryptographers, uh, 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.400 you know, a goal to try and figure out what 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:40.880 the code might be. Oh, Okay, So a codebook could 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.880 mean that it wouldn't even necessarily have to be a 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.680 straight like letter substitution type cipher. It could just be 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.360 that there are you know, like known translations of certain 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.400 word forms or something like that to other known words. 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:57.920 Another possibility is that it's written in some form of 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:02.880 shorthand that that we have you know, lost understanding of. 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:08.440 There's also, uh, the the idea of steganography. This is 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.600 the idea that the text itself is meaningless, but key 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:17.360 signs would indicate hidden useful information, like little details on 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.520 the illustrations or the text itself or some combination. Um. 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:23.200 This would be kind of like, I guess, kind of 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.480 like a you know, a cheap spy novel. Version of 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.400 this is like counting the dotted eyes on a page 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.200 sort of thing, and that tells you something. Sure. Yeah. 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.279 Another variation that is brought up is that you could 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:39.080 obtain the necessary info info by placing a plate um 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.240 over the page with spaces in that plate to reveal 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.559 the important characters. Oh yeah, okay, so this would be 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.920 you know, like one of those uh uh, you know, 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.640 decode or ring kinds of things. Oh no, that that 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.280 actually I think it has letter substitution. There are there 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.120 are codes like this like this, and toys and stuff 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.120 that you can buy that like you put a plate 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.560 over it's got certain holes on any read the letters 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:03.920 that appear in the holes, right, And it's my understanding 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.880 that if if those plates were random enough, that in 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.240 and of itself could make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.040 to crack the code. Uh you know the Vantage manuscript. Sure, 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.520 But then there are other theories that are less about 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.080 code and that might still present to us as codes, 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.400 but maybe it wasn't intended as a code. Yeah. Like 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:24.440 a big one is that it is some form of 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.760 natural language that has been forgotten in various possibilities from 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.320 Eurasia have been presented. Yeah, So the idea here would 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.040 just be we've got no other documents written in this 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.800 language or written in this uh, in this transliteration of 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.040 the language. Right. And then another idea, to come back 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.080 to something we discussed in the last episode, is that 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.120 it could be a constructed language, so like a language 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.800 that somebody made up on purpose, like Klingon or doth Rocky, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.880 but the fifteenth century version of that right now, and 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.320 now another intriguing idea and This was apparently presented by 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.120 Jerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill that it could be a 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.440 what is what is called a gloss a alia. Yeah, 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.560 so this would have been essentially like a work that 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.280 is a stream of consciousness work that is created via 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:19.360 speaking in tongues, similar to the work of Christianistic Hildegard 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.160 of Bingen. Yeah, this would be uh. I mean you 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.720 could look at it as a form of automatic writing, 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.880 you know that. That's so there. There could be a 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.120 this could be a weird transcription of spoken gloss a 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.280 alia like speaking in tongues, or it could be a 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.920 written version of it. Directly, it would be kind of 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:42.360 weird if it was a transliteration of sounds made orally 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.880 by gloss a alia into a script that didn't exist anyway. 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.120 But you can imagine it's certainly being like automatic writing 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.280 of some kind. People that the spirits are writing through 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.400 my hand. And I think that would mean in this 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:56.840 case that while it might not be meaningless to the 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.200 person writing it, it would be meaningless to any re eater. 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.440 So I think this would fall under the noise category right, 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.040 that there would be there is no way to understand 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.600 what this says because there is no underlying signal because 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.480 in this case, presumably the context for the piece would 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.320 be very personal and then also would probably deal a 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.000 lot with personal reevaluation of the text. You know, it's 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.600 almost like look less than a dream journal in a way, 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.280 you know, where the dream is not even even taken 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.680 and put into the into the form of language, but 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:35.920 like the dream is is in language. Yeah, it would 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:37.880 be like if if you had a dream journal, yeah, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.120 where you never translated it into any real language, You 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.559 just made notes about your dreams in random other symbols 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.240 that don't mean anything to anybody else. And then, of course, 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.280 another big idea is that it's simply a hoax, right, 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.400 that it doesn't mean anything. There's no encoded signals, just 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:58.439 noise because somebody was intentionally trying to create an object 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.200 that would maybe confuse people or trick them, or maybe 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.000 just trick them into thinking that it did say something. Right, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.760 And if and if that is indeed the reason for 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.559 the origin story of this document, then it is still succeeding. 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.840 It's it has probably succeeded remarkably well, because if it 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:19.000 is a hoax, it is still tricking people to this day. