Nostradamus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Nostradamus, (December 14, 1503 - July 1, 1566) born Michel de Nostredame, is the world's most famous Judicial astrologer and author of prophecies. He is most famous for his book Les Propheties, called today - "The Centuries" - which consists of rhymed quatrains (4‑line poems) grouped into sets of 100, called Centuries.
Many people believe some of these quatrains predicted future events, although many others call it retroactive clairvoyance and selective thinking, which find non-existent patterns in ambiguous statements.
Supporters believe Nostradamus predicted a number of events in world history, including the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution; World War I and World War II; the creation and use of the atom bomb, the rise of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Some people interpret Nostradamus' prophecies cover the full range of world history and believe he forecasted the 2003 invasion of Iraq as well as the coming of the Third and last Anti-Christ.
The bulk of the astrological quatrains deal with a host of global disasters of various sorts. The disasters include plagues, earthquakes, wars, floods, invasions, murders, droughts, famines, battles and many other themes. Some quatrains cover these in over-all terms; others concern a single person or small group of persons. Some cover a single town, others several towns in several countries.
Supporters say the prophecies are strictly astrological in nature; requiring that the reader/interpreter be fully versed in the practice of "judicial astrology" - by which Nostradamus claimed was the science he used to predict the world's future from his era of the 16th Century. To accurately read and thus break the codes which his prophecies are based upon and locked against the uneducated, one also must be learned in mundane astrology - a branch of judicial astrology, and educated by reading the Book of Enoch; written by the great-grandfather of Noah, some Christians believe taken into the Ark and was the only book of the history of the cosmos written by Enoch to be saved from the universal Deluge which Nostradamus wrote, in conflict with the account in Genesis, was a worldwide flood that lasted one year and two months.
According to Nostradamus, learning the hidden or occult history of the world is essential to understanding his own prophecies of the future; as well as protecting one's own soul from perdition. He said the study of astrology, the Holy Bible, the Qur'an; the Book of Enoch and other holy texts are key in lifting the veil from one's eyes and through good actions - protected from the wrath of God - which Nostradamus predicted would actually come upon the world. A firm believer in astrology; Nostradamus stated that it was God who gave him the knowledge of judicial astrology and that God regulates all things in the world through the Sun, Moon, planets and stars.
Biography
Born with a Sun in Capricorn in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the south of France on December 14, 1503, Michel de Nostredame was the son of a grain dealer who was also a prosperous notary. His family was originally Hebrew but had converted to Catholicism during the previous century. Some of his biographers say that Nostradamus was from the generation of the tribe of Issachar who were ancient judicial astrologers. Jean de Saint-Remy, Michel's maternal grandfather, was physician and astrologer to Rene the Good (1434-80). Jean was best friends with Pierre de Nostradame, a highly-respected pharmacist and both men traveled throughout western Europe with a mobile apothecary - using astrology to heal the sick.
At a young age, Michel was said to have shown signs of high intelligence. His grandfather Jean asked that Michel be raised at his home. Michel's parents were elated since Jean was well-versed in the applied sciences and was well-traveled. In addition to the rudiments of mathematics, Arabic, Greek, Latin and Hebrew, Jean gave the young Michel his first taste of the celestial sciences - judicial astrology.
After Jean's death, Michel returned to his parent's home and his education continued by his paternal grandfather, Pierre de Nostradame, who continued Michel's education of astrology and herbal medicines. When the elder Pierre had taught Michel all he could, the fifteen-year-old entered the University of Avignon to study for his baccalaureate. Though apt in grammer, philosophy and rhetoric, Michel was said to show the greatest interest in judicial astrology. So marked was this early interest that as a result of his frequent discourses on the celestial movements that his classmates nicknamed him "the little astrologer."
In 1522, at the age of 19 he started three years of intensive medical study while secretly working as an apothecary, he entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine, but was promptly expelled again when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary, which was a 'manual' trade expressly banned by the university statutes. He then continued work as an apothecary, and using astrological techniques, created a herbal "rose pill" that he claimed was effective against the the plague.
In 1531 he was invited by Jules-César Scaliger, a leading Renaissance man, to come to Agen. There Nostradamus married a woman whose name is still in dispute (possibly Henriette d'Encausse), but who bore him two children. In 1534, however, his wife and children died, presumably from the plague. After their death he continued to travel, passing through France and possibly Italy.
