0:00

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.

0:26

Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians.

0:29

Thank you, as always so much for tuning

0:31

in. Let's hear from the man, the myth legend super

0:33

producer, mister Max Williams.

0:36

Max, and there was Max Max

0:39

Max Max Max.

0:40

I am Ben Bullen. You are Noel Brown

0:43

and this is ah. This is a fun one for

0:45

us because I think in over

0:48

the years we've both been fascinated

0:51

with this weird idea, this very

0:53

particular kind of book.

0:55

Well, shout out to Stuff you Missed

0:57

in History Class, a show that I long was

1:00

the producer for when I first started

1:02

at how Stuff Works back in the day, and they

1:04

were the first ones that ever mentioned the

1:07

Voyage manuscript and this codek

1:09

Seraphonia and things like the anti

1:12

Kisthera mechanism. You know a lot of

1:14

these sort of like is it isn't

1:17

it real?

1:18

Kind of things you know.

1:19

Throughout history that are is it

1:21

an elaborate prank? Was it just

1:23

drummed up by some really creative individual

1:26

and then thrown out there into the world for people to figure

1:28

it out for themselves.

1:29

We're gonna talk about all of those things today.

1:31

Yeah, this is something that

1:33

we've always found fascinating and strange.

1:36

As you said, Nola, a number of shows. The

1:39

best way to start with this is

1:41

just books. Books are so cool. If

1:43

you think about it, they're like a kind

1:45

of time machine. They're almost like necromancy

1:49

because a dead author is speaking directly

1:51

to you. If you could understand

1:53

a book, you're traveling into

1:56

a distant place and time. And

1:58

I think, honestly, I was talking about

2:00

this with our friends at Daily Seitgeist.

2:03

I think hearing an audiobook is just as

2:05

valid as reading one. I think it's the

2:07

same thing.

2:08

Well, I think some people just have different

2:10

modalities of learning and absorbing

2:13

information that work for them. Like our dear

2:15

friend of the show, Lauren Vogelbaum, says, audio

2:18

just does not grab

2:20

them. When I say grab, I don't mean

2:22

like, oh that this isn't like interesting.

2:25

It literally doesn't retain that. She

2:27

doesn't retain the information. It doesn't connect,

2:29

whereas me, I listen to

2:31

almost all of my research, you know, whether

2:33

it be I like to do YouTube. I have this app

2:36

called Speechify where you can copy and

2:38

paste text or type text and it'll kind of read

2:40

it to you. That way, I can like go through it

2:42

five or six times while I'm also

2:44

kind of reading other stuff, and I just

2:46

find it to be a really good bang for the bucks. So

2:49

while I have not physically read a book,

2:51

and I'm not going to lie a couple of years, I consume

2:54

so much text in literature, probably

2:57

more than I ever have in my life.

2:58

And this is the This is all

3:01

well and good, folks, as

3:03

long as you can understand what's being

3:05

said. I think that's a good point about modalities.

3:08

This is where we get to the ridiculous history

3:10

for today. It turns

3:12

out there are some books you literally cannot

3:15

read, and that is by design.

3:18

This is where we uh.

3:19

This is where we introduce something you had just mentioned

3:22

the Kodex. Is Sarah Finanius or

3:25

am I saying that correctly?

3:26

It's weird copy of it? Sarah

3:30

Sarah Fininan.

3:31

Oh my god, I've kind of got an anus there at the end.

3:35

Sarah Faninianus, Yes, there

3:37

we go that literally try to pronounce

3:39

Sarah Phineus too, And I think I've been saying it

3:41

wrong for lo these many years.

3:43

I think with this book especially, we

3:46

have a little bit of latitude.

3:47

I think it would appreciate us. Yeah,

3:50

it's like it.

3:50

Because when you say books you can't read, we're

3:53

not talking because they've been banned or

3:55

they've been taken out of the spot,

3:57

you know, right, No, it is because

4:00

by design they are incomprehensible.

4:09

The name of the codex literally translates

4:12

to Seraphini's book. It's named

4:14

after the really interesting author,

4:17

Luigi Serafini. All right, it is a

4:19

really recent book. It was published in nineteen

4:21

eighty one.

4:22

He got a copy here.

4:25

It is an encyclopedia

4:27

about a world that doesn't

4:30

exist. You can find

4:32

it on archive dot org if

4:35

you want to read an electronic version. But

4:38

it's just it's neat and

4:40

it looks like an actual dictionary

4:42

or encyclopedia. It has a consistent

4:46

script. The author,

4:48

Luigi Seraphina, he drew

4:51

everything, he made up the alphabet,

4:53

He wrote the whole thing, if you could call it writing.

4:57

It took him years to complete

4:59

the project, and it

5:03

is it appears completely nonsensical.

5:06

I'll tell you. It reminds me a lot.

5:08

If there are any gamers out there, I

5:11

need to get back into it. But I started to kind

5:13

of diping my toe in a game called No Man's

5:15

Sky. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that has

5:18

this world, these worlds you kind of you know, it's basically

5:20

like a you could call it an RPG,

5:23

but it's a little light on the you know,

5:26

the story aspects of it. It's more about

5:28

just interacting with the world and kind of like

5:30

mining for materials and even that, it's

5:33

it's a very meditative and beautiful and

5:35

Brian you know esque ambient music. But there

5:38

are all of these plants and animals

5:40

and and all kinds of other things that exist within

5:42

this, like you know, biome of the game that

5:45

very much have similar vibes to the type of

5:47

imagery found in the Codex. And

5:49

also there are alien languages that you

5:51

have to scan and kind of like interpret

5:54

and all of this stuff. And I just love

5:56

this level of world building, and

5:59

I know that we all do. But I think what

6:02

Luigi has accomplished here

6:05

as an artist and designer is

6:07

obviously so good that it freaked

6:09

some people out a little bit. And then this has

6:11

been in among discussions

6:14

around like lost homes

6:17

or the lost worlds like Atlantis

6:19

or something like that, you know exactly.

