The Prophecies of Nostradamus – Part One

Before we can hope to understand the quatrains that Nostradamus wrote, we need to understand the circumstances of the times in which he lived, the character of intellectual thought at the time, and the historical background against which these quatrains were composed.

Nostradamus lived his life during that period of European history known as the Reformation. This was a time of great religious ferment. The Catholic Church, which up to then had been the dominant religious force in Western Europe had become increasingly corrupt. The worst evidence of this was its abuse of the practice of granting “Indulgences”.

An “Indulgence” was a special dispensation granted by the Church to sinners who had confessed their sins and received absolution. It was designed to release sinners from the need to undergo Purgatory for their sins on earth. This system of granting indulgences had long been practiced by the Church of Rome.

The traditional teaching of the Catholic Church made it clear that all men and women were sinners in the sight of God. Because of this, when they died, they would be condemned to spend a certain period of time in Purgatory as a result of their misdeeds on earth. How long this period would be would depend upon the severity of their sins.

However, in 1517, Pope Leo X began to offer indulgences to those who gave alms to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This practice of bartering indulgences for money led to the famous couplet attributed to Johann Tetzel: “As soon as the gold in the casket rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs.”

Under this new system of indulgences, anyone who could afford to give money to the Church in this life would be able to ensure their salvation in the next. Naturally, this arrangement proved to be extremely profitable to the Church, and especially to those Popes who personally granted these indulgences.

This transparent abuse of the teachings of Christ led to an upsurge of protest against the Catholic Church. This protest movement was led in Germany by Martin Luther, and in France by John Calvin, and resulted in a schism in the Church. This movement of “reformation” led to the creation of the Protestant Church, which split away from the Church of Rome.

The response of the Pope was to denounce both Luther and Calvin as heretics, and to excommunicate them both. And in order to intimidate and oppress any followers who might be persuaded to join this protestant movement, the Popes of the 16th century initiated a counter movement of investigation, torture and death. This movement came to be known as the “Inquisition”.

Any person who was found to be guilty of any act or utterance which the Pope had defined as heresy was subjected to barbaric forms of torture before being burned at the stake. In this way, those who failed to follow the strict teachings of the Catholic Church, as interpreted by the Pope, would experience in this life the agonies of hellfire which surely awaited them in the next.

Although Nostradamus remained a staunch Catholic all his life, he was well aware that his interest in the occult was regarded by many as evidence of an allegiance with the Devil. We have seen how Nostradamus was actually accused of heresy at one time in his life, but escaped from his accusers before he could be brought to trial.

We must also remember that Nostradamus was very much a man of his time and used the images and associations of renaissance symbolism to express his ideas. Although much of what he described related to the 20th century and beyond, we cannot judge Nostradamus according to the scientific concepts of the modern age, as so many of his literary critics have mistakenly chosen to do.

During the 16th century, the practice of prophecy and divination was a completely acceptable activity. This was because the universe was regarded as a living organism that was governed by the patterns of planets moving through the zodiac. These planetary movements were considered to be signatures in the sky, and they indicated God’s will and purpose on earth.

In the 16th century everyone spoke of the existence of Fate, because Fate and Divine Providence were considered to be the same thing. The Judicial Astrology that Nostradamus talked about was a way of establishing the timing of important world events.

At the time that Nostradamus was alive, astrology was not in any way associated with the supernatural or the diabolical. Instead, it was considered to be an acceptable practice based on knowledge and understanding. Every King, Cardinal and Prince had a personal astrologer, without whom he would not have dreamed of starting a war, passing an edict, or undertaking a journey.

Conjunctions of the major planets (such as Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) were believed to herald important upheavals and changes in the world. So if Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction (as they happened to be when Anwar Sadat was assassinated in Egypt, and as they were again when attempts were made on the lives of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II) then, for the 16^th century astrologer, it meant that a King or Head of State was in mortal danger.

If again, Mars and Saturn were in conjunction (as they were when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands) then, for the 16th century astrologer, it meant that war loomed on the horizon. It was only when the art of divination became associated with ritual magic, that the Church authorities suspected that there might be an association with the Devil.

In determining the predictions that made up his four-lined verses, Nostradamus used a form of divination that had its origin in the days of ancient Egypt. As we have seen, he used as his guide the recently published work called “De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum”. This was the same method that had been used by the Greek scholar Iamblichus. Nostradamus has described for us his system of divination in the first two verses of his book “The Prophecies”.

The translations used below are those of the noted British scholar and author Erika Cheetham, as they appeared in her book entitled The Prophecies of Nostradamus published in 1973 by Neville Spearman.

Century One: Verse 1

“Sitting alone at night in secret study, it is placed on the brass tripod. A light flame comes out of the emptiness and makes successful that which should not be believed in vain.”

Century One: Verse 2

“The wand in the hand is placed in the middle of the tripod’s legs. With water he sprinkles both the hem of his garment and his foot. A voice, fear, he trembles in his robes. Divine splendour – the God sits nearby.”

As Erika Cheetham explains, all the prophetic ingredients used by Nostradamus are contained in these two quatrains.

It is night time. Nostradamus sits alone in his study in front of a brass tripod. A bowl of water is placed on top of the tripod. He moistens his robe and feet with water and then gazes into the bowl. After a while it becomes cloudy, but soon pictures of the future begin to appear. The ‘small flame” he refers to is the Divine light of inspiration which made his prophecies possible.

Because of these Pagan-like trappings, many critics have tended to dismiss Nostradamus as a charlatan who was caught up in medieval superstition passing for science and true knowledge. This is unfortunate because Nostradamus went to great lengths to stress that he considered prophecy to be a Divine gift.