He settled down in 1547 in Salon-de-Provence, where he married a rich widow named Anne Ponsarde Gemelle and eventually had six children - three daughters and three sons. After a further visit to Italy, he began to move away from medicine and towards the occult. He wrote astrological almanacs for the year 1550, for the first time Latinising his name to 'Nostradamus', and was so encouraged by its success that he decided to write one or more annually. Taken together, they are known to have contained at least 6,338 astrological prophecies, as well as at least 11 annual calendars. He then began his project of writing 1,000 quatrains, which form the prophecies for which he is famous today. Feeling vulnerable to religious fanatics, however, he devised a method of obscuring his meaning by using "Virgilianised" syntax, word games and a mixture of languages such as Provençal, Greek, Latin and Italian. For technical reasons connected with their publication in three instalments, the last 58 quatrains of the seventh 'Century', or book of 100 verses, were never published.
The quatrains, written in a book titled "Les Propheties", received a mixed reaction when first published in sections. Some thought Nostradamus was a servant of evil, a fake, or insane, while many of the elite thought his quatrains were spiritually inspired prophecies from God. A well-known judicial astrologer, nobility were coming from far and wide to receive horoscopes and astrological advice from him. Catherine de Médicis, the queen consort of King Henri II of France, was one of Nostradamus's admirers.
The book of prophecies, nonetheless, was all the rage among the Paris royalty and the first edition, printed in 1555, contained only the Preface to Cesar along with Centuries I-III complete and Century IV with only 53 quatrains.
The French royal court were speculating the meaning of one of Nostradamus' prophecies located in Century I, Quatrain 35, which believes say refered to the death of King Henry II:
"The young lion will overcome the old one On the field of battle in single combat: He will put out his eyes in a cage of gold: Two fleets one, then to die a cruel death."
Queen de Medici summoned Nostradamus to Paris to explain the quatrain and to draw up the horoscopes of her children. So impressed she was by his discipline, discretion and astrological knowledge, she forced Henry to give Nostradamus a royal purse. Nostradamus was later made Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to the King.
In the summer of 1559, four years after Nostradamus made the prediction, the House of France celebrated two marriages and on June 28, three days of festivities were highlighted by tournaments in the rue Saint-Antoine. King Henry II took part in the first two days. At sunset of the third day, July 1, Henry rode against Gabriel de Lorges, Comte. de Montgomery, Captain of the Scottish Guard. Failing to unseat him on his horse with lance on arm, Henry insisted on another bout. The horses charged and the lances met, but Montgomery's lance met the king's golden visor and splittered. Dropping his lance too late, the jagged point pierced the King's visor and was thrust through Henry's eye. The King reeled, clutched the pommel of his saddle and fell into the arms of his grooms. After surviving 10 days in utter agony, he died on July 10 - believers say this fulfilled the astrological prophecy of Nostradamus.
By 1566 Nostradamus's gout, which had painfully plagued him for many years and made movement very difficult, finally turned into dropsy. At the beginning of July, after making an extended will and a much shorter codicil, he is alleged to have told his secretary Jean de Chavigny, "You will not find me alive by sunrise." The next morning he was reportedly found dead, lying on the floor between his bed and a makeshift bench.
Some biographical accounts of Nostradamus' life state that he was afraid of being persecuted for heresy by the Inquisition, but neither prophecy nor astrology fell under this bracket, and he would have been in danger only if he had practised magic to support them. In fact, his relations with the Church as a prophet and healer were always excellent. His brief imprisonment at Marignane in late 1561 came about purely because he had published his 1562 almanac without the prior permission of a bishop, contrary to a recent royal decree.
Judicial Astrology and methods of prophecy
Nostradamus was clearly familiar with the Latinized printed editions of a range of esoteric writings translated from the ancient Hebrew and Arabic astrological and prophetic texts. He was an excellent judicial astrologer and based his prophecies on astrological principles very different than those of contemporaries of his era. He was particularly adept in Islamic astrology Called the "little astrologer" during his childhood, Nostradamus was known to constantly talk to friends and classmates about the motions and influences of the Sun, Moon planets and stars. His medical studies of the day were strictly astrological before entering university which accounted for Nostradamus' frequent clashes with the doctors and teachers of the time who believed bleeding patients would heal them. Nostradamus felt that bleeding an ill person was only bringing them closer to death and preferred using plants and herbs to heal the sick.
