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NewYeaarsEdition200912_june_july_2009.qxd 16/12/2009 2:32 PM Page 12 12 The Prophecies of Nostradamus 12 The Prophecies of Nostradamus THE PROPHECIES THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS OF NOSTRADAMUS Did Nostradamus’s psychic vision really penetrate the mists of future centuries to see the career of Napoleon, the rise of Hitler and the death of the Kennedy brothers? The answers to these questions really depend on the way you interpret the Centuries, the 942 rhymed verses that contain his prophecies. Michel de Nostredame was born at St. Remy, Provence, France, on December 14, 1503. His family converted from Judaism to Catholicism when he was nine. In 1522, he began to study medicine in Montpillier and The young lion will overcome the older one, man in whose house the king and his wife became well known for his treatment of the in a field of combat in a single fight: stayed after their arrest at Varennes: M. Saulce. plague, about which he wrote a book. He will pierce his eyes in their golden cage; Ironically, his wife and two children died of two wounds in one, then he dies a cruel death. Napoleon’s women the plague in 1538. Nostradamus, as he was known, was a Perturbed about this prophecy, Queen Another quatrain (4:54) mentions a man scientist who appears to have had no interest Catherine de Medicis ordered Nostradamus to “of a name which was never borne by a French in the occult in his early days, although his court, and granted him a two-hour audience on king,” adding: “there was never so fearful a study fo astronomy would certainly have August 16, 1556. thunderbolt. Italy, Spain and the English included astrology. He may have had, some Three years after Nostradamus met the tremble. He will be greatly attentive to foreign supporters believe, psychic powers. On a visit French queen, in the summer of 1559, there women.” That, say the believers, undoubtedly to Italy in the late 1540’s, for example, were three days of celebrations at the royal refers to Napoleon Bonaparte, who took the title Nostradamus is reported to have addressed a court, following a double wedding, ending with of emperor of France and terrorized Europe young monk, Felice Peretti, as “Your a series of tournaments. The French king, Henry early in the 19th century. He had two wives, a Holiness.” Over 35 years later, and nearly 20 II, won all his jousts on the first two days, but Creole and an Austrian, as well as a Polish years after Nostradamus’s death, Peretti on the third day the lance of Gabriel Lorges, mistress. became Pope Sixtus V. count de Montgomery, splintered against the Nostradamus’s prophecies dealt with king’s; the point penetrated Henry’s visor and other countries too. Quatrain 8:37 has been The Centuries pierced his eye. He died 10 days later in agony. translated: Researcher James Randi, writing in The Nostradamus owes his reputation as a Skeptical Inquirer of Fall 1982, takes issue with The fortress near the Thames will fall seer to his almanac of prophecies, called the the assumption that this quatrain has anything to when the king is locked up inside Centuries, the first part of which was do with the death of the king. He points out that He will be seen in his shirt near the bridge, published in Lyons in 1555. These were four- Henry’s helmet was not made fo gold; the king one facing death then barred inside the line rhyming versus (quatrains) arranged in was older by only a few years; neither knight fortress. groups of a hundred. These prophecies used the lion in their heraldic crests; and that apparently came to Nostradamus in the form there was only one wound, not two. He says the A clear reference, some say, to the of divinely inspired clairvoyant visions. word “wounds” was added in later editions of English king Charles I’s imprisonment in In his introduction to the Centuries, the work - from 1568 onward - in an attempt to Windsor Castle and subsequent execution in a Nostradamus explains that “so as not to upset make the quatrain fit the events. The earlier white shirt. my present readers I would do this in a translation of this word was “knells,” which in Turning his attention to Germany the cloudy manner with abstruse and twisted this context appears to make little obvious French seer predicted in quatrain 2:24: sentences, rather than the plain prophetical.” sense. In They Saw Tomorrow (1977) one of the The fate of another French king, Louis Beasts wild with hunger will cross the rivers, seer’s 20th-century supporters, Charles N. XVI, is said to have been predicted in quatrain the greater part fo the battle will be against Gattey, agrees that “the language is 9:20: Hitler. enigmatic, at times unintelligible, as if He will cause great men to be dragged in a written in code. The versus are not in By night will come through the forest of cage of iron,when the son of Germany obeys chronological order and jump about in time Reins two partners, no laws. and subject.” He adds: “Everywhere we find by a roundabout way; the Queen, the white mystifying puns and anagrams.” Also, the stone. Many believe that this is a remarkable quatrains are written in a polyglot of French, The monk-King dressed in gray at Varennes prophecy. But the original has the name in the Provencal, Italian, Greek, and Latin. Even in the Elected Capet causes tempest, fire and second line as “Hister,” which is also an old Nostradamus’s own day, scholars had bloody slicing. name for the River Danube. Hitler himself and difficulty in making sense of his prophecies. other members fo the Third Reich, notably But some seemed clearer than others. This could refer t the French Revolution Goebbels, who became Monister of In the first “Century” an and the flight of the king (disguised in a Propaganda. took a keen interest in the writings interpretation of one of the quatrains (1:35) monastic robe according to some accounts) and of Nostradamus. We can only wonder to what appeared to predict the death of the king of Marie Antoinette from Paris in 1791. What is extent the influence of such prophecies can France in a duel. (This and the following remarkable is that Nostradamus names the town make them self-fulfilling. translations are from Prophecies of - Varennes - where they were captured. “Bloody What do we make of quatrain 2:6?: Nostradamus [Perigee Books, 1973], by slicing” is believed to be a reference to the Erika Cheetham.) guillotine. Some writers claim that in another (Continued on Page 14) quatrain (9:34) Nostradamus even names the