Voynich Manuscript

Do you know about this amazing book? While scientists puzzle over what it is, what language it is written in and what its illustrations mean ("Is it a code, a cipher of some kind? People are doing statistical analysis of letter use and word use – the tools that have been used for code breaking. But they still haven't figured it out.")*, I think religious Witches will know precisely what the book is about without much guesswork!

After all, what kind of book would be written in code (so that only like minded approved others could understand it), have illustrations of plants, the cosmos and their workings, and multiple pictures of dozens of women ritually bathing together? Who would take all that time to painstakingly transcribe in gorgeous calligraphy and illustrations a book in no known human language?

Scientists describe the book as "Rows of text scrawled on visibly aged parchment, flowing around intricately drawn illustrations depicting plants, astronomical charts and human figures bathing in – perhaps – the fountain of youth." They have radiocarbon dated the pages to the early 15th century.

Linguists have studied the book and it does not appear to be written in any knwn human language- alive or dead. "Alien characters, some resembling Latin letters, others unlike anything used in any known language, are arranged into what appear to be words and sentences, except they don't resemble anything written – or read – by human beings." says one scientist.

Our intrepid scientist added, ""Who knows what's being written about in this manuscript, but it appears to be dealing with a range of topics that might relate to alchemy. Secrecy is sometimes associated with alchemy, and so it would be consistent with that tradition if the knowledge contained in the book was encoded. What we have are the drawings. Just look at those drawings: Are they botanical? Are they marine organisms? Are they astrological? Nobody knows."

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*Greg Hodgins, University of Arizona's Department of Physics

Neurotheology!

There is a book out that I am dying to read: Principles of Neurotheology. In it, a scientist (Dr. Andrew Newberg) starts out by doing brain scans of meditating Buddhists, chanting Sikhs, and praying nuns. New berg found that brains are different while doing any of these practices, and the brains of people who do them often are significantly different than those who do not. What he found was interesting enough to try out religious practices to help people with memory loss.


Neurotheology is attempting to understand spiritual experience — and what happens in the brains and bodies of people who believe they connect with the divine.

From an NPR feature on the book:
Newberg's scans have also shown the ways in which religious practices, like meditation, can help shape a brain. Newberg describes one study in which he worked with older individuals who were experiencing memory problems. Newberg took scans of their brains, then taught them a mantra-based type of meditation and asked them to practice that meditation 12 minutes a day for eight weeks. At the end of the eight weeks, they came back for another scan, and Newberg found some dramatic differences. "We found some very significant and profound changes in their brain just at rest, particularly in the areas of the brain that help us to focus our mind and to focus our attention," he says. More than half of adult Americans report that a spiritual experience has changed their lives. According to Newberg, many of the participants related that they were thinking more clearly and were better able to remember things after eight weeks of meditation. Remarkably, the new scans and memory tests confirmed their claims. "They had improvements of about 10 or 15 percent," Newberg says. "This is only after eight weeks at 12 minutes a day, so you can imagine what happens in people who are deeply religious and spiritual and are doing these practices for hours a day for years and years."

As a Witch, I know that what happens in my brain affects other things, can indeed affect all the worlds. Religious practices hone the brain into a sharp instrument- and science is just beginning to catch up with centuries of religious practices in almost every tradition.