6:22

Yeah, and this mystery

6:25

is completely created

6:27

on purpose by Luigi.

6:30

He is not trying to pull the wool over

6:32

anybody's eyes. He strikes me actually

6:34

is a really cool kind of counterculture

6:37

dude.

6:37

Yeah.

6:38

He was born in Rome, Italy,

6:40

in nineteen forty nine. He's still

6:42

alive today. And one thing that I

6:44

think cracks this dude up

6:47

is you'll still find conspiratorial

6:49

allegations about the codex, and

6:52

then he'll in any interview

6:54

he'll say, you know, I'm here, you

6:57

can just ask me. I'm not

6:59

like, you know, some secretive Illuminati

7:02

skull and bones type guy.

7:04

He's kind of very hippie.

7:06

I'm sure you found this as well, Ben, But there's

7:08

a real cool interview on Wired Yes

7:10

with him. And again, when you look at

7:12

the thing, it just feels like this sort of weirdly

7:16

sacred almost kind

7:18

of text that's like not It's like you're looking at something

7:20

you're not supposed to be looking at, you know, right,

7:23

And to have the creator of this like answering

7:25

questions on a blog just

7:27

feels very strange and

7:30

wonderful.

7:31

Yeah, he's he.

7:32

Seems like a delightful guy. He does

7:34

a lot of other stuff. He's one of those you

7:36

know, we all have friends like this, and

7:39

I think the three of us are similar to

7:41

a degree with Luigi. He doesn't

7:44

just write books. He also is

7:46

a sculptor and architect. He

7:48

has made costumes for the ballet.

7:51

And there's this always, there's

7:53

this consistent fascination with what

7:55

we call meta language language

7:58

about language, and the codex just sort

8:00

of an extension of this. Nobody

8:03

can read it, including Luigi, including

8:05

the author. He has said multiple

8:08

times on record, Yes,

8:10

I wanted it to appear like a consistent

8:13

alphabet, like a real language, but

8:15

it has no real meaning, which is

8:17

where we learned the fancy word for language

8:19

without meaning, a semic absence

8:22

of semantic meaning.

8:24

Yeah, and I think, you know, maybe I'm overstating

8:26

the case, and I don't know, maybe you'll

8:29

you'll have more of a recollection of this than me. But that

8:31

there was a time where some people, I'm sure anytime

8:33

someone's presented with something fascinating

8:36

and bizarre like this, there will be some that might

8:38

not do their homework and be like.

8:39

What is this mystical historical

8:41

tome?

8:42

But was there kind of a little microculture

8:45

of folks that believed in this

8:47

to some agree or thought this was an artifact.

8:50

Okay, maybe I don't know, tell us a little bit about

8:52

what you've come up with on that front.

8:55

Yeah, well, especially

8:57

in the pre internet days, people

9:00

we have to realize people would encounter this

9:03

book, which was very rare before

9:05

it had reprints. Only five thousand

9:07

were made in the first edition

9:10

in nineteen eighty one, and they

9:12

were super They were

9:14

like uber expensive, very pricey.

9:17

So if you happened upon one of these

9:19

rare books, you would naturally have

9:21

a lot of questions. And even the you

9:24

know RESOLDI the publisher

9:26

is the publishing company

9:29

is run by Well

9:32

when he was alive. He's very strange,

9:35

singular Italian aristocrat

9:38

who is pretty mysterious. His other

9:40

great achievement instead of in addition

9:42

to publishing crazy fancy books, was

9:46

having the world's largest hedge maze

9:48

on his estate that tracks

9:51

it's both

9:53

Nola Amax looked at the camera

9:55

and just nodded like, yeah, that makes sense, hedge

9:58

mays.

9:58

The weird books.

9:59

But yeah, so it was not infrequent

10:03

that there would be people, especially

10:05

again the day's pre Internet was tougher,

10:08

when it was a little more difficult to fact

10:10

check. There would be people who just found this book

10:13

and were convinced that it was a real language.

10:15

They just happened not to know the language.

10:18

There were even people who got more fanciful

10:21

and said, you know, I've

10:23

tried figuring out where this book came from,

10:25

and I can't find it. It must be

10:28

from another world, despite the

10:30

fact that it is clearly a book printed

10:32

in Italy.

10:34

I gotta wonder too.

10:35

But I mean, you know, typically the more

10:38

working class amongst us, I guess don't

10:40

really have hedge mazes. I also

10:43

don't see this as being a particularly

10:45

big money making endeavor, with how

10:47

few copies were in print, and it seemed to be

10:49

more of an art project than some

10:52

kind of get rich quick scheme. Obviously a lot

10:54

of love and attention. One of this where is this guy's

10:57

money coming from? Yeah?

10:59

The publisher Franco

11:02

Maria Ricci or Ricci

11:05

like Christina Ricci is.

11:08

Yeah, he

11:11

he definitely comes from. I

11:13

got the sense he comes from a

11:15

sort of blue blood backgrounds.

11:19

He also published this incredibly

11:22

fancy magazine called fm R,

11:25

which are his initials, But he

11:27

was definitely an upper end kind

11:29

of dude. It's you know, as you said,

11:31

a working class person doesn't usually decide

11:33

to publish encyclopedia about

11:35

a made up world.

