What do you think the Voynich Manuscript is?

[Meursault]

Wiki it if you aren't familiar with it.

I tend to think it's a legitimate alchemical codex from the fifteenth century ('legitimate', at least, in the sense that the men writing it thought they knew how to do magic).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

[DemPGH]

There's a strong possibility that it is a pious hoax or a scam, intentional or not. This is very much John Dee and Edward Kelley territory - you should read up on Dee. He was a fascinating fellow who was into literally everything. Kelley was more of an outright charlatan who was into the occult. Read up on the Enochian alphabet.

Alchemy was a fairly legitimate endeavor on its own - it was the beginning of chemistry, but of course when it got wrapped up in mysticism and the occult it lost any and all objective legitimacy.

There were, vaguely related, the spirit rapping or knocking hoaxes of the 19th century as well.