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Nostradamus, (December 14, 1503 – July 1, 1566) born Michel de Nostredame, is one of the world's most famous Judicial astrologers and authors of prophecies. He is most famous for his book Les Propheties which consists of rhymed quatrains (4‑line poems) grouped into sets of 100, called Centuries.

Many people say that Nostradamus predicted a number of events in world history, including the French Revolution , the atom bomb , the rise of Adolf Hitler and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and other numerous prophecies from the 16th Century.

Others complain that enthusiasts have used Nostradamus to support any number of events scholars say are not attributed to the author. In any event, the mystical quatrains of Nostradamus continue to be controversial as they have been for centuries.

Biography

Born 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 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 a Pierre de Nostradame, a highly-respected pharmacist and physician to Rene's son. 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 versed in the sciences, liberal arts, and was well-traveled. In addition to the rudiments of literature, philosophy, and rhetoric, he also was instructed in the subjects of medicine, theology, 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 the use of herbs in healing. 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 "rose pill" that was widely 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 supposed 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", of "The Centuries" received a mixed reaction when they were published. The vulgar, or ignorant, thought Nostradamus was a servant of evil, a fake, or insane, while many of the elite thought his quatrains were spiritually inspired prophecies. 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 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 forecasted 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 - fulfilling 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 far ahead of contemporaries of his era. He was particularly adept in Arab astrological techniques and consumed the the Latin-translated works spread throughout western Europe.

Nicknamed 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. This accounted for Nostradamus' frequent clashes with the doctors and professors of the time who believed bleeding patients would heal them. Nostradamus was centuries ahead of his time as a medical doctor.

He felt the constant bleeding of patients suffering from the plague was only bringing them closer to death. Nostradamus preferred using plants and herbs to heal the sick. His constant demands for cleaniness in hospital environments he considered filthy added to his wealth of enemies who cared little for his lectures to them on invading bacteria that could enter a patient's body. He often demanded doctors constantly wash their hands and arms before touching patients. He was often laughed and derided because conventional doctors of the era said they did not believe in bacteria because they could not see the germs.

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.

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. Nostrdamus claimed they were ancient books on execrable magic - which he considered dangerous should the books fall into the wrong hands. 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 principles of judicial 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. But, from his own writings, Nostradamus makes clear that his prophecies are based in judicial astrology and he says 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 excellent scientific 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 he included a description of the methods he used to treat the plague . The same book also describes the preparation of cosmetics that were popular with the Parisian royalty and court.

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 the world we inhabit. Because Nostradamus purposefully constructed his quatrains to be read only by those "practicing the sacred rite" as he wrote, the difficulty of interpreting them cause many to attribute events to Nostradamus' prophecies - frequently misquoting him.

Skepticism

Scholars of the prophecies of Nostradamus have complained that his reputation as a prophet is earned, but that most, if not all of his prophecies have many times been manipulated by modern-day supporters who shoehorn his words into events that have not taken place as yet. No one knows if Nostradamus' quatrains has been interpreted before some events have happened. However, the many Nostradamus commentators after his death continue to lack training, and knowledge of judicial astrology, and its principles, and this causes consternation among skeptics and supporters alike who try to unlock his prophecies without astrological knowledge Nostradamus used to date his volumious prophecies.

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. Nostradamus was the first to mention the name of the country America and he correctly forecast the French Revolution over two hundred years prior to the event; the birth and rise of French tyrant Napoleon; the Russian Revolution; the rise of Adolph Hitler and the start of World War II.

All of them 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

During the latter part of his life and following his death in 1566 there have emerged many prophecies falsely attibuted to Nostradamus such as the Sixains for year 1605. Nostradamus' writings have frequently been misquoted and, in some instances, even deliberately altered as hoaxes. The works of Les Propheties stands on its own and the folly of hoaxes and misquotes strengthens the original decision of Nostradamus to couch his prophecies in a method very hard to decipher without the proper knowledge and understanding of judicial astrology, and world history.

There is a persistent tendency to claim that 'Nostradamus predicted whatever has just happened' by the uneducated. Many of those making such claims have never heard of or even read Les Propheties. Since the advent of the Internet, many prophecies have even been fabricated outright. 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.

To verify the authenticity of a purported Nostradamus quatrain, compare the identifying number (e.g.: C1, Q25 or 'I.25' means Century 1, Quatrain 25) against an authoritative version of Nostradamus's works, which will likely also contain the original old French – or click on the appropriate link below to see facsimiles of the originals. Even the Preface and the Epistle to Henri II have been assigned numbers (e.g. PF50, EP102).

Nostradamus in popular culture

Television

The television series Alias prominently features the character Milo Rambaldi, a fictional Nostradamus-like prophet. In the science fiction series First Wave, the protagonists use the quatrains of Nostradamus to fight back against an alien invasion. Nostradamus has also been parodied on Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show as Negrodamus.

Film

He is the subject of many films and videos, including:

• Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow at IMDb (1981)
• Nostradamus at IMDb (2000)
• Nostradamus at IMDb (1994) Depicts Nostradamus's rise in influence, because of success in treating plague and his predictions, culminating in his appointment as court physician to Charles IX of France.

See also

• Astrology
• Clairvoyance
• Divination
• Mystics
• Prophecy

Sources

• Randi, James, The Mask of Nostradamus, 1993
• Brind'Amour, Pierre, Nostradamus astrophile, 1993
• Brind'Amour, Pierre, Nostradamus. Les premières Centuries ou Prophéties, 1996
• Dupèbe, Jean, Nostradamus: Lettres inédites, 1983
• Lemesurier, Peter, The Nostradamus Encyclopedia, 1997
• Prévost, Roger, Nostradamus, le mythe et la réalité, 1999
• Chevignard, Bernard, Présages de Nostradamus 1999
• Wilson, Ian, Nostradamus: The Evidence, 2002
• Clébert, Jean-Paul, Prophéties de Nostradamus, 2003
• Gruber, Dr Elmar, Nostradamus: sein Leben, sein Werk und die wahre Bedeutung seiner Prophezeiungen, 2003
• Lemesurier, Peter, The Unknown Nostradamus, 2003 (biography)
• Lemesurier, Peter, Nostradamus: The Illustrated Prophecies, 2003

External links

• ODP directory: Nostradamus
• Nostradamus Society of America
• General information, translations and illustrated tour of Nostradamus's Provence
• Timeline
• Facsimiles of original editions
• Facsimiles of many contemporary texts
• Online text of Nostradamus in translation
• www.nostradamus.org The Prophecies of Nostradamus Newsgroup
• Snopes: False claims of Nostradamus predicting the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001
• Peter Lemesurier's website, including FAQs
• ESPACE NOSTRADAMUS (Benazra's french Website)

• 1503 births
• 1566 deaths
• Prophecy
• Divination
• French astrologers
• French physicians