11:36

Well, it's interesting too, because you know, this

11:38

doesn't This strikes me as the kind of thing that

11:41

is much more of like a

11:43

passion project than it is even really being

11:45

that concerned with making sure. You don't usually get

11:47

to do that kind of stuff unless you're already

11:50

kind of set. You know, this is not a

11:52

Harry Potter book world. This

11:55

is meant to be head scratchy

11:58

and to create many

12:00

more questions than answer absolutely.

12:02

And one of the questions that we kind of ask

12:05

or we can get to at the end is as

12:08

more people learned the true story

12:10

of the codex, which again Luigi had

12:13

never tried to hide, more people

12:15

said, hmmm, is this guy

12:17

on drugs? And when you look at the

12:19

when you look at the illustrations, you

12:21

can see why people would ask that

12:24

these are very weird. It looks like they're drawn

12:26

in colored pencil, an incredibly beautiful

12:28

tale, very vibrant. Yeah, vibrant,

12:31

that's a great word for it. But they're like biomechanical

12:33

devices, it seems

12:36

to it's the book seems to exhaustively

12:38

detail the various elements

12:41

of this different world like and

12:44

it mimics the old school illustrated

12:47

manuscripts of old right.

12:48

Who would have the exhibits almost yeah,

12:51

yeah, yeah, yeah, botanical

12:54

illustrations in depth stuff

12:56

about animals.

12:58

There's a lovely little section on

13:01

tools that are just cartoonishly impractical.

13:05

One of the most iconic images

13:07

of this was I

13:09

think it was on the cover or the slipcase

13:11

of the first edition. It's

13:14

a couple in bed in

13:16

an intimate position. They are making making

13:19

love, you know things some

13:21

of.

13:22

The most cringe dated sounding thig.

13:24

I don't know why. It makes my skin crawl a little

13:26

bit.

13:27

Yeah, as they engage, they

13:30

fuse and meld and transform

13:33

into a crocodile.

13:35

Bro you know what it reminds me of if

13:37

you see it's become a meme. But there's

13:39

a series of like teen kind

13:41

of between books you get it like

13:43

Scholastic called Animorphs, where

13:46

it show the trajectory

13:48

of like the kid and like all the little in between

13:50

stages, and then they'd be like an animal. They've

13:52

become meme fodder and people

13:54

have been making like different kind of image macros

13:56

with those. But this is very sort of a sexy

13:59

after dark animorphs type situation.

14:01

And just to be clear, all of the text

14:04

is in this what was the term you used, been.

14:06

A Semitic, Yeah, a Semitic script.

14:09

I guess it has the vibe

14:12

of almost Arabic, a

14:14

very flowy kind of pictographic

14:17

kind of quality to it, or like cyrillic

14:20

maybe, or something like an ancient

14:22

That's why I think that's what really adds to the whole

14:24

ancientness.

14:25

Of one hundred percent. Yeah, it

14:27

looks like an ancient language. And apologies,

14:30

folks, that's a Semic I was.

14:32

Yeah, I said, a Semitic,

14:35

which is probably very different.

14:37

So he like,

14:39

this.

14:39

Book earns this aura

14:42

of mystery. It's a rare prize.

14:45

It's grail like to certain collectors.

14:48

And eventually, as

14:50

of now, there have been multiple reprints,

14:52

I think at least five reprints, gradually

14:55

making the book more accessible to

14:57

the general public. You know, the

14:59

non head may ze owning aristocrats.

15:01

And accessible and that you can get your hands on it,

15:04

right, nothing that would make it maybe more

15:06

accessible to wrap

15:08

your head around kind of add really quickly. Think the crocodile

15:10

image is a whole other page. Where

15:12

so it's like these exhibits where the first one it's

15:14

the humans, and they gradually, you know, exhibit

15:17

by exhibit turned into the crocodile. There's a whole other

15:19

page where it's just the crocodile on the

15:21

bed, then one additional image where

15:23

it's just sort of looking around deciding

15:25

to leave, then one where it slids it is off the bed,

15:28

and then one where it's just an empty bed. I mean,

15:30

this is taking the piss in the best

15:32

possible.

15:33

Way, you know, I like a sequential

15:35

almost like comic books panel.

15:37

But yeah, yeah, So the book is more accessible

15:40

to people in that they can obtain

15:42

a copy. Really, if you

15:44

think about it, this just means there are more

15:46

people who now also cannot read

15:49

this book, which is it's

15:51

weird and like to

15:53

the point about conspiracy and trying

15:55

to solve the mystery of the

15:57

Codex. Numerous people have

16:00

tried to decipher the script,

16:02

and this makes Sarah Fiini

16:05

just tickle tickled pink. He

16:07

talks about it pretty openly in his interview

16:10

with Wired.

16:11

Yeah.

16:12

He says in the interview that he describes

16:14

a gentleman who put who copyrighted

16:16

a system that translates arbitrarily

16:19

the signs of the Codex into meaningful texts written

16:21

with the Latin alphabet. It doesn't

16:23

matter much to me it's an obsession related

16:26

to the persistent fascination with

16:28

mystery. I always said that there is

16:30

no meaning behind the script. It's just

16:32

a game. But here's the thing, guys, whenever

16:34

someone says something like that, you

16:37

just assume that they're just trolling

16:40

you and that they're, you know, wanting you to

16:42

do better and figure it out. Like it's remember

16:45

on the puzzler Ben I can't remember if

16:47

it was when we were on it together, if

16:49

it was when when one of us were on individually.

16:51

But there's that crazy

16:54

uh what's the word like cipher

16:57

piece of art that's.

16:58

In Langley, virgin and you know that in

17:01

the middle of the of this like.