His historical sources include easily identifiable passages from Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch and a range of other classical historians, as well as from the chronicles of medieval authors such as Villehardouin and Froissart. Many of his astrological references, by contrast, are taken almost word-for-word from the Livre de l'estat et mutations des temps of 1549/50 by Richard Roussat. Even the planetary tables on which he based such birthcarts as he was unable to avoid preparing himself are easily identifiable by their detailed figures, even where (as is usually the case) he gets some of them wrong.
His major prophetic source was evidently the Mirabilis liber of 1522, which contained a range of prophecies by Pseudo-Methodius, the Tiburtine Sibyl, Joachim of Fiore, Savonarola and others (his Preface contains no less than 24 biblical quotations, all but two of them in exactly the same order as Savonarola). Further material was gleaned from Petrus Crinitus's De honesta disciplina of 1504, which included extracts from Psellus's De daemonibus and the De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum..." (Concerning the mysteries of Egypt...), a book on Chaldean and Assyrian magic by Iamblichus, a 4th‑century neo-Platonist. Latin versions of both had recently been published in Lyon.
While it is true that Nostradamus claimed in 1555 to have burned all the occult works in his library, no one can say exactly what books were destroyed in this fire. The fact that they reportedly burned with an unnaturally brilliant flame suggests, however, that some of them were manuscripts on vellum, which was routinely treated with saltpetre.
However, in his Preface to Cesar, who is a referred to as a future astrologer, who as his "spiritual son", would in the 21st Century unlock the keys to all his astrological prophecies. Nostradmus says to him that -
'"Events of human origin are uncertain, but all is regulated and governed by the incalculable power of God, inspiring us not through drunken fury, nor by frantic movement, but through the influences of the stars. Only those divinely inspired can predict particular things in a prophetic spirit."
He continues in his preface to state that -
'"As for ourselves, who are but human, we can discover nothing of the obscure secrets of God the Creator by our own unaided knowledge or by the bent of out ingenuity. It is not for you to know times or hours, etc. However, now, or in the future there may be persons to whom God the Creator, through fanciful impressions, wishes to reveal some secrets of the future - integrated with judicial astrology - in much the same manner that in the past a certain power and voluntary faculty came over them like a flame, causing them to judge human and divine inspirations alike. For of the divine works, those which are absolute God completes; those which are medial, the angels; and the third kind, the evil spirits." '
Nostradamus clearly used applied astrological aspects and principles of judicial mundane astrology. He was strict in maintaining that those who practice "magic" were to be damned by God and that magic was forbidden -
'"Furthermore, my son, I beg that you will never want to employ your understanding on such dreams and vanities as dry up the body, put the soul in perdition and cause trouble to the weak senses. I caution you especially against the vanity of the more than execrable magic; condemned of yore by the Holy Scriptures and by the Canons of the Church.
"However, judicial astrology is excepted from this judgement. For it is by this, together with divine inspiration and revelation, and continual nightly watches and calculations, that we have reduced our prophecies to writing."
There are those who would attempt to say that Nostradamus used astrology just a little bit and that he was not heavily invested in the celestial sciences. Nostradamus informed those versed in judicial astrology to carefully calculate the transits of the planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in determining global events. This forms a part of mundane astrology - a branch of judicial astrology that deals with nations.
From his own writings, Nostradamus makes clear that his prophecies are based in judicial astrology and he states powerfully so in the Preface to Cesar, in his book, "The Centuries" -
"But what I do want to make clear to you is the judgement obtained through the calculation of the heavens. By this one has knowledge of future events while rejecting completely all fantastic things one may imagine. With divine and supernatural inspiration integrated with astrological computations; one can name places and periods of time accurately; an occult property obtained through divine virtue, power and ability. By means of this, past, present, and future become but one eternity: for all things are naked and open."
His works
The Prophecies - In this book he collected his major, long-term divinations. The first edition was published in 1555. The second, with 289 further prophetic verses, was printed in 1557. The third edition, with three hundred new quatrains, was reportedly printed in 1558, but nowadays only survives as part of the omnibus edition that was published after his death in 1568. Thanks to printing practices at the time, no two editions turned out to be identical, and it is relatively rare to find even two copies exactly the same.
The Almanacs - By far the most popular of his works, these were published annually from 1550 until his death. Often he published two or even three in a single year, entitled either Almanachs (detailed predictions), Prognostications or Presages (more generalised predictions).
