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There are certain books that aren't exactly listed in great detail on Amazon. These weird and mysterious works often have unknown authors and describe forgotten histories or strange and fantastical worlds. There are some books that are so mysterious that no one has ever been able to read them, written in cryptic codes that have yet to be cracked. Some contain odd pictures depicting fights or the origin of the Earth or flora and fauna we've never seen.
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Books love, nay, need to be read
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But there are some books that are so mysterious, so cryptic, so utterly unexplainable that they refuse to be understood
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despite centuries of attempts to decipher them. So today, we're unpacking the most mysterious books
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that history can't explain. We're going to do this thing by the books
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The Voynich Manuscript is a weird little book purchased by Polish antique dealer
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Wilfried Voynich in 1912. Believed to date back to the 15th century
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the book is filled with illustrations of different animals, herbs, people, and maps
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So far, what's the big deal? We've got a whole shelf of books like that
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Well, this 250-page book, which currently resides at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
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is written in some kind of code, which nobody has been able to crack for over 100 years
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However, German Egyptologist Rainer Hannig believes that codebreakers have been looking at it all wrong
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He believes looking at it through the lens of a Semitic language, such as Arabic, Aramaic, or Hebrew
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will be the key to finally solving it. and he even translated a few sentences
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But don't hold your breath. The full translation will likely take more than a few years
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due to the vocabulary from the period it was written, just so long as it doesn't tell us to drink our Ovaltine
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The Urantia Book is an epic work of spiritualism written sometime between 1924 and 1955
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and no one knows who actually wrote it. The 2,000-page tome refers to Earth as Urantia
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and contains sections about God, Jesus, science, philosophy, and the meaning of life
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While some of those elements may seem familiar, the Urantia book is like the remix
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For example, Jesus does appear in the book, but according to this text
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he was not born by immaculate conception, and he did not perform any of his divine miracles
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The book came to light after two doctors, husband and wife William and Lena Sadler
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witnessed their neighbor falling into weird, deep sleeps. This man would frequently say things he claimed were messages from some other being, and the
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Urantia book was allegedly born from these ramblings. I mean, the messages
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The Saddlers never revealed the patient's name, because they never wanted the book associated
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with any earthly being. Some take the Saddlers at their word and believe the Urantia book contains otherworldly wisdom
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while others aren't shy about pointing out that the whole thing could be a hoax
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Both are compelling theories, but only one involves alien ghostwriters from another dimension
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so we know which one we keep believing Frenchman Michel de Nostradamus claimed to be a seer who could view and predict future events
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These prophecies made up the contents of his 16th century book, the aptly named Les Prophecies
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While many of the predictions are coincidences at best, there are still people who believe that his works can be
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interpreted to relate to many modern events Nostradamus simply couldn't have known about
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For example, some have credited him with predicting the rise of Hitler, The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Challenger space shuttle disaster, and the
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September 11th terrorist attacks. But did he see the grimace shake coming
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In an eerie postscript, the day before he died, Nostradamus told his secretary that
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he would not be alive in the morning. And sure enough, the next day, Nostradamus was Nostragonus
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The modern horror genre was widely influenced by popular works of literature like Oscar
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Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. But one
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acclaimed gothic horror novel from the same time period has no known author, The Cavern of Death
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The book tells the tale of Sir Albert, who makes it all the way through the dangerous Black Forest
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to find out that some crusty old baron stole his lady. And what's worse, his buddy, Sir Frederick
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is also sweet on the same woman, and plans to whack the old baron to claim her heart
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What is Elbert to do but rescue the fair maiden and ride off into the sunset
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Unfortunately for our hero, his plan is found out, and he ends up in the eponymous Cavern of Death
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so named because it is lousy with ghosts, skeletons, and other horrors
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Don't take it so hard, Sir Elbert. There are plenty of fish in the sea. Published anonymously in 1794, the book became wildly popular in both England and the United States
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Just don't expect to find any signed copies. If you want a highly detailed guide to a world that has never existed
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and you've already memorized The Lord of the Rings, you might be interested in the Codex Seraphinianus
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Written and illustrated by Italian artist Luigi Serafini in the late 70s
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The 300-plus page book was released to the public in 1981, but the book is not written in Italian, nor English, nor any language that existed before Serafini put his pen to paper
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The pages are full of pictures depicting surreal versions of plants, animals, maps, machines, humanoids, food, games, and buildings, all hand-drawn and incredibly detailed
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No one has ever cracked the code. And Serafini himself claims there is no hidden message