17:02

Courtyard, you know, for the CIA,

17:04

and uh, it's got these ciphers

17:07

and like some of them have been decoded,

17:09

but there's a handful that haven't. And

17:12

the artists actually will tell

17:15

you if your decoding is correct.

17:18

But he gets so many requests from that that I

17:20

think he charges by, you know,

17:22

by the answer these days like twenty

17:24

five fifty bucks.

17:26

Name is zach Aj told us about it

17:28

in one of his episodes with Us

17:30

A Ridiculous History.

17:31

Y's right.

17:32

Check it out, folks, and also check out his episode

17:34

coming up in the future, because we're going

17:36

to have that guy back on. We've actually

17:39

we've got some guests we're really excited about.

17:41

Maybe we could ask Luigi to come on. Oh,

17:43

it sounds like he'd be game. I also think

17:46

my episodes of The Puzzler are live.

17:48

If not, if they haven't been already,

17:50

they will be very soon. So keep an eye

17:52

out.

17:53

Ben.

17:53

You did some bad little ways back and

17:55

then we had him on uh and then my

17:58

my episodes are coming up, if

18:00

not out in the world right now.

18:01

We love that guy.

18:02

Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to those. And you

18:05

can also hear other guests

18:07

of ours on AJ's

18:09

show The Puzzler. I think Morocca went on

18:12

there. Our friend o Fira Eisenberg

18:14

has been on there.

18:16

And Ben from a Badass of the Week Ben

18:19

Thompson, Yes, Chus who

18:21

is on an episode earlier this week.

18:23

Anyway, Saraphini, if

18:26

you're listening to this big fans, check

18:28

out our show and let us know if you want to come

18:30

on. So this book

18:32

has all sorts of strange.

18:35

It's kind of tough to describe

18:37

it other than

18:39

pulling out some of these iconic things

18:42

that we like there's

18:49

also cultural exploration. These

18:52

different groups shown with their traditional

18:54

dress, the way they interact with their children,

18:57

important rituals. It

18:59

dives into you bacteria,

19:01

which doesn't make any sense. But he

19:04

let's go back to this Wired interview. It's a great

19:07

source, he says. The

19:09

codex is to him kind

19:11

of like a blog. He said, quote,

19:13

I was trying to reach out to my fellow people,

19:15

just like bloggers do. There's a connection

19:18

between codex and digital culture.

19:20

I was somehow anticipating the Internet

19:23

by sharing my work with as many people as

19:25

possible. I wanted the Codecs to be

19:27

published as a book because I wanted

19:29

to step out of the closed circle of art

19:31

galleries.

19:32

And here's the key quote.

19:34

What I want my alphabet to

19:36

convey to the reader is the sensation

19:39

that children feel in front of books they

19:41

cannot yet understand.

19:43

And he nailed it.

19:44

That's mission accomplished. I mean, seriously,

19:46

it's just it's a really neat thing. And you know,

19:48

I could see how for some people it might

19:50

be like vexing or like there's that need

19:53

to figure it out. But for

19:55

me, and I think I think you certainly get it

19:57

too, Ben is that's

19:59

the whole appeal is like I

20:01

don't need to solve the mystery or

20:03

answer you know, the question, or

20:05

like, you know, have the key code

20:08

for the cipher. It's really just about

20:10

kind of experiencing it. And it really takes

20:12

you back to that feeling of wonder that you get when

20:14

you are a little kid. In the world is a lot

20:16

more incomprehensible because it's so easy to

20:19

get to a place where everything's kind of old

20:21

hat and a little stale and boring.

20:23

And that's why we like art so much.

20:25

And this is a great example of like how art

20:27

can really bring back that childlike wonder.

20:30

Before we go to our next book that no one can read,

20:33

we will answer the question we set up earlier

20:35

was Luigian drugs. He

20:38

says, I did mescaline, the

20:40

drug that was used to expand the boundaries of

20:42

your mind. I'm talking about a real mind

20:45

transfer forming tool. It had

20:47

nothing to do with today's recreational use.

20:49

At the time in the US, Native Americans

20:52

were allowed to use it for religious purposes,

20:54

but it didn't help me in

20:56

the creative process. And then he goes

20:58

on about how if you're under the influence

21:01

of mescaline, you think everything you're

21:03

doing is amazing, and then when

21:05

you sober up, you're like, I don't

21:07

know if this.

21:08

Is the flag.

21:10

I think he's not wrong, but I will say

21:12

that I think there's a bit of a misconception where people

21:14

think that artists are doing

21:16

are while high,

21:19

and I think that's usually not the case.

21:22

Most oftentimes what happens is a

21:24

psychedelic experience like this will shift

21:27

their thinking in some way, and

21:30

it'll inspire them and it'll give them

21:32

maybe a key into a new process

21:35

or something. But I think for the most part,

21:37

you know, probably best to wait

21:39

until the after globe before you start

21:41

trying to do any.

21:43

Of this stuff and feel like it's going to be meaningful, yeah,

21:46

or.

21:46

You know, get your thumbnail sketch

21:48

in or write the idea or

21:51

the thing down, knowing that

21:53

you have to come back in

21:55

a more baseline state.

21:56

I think it was I think it was

21:58

Maynard.

21:59

From two who had a great quote about

22:01

that, because he was super into meditation and

22:03

he said, yeah, you do drugs

22:06

right, and they can inspire you and get

22:08

you to a point. I think he was talking about hallucinogens,

22:10

yeah, And he said, but the real thing,

22:13

the real creative act is arriving

22:17

at the ability to reach that

22:19

mental point again without drugs.