Nostradamus was not only an skilled astrologer, but a professional healer, too; in the ancient tradition of judicial astrology, who were also medical doctors of note. We know that he wrote at least two books on medical science. One was an alleged "translation" of Galen, and in his so-called Traité des fardemens (basically, a medical cookbook containing, once again, materials borrowed mainly from others) he included a description of the methods he used to treat the plague - none of which (not even the blood-letting) apparently worked. The same book also describes the preparation of cosmetics.
A manuscript normally known as the "Orus Apollo" also exists in the Lyon municipal library, where upwards of 2000 original documents relating to Nostradamus are stored under the aegis of Michel Chomarat. It is a purported translation of an ancient Greek work on Egyptian hieroglyphs based on later, Latin versions, all of them unfortunately ignorant of the true meanings of the ancient Egyptian script, which was not in fact deciphered until the advent of Champollion in the 19th century.
Since his death, only the Prophecies have continued to be popular, but in this case they have been quite extraordinarily so. Indeed, they have seldom, if ever, been out of print. The reason for this may be due partly to popular unease about the future, partly to people's desire to see their lives in some kind of over-all cosmic perspective and so to give meaning to them - but above all, possibly, to their vagueness and lack of dating, which skeptics say enables them to be wheeled out after every major dramatic event and retrospectively claimed as 'hits'.
Skepticism
Skeptics of Nostradamus state that his reputation as a prophet is largely manufactured by modern-day supporters who shoehorn his words into events that have either already occurred or are so imminent as to be inevitable, a process known as as "retroactive clairvoyance". No Nostradamus quatrain has been interpreted before a specific event occurs, beyond a very general level (e.g., a fire will occur, a war will start).
Some scholars believe that Nostradamus wrote not to be a prophet, but to comment on events that were happening in his own time, writing in his elusive way - using highly metaphorical and cryptic language - in order to avoid persecution. This is similar to the Preterite interpretation of the Book of Revelation; John the Apostle intended to write only about contemporary events, but over time his writings became seen as prophecies.
Yet, there is no proof that this is the case. Nostradamus himself wrote:
'"Furthermore, my son, though I have mentioned the name prophet, I do not wish to assume for myself a title so sublime for the present. For he who is called a prophet now was once called a seer. Strictly speaking, my son, a prophet is one who sees things remote from the natural knowledge of men..." '
Apocalyptic Writings
All of the prophecies are presented in the context of the supposedly imminent end of the world - a conviction that sparked numerous collections of end-time prophecies at the time, not least an unpublished collection by Christopher Columbus.
Nostradamus says in his prophecies that "thousands of other events will come to pass, because of floods and continual rains" and that the world is nearing a time of imminent danger due to the evil of the people in the world. He states again, in his Preface to Cesar that -
'"You must see now, my son, that I find by my calculations, which are according to revealed inspiration, that the sword of death is now approaching us, in the shape of pestilence, war more horrible than has been known in three lifetimes, and famine. This famine will fall upon the earth, and return there often, according to the words, 'I will visit their iniquities with a rod of iron, and will strike them with blows'."
'"For the mercy of the Lord, my son, will not be extended at all for a long time, not until most of my prophecies will have been accomplished, and will be accomplishment have become rsolved. Then, several times during the sinister tempests, the Lord will say, ' I will trample them, and break them, and not show pity.'"
Misquotes and Hoaxes
Nostradamus' writings have frequently been misquoted and, in some instances, even deliberately altered in order to "prove" that he supposedly predicted various events - especially the most recent and dramatic ones. There is a persistent tendency to claim that 'Nostradamus predicted whatever has just happened'. Since the advent of the Internet, many prophecies have even been fabricated outright, therefore enhancing the mystique of Nostradamus. For example, after the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, the following was circulated on the Internet along with many more elaborate variants:
In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
while the fortress endures,
the great leader will succumb,
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning
As it turns out, the first four lines were indeed written before the attacks, but by a Canadian graduate student named Neil Marshall as part of a research paper in 1997. Ironically enough, the research paper included this poem as an illustrative example of how the validity of prophecies is often exaggerated. For example, the "City of God" (why is New York City the City of God?), "great thunder" (could apply to just about any disaster), "Two brothers" (lots of things come in pairs), and "the great leader will succumb" phrases are so ambiguous as to be meaningless. The fifth line was added by an anonymous Internet user, showing obvious alteration since Nostradamus wrote his Propheties in four-line verses called quatrains. Nostradamus also never actually referred to a "third big war".
Come the millennium, month 12
In the home of greatest power,
The village idiot will come forth
To be acclaimed the leader.
This was supposed, of course, to refer to the election of George W. Bush as President of the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus