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.120 Another idea is that if it were a hoax, if 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.000 it were a completely fraudulent document, you could also make 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:26.640 a case that it was a you know, a way 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.320 to try and make a quick buck off of you know, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.800 a cult fanboys with a lot of money, such as 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.120 the Holy Roman Emperor who who purchased it. So we 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.240 know it was sold to Rudolph the Second, we think 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.920 around fifteen eighty six, that's when the historical records indicate. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.400 But the carbon dating of the vellum says that this 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.000 this this parchment at least was probably produced in like 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.760 the early fourteen hundreds. Now maybe maybe we think like 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.840 it's possible to parchment the vellums sat around for a 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.440 long time before it was made into this document. But 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.880 if you think that the creation of the pages on 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.720 which it was written was sometime close to when the 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.560 document was written, then it would have been written long 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:08.960 before there was a chance to sell it to Rudolph 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:10.720 the Second, So it would be hard to imagine that 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.040 it was created specifically for that purpose. Now, one of 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.880 the things is that people have tried to do various 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:21.520 kinds of statistical analysis of the text to say, okay, 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.880 does even though we can't translate it yet does this 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.640 look like a natural language? Does it look like it 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:32.079 could somehow be decoded to or translated to a natural language? 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.360 And I would say that the answer there is inconclusive. 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.679 There are pieces of evidence pointing both ways, right, Like 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.679 one commonly cited weird feature of the text that really 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.080 makes it look like not a natural language is the 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.760 fact that in some cases words are repeated in line 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.840 up to three times in a row. Is that normal 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.760 for a language? Is that normal? Normal? Normal? Not really 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.360 really really, I mean, I don't know poetically uh recally 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.320 uh shanti shan shan. I mean, we can all think 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:08.520 of examples from songs and poetry and writing where that's interesting, 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.440 you know, there's something maybe said three times to uh, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.600 to add emphasis. But I mean, I I am not 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:18.120 I'm not the expert comment commenting on this from It's 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.959 saying Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. This does remind me though, when 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.000 I was a kid sometimes I would like try and 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.440 create like documents that looked like they were, you know, 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:31.160 magical documents in another language, you know, with weird rooms. Um. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.640 And actually I do that still, sometimes, like doodling, you know, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:35.880 in the corners of a page. If I'm supposed to 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.200 be taking notes on something. Uh but I even even 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:40.839 as a kid, I would I would look back at 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.000 what I had done and I would realize, what this 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.000 This doesn't look like language like, it doesn't like there's 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.480 not enough variety in the these the signal, the little 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.960 signals that I've I've concocted or something I just essentially 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.320 pulled out of my head. They're like, it's not matching 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.360 up with what one would expect from any kind of 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.360 writing or coded writing system. Yeah. So I mentioned in 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.480 the last episode there was a good article about this 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.160 from two thousand eleven and skeptical inquirer by the German 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:10.920 computer scientist Klaus schmi who who I think he looked 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.720 at a lot of the statistical qualities of the text 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.720 from a cryptography point of view, and it seemed like 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.560 he said, yeah, there there's evidence both ways, and we 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.160 can continue to talk about some of that evidence as 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.160 we go on in the episodes. One interesting claim I 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.080 came across. I'm sorry that I feel like I can't 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:31.760 evaluate whether this is a correct claim or not, but 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.199 at least it's a claim that's made against the noise 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:40.000 theory or any theory recommending an interpretation of nonsense is 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.320 that the document uh at least appears to follow something 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:48.560 called Ziff's law, which concerns the statistical distribution of words 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.000 and natural languages. So basically, Ziff's law claims that in 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.560 any natural language, the frequency with which a word is 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.400 used will be directly proportional to how how high it 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.520 ranks in the ranking of most common words. So the 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.120 first most common word will be used twice as often 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.959 as the second most common word, three times as often 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.760 as the third most common word, and so forth. Now 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.320 this isn't exactly law in like the physical or mathematical sense, 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.560 but if for some reason it does appear to hold 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.880 true for all or almost all natural languages, and so 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.679 if and and, the document appears to match this So 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.640 like if you look at it from a Zif's law distribution, 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.400 it lines up pretty close. So if the frequency count 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.920 of words in this document follows this law, if that is, 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.720 if that claim is correct, meaning it has a similar 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:40.120 distribution of words to real documents in real languages. That 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:42.040 seems to make it a little harder to believe it's 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.800 just