22:22

One hundred percent or if you look. I mean a lot

22:24

of this stuff too reminds me of the work of David

22:26

Lynch, who is a huge proponent

22:28

of transcendental meditation. He always

22:30

talks about catching the big fish's

22:32

actually I think a book that he wrote, but the idea of

22:35

your mind and your consciousness or

22:37

this like vast sea of inspiration

22:39

and ideas. You just have to know how

22:42

to calm those waters enough to

22:44

be able to kind of penetrate them and pluck

22:46

out those ideas and then write

22:48

them down, you know, whether that's like the actual

22:50

fully fleshed out idea or just the seed

22:53

or the germ of an idea.

22:55

You know.

22:55

That's a big proponent. He always says too, They're

22:57

like, always write them down. If you forget

22:59

an idea, Yeah, y'all want to commit so

23:01

side.

23:02

He says that every time.

23:04

But I really do think in a lot of ways what people

23:06

are achieving with transcendental meditation

23:09

is getting their mind to a controlled

23:11

state of this kind of openness

23:14

that I think maybe often comes from can

23:16

come from doing hallucinogens,

23:18

whether medically prescribed

23:21

or you know, quote unquote recreational.

23:23

But I think sometimes the term recreational

23:25

can be a little bit flippant because I know a lot of people.

23:28

They aren't taking these things to party. They're

23:30

taking these things to.

23:31

Like have an experience there to be

23:33

just like being therapeutic.

23:34

Yeah yeah, yeah.

23:35

And this brings us to

23:38

whatever we mentioned the Codex. We also

23:40

will also have people inevitably mention

23:44

the Voyage Manuscript, No, what

23:47

the heck is this thing?

23:48

So I think in my mind I get these things

23:51

twisted a little bit, because to me, it

23:53

was more much more clear that

23:55

the Codex outside of some of these

23:57

little niche pre internet kind of communities, or even

24:00

the ones that continue to look for meaning or maybe

24:02

there is none. The Voyage

24:04

Manuscript is an

24:06

often debated text that

24:09

similarly has

24:11

some indecipherable texts and

24:13

images that are describing

24:16

a world that maybe is just off

24:18

the off the map kind of you, but

24:21

really was believed to have been authentic

24:23

or representative of some undiscovered

24:26

country.

24:27

Right.

24:28

It's an illustrated manuscript written in an unknown

24:30

language and thoughts who have been created in

24:32

the fifteenth or sixteenth century. It's got

24:34

age on its in its favor too, because

24:37

a lot more questions come with something

24:39

that is legitimately old and can be

24:41

confirmed to be so.

24:43

Right, like even you know, even

24:45

knowing that the Shroud of Touring

24:48

and many relics

24:50

of saints were proven to be hoaxes,

24:53

a lot of them were frauds, manufactured

24:56

centuries and centuries. They're still

24:58

very old and appear to be the case

25:00

with this manuscript. It's not

25:03

named after the original author. The author

25:05

is unknown. We don't know when it

25:07

was created exactly. Instead,

25:09

it's named after a

25:12

bookseller named Wilfrid

25:14

voy or Wilfrid Voyage

25:17

excuse me, because he purchased

25:19

it in nineteen twelve. Then

25:21

ever since that moment, people

25:23

have been trying their darndest

25:26

to decipher this text. A

25:29

lot of people spoiler over

25:31

the years, they think they've figured it out,

25:33

but the problem is no one agrees

25:35

with each other that's right.

25:37

And a lot of real research

25:40

and then scientific study has gone

25:42

into this, whether it be through dating it or

25:44

trying to find some sort of key to the

25:46

indecipherable language in there. Extensive

25:49

research has suggested that it was manufacturer

25:52

or created somewhere in Central Europe, and

25:55

through that carbon dating radio

25:57

carbon dating, it's been

25:59

determined who have been somewhere in the early

26:01

fifteenth century. And a particularly

26:04

long standing theory that was debunked

26:06

by radiocarbon dating conducted in two

26:08

thousand and nine was that it was written by

26:10

thirteenth century English scientist

26:13

Roger Bacon okay, inventor

26:16

of.

26:16

Bacon yes,

26:19

yes, and the inventor of Roger exactly.

26:24

He invented both of those. There

26:26

is also this idea. Another

26:29

origin story is that perhaps the

26:31

first owner of the book is

26:33

the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph

26:35

the Second. That guy was in

26:37

play from fifteen seventy six to

26:39

sixteen eleven. If he did

26:42

own it, then there are some scholars

26:44

who will say he purchased it from

26:46

the mathematician and occultist John

26:49

Dee, also spymaster John

26:51

d.

26:52

I still want to see his calendar. I

26:54

still want to see what his calendar is about. Perfect.

26:57

I mean, what we see also here is that they're

26:59

trying to tie it to notable mysterious

27:02

historical figures right well.

27:04

And can we just say it's pretty clear that

27:07

these Codex Seraphina and the Nonos

27:11

was inspired by this, Like I mean,

27:13

no, if you look so just to a

27:15

lot of the things that we've been describing about the codex,

27:18

you're going to see a lot of very similar type

27:20

of drawings and renderings here

27:22

of strange alien

27:24

beings interacting with weird you

27:27

know, tentacle dare i say,

27:29

phallic type plants. You know,

27:32

there's some kind of weird sexy

27:34

undertones as well, like

27:36

a very strange kind of pod people

27:39

type birthing scenarios. Again,

27:42

exhibited forms of flora

27:44

and fauna, laid out as though it were

27:46

some kind of encyclopedia, and all

27:48

kind of contained within

27:51

these beautifully bordered pages, with

27:53

all of this handwritten text that is

27:55

a language that is indecipherable

27:58

and has been puzzled over for a long

28:00

long time.

