Modern Prophets: Nostradamus
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Michel de Notredame, better known as Nostradamus, was born December 14, 1503, in the town of St. Remy, France. He studied medicine at famous school of Montpellier, and took his doctor’s degree there at the age of 26. Not long afterward he settled in the town of Agen and married a woman, who bore him two children. His wife and children died at a young age during an outbreak of the plague, an event which might be called the personal apocalypse of Nostradamus. This tragedy failed to break his spirit, however, and eventually he found gainful employment for himself as a successful physician treating plague victims in the town of Aix, beginning in 1546. In 1547 Michel de Notredame married Anne Posnard, and in the course of time they had six children. The first edition of the “Great Prophecies” of Nostradamus was published in 1555, and the complete edition containing nearly 1000 prophetic quatrains was published in 1558. He died a scant eight years later, on July 2, 1566.
In his famous book, Oracles Of Nostradamus (1891), Charles A. Ward writes, “Michel Nostradamus was one of the most learned men of his day, the friend of Jules CÉsar Scaliger. He knew many modern languages, and the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He had followed medicine from the age of twenty-two, took his Doctor's degree at twenty-six, filled a professional chair at Montpellier, and late in life devoted himself to judicial astrology; in which, and in an intuitive forecast beyond what that can bestow, he has distanced by far all other competitors in the same line.” Nostradamus must indeed have been a learned man in order to have predicted future events so accurately that his name still instantly invokes the idea of prophetic insight almost five hundred years after his death.
Many of the poetic prophecies of Nostradamus have presaged events with an eerie degree of accuracy. The prophet names persons, places, and details associated with events that later came to fruition exactly as he described them. However, the quatrains in question could only be matched up with the events they described in hindsight. As the introduction to Oracles Of Nostradamus (1891) states, “Another point which comes up again and again is that it is almost impossible to use Nostradamus to actually predict events. The predictions usually only make sense in hindsight. It is far too easy to predict 'there will be earthquakes, floods, famine.’ What distinguishes Nostradamus is the accuracy of his 'hits' when viewed in the rear view mirror.” Some of Michel’s most notable “hits” include the death of Henry II, prophesied in Century I, quatrain 35. King Henry II of France, a personal friend of Nostradamus, died from wounds received during a joust. The manner of the King’s death so closely parallelled the prophetic quatrain in question that the precognitive powers of Nostradamus could not be doubted thereafter, though some attributed his uncanny foresight to the Devil.
In Century III, quatrain 44, Nostradamus clearly predicts the invention of firearms, even providing a slang term that was not used until the 1600’s. As Ward explains in Oracles Of Nostradamus (1891), “The invention of the musket dates 1630. Troops, Le Pelletier says, were first armed with it in 1671. Nostradamus, it is to be observed, anticipates by an ingenious amplification and periphrasis the very name chien, by which the French designate this portion of the lock. It would not have served its purpose for the name of the same thing in English. This anticipation of the slang term of manufacture, a hundred years before the thing itself was used or named, seems to show an intimacy with what would be called matters of chance, that is inconceivable and beyond all comprehensibility.” Century I, quatrain 60, clearly refers to Napoleon:Century I.―Quatrain 60. [I. 168.]―
Un empereur naistra pres d'Italie,
Qui ˆ l'Empire sera vendu bien cher:
Diront avec quels gens il se ralie,
Qu'on trouvera moins prince que boucher.
Which can be translated into English as:
An emperor shall be born near Italy,
Bought by the Empire at a bankrupt rate:
You'd say the herd, he gathers to himself,
Denote him butcher rather than a prince.
As Ward elaborates on this quatrain in Oracles Of Nostradamus (1891), “An emperor shall be born in Corsica―Napoléon Bonaparte. His advent to the throne of France will prove prodigiously costly to her. It is enough to make one say, from the tribe he surrounds himself with, that he is more like a butcher far, with the steel dangling at his side, and slaughter-man apprentices, than a prince.” From these three instances it can be seen that Nostradamus was indeed able to predict future events far more precisely than chance would allow, even centuries after his death.