total nonsense generated but out of somebody's head. Another 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.120 thing is that different words appear with different frequencies in 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.959 different sections. So remember we've got these different sections of 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.400 the document, like the astrological stuff versus the herbal stuff, 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.760 and so you have some words that might appear in 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.320 the supposed astrological section but not in the plants section, 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.600 and vice versa. This would I think be expected if 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.319 these were written in a real language with a real message, 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:11.600 like you would image, you would probably expect the words 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.960 star to appear in the astrological section but not in 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.280 the plants section. So just looking at the symbols, the 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.200 frequency distribution of symbols and how they break out, and 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.720 how well they resemble a real language, it seems like 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.200 it can push us kind of in both directions that 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.720 we don't get a clear reading from either way. From that, 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.920 and and again this just comes back to the what 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.440 makes this document so mysterious, It's so resistant to unraveling. 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.560 So and a number of theories have been put forth 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.200 for the origins and the true nature of the text. Uh, 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.360 you know, so much so that in when an American 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:56.200 cryptologist and computer programmer married, the Imperio composed the Vontage 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.760 Manuscript and Elegant Enigma for the U. S Military, because 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.840 by the US military cryptography, I mean, that's a of 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.240 massive state importance, it is. Yeah, so this is not 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.480 like some sort of weird, you know, Area fifty one 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.600 type of Shenanigan going on here. But in this, uh, 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.560 this paper, which is readily available online you can find 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:17.720 a PDF of the full thing, she admits that she 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:23.000 quote unwittingly retraced the steps of all my predecessors, rediscovering 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:27.600 their sources, repeating their experiments, growing excited over the same 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.520 promising leads that excited them, and learning only later that 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.960 all these things had already been tried and had failed, 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.200 often several times. And I found that to just be very, 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.000 very fitting, because this does seem to be a theme, 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:44.880 uh is that you know, certainly in the last century. 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.480 Well it's not hard to see why. Again, this is 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.920 like it's sort of the holy grail of of of decoding, right, Yeah, yes, 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.560 it's the mount everest of code breaking. If you could 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.400 crack it, you'd be you'd be like the hottest, you know, 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.400 code cracker in the world. Yeah, And so crackers have 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.479 have tried to have taken a shot at it. Linguists 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:06.440 have have have taken a shot at it, various scholar 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:11.560 all manner of scholars, amateurs, and of course outright quacks 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.240 that have taken taking their hand to the Vantage manuscript. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.200 I think we alluded to this in the last episode, 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.680 but the internet is full of people who claim to 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.840 have decoded the Voytage manuscript to the point where when 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:23.520 we were preparing for the episode, I mean a lot 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.160 of these were just like, you know, somebody in the 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.400 last year or two has published a you know, a 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.840 YouTube video or or an article somewhere where they're like, 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.720 I did it. I cracked it. Here's the answer. And 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.080 I'm like, I don't know. Maybe one of these people 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.040 actually did and it just hasn't really been analyzed or 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.400 reported on yet. I have no way of knowing because 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.960 I don't have an expertise obviously in the relevant fields, 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.120 so I can't like evaluate it on my own. But 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.200 it's funny, like there's so many people trying and claiming 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.840 to have done it that you somebody could have done 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:56.640 it and we might not even know for a while 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.080 because it would just get lost in the sea of 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.680 of of all these claims. Yeah, all right, on that note, 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.640 we're gonna take a quick break when we come back. 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:09.359 We're going to discuss the possibility, um pretty much discredited 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.960 possibility that Roger Bacon actually had a hand in creating this. 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:18.320 Than all right, we're back. Time to talk about Mr Bacon. Now, 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.199 you remember from the last episode the it came with 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.800 a certificate of authenticity. Originally when Rudolph the Second, the 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.720 Holy Roman Emperor bought this, uh bought the Voytage manuscript 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.960 for six hundred ducats or Ducket's he it came along 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:34.840 with a letter that said, well, by the way, Roger 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.760 Bacon made this. Yeah. And according to Josephine Livingstone, who 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.399 wrote a really nice piece in The New Yorker about this, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:42.960 actually a couple of pieces. One was kind of the 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.520 follow up where she talked about just internet fascination of 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.440 the Voytage manuscript. She points out, yeah, that this does 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.439 not seem to be the case though, uh, though it 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.000 was kind of a popular idea for a while or 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.840 its like repopularized and you know, well before the carbon 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:03.960 dating actually took play. But one William Romaine Newbold, a 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.960 professor of intellectual and moral philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.720 He argued in favor of the Bacon origin, believing it 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:20.439 to be an anagrammed micrographic shorthand required transposition, abbreviation, and 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.600 microscopic notation. Yeah. His method, from what I've read, was 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.239 a little over the end. I mean, it's like he 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:33.560 was like looking inside the characters to see little micro 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:39.119 like strokes of ink that may have indicated actual letters 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:44.000 or abbreviations of word phonemes. And so his his method 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:49.119 of decoding it, which he claimed was successful, was incredibly complicated. Yeah. 