28:01

Yeah.

28:02

Yeah.

28:02

And this notion

28:05

that the book was purchased by

28:07

the Holy Roman Emperor, it comes

28:10

from a letter written in sixteen sixty

28:12

five by a scientist in Prague,

28:15

and when Voyage purchases

28:17

the book in nineteen twelve, he

28:19

finds the letter tucked into the pages

28:22

of the manuscript. So, without

28:25

getting too far into the weeds, Voyage

28:28

gets this from a Jesuit college near

28:30

Rome in Italy, and the

28:33

bookseller then coordinated

28:36

a bunch of different exhibitions

28:38

for lack of a better word, like old school salons

28:41

to show off this book. He would take it

28:43

to universities. He took it to the Art Institute

28:45

in Chicago at nineteen fifteen, and

28:47

I think ever since nineteen sixty

28:50

nine it's been in the

28:52

library at Yale University.

28:54

So you can go see

28:57

this. I don't know if they take walk INDs.

28:59

I think you have to, you know, emails.

29:01

By Yeah,

29:03

I'm pasting an image into the chat for

29:05

you guys, if you don't mind.

29:07

There's one panel in particular that

29:09

I think is so cool and bizarre.

29:11

It's like a horse with

29:14

a palm palm on its head and

29:18

its backside looks like a

29:20

weird bejeweled.

29:22

Worm or larval co.

29:26

Yeah, it is a really bedazzled

29:29

flug and it's.

29:30

Got wheels on it, and then in the margins

29:32

there are these little diagrams I guess

29:35

on how to construct the wheels

29:37

or what they're made, treads

29:39

and so on. Yeah, it's like a little weird

29:41

tank treads, and then hanging from its muzzle

29:44

or its little bridle is another

29:46

weird, little dangly piece of this

29:48

bedazzled cocoon stuff.

29:50

Oh, and you know what, I think I recognize

29:53

this image. I think it's from the Codex.

29:55

Oh my gosh, you're totally right.

29:57

And I think I was taken because

30:00

they really do have a very similar art style.

30:02

But now that I'm looking at this one, it is much more detailed.

30:04

The stuff in the Voytage Manuscript is

30:06

a lot more lo fi and almost childlike,

30:09

kind of in its naive style.

30:11

I guess, oh, oh, yeah, but they

30:14

have a lot in common, they really do.

30:16

Yeah.

30:16

I think you're right on the money there. And

30:18

in the story of the Voyage Manuscript,

30:20

we also see a lot of similarities of

30:22

people trying to figure out this thing over

30:26

the years, because it's more than

30:28

a century now, some of

30:30

the smartest people in the world have

30:32

tried to crack the code of the Voyage

30:35

Manuscript and failed. We're talking about

30:37

scholars of chemistry, law,

30:40

intelligence agency types, professional

30:43

cryptologists from World War two. I

30:45

almost said professional cryptozoologists

30:48

from World War two, which would be even cooler.

30:50

Would be cooler, And honestly, if some

30:53

of the images we're seeing in this are

30:55

meant to be taken as fact,

30:57

there's some cryptids in the mix that

31:00

we have yet to discover, you know, like least

31:03

of which is that weird horse thing, which again is

31:05

from the Codex, but in the Voytage

31:08

manuscript there's a lot of weird animals

31:10

depicted as well.

31:11

Oh yeah, yeah, And let's talk about the

31:13

book itself. It's

31:21

not quite the same as what you would consider

31:24

a modern book today, right. It's

31:26

got a bunch of folios and

31:29

they're very heavily illustrated.

31:31

There are one hundred and two of them, so it's about two

31:33

hundred and thirty four pages. It's

31:35

divided into six sections Botany,

31:37

astronomy, astrology, biology, cosmology,

31:42

some kind of pharmaceutical thing, and

31:45

maybe a section on recipes.

31:48

People think maybe there's

31:51

a lot. God, dude, it's so fascinating.

31:53

There's a lot of, I believe.

31:54

In the biology section, a lot of depictions

31:56

of these weird little naked people kind

31:59

of coming out of what looked like Mario

32:01

World, like plumber tubes kind

32:04

of, and they're holding these strange

32:06

plants and creatures in their little

32:08

tiny naked fists. And

32:11

again the birth of them is sort of depicted

32:13

as this like primordial soup

32:15

sort of situation where they're coming out of this like

32:18

these slime baths. It's

32:20

really really bizarre, fascinating stuff.

32:23

And then the women who are connected

32:25

by tubes. There are

32:27

drids of nude women who are

32:29

intertwined with these various tubes.

32:32

The longest section, I

32:34

believe, is the botanical section.

32:36

Lots of herbs and plants

32:40

that just don't exist.

32:42

They're they're not real.

32:43

And then the astrology or

32:46

very man Drake looking thing exactly

32:48

so you know what I mean. But they're like really twisty,

32:50

weird, kind of human like

32:52

roots. But when you look

32:55

at them and cross reference and with the real stuff, there

32:57

are things that are just not quite right about

32:59

them. Yeah, but if

33:02

you didn't have the comparisons to make you

33:04

would think, oh, yeah, that makes

33:06

sense, right. I

33:09

like the you point it that way, there's something that's

33:11

just sort of off, and we

33:14

we know. The The

33:16

fourth section, skipping around a little bit,

33:19

has this thing with a weird

33:21

drawing of or drawings

33:24

of these nine medallions that

33:26

are filled with stars and other shapes.

