Nostradamus and His Prophecies
Who Was Nostradamus?
Do you remember hearing someone say that a disaster will befall the free world because someone saw it in a Nostradamus prophecy and later wondered to yourself ‘Who the heck was that guy?’ Well, here is your chance to finally learn about Michel de Nostredame, also known as Michel de Nostredame, also known as Nostradamus, a man whose name has become virtually synonymous with prophecy.
Early Life and Education
Nostradamus didn’t have an easy birth. He was delivered in 1503, in the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France, to a well-heeled family able to supply, for a budding prophet like Michel de Nostredame, all the basic necessities for a perceived destiny, and a lot more besides. These, of course, included the proper humanist education in classical literature, languages, and the fine art of medicine. For before he became our ghoulish harbinger of evil, Nostradamus was a doctor.
Career Beginnings
Nostradamus started out his life serving as a doctor for plague sufferers, hopping from village to village whipping up herbal cures and prescribing basic hygiene. He carved out a reputation for himself as a healer with a touch of the crystal ball – and what he really needed was to find a bigger audience.
Turning to Prophecy
But how did a respectable doctor end up becoming a prophet? It didn’t happen overnight. Nostradamus was already writing almanacks, heavy on predictions by the 1550s, and reputed to be remarkably good at forecasting, which led to Les Prophéties.
The Prophecies
If people mention Nostradamus, chances are they’re referring to ‘Les Prophéties’, his book containing 942 poetic quatrains. Why do we continue to relate to Nostradamus in this way?
Method of Writing
Nostradamus’s quatrains are written in an obscure, almost code-like language, heavily seasoned with Latin, Greek, and French words that have dropped out of modern usage, and there’s a certain amount of leeway in mystical interpretation. That is probably why his work has persisted.
Famous Predictions
The Great Fire of London
Perhaps the most frequently cited: ‘The blood of the just will commit a fault at London, Burnt through lightning of twenty threes the six.’ Further ‘interpretation’ suggests that the ‘twenty threes the six’ (‘66’) must be 1666, the year of the great fire of London.
The French Revolution
Some of his fanatics maintain that he foresaw the French Revolution: From enslaved people there will come Songs, cries and clamours; Prisoners shall be rail’d at by rich princes And lords in dungeons.
Napoleon’s Rise
He also foretold Napoleon’s ascent. According to Nostradamus, a leader would rise in Italy who would become extremely powerful. Some see it as a description of Napoleon Bonaparte, who, while French, was of Italian extraction.
Adolf Hitler’s Ascendancy
The bleakest prognostication is that concerning Adolf Hitler: ‘Hister’, of which some find a coded allusion to ‘Hitler’ (laughably, the only time that name appeared in a text before 1933) ‘From the extremity of the West of Europe, from a low people, A child little regarded will be born, Who by his tongue will seduce many’.
The Atomic Bomb
Nostradamus’ writings also appear to describe the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: ‘Near the gates and within two cities, There will be scourges the likes of which were never seen.
JFK Assassination
The assassination of John F Kennedy has also been linked with Nostradamus: ‘The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt, An evil deed foretold by the bearer of a petition.’
9/11 Attacks
Lastly, one of the most contemporary interpretations of his writings connects them to the attacks of 11 September 2001, which reads: ‘From the center of the Earth shall arise a huge fire: the new city shaken three times.’
Controversies and Skepticism
His not-so-fan club members think that the prophet’s metaphors are so cloudy they can literally describe nearly anything, while others argue that so-called accurate predictions often only seem obvious in hindsight.
Nostradamus Influence Through the Ages
Despite the controversy, Nostradamus influence has been profound and far-reaching.
Impact on Popular Culture
His influence extends to popular culture. Nostradamus sets the apocalyptic tone in movie-scene after movie-scene. Dozens of books have been written about his forecasts, one-hour countdowns of his deadly predictions are aired on television and countless documentaries have been made about him.
Influence on Modern Astrology
Nostradamus is still seen as a father figure by astrologers. His mixed discipline of astrology and prophecy remains influential for all those who believe that the stars are a prelude to a self-fulfilling future.
Nostradamus in Media
New accounts of Nostradamus predictions appear routinely in television shows and internet forums whenever world events turn bad, and there seem to be few major catastrophes that don’t generate new interest in his work.
Debunking the Myths
For every die-hard believer, there’s a sceptic ready to debunk the myths surrounding Nostradamus.
Common Misconceptions
Most people know Nostradamus as the seer who predicted the end of the world. Some of his quatrains are quite grim, but we have yet to stumble upon the one that specifies a date.
Scientific Explanations
Other observers suggest that Nostradamus was a shrewd student of humanity and history rather than a prophet, and that his ‘predictions’ often reflected his 16th-century milieu and his concerns over political and social unrest.
Conclusion
You may love him or loathe him but, unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s unlikely Nostradamus is a stranger to you. Medicine man, mystic, magician and quack – he has been variously applauded and detested across the centuries. Whether he was a true seer or just a clever poetic manager of paradox is up for debate. But whatever you think, you can’t deny that he lingers in history and popular culture.
FAQs
Did Nostradamus predict the end of the world?
And no, he didn’t foretell an end-of-the-world date – although you’ll find all kinds of global events debated to be predicted by lines in his quatrains, for the most part the apocalypse is nowhere to be seen.
How accurate are Nostradamus’ prophecies?
It is also unclear whether Nostradamus’s predictions are very accurate – many are so vague that they can be made to ‘fit’ many different events, and so their ‘accuracy’ tends to lie in the eye of the beholder.
What is the most famous Nostradamus prophecy?
Foremost among them is his supposed prediction of the Great Fire of London in 1666: although this is a commonly cited example, like many of his prophecies, we are not always sure if we are dealing with a retroactive reading of events, or a true prophecy.
Was Nostradamus a scientist?
He was not a prophet but a doctor. A devoted physician who also became a well-known prophet. He was a medical student and a physician who treated plague victims.
Why is Nostradamus still popular today?
Perhaps the great appeal of Nostradamus is that his ambiguous quatrains allow people to project their own emotions and knowledge onto them, not least through the search for ‘answers’ which has often encouraged us to invest in, or fear, the righteousness of his prophetic harbingers of disasters that might or might not afflict new generations. Above all, perhaps the sustained endurance of Nostradamus’s work is that it revels in itself, as adaptable as nocturnal creatures and as charming as those who seek to engage with it. Nostradamus will not be ‘outsold’. He won’t vanish. He’s too good and too bad to disappear. His fragmented, abstruse aphorisms lend themselves to the most extravagant fantasies; we’ve witnessed this time and again. Books, movies, print and electronic media thrive on ‘outlandish’ predictions prompting popular and commercial discourse. But the truth – when we can connect that – is that Nostradamus functions well beyond ‘outlandishness’. One thing is certain: he’s here, and he’ll be around for a while to come. Then again, maybe that’s just my opinion.
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