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.
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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:
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“She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people.”
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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's Famous Thelemites and a Misunderstood Magick
“Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the Law.” Those were the words Aleister Crowley opened every letter with, whether writing to one of his famous Thelemites, or just his wife. The words are the foundation of the Law of Thelema, his esoteric, spiritual philosophy that was, to some a religion, and to others the antithesis.
To this day, there are few, if any, occult personalities who had the same impact on modern culture as Crowley. And fewer who became so vilified or misrepresented, even if those dark denunciations may have been intentionally incited and embraced.
But what was Thelema and the occult belief system Crowley cultivated? Why was it so controversial and who were the Thelemites who became devotees to the teachings of the “wickedest man in the world?” And even more intriguing, was Crowley’s embrace of this “evil” persona a façade to hide a career as a British intelligence agent?
