Lambda and Circles

In these pages I promote the following quote from Nicholas of Cusa as highly suggestive in the study of the Voynich manuscript:

One element universally enfolds within itself three elements; but the three elements generally enfold within themselves nine elements; and the nine specifically enfold within themselves twenty-seven elements. Therefore, the cube of three is the specific unfolding of the oneness of each element. But the species enfolds its own specific elements, just as the specific Latin language has its own specific elemental letters. Although these specific letters are few, they are of inexhaustible power. Hence, just as a Latin sentence consists of certain very universal letters, of general letters, of somewhat specific letters, and, lastly, of very specific letters—all contracted to the Latin sentence—so too every sensible-particular is like a complete sentence.

Conjectures, 95.

In this post I want to demonstrate the application of the first part of the quote - concerning 'enfoldment' - to the design of the Voynich map (the subject of on-going studies in recent posts.) The relevant portion is:

One element universally enfolds within itself three elements; but the three elements generally enfold within themselves nine elements; and the nine specifically enfold within themselves twenty-seven elements. Therefore, the cube of three is the specific unfolding of the oneness of each element.

This is good Platonism. Plato describes how objects of volume expand and contract from monads. Nicholas is using Plato's lambda:

 

On this point, I want to note here that the lambda appears as a (rare but quite definite) Voynichese glyph, namely EVA-v = ^, and in fact many glyph forms in the Voynich text might suggest various historical iterations of the lambda (L) consonant:

 

Also noting that the Voynich [l] has special properties acting as a type of wildcard or joker, seemingly able to act as consonant or vowel in different environments. I am intrigued that it appears stylized as one of the plant forms in the centre of page 65v:

 * * *

 

 

Might not the design of the map demonstrate this cubic progression from the Platonic lambda? It is not just a system of nine: it is a system of 3 x 3 x 3. Each of the nine circles is threefold. It is an expanding series. 

 

The foundations of the map are geometrical, and the progression championed by the Neoplatonist Nicholas of Cusa - important to his philosophy - where the one becomes three, the three becomes nine and the nine twenty-seven provides exactly that formula.

R. B.