The astrology of the Voynich manuscript is as confounding as everything else.
There is little that is recognizeable and few things conform to expectations.
We can, however, say one thing with confidence: the astrological systems presented in the work are of a zodiacal rather than planetary order.
There are many things conspicuously missing from the manuscript.
One of them, for example, is fire. There are no depictions of fire whatsoever in the entire work.
Another – a more important omission – is that there is no representation of anatomy and physiology, and no (apparent) account of the organs of the body.
Nor is there any depiction of illnesses and diseases (save one arguable case in the marginalia.)
We might expect some system of correspondences linking planets, organs and herbs. This is the familiar system in later Western astrology, in any case.
Instead, we find a distinctly stellar astrology that is outside that familiar grouping of correspondences.
There is no obvious depiction of a system of seven planets. What we encounter are depictions of the sun and moon, and depictions of the zodiac.
There may be an account of the planets included in some diagrams, or in the text, but there is no obvious illustrations of the planetary system. We can point to nothing and say: that is Saturn.
We see the Sun and Moon, stars, constellations and zodiac signs.
Again: this is a distinctly stellar star-based astrology. The ‘wanderers’, the planets, if they are included, are not central.
This tells us that it is not part of the tradition found in, say, the Mundi Thema of Firmicus Maternus where the emphasis is on the planetary rulerships, or domiciles, of the zodiac signs.
Much Western astrology typically transposes zodiacal symbolism to planetary symbolism by way of ‘rulerships’. Zodiacal signs tend to be understood as locations in which the planets are or are not at home.
Among the astrologies of the world, occidental, European, astrology has tended to be planet-based.
This is not found in the Voynich astrology.
Instead, the star-based systems we find are much more typical of Islamic astrological traditions, or what is variously (and awkwardly) called “Arab astrology” or “Graeco-Arab astrology” or more vague terms, “oriental astrology” and so on.
We will call it “Arabic” astrology, as per the usual Western designation, understanding that much of it might be Persian, or Indian – but Arabic was the literary tongue of the tradition.
But, more accurately, and given the historical context, we will also call it “Graeco-Arabic”, because much of it became familiar in the West via Greek sources, beginning in our period, the early Renaissance.
This “Arabic” or rather “Graeco-Arabic” tradition is a conspicuously zodiac-based astrology.
We can see this from the elements modern Western astrology has come to borrow from the “Arabs”, principally:
*The fixed stars.
*The Arabian parts.
The names, temperaments and significations of the fixed stars, as used in Western astrology, mainly come from the “Arabs”.
The so-called “Arabian Parts” are a system of synthetic points calculated from planetary (primarily Solar/Lunar) positions, projected onto the circle of the zodiac.
The main ‘Arabian Part’ that has found a place in Western astrological practice is the so-called Part of Fortune, the Pars Fortuna.
These synthetic “Parts” direct attention to specific degrees of the zodiacal circle, which then require their own meanings and significations, largely gleaned from the corresponding fixed stars.
The primary symbolism is stellar-zodiacal. The zodiac and fixed stars are the main frame of reference.
To be sure, the “Arabs” acquired much of this from Hellenic sources, but in the West they were typical features of “Arab astrology.”
* * *
To stylize the differences – that had far-reaching consequences in the history of science – this meant that the “Arabs” were more inclined to stellar observation, whereas the astrologers of the West were more inclined to planetary calculations.
The other difference between the two intellectual environments was that the “Arabs” put an emphasis upon lunar cycles, rather than solar.
To generalize: Western astrology is very solar-based, while “Arabic” astrology (the astrology of Islamic civilization) is more lunar. The Islamic calendar, after all, is a pure lunar calendar.
The main manifestation of this lunar-centric astrology is the system of twenty-eight Mansions of the Moon.
This sometimes finds its way into Western astrological practice, but not commonly.
Arguably, we find evidence of it in the Voynich manuscript, and there are clearly numerous illustrations that seem to be of key importance depicting lunar cycles and phases.
The Mansions of the Moon is a pervasive and rich symbolism in Arab astrology, let us note, because it invites parallels with the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet and so implies the notion of the cosmic text.
* * *
All of this is to say that the astrology we encounter in this work is distinctly “oriental”, or “Arabic” or “Graeco-Arabic”, or however we care to define it. (There is also Spain!)
It is assuredly eccentric, even given that, but we can see the unmistakeable influence of “Arabic” – Near Eastern, oriental, Islamic – astrological traditions.
The astrological content of the work, we can see, is not indigenous, but is, rather, exotic, in the first instance.
And the exotic systems being deployed are conspicuously zodiacal.
Thus is an entire section of the manuscript devoted to the zodiacal signs.
But the symbolism given emphasis in this section is not the usual accounts of the signs typical of Western astrology, whereby the signs are primarily characterized by elemental affinities.
We do not see Aries depicted as a fire sign, or Libra as an air sign – other than the traditional (Western) depictions of zodiacal creatures and characters such as one finds in Books of Hours or medieval almanacs.
Rather, each of the zodiacal signs is populated with nymphs.
Regardless of some anomalies, it is clear that there is intended to be thirty nymphs per sign, and so they are personfications of the individual degrees in each sign.
What is a zodiac sign? It is a house, a harem, of thirty nymphs.
These are the celestial nymphs. I distinguish them from the terrestrial nymphs found in another section of the work.