However, present day authors who claim to have cracked the code used by Nostradamus to conceal the dates of future events should not be trusted. Such authors know that they can take advantage of the ignorance of modern readers by providing less than accurate translations of the quatrains, imposing arbitrary interpretations onto these mistranslations, and even changing the number and wording of certain quatrains in order to make it seem as though Nostradamus predicted an event which the author hopes will come to pass. A particularly blatant example of this sort of prophetic hoax can be found in Manfred Dimde’s book, Nostradamus: Predictions For The 21st Century (1998). In this grossly irresponsible book, the author misnumbers Century X, quatrain 100, as Century IX, quatrain 100, in order to make it seem as though this quatrain refers to the year 2000 according to an arbitrary dating system invented by the author. As if this error was not bad enough, Dimde translates this quatrain so as to render it almost completely unrecognizable, and does so to deceive readers into thinking that Nostradamus predicted a 300 year empire for the United States. On the contrary the prophecy undoubtedly refers to England, as any reader with the least knowledge of French would know. The original French of Century X, quatrain 100, reads as follows:
“Le grand empire sera par Angleterre,
Le Pempotam des ans plus de trois cens:
Grandes copies passer par mer & terre,
Les Lusitains n'en seront pas contens.”
Which can be rendered into English as:
“The great empire will be for England,
The all-powerful one for more than three hundred years:
Great forces to pass by sea and land,
The Lusitanians will not be satisfied thereby.”
Nostradamus: Predictions For The 21st Century (1998), however, gives us the following translation for the same verse, which he erroneously numbers “IX Century, Verse 100, Prophecy for the Year 2000”:
“Great power is established through the angel land
The twofold undiplomatic spirit for more than 300 years
Large mass-produced vehicles travel across the oceans and the land
And those with a clear head will not be happy about it.”
To set his readers up for this hoax of a translation, Dimde writes, “Nostradamus leaves no doubt that America will dominate the world stage for the next 300 years.” He goes on to claim, in reference to the mistranslated quatrain in question, “To understand the following text, one must know that the term ‘angel’ is used by Nostradamus for ‘flying people.’” This statement is absurd, since the word Dimde refers to, “Angleterre,” means “England” in French, and has nothing to do with the word “angel.” To cover up this blatant falsification, Dimde continues: “The term ‘angel land’ first brings Great Britain to mind. However, Nostradamus means the United States, because this is the country that in the future will have air superiority.” In other words, Dimde knows what Nostradamus meant and the rest of us had better believe it. Who’s the prophet here, anyway? Let the reader beware of Dimde’s books and other like them. Remember, the prophecies of Nostradamus cannot so easily be used to predict the future. As the Nostradamus himself warned in his “INCANTATION OF THE LAW AGAINST INEPT CRITICS”:
“Let those who read this verse consider it profoundly,
Let the profane and the ignorant herd keep away:
And far away all Astrologers, Idiots and Barbarians,
May he who does otherwise be subject to the sacred rite.”
The prophecies of Nostradamus may indeed reveal the future to those with the wisdom to understand his words, and to seek divine guidance as a means to acquiring greater understanding. The French text and English translation of the prophetic quatrains can be found at www.sacred-texts.com. Don’t become the mental slave of biased interpretations. Judge the Nostradamus prophecies for yourself.
Modern prophets such as Nostradamus have made predictions about our future that have proven to be more accurate than chance. Nostradamus prophecy should be interpreted for oneself rather than just accepting popular interpretations. Nostradamus prediction can be found in Nostradamus quatrains which are easily accessible through the internet. Great prophecies is a book by Michel de Notredame, studier of judicial astrology. Personal apocalypse and the end of the world can be discovered for interpreters of judicial astrology.