Truth and myths about Nostradamus: How the prophecies of an astrologer became the subject of speculation

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

December 14 marks the 514th anniversary of the birth of the famous French physician, astrologer and predictor Michel de Nostrdam, or Nostradamus. For 5 centuries, disputes around his prophecies have not subsided, but few disputants know that most of Nostradamus's predictions are either too loose interpretations of the original, or its incorrect translation, or have nothing to do with the astrologer at all.

The sensational "Centuries" of Nostradamus have long become a bestseller, which has generated a lot of controversy. In this work, the author in the form of quatrains - quatrains - gave metaphorical and allegorical predictions about the future. Difficulties in translation lie in the fact that Nostradamus wrote in medieval French, using a large number of pictorial means, due to the ambiguity of which there are discrepancies. Each quatrain is translated differently in different sources, and the many options create confusion. Whether Nostradamus had the gift of foresight is a separate topic of conversation, it is much more interesting to trace how his prophecies were interpreted at a later time.

One of his most famous quatrains has traditionally been interpreted as a prophecy about World War II and Hitler:

In fact, the word "Hister" can be translated as "Istra" - this is the second name of the lower Danube. It is in this sense that Nostradamus used this word in his other work. The Nazis found in the "Centuries" predictions about the triumph of the "Third Reich", and their opponents in the same texts looked for evidence of the overthrow of Hitler.

At the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. predictions of Nostradamus gave rise to a new wave of speculation. Everywhere they quoted his quatrain, in which the end of the world was allegedly predicted:

In fact, in the original version, this quatrain sounded like this:

"Angolmua" may be an indication of Angumua - the ancestral possession of the Valois dynasty, from which King Francis I came. That is, the astrologer may have believed that at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. a new king, like Francis I, will come to power, and not the bloody Genghis Khan, as they wrote in later interpretations. And there is no talk about the end of the world at all.

After the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, many publications appeared in the press again, in which the authors tried to find a prediction of these terrible events in the writings of Nostradamus. At the same time, the following lines were quoted:

By "city of God" they meant New York, by "fortress" - the Pentagon, and by "two brothers" - the twin towers destroyed as a result of the terrorist attack. Historian Alexei Penzensky is sure that such an interpretation is too free. He emphasizes that the prophecies of Nostradamus are more poetic than scientific, therefore, it makes no sense to look for exact indications of dates, names and toponyms in ambiguous allegories and metaphors. After the fact, any astrologer's quatrain can be tied to any historical event.

The author of the book "Nostradamus: Man, Myth, Truth" Peter Lemesurier believes that the astrologer was not a prophet - he simply knew that history repeats itself, and based on the known events of the past, one can predict their development in the future. He also does not see the connection in the quatrains of Nostradamus with the events of September 11, 2001.

Lemesurie considers the interpretation of "new city - New York" to be erroneous, since here we are talking simply about a city that was recently built - a new city. In addition, the original mentions a flame that does not come from heaven, but from the "center of the world." That is, in this case, it is more logical to assume that we are talking about a volcanic eruption.

Another question that still haunts researchers is did Nostradamus really foresee the future or were his visions hallucinations?