Nostradamus

Nostradamus, (December 14, 1503 – July 1, 1566) born Michel de Nostredame, is one of the world's most famous 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.

Nostradamus enthusiasts have credited him with predicting a copious 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. Detractors, however, see such predictions as examples of vaticinium ex eventu, retroactive clairvoyance and selective thinking, which find non-existent patterns in ambiguous statements. Because of this, it has been claimed that Nostradamus is "100% accurate at predicting events after they happen".

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The Prophecies of Nostradamus

...During Nostradamus' lifetime the Black Death (today known as the bubonic plague) wiped out over a quarter of Europe. It is no wonder that a sense of apocalyptic terror fills Nostradamus' quatrains.

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Quatrains of Nostradamus

Nostradamus completed a total of 942 quatrains which he organized into Centuries - groups of 100 quatrains (one Century only had 42 quatrains). A quatrain is simply a poem with 4 lines.

The rhymed quatrains of Nostradamus were written mainly in French with a bit of Italian, Greek, and Latin thrown in. He intentionally obscured the quatrains through the use of symbolism and metaphor, as well as by making changes to proper names by swapping, adding or removing letters. The obscuration is claimed to have been done to avoid his being tried as a magician.

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The Skeptic's Dictionary: Nostradamus (1503-1566)

Michel Nostradamus was a 16th-century French physician and astrologer. His modern followers see him as a prophet. His prophecies have a magical quality for those who study them: They are muddled and obscure before the predicted event, but become crystal clear after the event has occurred.

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How Nostradamus Works

When a momentous catastrophe occurs, people react in a variety of ways. One response is to seek out prophecies of the event -- inspired predictions that foretold its coming. These forecasts can be comforting because they suggest that the horrible incidents were inevitable, that they happened as part of a larger plan. Through the course of human history, there have been hundreds of notable prophets, but in the wake of modern tragedies, one name seems to pop up more than any other: Nostradamus.

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False Prophecy

Claim: A 1654 Nostradamus prediction said World War III would begin with the fall of "two brothers," a reference to the destroyed World Trade Center towers.

Status: False.

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NOSTRADAMUS

Either Michel de Nostredame wrote the ultimate literary Rorschach test, or else Nostradamus accurately predicted the future course of civilization until its ultimate end. Or as the Straight Dope's Uncle Cecil puts it:

There are two schools of thought on Nostradamus: either (1) he had supernatural powers which enabled him to prophesy the future with uncanny accuracy, or (2) he did for bullshit what Stonehenge did for rocks.

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Nostradamus Truly Revealed, Or Nostradamus and the Terran Empire

[Caution to readers: Insert tongue firmly in cheek. Do not remove while reading, unless necessary to laugh. Or stock up on a couple of barrels of salt.--Ann]

For those of you who have somehow managed to avoid knowing, I'm a science fiction writer, with most of my stories and novels set in the Terran Empire, which I invented.

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Prophecies of Nostradamus · International Center for Nostradamian Studies

The following quatrain has been circulating the Internet after the WTC bombings.

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 sucumb.
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning.

It is NOT by Nostradamus.

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The Facts About Nostradamus And His Prophecies

What you are about to read is an objective examination of the practices and prophecies of Nostradamus. The reader is encouraged to lay down all preconceived biased opinions and consider only the facts. Truth based on the evidence should be your only consideration when evaluating this man and his ability to foretell events. ..

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