33:28

And then just as you have enough

33:31

time to WTF your way through that, you

33:33

get to the pharmaceutical section. It

33:35

appears that they are telling you

33:37

which plants can be used to do

33:39

certain things, and then drawings of jars

33:42

and bottles, et cetera.

33:43

It's pretty cool, you guys. If you go to

33:46

collections dot library, dot Yale dot

33:48

eedu slash catalog, I was gonna give you the whole

33:50

thing. That's actually pretty succst slash two

33:52

zero zero two zero four six h.

33:55

There is a fully scanned

33:57

physical scan of this thing,

34:00

including the edges and the way

34:02

it looks from the side, the tail, the

34:04

fore edge and all of that and all of the extra

34:07

little pieces. It is really

34:09

cool. You're not just seeing like some sort of

34:11

like lifted you know, text

34:13

or scan to text kind of things. This is like

34:16

all of the texture and the wear and all

34:18

of that stuff in the front and back covers. And

34:20

you can really see those folios you mentioned, Ben,

34:22

because when you look at it folded from the side,

34:25

there are kind of these little tracts

34:27

that are almost tucked in there, you know,

34:29

kind of with their own little self contained

34:31

sections, rather than being bound like

34:33

you were saying, like a traditional book.

34:35

Yeah, like a weird pile of notebooks

34:38

they got put together or journals.

34:40

This.

34:41

You can also buy a copy or reprints

34:43

of this facimile copies of

34:45

it on at your

34:48

favorite bookstore or even Amazon

34:50

today. If you want to help Jeff get back to the

34:52

moon. Yeah, we

34:54

got to help Jeff get this space. But

34:57

yes you can. You can find not

34:59

just voy but also Codex. You can find

35:01

them available online, and

35:04

it's worth it if you're interested in this. Another

35:07

thing that's fascinating about this book, man, is

35:09

that people

35:12

because people wanted to solve the

35:14

mystery so much, they

35:17

had some crazy pitches. One

35:21

of the earliest efforts was

35:23

in the early nineteen hundreds a guy named

35:25

William Romaine Newbold, very

35:28

very smart at the University

35:30

of Pennsylvania, and he said, this

35:32

just this is the only example we nique is so weird.

35:35

He said, look, the visible text is

35:37

meaningless. But each of those

35:39

things that looks like a letter, if

35:42

you zoom in, I kid you not with a

35:44

microscope, then you will see

35:46

tiny markings. And I think

35:48

it's Greek, and then I think it's based

35:50

on Greek, and I think there's a code that I

35:53

have figured out that will tell you what's really

35:55

going on. And people

35:57

said, all right,

35:59

well, try give it a shot. And it turned

36:01

out he really believed

36:03

he had solved it, but most

36:06

other people disagreed. There's a lot of work

36:08

on Hebrew interpretations

36:11

of it or different like two steps ciphers.

36:14

But right now we still see

36:16

a pattern of people saying, yes, I've figured

36:18

it out, and then other people coming along

36:21

maybe after, as you said, the glow wears off,

36:23

and saying you

36:26

hadn't really though, because this seems like

36:28

a roar shack almost you see

36:30

what you want to see.

36:31

A million percent, And that's the beauty of this kind

36:34

of stuff, you know, where it

36:36

feels like it's begging to be solved. But

36:38

really the whole idea might be that it's

36:40

just an elaborate kind of troll. But

36:43

maybe troll is a little unfair or a little

36:45

unkind because to me, what

36:47

would be the goal of a t

36:50

want to be two rhymey, but what would be

36:52

the goal of someone trying to perpetrate like a

36:54

fraud by unleashing this end of the

36:56

world? What would be the nefarious intent

36:58

behind it? I don't see it. The trill goal,

37:01

yeah, the troll goal, and pay the troll

37:03

toll to execute that troll goal.

37:06

Yeah, it is.

37:08

It is interesting. There are Luigi

37:10

Serafini actually had something to say about this

37:13

because his argument

37:15

was it was created

37:18

as a fake, meant

37:20

to entirely meant to be sold

37:22

to that emperor Rudolph

37:25

too, because that guy likes books. And

37:27

then other people say it was a fake by

37:30

Voyage himself somehow entirely

37:32

meant to increase

37:35

his own reputation. Neither

37:38

of those things have been conclusively.

37:41

Wouldn't that be risky to do

37:43

that?

37:43

Like, you know, I just mean to perpetrate a fraud

37:45

like that on such a powerful person who

37:48

might not take kindly to being

37:51

tricked in that way.

37:52

Yeah, exactly, that's what That's

37:55

what I'm thinking, you know, anyway,

37:57

that there is one thing on the we

38:00

see this pattern of you know, discoveries,

38:03

claim discoveries and refutations continue

38:06

today, and there's even some

38:09

recent attempts to use large

38:11

language models or AI to try

38:13

to crack it, but people just keep

38:15

again kind of seeing what they want

38:17

to see, and nobody agrees that the code's

38:19

been cracked yet. And I got, you

38:21

know, maybe this is where we end because NOL

38:24

at this point, I feel like actually

38:26

solving the riddle the

38:28

code might be anti climactic.

38:31

We talk about that a lot on our other show stuff

38:33

that I want you to know. With our buddy Matt Frederick, like,

38:35

sometimes depending on what the mystery

38:38

is, like if it's you know, obviously a

38:40

search for justice or someone that's done

38:42

something horrible, or a crime

38:44

or fraud being perpetrated, you know, on the American

38:47

people or whoever it might be. Sure

38:49

you want to get to the heart of that, you want to see who's

38:51

to blame. But sometimes you

38:53

know, these oddities or like things like

38:55

the Georgia guidestones for example, where

38:57

there's this, oh gosh, what's the various

39:00

plot behind it? And based

39:02

on everything we know about that, the

39:04

whole point of it was to not know

39:08

someone went to a lot of trouble to make their

39:10

personality not be part of it.

