By: Aaron Sakulich
I have a tendency to avoid extremely popular topics, such as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, because there's so much information on them, it's more or less impossible to try to address the issue thoroughly without writing a book. After a bit of thinking, however, there's one guy who can be revealed as pure baloney in just a few pages: Nostradamus.
Nostradamus was born in 1503 in France with the rather suave-sounding name Michel de Nostradame. He lived a fairly normal life, obtaining a degree from university, and watching his wife and child die from the plague.
Just to add insult to injury, it was shortly after their death that the Inquisition sent for him to be tried for heresy: some years before, he had mentioned that a particular religious statue was not very artistically pleasing. The statue-maker, naturally, denounced him to the church.
So Nostradamus did what anyone would have done: he ran and hid. He managed to stay clear of the church for the rest of his life, and published almanacs and other books to get by until he married a rich widow. Now living comfortably, he converted the top floor of their house into a study, where he would stay until the early hours with his occult books, writing his predictions.
He was so popular that even the queen of France became smitten with the sorcerer, and ate up everything he told her. Until, that is, the church came around and inquired about what Nostradamus was doing, at which time he once again fled.
It is, of course, due to his predictions that I am writing here. Nostradamus wrote and published what were called quatrains, four-line poems. 100 quatrains made up a centurie, and before his death he published about nine and a half of them (one centurie was unfinished.)
The poems are written in an obscure blend of medieval French, Latin, Greek, Italian, and a regional French dialect called Provencal. Occult enthusiasts the world over claim that they predict future events, ranging from the death of a French king in Nostradamus' day to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. I'm sure everyone has heard of him; he's nothing short of a household name.
There's a bit of a problem with the quatrains: they're written in such a mix of languages that no one without an advanced degree in languages is going to be able to decipher them for themselves. If you read his writings, you have to place your faith in the translator; such is not always a safe thing to do. For instance, take quatrain 24 of centurie II:
"B?tes farouches de faim fleuves tranner;
Plus part du champ encore Hister sera,
En caige de fer le grand sera treisner,
Quand rien enfant de Germain observa."
This is the one that many people claim predicts the rise of Adolf Hitler. The hardcore believers, such as Erika Cheetham, translate this quatrain as:
"Beasts wild With hunger
will cross the rivers,
The greater part of the battle will be against Hitler.
He will cause great men to be dragged in a cage of iron,
When the son of Germany obeys no law."
Clearly this predicts the second World War! The river Bug in eastern Russia was the jumping-off point for the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The second and third lines are obvious. The third line could refer either to the large number of POWs captured by the Germans in their lightning victories (and initial victories, to later become defeats) against other countries, or the multitudes that perished in the gas-vans of the einsatzgruppen. But how does a non-hardcore believer interpret the text? James Randi, arch-mage and godfather of skepticism, translated it thusly:
"Beasts mad with hunger will swim across rivers,
Most of the army will be against the Lower Danube.
The great one shall be dragged in an iron cage
When the child brother will observe nothing."
Hmm. That makes substantially less sense. Randi, with a better grasp of history than Cheetham, knew that 'Hister' is not an ancient name for 'Hitler,' rather, it is a geographical region near the lower Danube river. Of course, the occult enthusiast claims that since Hitler was born near the Danube, it still clearly refers to him. I've got to admit: they just don't know when they've been beaten.
That's the problem with all of Nostradamus' writings: it's open to interpretation. They are written in such a vague style that they could be bent to take on any meaning. It's like in ancient Greece, when young men would go to the oracle and ask whether or not they should join the army. The oracle would reply "You the Romans will conquer." Is the young man going to ruin the Romans, or are they going to roll over him in an unstoppable wave of phalanxes? It's all open to interpretation.
People claim that Nostradamus could forsee the future. And yet, out of his 942 quatrains, only a handful are ever mentioned as having occurred. What does this mean? Has not enough time yet passed for Nostradamus' predictions to come true? Or is it simply that, out of 942 vaguely-worded verses, a handful are sure to make sense? Ask yourself which is more likely (hint: it's the one that does not involve psychic mind powers.)
You can find all this information on the internet. But here is where I distinguish myself from other authors: I claim that I am as powerful a prophet as the might Nostradamus. I have written ten quatrains, which I am giving the bold title of The Magnificent Deci-Centurie. I have forseen that, in the next month, all of the things described in them will come to pass. And I'm doing one over on Nostradamus: he wrote in an obscure mixture of languages that could be translated in any which way. I'm doing them in plain English.
Additionally, I've taken a handful of four line lyrics from songs by the best band of all time, Devo. It just might be that they are better psychics than I. A month from now, expect an update, at which time I will most likely reveal myself and the fellows in Devo to be the world's foremost mystics.
Be seeing you.
Aaron Sakulich is a graduate student studying materials science and engineering. He can be reached through sci-tech@thetriangle.org.
Source: http://www.thetriangle.org/media/storag ... iangle.org
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