He was also scathing in his criticism of imposters who sought to imitate his results by means of subterfuge and occult practices. According to Nostradamus, a contrite heart and an abiding faith in God were vital requirements for the gift of prophecy to be granted.

As Nostradamus explained in a letter to his son César, he did not wish to be considered an infallible prophet, but only as an accomplished and diligent scholar who strove to acquire insight and understanding into the inscrutable ways of God. As he wrote in this letter dated March 1st, 1555, translated by Jean Charles de Fontbrune:

“On numerous occasions, and over a long period of time, I have predicted specific events far in advance, attributing all to the workings of Divine power and inspiration. Yet I have wished to remain silent and abandon my work, because of the injustice, not only of the present time, (he is referring here to the Inquisition) but also for most of the future.

“Bear in mind also our Saviour’s words. Do not cast anything holy to the dogs, nor throw pearls in front of pigs, lest they trample them with their feet and turn on you and tear you apart. (Matthew 7: 6)

“And so again, my son, I have eschewed the word prophet. I do not wish to attribute to myself such a lofty title at the present time, since a prophet, my son, is properly speaking, one who sees distant things through a natural knowledge of all creatures. 

“Perfect knowledge of such things cannot be acquired without Divine inspiration, given that all prophetic inspiration derives its initial origin from God Almighty – then from Chance and Nature.

“For understanding, created by the intellect, cannot be acquired by means of the occult, only by the aid of the Zodiac, bringing forth that small flame by whose light part of the future may be discerned.”

Nostradamus added a stern warning to those unqualified researchers who might try to interpret his words:

“Let all astrologers, fools and barbarians keep away from my work.”

In referring in the above letter to the Inquisition, we must remember that Nostradamus had already had one brush with the Church authorities, and that he did not wish to come under their scrutiny again.

Had he gone ahead and published his predictions in plain language for all to understand, it would not have been long before some cleric would have branded him as a servant of the Devil, and he would no doubt have ended his life at the stake.

Not only would he have lost his life, but his writings would have been declared heretical by the Pope, and every copy of his prophecies would then have been destroyed, making it highly unlikely that we would be aware of them today. He therefore deliberately chose to write his quatrains in an obscure way. As he mentioned in his letter to his son:

“The whole work is thus written in a nebulous, rather than plainly prophetic form.” 

In order to avoid being prosecuted as a magician, Nostradamus seldom comes out and states specifically what will happen. Instead, he adopts a devious way of describing future events. He chooses rather to describe the impact which these events will have on the people to whom they occur.

And yet when one thinks of the task that Nostradamus set himself, which was to convert the dramatic images that he saw in the bowl of water into words, and then condense these words into short four-line rhyming verses, it is amazing that any of his verses make any sense at all.

His task was similar to the challenge that would confront someone who might watch the evening news on TV with the sound off, and then try to describe what they had seen in a series of rhyming verses. The fact that Nostradamus was able to interpret images that in some cases portrayed events far into the future, was by itself a remarkable achievement.

The verses of “The Prophecies” – all 4772 lines of them – were written in old Provincial French. This was a language that was still very close to its Latin and Greek roots, and was quite different from the modern French language that is spoken today. This is one of the reasons why so many commentators over the years have struggled to translate his verses.

His verses were also filled with anagrams, confusing names and other linguistic riddles. These stratagems were deliberately chosen by Nostradamus to obscure their meaning, to ensure that they would only be understood after careful analysis and investigation. Their meaning would almost never be obvious to the casual reader.

In an effort to confuse his readers, Nostradamus would also conceal the names of towns destined to become famous, by using small neighbouring towns instead. He would also disguise them by means of popular names or nicknames, and spell them without capital letters.

As if his archaic and convoluted style was not enough, Nostradamus also juggled the order of his verses. Although they were originally written in chronological order, he later scrambled them before they were published, so that very few verses were linked together in time.

Verses of prophecies relating to completely different centuries have ended up next to one another, making it even more difficult for commentators to interpret them. Yet because Nostradamus was so obscure, and because his verses were filled with so many confusing place names and other literary devices designed to make each verse rhyme, many readers have despaired of ever understanding them.

In fact, the response of many critics has been that his verses are so vague that one can read almost anything one likes into them, and that because of this, they have virtually no prophetic value at all.

Let those who wish to interpret the prophecies of Nostradamus be under no illusion. They are extremely difficult to understand. They are deliberately written to confuse the casual reader. But if Nostradamus was successful in hiding the meaning of his prophetic verses from the authorities of the Church in his own time, he was also successful in leaving a literary conundrum for future generations.

If his verses had been easy to interpret, they would undoubtedly have been destroyed by any one of the political and military despots who lived and ruled in succeeding centuries. But by making them obscure and complex he ensured that they would continue to tantalize future generations, and this has proved to be the case.

Despite their complexity and convoluted style, the prophecies of Nostradamus have continued to fascinate people for more than four centuries. In fact, other than the Bible, the prophecies of Nostradamus are the only written works which have been continually in print for the last four hundred years.

Although Nostradamus was deliberately vague about the dating of his verses, he made it clear that he could easily have dated each of his quatrains if he had wanted to. In a letter addressed to “Henry, Second King of France”, he wrote:

“These predictions made with the aid of astronomy and other methods, and even by the Holy Scriptures, cannot not happen. Had I wished, I could have put a calculation of time with each quatrain; but that would not have pleased everyone, and my interpretations still less, unless your Majesty granted me enough protection to do this, so as not to give slanderers pretext for attacking me.” 

Continued in Part Two

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 9:52 am and is filed under Nostradamus: His Life and Prophecies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are closed.