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:51.800 But he claimed that he had translated, and he provided 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.679 all these details like drawing it into various you know, 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.800 other writings and ideas of Bacon. Uh. And he was 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.280 apparently a brilliant individual. But but no one could take 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:06.320 his solution and reproduce the same results using these methods, right, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.239 it required so many subjective judgment calls about what he 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.760 was seeing on the page in these micro notation marks 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.959 and what that was supposed to correlate to. Yeah. Medieval 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:22.360 medievalist John Matthews Manly, one of the Army's chief cryptologists 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.840 during World War One, concluded that the quote decipherments were 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.719 not discoveries of secret hidden of secrets hidden by Roger Bacon, 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:35.159 but the products of new Bold's own intense enthusiasm and 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.679 his learned and ingenious subconscious. According to Schmay's article and 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.399 Skeptical Inquire, new Bold's translation had revealed that Roger Bacon 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.040 already had a telescope in the thirteenth century, predating the 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.879 known invention of the telescope in the first decade of 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.360 the sixteen hundreds by like centuries, and that Bacon had 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.159 used this telescope to discover the spiral structure of the 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.359 Andromeda galaxy. It's just hard to believe though, that like 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:04.320 you could generate generate text that complex, you know, just 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:08.120 by subjective interpretations of tiny things. And then of course, 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.239 as we're saying, like nobody else could could come up 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.199 with the same translations based on what he had. So 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.520 I don't know, it just seems like he was he 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.600 was looking for the text he wanted to find, almost 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.600 like like it spells like new Bold is great. Yeah, 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:29.440 you know. Another great, interesting, insightful description of of this, uh, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.600 this incident with new Bold comes from Terence mckinna oh, yeah, 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.440 who wrote about the manuscript for Noses magazine in Night 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.159 and what he is, by the way, a purely historical 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.359 linguistic article that has nothing to do with any of 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.160 his writings on psychedelics. Although I can absolutely see why 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.040 McKenna would be interested in this subject because it's this. 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:51.320 It's this manuscript that seems to sit at the intersection 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:55.199 of primitive science and magic and plants. Yeah. Uh, this, 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.760 this particular article is that you can find it online 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.879 and PDF form. It's also collected in the Art Kick Revival. 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.040 It is, you know, dated, It's so he was written 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.560 prior to carbon dating. But he sums up the new 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.919 Bold case by saying, quote, the problem with all of 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:13.440 this was no one else could extract the same plain 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.240 text using Professor Newbold's method. It involves so many choices 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.080 from pools of letters at every given point along the 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.360 way that one could demonstrate that hundreds of different messages 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.680 could be extracted from the same passages. New Bold died 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.440 a broken man, disgraced, his career shattered. He had gone 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:35.440 too far in the vantage manuscript had claimed its first victim. 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.280 Now McKenna is not actually arguing that there's a curse 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.119 on the document or anything here, but I think he 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.119 does get a little magic here with it. Later on, 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:49.720 I mean a kind will of his talks in this 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.119 particular paper, he doesn't really tie it into any of 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:57.480 his more um you know, spiritual shamanistic ideas. It's it's 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.919 ultimately pretty straightforward, though again a dated because when it 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:05.120 was written. Um but but but but he does touch 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.160 in this on this idea of that claiming its first 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.600 victim on a pattern that one sees to this very 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:14.119 day in vantage research. It draws so many people in 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:16.919 and certainly, while there are quacks and conspiracy theory makers 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.440 in the mix, you also see a lot of very intelligent, 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:24.119 educated and disciplined people diving into the text and initially 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.119 claiming victory, only to realize that they two have failed 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.280 to see through its mysteries and and in some cases 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.520 are kind of broken on the manuscript. Again, Yeah, mckenn 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.200 I also tell I wish I could remember the name 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.680 of this, but he tells an anecdote. I don't know 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:39.240 if this is one of the commonly circulated stories about 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:42.320 the translation attempts, but he tells an anecdote about this 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.840 one aging scholar who was in his nineties who claimed 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:49.600 to some colleagues to have cracked the code to you know, 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.080 to understand what it says and then when somebody was 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.639 trying to follow up with him about that, they were like, okay, 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:56.840 we'll fly down to meet you. But by the time 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.200 they got there, he had died of a heart attempt. Yes, yes, 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.440 that's something here. It's in the noses piece as well. 