In 1555 a French seer predicted that his king, Henery II of France, would die in a jousting accident. Four years later the prophecy was tragically fulfilled. This was just one of the 942 famous predictions that Michel de Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus, began to publish in 1555.
Born in Provence, in the south of France, in 1503, Nostradamus studied medicine at Montpellier. He was apparantly caring and courageous and treated many unfortunate plague victims. He became interested in magic and the occult, and travelled widely. In around 1534 Nostradamus married a beautiful and wealthy girl, and they had two children. But tragically the plague claimed his whole family.
Nostradamus developed a reputation as a seer early on. While walking one day in Italy, so the story goes, he encountered a monk and immediately knelt, referring to the man as His Holiness. About 45 years later the monk became Pope Sixtus V. Then in 1550, Nostradamus began recording his prophecies.
In 1554 Nostradamus married a wealthy widow, Anne Ponsart Gemelle, who bore him six children. He started publishing his predictions in 1555, covering events up to the year 3797. His contemporaries took his prophecies very seriously -- Henr's widow, Queen Catherine de Medicis, who was his patron, had great respect for him.
Nostradamus prophesied by scrying, an ancient method of divination. At night he would gaze into a bowl of water placed on a brass tripod until he was possessed by the inspiration. It was then that he would see and hear future events. Nostradamus presented each of his predictions in a four-line verse, or quatrain; a hundred quatrains make up each of 10 Centuries, except for the 17th Century, which as 42. To avoid accusations of witchcraft, Nostradamus "scrambled" his writing, using an obscure mixture of symbols and words in French, Italian, Provencal, Latin and Greek. The chronological order is deliberately confused, but many quatrains seem uncannily close to recorded events.
The prophet is said to have predicted the fate of Napoleon; the American Revolution and the American Civil War; events in English monarchical history, including the abdiction of King Edward VIII; the assassinations in the United States of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy; and the success of Iran of the Ayatollah Khomeini. He is also said to have foreseen air and space travel, and the moon landings.
Before the Second World War the Maginot line of defences was built because the then French chief of staff believed that one particular quatrain indicated the invasion of France would take place via Switzerland. Despite such enduring influence, the prophet who believed that awareness and action could alter the future would doubtless be disappointed to learn how little his predictions have helped to avert disasters.
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