The Voynich system is clear:
In the heavens, there are twelve ‘signs’ and each is populated with thirty nymphs.
There is no account visible of the planetary rulerships of the zodiacal signs, or of their elemental affinities. (The signs themselves are not the focus.)
Each sign is envisaged as a sub-system of thirty – thirty degrees of the Great Circle of the zodiac, thirty nymphs.
It is important to note the traditional depictions of the zodiac creatures and characters in the centre of each zodiac sign.
They have generated prolific discussion.
What is important, though, is that they are traditional Western depictions – as per medieval almanacs , whether French, German or wherever.
The author is not adopting an exotic zodiac of exotic mythological creatures. It is the familiar occidental zodiac, and he identifies the twelve signs with altogether familiar (local, European) depictions (and overwritten at some later stage with French names.)
But the nymphs are exotic. The nymphs are not typical of Western astrology. (Not quite unprecedented, but certainly not typical.)
Leaving aside the nymphs, what is implied throughout is the system of dividing the celestial Great Circle into twelve zodiac signs each of thirty degrees.
This is an astrology about the powers and meanings and significances of the individual degrees of the zodiac.
The individual degrees are often given the Greek name paranatellonta in astrological terminology.
* * *
To explain this in practice:
Let us suppose you were born when the Sun was at 5 deg. Cancer. You are a ‘Cancerean’.
Ordinarily, it is then explained to you that Cancer is a water sign, a cardinal sign, is ruled by the Moon, and so on.
But here the whole focus is upon not Cancer, but the fifth degree of Cancer.
What is the nature and meaning of this particular degree in Cancer?
As it happens, this is the position of the fixed star, Sirius.
This becomes the important thing. The fifth degree of Cancer is characterized not by the element water, the rulership of the Moon, and so on, but by the fixed star at that point, Sirius.
This might be entirely overlooked in Western astrology – especially in its modern guises, but also as a general tendency.
To provide a naturalistic explanation:
European astrologers cannot see nearly as many stars, or see them nearly as clearly, as can the astrologers of more southern climes, notably in such places as Egypt, for example.
The climate of Europe has predisposed European astrology away from a consideration of the fixed stars and to concentrate on other matters.
But as anyone who has travelled overland at night through the deserts of the Near East can tell you, the profusion of stars in those climes is overwhelming.
To some extent it is true to say knowledge of the fixed stars was lost in the West, and was slowly reaquired through the star-gazing “Arabs”.
* * *
This is to sketch a general approach to the astrology of the Voynich.
Again, it is important not to get bogged down in the details and to keep a view of the larger picture.
The larger picture is that a body of astrological knowledge is being imported and integrated, adapted, appropriated.
It is assuredly “Arabic”, which is to say “oriental”, whether it comes from Spain, the Holy Land, through Greek sources, or wherever.
And it is an astrology of the stars, a stellar rather than planetary astrology, in which the individual degrees of the zodiac have distinct powers and significances.
(It is not, nevertheless, sidereal. The tropical system of coordinates prevails.)
This much is straightforward and can be demonstrated by abundant evidence from the manuscript.
It is contested, though, of course. There are those who contend that it is an indigenous development in a European astrology, pointing to texts and images here and there, but on the whole it is not controversial to say that we find the fingerprints of “Arab astrology” in the manuscript.
Its explication, however, is far from straightforward. The systems found in the Voynich illustrations are not by any means self-explanatory.
* * *
Much attention has been given to the poissibility that Voynich text Labels next to nymphs or stars might reveal or be construed as familiar Arabic names.
This was the approach taken by Stephen Bax, for example.
This might offer a way into the Voynich text, a key to the Voynich script and language.
If this is a body of Arabic astrological material, we might find Arabic words. Or Greek, if this body of Arab material has been mediated via Greek sources.
This is an approach often tried. Bax gave it a better shot than most. But it has not produced breakthroughs or convincing results.
And it never will if, in fact, Voynichese is not – despite appearances – a natural language.
* * *
In terms of my own on-going studies of Voynichese, the relevant point here is that the astrological content of the manuscript presents the ZODIAC as its central framework.
And the zodiac is, by another name, the YEAR.
The conclusion of my analysis thus far is that the YEAR forms the model for the language.
I wrote in a previous post:
We can convert celestial cycles into human language, using human writing systems.
This is essentially what Voynichese is. It is a language, a system of glyphs, that expresses the (palindromic) cycles of the year, or is based thereon.
This was an early suspicion in the study of the text – that it might be about seasonal cycles and calendars and festivals. There is much to suggest it in the illustrations.
But it goes further and deeper than that. The very language, the text, Voynichese, is itself a calendrical system, based upon, expressing, the cycles of the year. It is the cycles of the year made text.
I suggested that the Voynich text is:
A symbolic system extrapolated from the cycles of the YEAR.
Now we find that the astrological content of the work is zodiacally based – the YEAR is the central framework of this type of (oriental) astrology.
We might expect, then, that the Voynich language and the astrology are in some way mutally illuminating. They share the same framework: the YEAR.
The YEAR, astrologically, is a circle of 360 degrees divided into twelve ‘signs’ of thirty – (generated by the natural divisions of the circle and the movements of the sun) – the powers of the degrees here personified as celestial nymphs.
R. B.
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