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.399 So whatever information that UH expert may have had, it 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:07.400 was lost with them when they died. Well, I think 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:10.800 the the implication is that the expert had not actually 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.200 solved it and just happened to die right in time 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.760 to not get found out. Certainly the more likely scenario 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.440 given everything that we've discussed here. Now I mentioned John 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:25.800 Matthews Manly earlier, the War One Army cryptologist. Well, he 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:31.000 ends up turning Army cryptographer William F. Friedman onto the manuscript. 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:35.119 In William and his wife Elizabeth worked on the project 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:38.600 for forty years. Freedman was considered one of the greatest 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.520 cryptographers of his day. He and his team cracked Japan's 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:43.960 Code Purple during World War Two, but they were never 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:47.119 able to figure out that the manuscript either um though 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:50.359 Freedman did seem to believe that it might have been 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:56.159 an attempt to construct an artificial or universal language. Robert S. Brumbach, 0:23:56.440 --> 0:23:59.439 also of Yale University, took a crack at it as 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:05.360 well and produced some confusing decipherings that ultimately lead nowhere um. 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:08.280 But also Alan Turing apparently took a crack at it 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.119 as well, the King of code Breakers, and even Turing 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:15.720 couldn't make any sense of it. Now another interesting case here. 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:21.840 In seven one, Dr Leo levit Levitov presented the idea 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:25.439 that the book was a liturgical manual for the the 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:29.200 Catherine religion of the Middle Ages, basically the only surviving 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:33.480 document of the Cather heresy, a sort of Gnostic revival 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:38.159 movement was effectively decimated by the Alba, Genzi and Crusade 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:41.600 of the early thirteenth century, and much of our understanding 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:44.800 of this religion is lost. But Levitov makes the argument 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:48.600 that it's a book of Catherine sacraments, including a youth 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:52.200 and asia practice or perhaps in a ritualized act of 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:56.679 suicide known as endura um, with which of the illustrations 0:24:57.080 --> 0:25:01.680 is supposed to show that the bathtubs so yeah. He 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:05.640 Levitav argues that we're seeing a discussion of the vantage 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:07.920 in the vantage of Endeira as a right of ritual 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:10.119 opening of the veins and a hot bath as a 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:13.640 means of consentually ending one's life in a sacred fashion. 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:16.760 And this ties into like ideas of the Catholis believing 0:25:16.800 --> 0:25:20.280 like that the physical body was inherently you know, debased 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:23.560 and therefore like the it's part of uh, you know, 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:26.760 the of ensuring that a refined soul, you know, travels 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:29.439 beyond this plane of being, that sort of thing. But 0:25:29.480 --> 0:25:32.920 then he also connects uh Catholism to the worship of 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:36.880 the goddess Isis and he uh, you know, he believed 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:40.800 that that it was not encrypted at all the manuscript, 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:42.560 but it was written in this uh this you know, 0:25:42.600 --> 0:25:46.879 this this mixture of medieval Flemish and old Fringe and 0:25:47.000 --> 0:25:50.000 old High German Loan words, all kind of you know, 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:55.640 formed into this amalgamation of language. Um. But while some 0:25:55.760 --> 0:25:59.240 saw promise in Levitov's argument, there were plenty of people 0:25:59.240 --> 0:26:02.840 who had numerous problems with it. A big one is 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:08.680 that the induro was definitely a thing. According to Coasta Siamus, 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.240 in writing for the journal Religion in Health in twos sixteen, quote, 0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:15.800 the enduro was the prerequisite act of repentance that allowed 0:26:15.840 --> 0:26:19.000 the fallen soul to return to heaven. But pretty much 0:26:19.000 --> 0:26:23.119 everybody agrees that it was. It was basically a fast. 0:26:23.400 --> 0:26:28.520 It was not a ritual suicide or Euthanasiah. So another 0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:31.080 one is this whole isis connection. This doesn't pop up 0:26:31.119 --> 0:26:34.359 anywhere else. And years later, you know, when we'd finally 0:26:34.400 --> 0:26:37.600 get some carbon dating that dismissed. Uh, you know, the 0:26:37.640 --> 0:26:40.679 idea that a bacon a bacon origin was possible, and 0:26:40.760 --> 0:26:43.680 certainly a pre bacon origin of the text was equally 0:26:44.600 --> 0:26:49.080 unlikely or impossible. Yeah, I'd say that's fairly impossible, given 0:26:49.080 --> 0:26:52.320 that the vellum was not from before the early fifteenth century, 0:26:53.320 --> 0:26:56.320 unless again we're dealing with like a copy of an 0:26:56.320 --> 0:26:59.840 earlier text, which again it doesn't necessarily look like. Now, 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:02.199 when we look at other theories as to you know, 0:27:02.200 --> 0:27:05.000 where it came from, um, you know they're there, have 0:27:05.040 --> 0:27:08.120 been various and most of them haven't really endured. There 0:27:08.240 --> 0:27:12.800 is the interesting notion that sixteenth century occultist mathematician and 0:27:12.840 --> 0:27:16.920 cryptographer John d along with Edward Kelly, may have been 0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:21.080 involved with the manuscript in some some form or another. Now, 0:27:21.160 --> 0:27:24.600 this is mckinnis theory. He's got a complicated argument that 0:27:25.160 --> 0:27:28.280 that like, yes, it probably was John D and Edward 0:27:28.400 --> 0:27:33.200 Kelly who wrote this document. Yeah, yeah, Mickey McKenna did 0:27:33.240 --> 0:27:36.640 present that idea that he though he also readily admitted 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:39.440 that it was just more, you know more basically a 0:27:39.480 --> 0:27:41.800 conjecture on his part, and he he had he had 0:27:41.840 --> 0:27:43.600 not done a rigorous work to back it up, and 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:48.000 there were numerous potential holes in the situation. But but 0:27:48.119 --> 0:27:51.960 Kelly and and D did dabble in not dabble. They 0:27:52.000 --> 0:27:54.920 had more than dabble than occult practices. So I mean, 0:27:55.119 --> 0:27:57.639 it's again, it's speculative, but it's not hard to see 0:27:57.680 --> 0:28:00.840 somebody like John D coming up with a with a 0:28:00.920 --> 0:28:06.480 strange constructed document that's got kind of magical suggestions in it. Yeah, 0:28:06.480 --> 0:28:08.639 we have two older episodes of stuff to bule your 0:28:08.640 --> 0:28:11.040 mind about John D that will probably be running his 0:28:11.119 --> 0:28:14.879 vault episodes here in the immediate future. But yeah, he was. 0:28:15.040 --> 0:28:16.800 He was one of the most brilliant minds of his day. 0:28:16.800 --> 0:28:21.400 He was involved in cryptography, spycraft, occultism, and mathematics. Edward 0:28:21.480 --> 0:28:24.280 Kelly has accomplished here with an It was an occultist 0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:28.000 and and most agree a con man or a scoundrel 0:28:28.040 --> 0:28:32.680 of some fashion. Um it is it's generally described that 0:28:32.880 --> 0:28:36.679 Edward Kelly's ears were both missing, uh you know, his 0:28:36.760 --> 0:28:41.400 punishment for some deed in his past. But yeah, but 0:28:41.520 --> 0:28:43.520 between the two of them, I I often have sort 0:28:43.560 --> 0:28:45.880 of tried to figure out, like what what is the energy? 