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He just wanted a book that would create the same wonder and confusion that children feel looking at all those weird squiggles before they learn how to read Mission accomplished
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The Frisian people are a Germanic tribe dating back as far as the 13th century BC
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And when the Uralinda book was discovered in the 1860s, written in a form of the Frisian language
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many believed the words within were a genuine account of the tribe's history
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But now, a majority of historians regard the book as a hoax
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It was supposedly written back in 1256 CE and chronicles the many catastrophes the Frisians
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endured, at one point even mentioning the lost city of Atlantis, which is a hell of
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a name drop. But in reality, the book was probably written sometime in the 1800s, with a Dutch translation
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appearing in 1872. While the book may be a big fat phony, it certainly fooled its share of readers, most
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famously high-ranking Nazi Heinrich Himmler, who became so infatuated with the book after
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a German translation came out in 1933 that it was eventually nicknamed Himmler's Bible
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The Rohantz Codex is a book that simply shouldn't exist. Nobody knows where it came from, what language it is written in, who wrote it, or why
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All historians have been able to confirm is that the paper it was written on dates back
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to the 16th century, so at least we've narrowed it down. The codex surfaced in Hungary in the city of Rohans
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which is now the Austrian city of Rechnitz. So far, nobody has been able to decipher what it says
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And while there is no hard evidence one way or another, the word hoax has been thrown around more than once
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In addition to the strange text, there are images depicting religion and combat scenes
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alongside illustrations that sort of look like comic strip drawings. Are we sure this wasn't just some kid's algebra notebook
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Unlike many of the other books in this episode, we know exactly what the Sarajevo Haggadah is and where it came from
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Instead, the Sarajevo Haggadah owes its mystique to the fact that it appears to be indestructible
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The Sarajevo Haggadah came from Barcelona, Spain sometime around 1350 CE, making it one of the oldest Jewish Seder Haggadahs ever discovered
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Fast forward to 1492, when Spain expelled the Jews and the 150-year-old Haggadah with them
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The book landed in Italy, where it remained safely for almost 400 years
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In 1894, the Haggadah was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo
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but had to be transported again once World War II broke out. A Muslim home took in the relic, and it remained hidden under the floorboards for the next decade
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It was eventually put on display in the 1990s and lived happily ever after until the Bosnian War Once again the ancient Haggadah found itself in the middle of conflict and destruction as the museum which housed it
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was bombed into rubble. Fortunately, it was discovered amongst the debris, completely intact
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Unfortunately, it wasn't considered valuable and was tossed indiscriminately into a bank vault
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Ironically, the vault kept the ancient book protected during the Serbian siege. Finally, in 1995, the Sarajevo Haggadah was rescued once more
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and a regular maintenance routine was implemented to protect it from further deterioration
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That book has earned a spa day. The Ripley Scroll's namesake was Sir George Ripley
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a 15th century Augustinian priest and author who wrote the book on alchemy
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No, really. His most famous work was The Compound of Alchemy. However, one book Ripley didn't write was the Ripley Scroll
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The lengthy piece of parchment is chock full of illustrations of the Philosopher's Stone
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and we don't mean the rock from Harry Potter. The Philosopher's Stone is a mythical alchemical substance
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that could convert base metals into precious metals. More specifically, it was supposed to be able to turn lead into gold
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The references to the stone, as well as mentions of Ripley's poetry
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gave the scroll its name, because whoever did create it was clearly inspired by Ripley's works
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You might say it was an early example of fan fiction. Good thing there wasn't a slash in there
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Carl Jung was Sigmund Freud's scientific contemporary and all-around main dude. Together, this dynamic duo were pioneers of the field of psychoysis
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and are regarded as some of the most influential psychologists of all time
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But like many good friendships, Freud and Jung eventually drifted apart as their ideas of psychoysis shifted
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particularly because Jung decided to spend 15 years exploring his unconscious and documented the whole thing in his chronicle, The Red Book
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While the book is ostensibly the culmination of years of scientific ysis
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Jung's family and many mental health professionals believe The Red Book is more akin to a manifesto or possibly even a psychotic episode
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In order to produce the work, Jung entered into what he referred to as mythopoetic imagination
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where he would willingly participate in, record, and comment on his own fantasies
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During his mental journeys, Jung was visited by many historical and religious figures
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all of which were forced to engage with Jung and explain their purpose, sort of like writing historical fanfiction about yourself
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While all this was going on, Jung and his family kept it hidden from the public
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who had no knowledge of his experiments for nearly 80 years. But the Red Book has since been released and is publicly viewable since 2009
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For his part, Jung ended the manuscript with a simple disclaimer. To the superficial observer, it will appear like madness