Has A.I. Finally Decoded Bizarre 600-Year-Old Voynich Manuscript?
An esoteric text, discovered over a century ago has left cryptographers and linguists puzzled for decades, but now artificial intelligence may finally decipher the enigmatic content of the Voynich Manuscript.
Carbon dating shows that this esoteric text was written sometime in the 15th century by an unknown author. Its modern provenance has been attributed to an Italian antique book collector, Wilfred Voynich, whom it was named after.
The manuscript contains writings on calfskin parchment that look like a cross between ancient Celtic and some amalgam of middle eastern text. It is thought to be encrypted using a series of cyphers, including anagrams, micrographic shorthand, and abbreviations.
Since its discovery was publicized in 1912, cryptographers and even WWII codebreakers have tried to decipher its contents to no avail, leading many to label it a hoax or simply full of gibberish. In addition to the bizarre inscriptions, the manuscript contain a number of strange illustrations that have led some to believe it to be either alchemical instructions or a book of medicine.
But now, Greg Kondrak, an expert in natural language processing at the University of Alberta, is using artificial intelligence to solve this age-old mystery. The computer algorithm used to translate the text implements information from the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” which contains over 400 different languages.
Their first discovery: the script is an encoded version of Hebrew.
They believe that one of the cyphers may be anagrams alphabetically ordered, showing 80 percent of the words decoded this way as Hebrew. Kondrak and his team have also deciphered a near grammatically correct first sentence that reads:
“She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people.”
The rest of the script remains somewhat encrypted with incongruent words and phrases that have yet to be untangled. Kondrak’s next goal is to bring in someone with more knowledge of ancient Hebrew and its possible ambiguities, as he’s currently been relying on Google translate.
About the Author
Aleister Crowley: The Wickedest Writer in the World
Known as “the wickedest man in the world,” English occultist and author Aleister Crowley actively embraced and contributed to his own notoriety. He delighted in shaking up social status quos, and used his infamy to draw a veil over, and at the same time draw attention to his esoteric work.
Crowley (b. 1875) died in 1947, leaving 61 books, some published during his lifetime — others published posthumously in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Crowley’s books enjoyed a revival, and Crowley himself achieved cult status during the expanding consciousness revolution beginning in the late 1960s.
Crowley was a prolific writer, and during his life wrote about the Qaballa, yoga, and the “Goetia,” attributed to the biblical King Solomon. He also penned commentaries on Thoth, “the Tarot of the Egyptians,” and the esoteric use of drugs to name but a few.
Crowley the Drug Fiend
The 1922 novel, “Diary of a Drug Fiend” was, according to Crowley, “A true story, rewritten to conceal personalities.” In his quest to understand the influence of different types of drugs on the mind, Crowley was captured by heroin, documenting that struggle in “Diary of a Drug Fiend.” He also experimented with and wrote about psychoactive substances, including absinthe (The Green Goddess, 1917), hashish (The Psychology of Hashish, 1909), and cocaine (Cocaine, 1917). Crowley also published “A Pharmaceutical Study of Cannabis Sativa” by E.P. Whineray in his March, 1909 issue of his journal The Equinox.
Ever in search of peak experiences, epiphanies, and absolute insight, Crowley advocated incorporating drug use into all magickal ceremonies, demonstrating his drive to experience expanded consciousness by any means necessary. He believed that the use of these substances would succeed where religion and science had failed to solve the rubric of the true nature of reality.