0:28:45.960 --> 0:28:49.720 What is the nature of of their collaboration? You know, 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:51.560 they're in a way they're they're a perfect duo, but 0:28:51.560 --> 0:28:55.320 they're also kind of the strange duo where uh, you 0:28:55.360 --> 0:28:57.880 know d there's nobody else like him. And then you wondered, like, 0:28:57.920 --> 0:29:01.000 to what extent is uh is Kelly like taking advantage 0:29:01.000 --> 0:29:04.920 of the situation um? Or is he able to to 0:29:05.040 --> 0:29:08.280 actually an a d and in some of his various 0:29:08.280 --> 0:29:11.640 operations here? But again, like the interest in cryptography, was 0:29:11.680 --> 0:29:15.160 there the interest in occultism? They also both wrote of 0:29:15.200 --> 0:29:20.720 communication with angels in the Enochian tongue um, which which 0:29:20.800 --> 0:29:22.480 we have an alph of that for by the way, 0:29:22.680 --> 0:29:26.240 and it is not the Enochian language that we see 0:29:26.600 --> 0:29:31.000 in the Vonage manuscript. But certainly if you're looking for 0:29:31.040 --> 0:29:34.280 people at that time period, people who you know would 0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:36.920 have been traveling in this area and have had contact 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:40.280 with with the Holy Roman emperor um, you know, these 0:29:40.320 --> 0:29:44.200 are these are two prime suspects. Yeah, and I do think, um, 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:45.520 maybe you were going to get to the s in 0:29:45.640 --> 0:29:49.560 a minute, But I do think it's a decent hypothesis 0:29:49.600 --> 0:29:52.560 that even if John D didn't write this, that John 0:29:52.640 --> 0:29:56.160 D was the source who brought the Voytage manuscript to 0:29:57.280 --> 0:30:00.320 the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second. Yes. In in 0:30:00.360 --> 0:30:04.320 the book by Benjamin Woolley, The Queen's Conjuror, which is 0:30:04.360 --> 0:30:06.600 biography of D that I I read a few years 0:30:06.600 --> 0:30:09.000 back for the Stuff of your Mind episode, the author 0:30:09.200 --> 0:30:12.440 does mention that Rudolph may well have acquired the manuscript 0:30:12.520 --> 0:30:15.560 from D, but he does not entertain or dismissed the 0:30:15.560 --> 0:30:18.640 idea that D was involved in his production. But but 0:30:18.720 --> 0:30:21.280 he at least acknowledges that it's it's possible that D 0:30:21.720 --> 0:30:25.480 is the individual who sold it to the emperor. And 0:30:25.520 --> 0:30:27.480 if that is the case, like well then we can 0:30:27.600 --> 0:30:30.640 we can add one more step, you know, to the 0:30:30.680 --> 0:30:33.120 beginning of the history of the book. But we still 0:30:33.200 --> 0:30:36.520 don't know where D acquired it, so the mystery remains. 0:30:36.720 --> 0:30:39.280 But John D is a fascinating individual. I mean, he 0:30:39.360 --> 0:30:42.719 is is essentially not only is he the Merlin of 0:30:42.760 --> 0:30:45.120 the day, but a lot of our ideas that we 0:30:45.160 --> 0:30:50.440 associate with the mythical and fictional wizard uh Merlin kind 0:30:50.440 --> 0:30:53.560 of stem from d I think it's believed that he 0:30:53.640 --> 0:30:57.320 was the inspiration for Shakespeare's Prospero in the Tempest, Right, 0:30:57.480 --> 0:31:01.560 I've read that as well. Uh So, yeah, an astounding figure, 0:31:01.880 --> 0:31:04.040 you know, to whatever degree he was involved with a 0:31:04.080 --> 0:31:08.480 vantage manuscript. Um, there's still plenty of mysterious and wonderful 0:31:08.520 --> 0:31:11.240 things about about the himself. For instance, to what extent 0:31:11.320 --> 0:31:15.080 he was involved, uh in in statecraft and and and 0:31:15.280 --> 0:31:17.560 worked as a spy. Like. There's some that argue that 0:31:17.560 --> 0:31:19.840 he was like totally a spy and that many of 0:31:19.880 --> 0:31:22.680 these occult manuscripts that he was uh, you know, peddling 0:31:22.720 --> 0:31:26.160 around and discussing in occult ideas, they were essentially codes 0:31:26.320 --> 0:31:29.560 for things um and others say that, no, he was 0:31:29.600 --> 0:31:31.880 more purely on the the occultist end of the spectrum. 0:31:32.200 --> 0:31:34.840 I My read, and I think this has been the 0:31:34.840 --> 0:31:37.600 read of other commentators, is that it's probably somewhere in between, 0:31:38.080 --> 0:31:40.800 you know, one of these situations where you know, he 0:31:40.840 --> 0:31:45.040 was definitely fascinating with with the occult. He was definitely 0:31:45.200 --> 0:31:48.800 and he was a poly math, but being a poly 0:31:48.920 --> 0:31:51.520 math of the day and the one that that traveled 0:31:51.680 --> 0:31:54.880 throughout Europe he ended up, you know, and and also 0:31:54.920 --> 0:31:57.400 being a devout servant to Elizabeth the first you know 0:31:57.440 --> 0:31:59.680 he was, he was more than happy to engage in 0:31:59.720 --> 0:32:02.440 a little spycraft from time to time. Another weird connection. 0:32:02.520 --> 0:32:05.080 I believe John d is also supposed to be the 0:32:05.120 --> 0:32:10.920 inspiration for Christopher Marlowe's incarnation of Dr faust Us from 0:32:10.960 --> 0:32:12.880 from of course Dr you know, who makes a deal 0:32:12.920 --> 0:32:15.520 with the devil to get all knowledge and you know, 0:32:15.600 --> 0:32:19.600 all earthly scientific power. And then Christopher Marlowe, who wrote 0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:23.080 the English play Dr faust Us, was also I believe 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:26.840 involved in state craft and being a spy. Fascinating, all right, 0:32:26.920 --> 0:32:30.600 So there are various other um origin stories that we're 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:33.000 not going to get into, but but just to really 0:32:33.080 --> 0:32:36.440 drive home how this is still a thing, How how 0:32:36.480 --> 0:32:39.280 people are still not, you know, not only attempting to 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:43.600 crack but claiming that they did, we should discuss two 0:32:43.880 --> 0:32:48.000 recent attempts, one extremely recent attempts to crack it that 0:32:48.120 --> 0:32:51.040 have also fallen short. Yeah, it seems like there's at 0:32:51.120 --> 0:32:54.200 least one claim every couple of years that gets picked 0:32:54.280 --> 0:32:56.800 up by real like news sites and then it always 0:32:56.840 --> 0:32:59.400 kind of like, oh no, never mind. Well, in two 0:32:59.440 --> 0:33:02.800 thousands seven, team we saw just such a case. Um. 0:33:03.000 --> 0:33:06.320 There was a history researcher and television writer by the 0:33:06.360 --> 0:33:10.600 name of Nicholas Gibbs, and he published it was published 0:33:10.600 --> 0:33:14.640 in The Times Literary Supplement. Uh. He believed he'd identified 0:33:14.720 --> 0:33:18.080 quote a common form of medieval Latin abbreviations often used 0:33:18.080 --> 0:33:21.360 in medical treatises about herbs, and this led him to 0:33:21.400 --> 0:33:23.960 illustrations in other texts, and he believed resemble those in 0:33:23.960 --> 0:33:27.280 the Vonage manuscript. And so this guy. This was widely covered, 0:33:27.480 --> 0:33:30.040 in large part, of course, because it was initially published 0:33:30.040 --> 0:33:32.840 in The Times Literary Supplement, was picked out by picked 0:33:32.880 --> 0:33:36.680 up by numerous media outlets, including UH, Ours Technica SO 0:33:36.760 --> 0:33:40.960 and initially at Ours Technica editor Annalie Knewitz wrote quote 0:33:41.640 --> 0:33:45.200 this is again before it became discredited. Quote. Gibbs concluded 0:33:45.320 --> 0:33:48.680 that it's likely the Vontage Manuscript was a customized book, 0:33:48.720 --> 0:33:52.120 possibly created for one person, devoted mostly to women's medicine. 0:33:52.320 --> 0:33:55.000 Other medieval Latin scholars will certainly want to weigh in, 0:33:55.040 --> 0:33:58.240 but the sheer uh mondanity of gibbs discovery makes it 0:33:58.280 --> 0:34:02.040 sound plausible. Okay, so it's always like it helps you 0:34:02.080 --> 0:34:04.400 with the claim to have decoded something. If the message 0:34:04.440 --> 0:34:07.520 you decoded is not delicious, I think it does help 0:34:07.520 --> 0:34:09.759 the other believability because I think that's that's ultimately part 0:34:09.760 --> 0:34:12.279 of the mystery, right, And the allure and danger of 0:34:12.280 --> 0:34:15.160 the mystery is that if that it is solved, is 0:34:15.200 --> 0:34:17.800 it is, it's not going to be ground baking anymore 0:34:17.880 --> 0:34:20.040 like the groundbreaking. And the amazing thing about the Vontage 0:34:20.040 --> 0:34:23.440 manuscript is not that it contains something definite, but that 0:34:23.480 --> 0:34:26.680 we just have no ability to grasp what it contains. Right, 0:34:26.719 --> 0:34:29.160 You'd have to be more suspicious if it says, like 0:34:29.280 --> 0:34:33.240 I know the location of the Holy Grail or something. Yeah, 0:34:33.560 --> 0:34:36.360 but okay. But after this piece came out then experts 0:34:36.360 --> 0:34:38.799 began to weigh in and knew it also wrote an 0:34:38.840 --> 0:34:43.480 excellent retraction piece, UH which you know, citing the various 0:34:43.480 --> 0:34:47.800 experts who responded to that initial Uh Times Literary Supplement paper, 0:34:48.239 --> 0:34:50.920 and the various experts concluded that while they think the 0:34:50.960 --> 0:34:53.840 text might actually turn out to be a medical treatise 0:34:53.840 --> 0:34:57.440 on women's health, like that's not impossible, but they think 0:34:57.440 --> 0:35:00.840 that his translations were not grammatically correct and it according 0:35:00.880 --> 0:35:05.000 to Medical Academy of America director Lisa Fagan Davis in 0:35:05.000 --> 0:35:07.880 the Atlantic quote, if they had simply sent it to 0:35:07.920 --> 0:35:11.440 the Banecki Library, they would have rebutted it in a heartbeat. 