‘Books teach us, inform us, amuse us and provoke us. But some books plainly befuddle us. They invoke mysteries that hint of something ancient, extraterrestrial or possibly divine. Here are 5 such books…

VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT
This early 15-century book is a botanical text of sorts. Only the ink drawings of plants features in it are of a completely unknown origin. What’s also unusual is the undecipherable text accompanying the plants and the many astronomical and astrological charts, as well as numerous female nudes which allude to some kind of reproductive processes, judging by their swollen bellies and interaction with interconnected tubes and capsules. Also present are over a 100 drawings of possibly medicinal variety of herbs and roots in various jars.

CODEX SERAPHINUS
The origins of the 360-page Codex Seraphinus are not too mysterious, while its contents are. The book was originally published in 1981, and is essentially an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world. It was created by the Italian artist and designer Luigi Serafini, who said he wanted to recreate a feeling he remembered having as a little kid, before he even knew how to read, of what it was like to look at an encyclopedia for the first time. All the pictures and charts looked very mysterious to the little boy who knew they meant something, but didn’t know what.

THE SMITHFIELD DECRETALS
This collection of canonical law, ordered by the 13th century Pope Gregory IX, could have been fairly common for its time and probably rather boring. Instead, the bizarre illustrations that accompanied the decretals lifted this illuminated manuscript to a mystical status.

ROHONC CODEX
We don’t know much about the 448-page Rohonc Codex. This illustrated manuscript surfaced in the 19th century in Hungary, and has puzzled people since. We don’t know who wrote it, where they did it, or what it says as the text is written in a mysterious alphabet of nearly 200 symbols.

The illustrations in the book range from military battles to religious symbolism reminiscent of Christianity, Islam and even possibly Hinduism.

THE BOOK OF SOYGA
After first being found by the Elizabethan mathematician and occultist John Dee, this 16th-century book on magic was lost for centuries until discovered in 1994 by a scholar within the archives of the British Library.

The nearly 200 pages of this book contain incantations and instructions for summoning demons, performing magic, astrological ideas and other things we don’t really understand…’

Source: Big Think