You are probably aware that Nostradamus predictions have become quite the popular topic. But why? Why are people so captivated with a man that lived in the 16th century?
Who was Nostradamus?
The man we know today as Nostradamus was originally known as Michel de Nostredame. He lived in France during the 1500’s and worked as an Apothecary, healer and wrote two well-respected texts on medical science.
But by far Nostradamus was best known for being an extremely accurate and reputable seer who wrote his prophecies in an obscure manner.
His most popular collection of writings is known (aptly enough) as “The Prophecies.” It contains more than 1,000 four line stanzas or poems (also known as quatrains) which have elusive and rather cryptic wording and are supposed to tell predictions that extend far into the future.
There were then and are now plenty of individuals who believe that many of the Nostradamus predictions have already been fulfilled.
About the Nostradamus Predictions
Soothsayers and visionaries over the last 500 years have wondered over the exact meaning and interpretation of the stanzas in “The Prophecies” and there has been much speculation as to why Nostradamus chose to write in code.
The answer is really quite simple; the time frame in which Nostradamus lived and worked was a very stifling one, particularly for anyone who went against the teachings of the Church.
To keep himself from being labeled as a witch and burned at the stake, Nostradamus used a method of hiding to conceal his true meaning. It was called “Virgilianization” a means of changing the syntax of the words with other languages like Latin, Italian, Greek or even Provencal.
The Nostradamus Code
Nostradamus would would mix all of those languages along with a prodigious amount of symbolism. In order to produce a mixture that is hard to untangle and which, unfortunately, is just obscure enough that you can’t tell exactly what the prophecy is about until it takes place producing a mixture that is hard to untangle.
When the Nostradamus predictions in their book format were published there were all sorts of conflicting reactions. Some people; mostly the lower classes; automatically jumped to the assumption that he was a servant of the devil, a fake, or even insane.
Some of those of the nobility actually began referring to his psychic predictions as divinely inspired; almost as if they were an addition to the Bible.
The belief of his prophecies as being divinely inspired is a something that Nostradamus actually encouraged; it certainly beat the belief that he was a witch or tainted by the devil and devilish practices.
And yet, there is another reason for the Nostradamus predictions being so obscure, and that is the fact that his prophecies span not just years or decades, but whole centuries.
He was trying to make sense of things he was seeing that he had no frame of reference for. Obscure or not, however, there are a number of his predictions that have — to the best of anyone’s knowledge — actually come true.
These death’s include Henry II, The London fire of 1666, The French Revolution, Napoleon’s rise to power, the American Civil War and the rise and fall of Hitler (to name a few) but the accuracy of some of the extreme (and horrific) Nostradamus prophecies have yet to come to pass.
Also published on Medium.