0:35:11.800 --> 0:35:13.920 And this is the library Yale that actually has the 0:35:13.960 --> 0:35:17.879 Vontagey script. I think they do WANTAGE scholarship there right, So, 0:35:18.040 --> 0:35:20.200 um so, just I guess that's a little bit of 0:35:20.239 --> 0:35:22.880 advice out there. If you were an editor potential of 0:35:22.920 --> 0:35:27.040 any kind of publication and you're potentially um publishing something 0:35:27.080 --> 0:35:30.440 about someone cracking the Vonage manuscript, Um, make a phone call, 0:35:30.480 --> 0:35:33.400 send an email to the Bnecki Library and see if 0:35:33.440 --> 0:35:36.080 you can get somebody to to to weigh in on 0:35:36.120 --> 0:35:38.200 it before you publish. Yeah. I think that would be 0:35:38.239 --> 0:35:41.920 a smart move. Now, have there been any cases this year? Yes, 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:45.319 into in twenty nineteen, um, this one prop popped up. 0:35:45.320 --> 0:35:49.520 You might have seen this headline Bristol academic cracks Vontage code, 0:35:49.719 --> 0:35:52.800 solving century old mystery of a midie of medieval text. 0:35:53.320 --> 0:35:55.840 And yeah, I remember seeing this one. I want to 0:35:55.840 --> 0:35:58.920 say that it even popped up on a fairly notable 0:35:59.000 --> 0:36:02.680 like Science Release website that I use and was but 0:36:02.800 --> 0:36:07.520 then was later removed. Dr Gerard Cheshire, research assistant at 0:36:07.560 --> 0:36:11.200 Bristol University, claimed that it was a therapeutic reference book 0:36:11.239 --> 0:36:14.000 written in a lost language called proto Romance, and this 0:36:14.120 --> 0:36:16.960 article appeared on the university's website, but then was later 0:36:17.000 --> 0:36:21.080 taken down after experts chimed in and question the validity 0:36:21.120 --> 0:36:24.880 of the research and uh another there had I looked. 0:36:24.880 --> 0:36:27.560 There hasn't been like an additional follow up on that, 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:30.800 but it would it would seem to be the case 0:36:31.400 --> 0:36:35.000 that it is another situation where, um, you know, someone 0:36:35.080 --> 0:36:37.480 thought they'd cracked it and they had not that they 0:36:37.480 --> 0:36:41.719 had perhaps, in the words of Mary the Imperio, you know, 0:36:42.680 --> 0:36:45.480 recreated the same steps and missteps of those that came 0:36:45.520 --> 0:36:49.480 before trying to crack the Vantage manuscript. And of course, 0:36:49.480 --> 0:36:51.239 in addition to this, like we said, there's just a 0:36:51.239 --> 0:36:55.480 lot of baseless speculation surrounding the manuscript. Online. It features 0:36:55.480 --> 0:36:58.520 into historical conspiracy theory. Yeah, you'll find it on the YouTube, 0:36:58.520 --> 0:37:02.960 you'll find it on various Reddit words. Um. According to 0:37:03.440 --> 0:37:06.600 Raymond Clemens, a curator of early books and manuscripts at 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:10.799 the Banecky Library, one of the most fun examples that 0:37:10.800 --> 0:37:13.440 they've run across is that the Vontage manuscript is an 0:37:13.440 --> 0:37:16.040 alien is the work of an alien visitor to Earth 0:37:16.120 --> 0:37:19.399 from the Andromeda galaxy who was making notes about our 0:37:19.400 --> 0:37:23.000 planet and then dropped their notebook before they return. But wait, 0:37:23.000 --> 0:37:25.080 why would it be notes about our planet if none 0:37:25.080 --> 0:37:30.040 of the plants can be identified? Maybe the alien vision 0:37:30.120 --> 0:37:32.400 I vision, you know, it's weird. I don't know, you know, 0:37:32.480 --> 0:37:35.120 maybe they were. There are a lot of holes in 0:37:35.120 --> 0:37:37.880 this theory, Joe's what I'm saying. Yeah, all right, we 0:37:37.920 --> 0:37:39.360 need to take one more break, but we will be 0:37:39.440 --> 0:37:44.160 right back with more where we're back now, We've talked 0:37:44.200 --> 0:37:46.640 about evidence going in both directions of people who just 0:37:46.719 --> 0:37:50.759 try to look at the text statistically or mathematically as 0:37:50.760 --> 0:37:53.400 a text and say, does it look like a text 0:37:53.560 --> 0:37:56.759 in a real language, even coded in a real language, 0:37:57.280 --> 0:38:01.200 and the answer there is some indications kind of point 0:38:01.200 --> 0:38:03.440 to yes, and some indications kind of point to know. 0:38:03.920 --> 0:38:05.879 I think one thing I wanted to look at now 0:38:05.960 --> 0:38:07.960 is something that was pointed out in that in that 0:38:08.040 --> 0:38:12.400 Skeptical Inquirer article by Klaus Schmay who was who he 0:38:12.520 --> 0:38:15.560 pointed out some interesting research from the early two thousands 0:38:15.600 --> 0:38:18.640 by the British linguist Gordon Rugg. So I'm just going 0:38:18.719 --> 0:38:22.000 to read this section from MS article, smy writes quote 0:38:22.080 --> 0:38:25.120 the British linguist Gordon Rugg is among the most reputable 0:38:25.200 --> 0:38:30.160 voytage researchers. He conducted a most interesting cryptological experiment. For 0:38:30.280 --> 0:38:34.480 his experiment, Rugg generated a table with random combinations of 0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:39.040 characters that he used as prefixes, roots, or suffixes of 0:38:39.120 --> 0:38:42.960 new words. He positioned a quadratic stencil, like the one 0:38:43.080 --> 0:38:46.400 used for encryption in the sixteenth century over the table. 0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:49.480 In this manner, he obtained a sequence of letters that 0:38:49.560 --> 0:38:53.160 bore great resemblance to the text of the Voyage manuscript. 0:38:53.520 --> 0:38:57.640 Rugg's experiment supports the hypothesis that the manuscript is nothing 0:38:57.719 --> 0:39:01.360 but a compilation of meaningless line and letters, which is 0:39:01.600 --> 0:39:05.400 of course the hoax hypothesis. And then Schmidt also points 0:39:05.400 --> 0:39:10.200 out a study by the Austrian physicist Andreas Shinner that 0:39:10.360 --> 0:39:13.279 also supports the idea that even though there are some 0:39:13.320 --> 0:39:16.320 things about this that do look like a text, it's possible, 0:39:16.640 --> 0:39:19.600 like a real text and a real natural language, it's 0:39:19.640 --> 0:39:22.839 possible to generate a text like this without it being 0:39:22.880 --> 0:39:25.799 based on a real language. And and Shinner's analysis, I 0:39:25.800 --> 0:39:28.560 think was primarily based on the fact that there are 0:39:29.160 --> 0:39:33.960 unnatural regularities in the order of words appearing in the 0:39:33.960 --> 0:39:38.319 manuscript that don't mirror sequences of words that appear in 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:41.560 real languages. So I don't think that completely settles it. 0:39:41.600 --> 0:39:43.800 But that's more fuel back on the on the fire 0:39:43.840 --> 0:39:45.799 of the side that says, Okay, this is just a 0:39:45.840 --> 0:39:49.240 hoax document or glossal alia or something something that somebody 0:39:49.320 --> 0:39:53.280 made up and doesn't correlate to real words. That makes sense. 0:39:53.719 --> 0:39:56.000 But and then ultimately this, yeah, this gives credence to 0:39:56.200 --> 0:39:59.759 just the its power to break those that that desperately 0:40:00.280 --> 0:40:02.839 to find meaning in it. Like it just kind of 0:40:03.080 --> 0:40:05.520 it almost seems like it does point people to the 0:40:05.840 --> 0:40:08.879 you know, near the threshold of madness where they they 0:40:08.920 --> 0:40:11.000 make that leap and they say I've done it, I 0:40:11.040 --> 0:40:14.080 figured it out, and and believe that they have you know, 0:40:14.160 --> 0:40:17.000 I mean, uh, none of the none of the individuals 0:40:17.000 --> 0:40:20.160 that we've we've named here, um you know, from from 0:40:20.200 --> 0:40:23.680 the Avontage manuscripts, uh, you know, recent history. You know. 0:40:23.719 --> 0:40:25.880 I don't think any of them have, you know, have 0:40:26.280 --> 0:40:28.719 been trying to pull anything over on anyone. I think 0:40:28.760 --> 0:40:31.439 they have. They've reached a point where they genuinely think 0:40:31.480 --> 0:40:36.280 they found the clue they found, you know, the missing 0:40:36.400 --> 0:40:39.040 piece that has enabled us to understand this document. Well. 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:41.480 As satisfying as it is to solve a puzzle, it 0:40:41.600 --> 0:40:45.200 is equally maddening to work on a puzzle without solving it. 0:40:45.520 --> 0:40:48.000 And I think that can kind of drive people like 0:40:48.120 --> 0:40:52.960 it creates unreasonable incentives in the mind to toil over 0:40:53.040 --> 0:40:55.759 a puzzle or a code for so long without breaking it. 0:40:55.840 --> 0:40:59.880 Like you, the desire to have broken it becomes incredibly strong. 