39:12

It was more about like, what what does the journey

39:15

that this art or this piece of work

39:17

or this information takes you on. So

39:20

to answer your question, yeah, big time anticlimactive

39:23

for things like this. You know, I think almost

39:26

one hundred percent of the time for me anyway.

39:28

And we say that because

39:30

we, like the rest of the world,

39:33

don't know what's in the book. Perhaps it is

39:35

revelatory, or perhaps it's like that thing

39:38

that seeing in a Christmas tale

39:40

or a Christmas story where the kid finally

39:42

gets the decoder ring and the

39:44

big code that he learns is

39:47

spoiler, folks, three to one. It's

39:49

an advertisement for Oval Team.

39:51

I know, which is a banger of a drink.

39:53

By the way, It's got mintal minerals in it.

39:55

It's got that multi flavor really good

39:57

in a coffee. If you want like a little bit of

39:59

a moke situation, a tablespoon

40:02

of of the Oval scene in

40:04

there, we'll get you right where you want to be.

40:07

I hope not. You know, that would be even

40:09

worse.

40:10

Of an anti climax to find out that it

40:12

was actually meant to sell us widgets

40:14

or something like that.

40:15

You know.

40:16

And to jump in here real quick, I have

40:18

to bring up the Elder Scrolls

40:21

unreadable book the Agma and Finium,

40:23

which you might be sitting there saying you can read

40:25

that one, yes, but you will lose your mind

40:27

if you read it is the digric artifact of

40:30

hermeus Mora.

40:31

Then you know that one quite well.

40:34

Lose your mind as in because it will infect

40:36

you as some sort of demonic force.

40:39

No, so look with hermeas Mora.

40:41

You know he's the day.

40:42

Yeah, why did you ask he's like he's

40:45

the dadrich uh Dadrek god of

40:47

knowledge and basically he has so much

40:49

knowledge that you will lose your mind just ever chasing

40:51

knowledge.

40:52

Okay, well that's sort of life, ain't it.

40:54

The daj are one of the most fun parts of the

40:56

game.

40:58

They're they're nefarious though right there,

41:00

not necessarily, I.

41:02

Would say mostly, but it's

41:04

also it's an elder god argument, like so

41:07

different as to be incomprehensible

41:09

to mortals.

41:10

Yeah, some some like you know, like

41:13

uh, mullleg ball, he's evil,

41:15

that's simple. His weapons is great

41:17

though, he is, but we can't even describe

41:20

what he is the god of on air because it's

41:22

so offensive.

41:23

That's right.

41:24

Uh but uh but then

41:26

there's like a zero. We're like, Yahara is not evil,

41:28

but there is evil. I would argue with Bofi

41:30

is not evil, but that's just me.

41:32

Who's the one I'm messing with right now? In the

41:35

DNC that's still okay. Yeah,

41:37

every time I read The Dark the Black Books

41:39

or whatever, I end up in the

41:41

the.

41:42

Tentacle e world handed

41:44

to me man asque.

41:46

It's cool, but I feel like, am I

41:48

not powerful enough to be messing with that world?

41:50

Yet?

41:50

I keep kind of putting it off because every time I

41:53

go, I I can't.

41:54

I can't make.

41:55

Cancer tales of it. It's high level game, yeah

41:57

it is. It was originally designed to play

41:59

after you have already been.

42:01

The main Then I'm gonna keep it.

42:03

I'm gonna keep it in in my back pocket

42:05

until I get a little bit more.

42:06

I do have a full set of dragon

42:09

Bone armor, though.

42:10

That's pretty badass, so I feel a little overpowered.

42:12

How well are you wearing it?

42:13

Though?

42:13

That's always the question. I don't know what that means heavy

42:16

armor level? How well are you wearing

42:19

heavy armor?

42:19

Guys.

42:20

Okay, we're gonna talk about this off air yet.

42:23

I hope everybody enjoys skyline.

42:24

Everyone, We're gonna get out of here.

42:27

We'll see if that makes it to the final

42:29

edit.

42:30

In the meantime, we can't wait to

42:32

hear more of your favorite UH

42:34

strange books. There

42:37

are other, you know, other

42:39

innovations in the world of bookery,

42:41

like A House of Leaves is a

42:43

famous, famous UH form

42:46

breaking book. You can tell us about our Facebook

42:48

page Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always

42:51

to our super producer, UH

42:53

mister Max Williams, big

42:55

fan of daydre.

42:58

Man.

42:59

Huge thanks to you Ben for being the research

43:01

to associate on this particular episode.

43:04

I always love talking about these these two volumes,

43:06

and you can I.

43:07

Don't remember exactly what episode you would look

43:09

for, but on stuff they don't want you to know. We definitely

43:12

have further discussions of this

43:14

kind of thing, specifically these

43:16

books, but also you know, just in general, the

43:19

idea of historical frauds and

43:21

kind of doomsday conspiracies that maybe

43:24

we're more of someone trying to

43:26

get people under their control than an actual

43:28

facts, legitimate prediction, So.

43:31

Do check that out.

43:32

Thanks also to AJ Jacobs, the Puzzler,

43:35

Jonathan Strickland aka the quizt,

43:37

Let's See Eaves, Jeff.

43:38

Goat, Gris Rasiotis,

43:41

and all of you ridiculous historians

43:44

out there in Ridiculous history Land.

43:46

We'll see you next time, folks.

43:54

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio

43:57

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

43:59

to your favorite IT shows