0:41:00.760 --> 0:41:03.040 I will say this one lesson I've taken home from 0:41:03.080 --> 0:41:06.040 all of this is friends. Don't let friends claim they've 0:41:06.239 --> 0:41:10.080 cracked the Vontage manuscript. That's right if you if you 0:41:10.120 --> 0:41:12.160 know somebody and they're like, hey, you know, I think 0:41:12.200 --> 0:41:15.360 I've I've translated the Vontage manuscript. I'm going public with 0:41:15.360 --> 0:41:18.200 this tomorrow, you know, talk him down from that. Maybe 0:41:18.680 --> 0:41:22.120 maybe you know, to ask him just to settle down 0:41:22.120 --> 0:41:24.720 a little and uh and rethink before you go public 0:41:24.800 --> 0:41:27.239 with this this new translation. I just want to say, 0:41:27.360 --> 0:41:30.520 though this is not conclusive, from that interesting article by 0:41:30.800 --> 0:41:35.080 by Schmi about his conclusion, just his opinion is that 0:41:35.200 --> 0:41:38.160 it's very likely, it's it's possible that it's a hoax. 0:41:38.200 --> 0:41:41.279 Of course, he thinks the author was probably an anonymous 0:41:41.400 --> 0:41:44.640 artist living in the first half of the fourteen hundreds. Uh, 0:41:44.640 --> 0:41:47.240 and if it is actually encrypted. One thing he points 0:41:47.239 --> 0:41:49.040 to that I think is interesting is he says it's 0:41:49.080 --> 0:41:53.279 easier to encrypt a text if the encrypted text generates 0:41:53.320 --> 0:41:57.160 far more characters than the original text. So if a 0:41:57.280 --> 0:42:00.520 fifty thousand character original document was in ripted in a 0:42:00.520 --> 0:42:03.879 way that generates a hundred and seventy thousand characters, then 0:42:03.920 --> 0:42:06.640 it's easier to see how it could still be hiding 0:42:06.640 --> 0:42:09.279 its meaning, right if there's there's tons of if there 0:42:09.280 --> 0:42:11.399 are tons of characters in there that don't code out 0:42:11.400 --> 0:42:14.360 to anything, like, how do you separate the coding letters 0:42:14.400 --> 0:42:17.400 from the filler letters. So that's a possible explanation for 0:42:17.560 --> 0:42:19.520 if there is a code in there, why it hasn't 0:42:19.520 --> 0:42:22.880 been cracked. Yet, another thing that he does find plausible 0:42:22.960 --> 0:42:25.200 is he finds it plausible that this is an artificial 0:42:25.560 --> 0:42:29.080 created language. Somebody just made up a language of their own, 0:42:29.600 --> 0:42:32.760 and that's why it doesn't translate to anything else based 0:42:32.800 --> 0:42:35.680 on whatever. That also seems plausible to me. I can 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:40.000 imagine this being I don't know, a language unique to 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:42.560 one person who was you know, toiling away in their 0:42:42.600 --> 0:42:45.600 turret or something in a monastery, or maybe shared by 0:42:45.600 --> 0:42:48.400 a small number of people for some kind of esoteric 0:42:48.480 --> 0:42:51.840 purpose or some kind of a cult purpose maybe, But 0:42:51.920 --> 0:42:54.600 the key being if it's an invented language rather than 0:42:54.640 --> 0:42:57.919 a code for an existing language, that would explain why 0:42:57.960 --> 0:43:02.000 it doesn't code out whatever it's origins, whatever it's meaning 0:43:02.280 --> 0:43:05.920 or lack of meaning, it continues to enthrall us and 0:43:06.000 --> 0:43:10.480 perplexus and uh and I'd likely will continue to do so. 0:43:11.200 --> 0:43:13.879 I don't I do not expect that we will reach 0:43:13.920 --> 0:43:17.120 the point where we need to you know, add there 0:43:17.160 --> 0:43:20.520 may be additional you know, arguments, there's some new ideas 0:43:20.560 --> 0:43:23.000 that are brought up. But I am not expecting to 0:43:23.040 --> 0:43:25.960 see anybody cracked this uh in in the future. Yeah, 0:43:26.000 --> 0:43:27.480 I will say, as much as I would like to 0:43:27.520 --> 0:43:31.880 see it cracked, my the walls of my skeptical fortress 0:43:31.920 --> 0:43:35.600 here have been fortified. And I now when I see 0:43:35.600 --> 0:43:37.879 an article, as they do tend to pop up once 0:43:37.920 --> 0:43:40.480 every year or two, an article about how somebody has 0:43:40.480 --> 0:43:45.040 cracked the Voyage manuscript, I think now I will probably conclude, Okay, 0:43:45.040 --> 0:43:48.279 I bet that's not right, right, and then then I'll 0:43:48.280 --> 0:43:50.600 go another thing about it too, is like if it 0:43:50.680 --> 0:43:52.839 was cracked, the magic would be gone, like the part 0:43:52.840 --> 0:43:55.719 of the man that the whole reason we're enthralled by 0:43:55.760 --> 0:43:58.280 this document is that we don't know what it's meaning 0:43:58.440 --> 0:44:02.200 or meaninglessness really consists of. Well, it's about it's It's 0:44:02.239 --> 0:44:04.200 like how you know, the best part of a mystery 0:44:04.239 --> 0:44:07.160 is always the middle. It's almost never the end. When 0:44:07.200 --> 0:44:08.600 you get to the end and you find out who 0:44:08.680 --> 0:44:11.719 done it, it's almost always disappointing. Yeah, because there're only 0:44:11.760 --> 0:44:14.279 so many ways it can go right, I'd say. Actually, though, 0:44:14.320 --> 0:44:16.200 to tie it back to the subject, one of the 0:44:16.239 --> 0:44:19.040 only example counter examples I can think of is the 0:44:19.120 --> 0:44:21.200 Name of the Rose, where the solution of the mystery 0:44:21.360 --> 0:44:25.640 is supremely satisfying. Yeah. Yeah, I think that there's a 0:44:25.640 --> 0:44:29.000 strong case to be made there. Yeah. Um. Interesting to 0:44:29.239 --> 0:44:32.960 the other mystery book that I mentioned, um, The Club 0:44:33.080 --> 0:44:37.000 Dumb by Perez Roverta, also a mystery. That's the book 0:44:37.080 --> 0:44:40.600 that The Ninth Gate was based on. Uh. And It's 0:44:40.600 --> 0:44:42.200 been a while since I've seen The Ninth Gate, but 0:44:42.440 --> 0:44:46.080 I definitely remember enjoying the book. It's a fun little uh, 0:44:46.160 --> 0:44:48.680 you know, a cult themed filler, a thriller, I've never 0:44:48.680 --> 0:44:50.960 read it. I actually check that out. How's the ending 0:44:51.760 --> 0:44:54.200 um pretty good as I recall, Yeah, it's different from 0:44:54.239 --> 0:44:58.200 the movie again based on my my fading memory of it. 0:44:58.840 --> 0:45:01.520 But I'd love to clo Is out here with the one. 0:45:01.719 --> 0:45:06.040 One more quote from that Terence mckinnipie's from from Moses Magazine, 0:45:06.200 --> 0:45:08.440 which I think he sums up a lot of the 0:45:08.560 --> 0:45:12.120 like the power and the you know, our fascination with 0:45:12.160 --> 0:45:15.360 this document, he said, quote it is a kind of 0:45:15.400 --> 0:45:20.080 Borhesian concept that there must be somewhere an unreadable book, 0:45:20.480 --> 0:45:24.359 and perhaps this is it. The unreadable book hints at 0:45:24.400 --> 0:45:27.440 an idea, at the idea that the world is in information. 0:45:28.000 --> 0:45:30.880 We have cognizance of the world by ordering all of 0:45:30.920 --> 0:45:34.120 the information we can't we come upon in relation to 0:45:34.239 --> 0:45:39.440 information that we have already accumulated through patterns. An unreadable 0:45:39.440 --> 0:45:42.960 book in a non English script with no dictionary attached 0:45:43.040 --> 0:45:47.520 is very puzzling. We become like linguistic oysters. We secrete 0:45:47.520 --> 0:45:51.520 around it, we insisted into our metaphysics, but we don't 0:45:51.520 --> 0:45:54.279 know what it says, which always carries with it the 0:45:54.320 --> 0:45:57.919 possibility that it says something that would unhinge our conceptions 0:45:57.920 --> 0:46:01.839 of things. Or that it's real message is its unreadability. 0:46:02.160 --> 0:46:05.120 It points to the otherness of the nature of information, 0:46:05.560 --> 0:46:08.680 and it's what is called in structuralism, a limit text. 0:46:09.040 --> 0:46:13.200 Certainly the Vontage Manuscript is the limit text of Western occultism. 0:46:13.239 --> 0:46:16.279 It is truly an occult book, one that no one 0:46:16.440 --> 0:46:20.439 can read the literal meaning of a cult. Yeah's it's 0:46:20.480 --> 0:46:24.080 a mystery in the dark. Absolutely, all right, So there 0:46:24.120 --> 0:46:27.680 you have it, the Vontage Manuscript. Obviously we would love 0:46:27.719 --> 0:46:30.960 to hear from everybody out there because if you have 0:46:30.360 --> 0:46:33.520 you cracked it. I there's it's very possible we will 0:46:33.560 --> 0:46:36.160 hear from someone who believes that they have or at 0:46:36.160 --> 0:46:38.040 the very least, perhaps you can turn us on to 0:46:38.160 --> 0:46:41.720 some other wild theories. Uh, some of the crazier theories 0:46:41.719 --> 0:46:44.399 that we didn't get into, uh you know, involving it's 0:46:44.440 --> 0:46:46.680 its origin. Uh yeah, there's there are some other ones 0:46:46.719 --> 0:46:50.239 we didn't discuss. And what involving like the uh you 0:46:50.280 --> 0:46:53.920 know what, the various other like a cult, conspiracy theories, 0:46:54.400 --> 0:46:59.120 the Rosicrucians and stuff. McKenna talks about that. So certainly, 0:46:59.160 --> 0:47:00.839 if you have I do you have any of those 0:47:00.840 --> 0:47:03.279 ideas who want to chat with us about you can 0:47:03.320 --> 0:47:04.960 reach out to us in the meantime. 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