{"id":76832,"date":"2022-09-29T03:00:47","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T07:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=76832"},"modified":"2022-09-28T11:53:59","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T15:53:59","slug":"nostradamus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2022\/09\/29\/nostradamus\/","title":{"rendered":"Nostradamus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest post at <em>Astral Codex Ten<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/astralcodexten.substack.com\/p\/from-nostradamus-to-fukuyama\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Alexander<\/a> considers prophecy &#8220;From Nostradamus to Fukuyama&#8221;. Here&#8217;s the section on Nostradamus (because I don&#8217;t have a lot of time for Fukuyama, you&#8217;ll have to read the rest at <em>ACX<\/em>):<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_76834\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/House-of-Nostradamus-by-photographymontreal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-76834\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 15px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/House-of-Nostradamus-by-photographymontreal-480x360.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-76834\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/House-of-Nostradamus-by-photographymontreal-480x360.jpg 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/House-of-Nostradamus-by-photographymontreal-853x640.jpg 853w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/House-of-Nostradamus-by-photographymontreal-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/House-of-Nostradamus-by-photographymontreal-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/House-of-Nostradamus-by-photographymontreal.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-76834\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;House of Nostradamus in Salon, France. Now a museum.&#8221; by <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/85073237@N08\">photographymontreal<\/a> is marked with <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/mark\/1.0\/?ref=openverse\">Public Domain Mark 1.0 <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mirrors.creativecommons.org\/presskit\/icons\/pd.svg\" style=\"height: 1em; margin-right: 0.125em; display: inline;\"\/><\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p>Nostradamus was a 16th century French physician who claimed to be able to see the future.<\/p>\n<p>(never trust doctors who dabble in futurology, that&#8217;s my advice)<\/p>\n<p>His method was: read books of other people&#8217;s prophecies and calculate some astrological charts, until he felt like he had a pretty good idea what would happen in the future. Then write it down in the form of obscure allusions and multilingual semi-gibberish, to placate religious authorities (who apparently hated prophecies, but loved prophecies phrased as obscure allusions and multilingual semi-gibberish).<\/p>\n<p>In 1559, he got his big break. During a jousting match, a count killed King Henry II of France with a lance through the visor of his helmet. Years earlier, Nostradamus had written:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>The young lion will overcome the older one,<br \/>\nOn the field of combat in a single battle;<br \/>\nHe will pierce his eyes through a golden cage,<br \/>\nTwo wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The nobleman was a bit younger than the king, supposedly they both had lions on their shield (<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/jeffsuzukiproject\/nostradamus\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">false<\/a>), maybe King Henry was wearing a golden helmet (I can&#8217;t find evidence for this, but as a consolation prize please accept <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Parade_Armour_of_Henry_II_of_France\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">this picture<\/a> of his amazing parade armor), and his slow agonizing death over ten days from his wounds was pretty cruel. Seems like a match, sort of. Anyway, for the next five hundred years lots of people were really into Nostradamus and spent goodness knows how many brain cycles trying to interpret his incomprehensible quatrains.<\/p>\n<p>The basic Nostradamic method was:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Write 942 vague and incomprehensible quatrains, out of order and without any dates.<\/p>\n<p>Whenever something happens, say &#8220;that sounds a lot like quatrain #143!&#8221; or &#8220;quatrain #558 predicted that&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prophet<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For example, prophecy 106:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Near the gates and within two cities<br \/>\nThere will be two scourges the like of which was never seen,<br \/>\nFamine within plague, people put out by steel,<br \/>\nCrying to the great immortal God for relief<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is an okay match for the atomic bombs, in the sense that there were two cities where something really bad happened. But read on to prophecy 107:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Amongst several transported to the isles,<br \/>\nOne to be born with two teeth in his mouth<br \/>\nThey will die of famine the trees stripped,<br \/>\nFor them a new King issues a new edict.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230; and it starts to sound like he&#8217;s just kind of saying random stuff and some of it&#8217;s sticking by sheer luck.<\/p>\n<p>A few prophecies sound more impressive than this, eg:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>The lost thing is discovered, hidden for many centuries.<br \/>\nPasteur will be celebrated almost as a god-like figure.<br \/>\nThis is when the moon completes her great cycle,<br \/>\nbut by other rumours he shall be dishonoured<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This seems to name Pasteur, who was indeed a celebrated discoverer of things. And Nostradamus scholars note that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1995\/05\/16\/science\/doctor-s-world-revisionist-history-sees-pasteur-liar-who-stole-rival-s-ideas.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a historian accused Pasteur of plagiarism in 1995<\/a>, which is a kind of dishonorable rumor. But the work here is being done by the translator: <em>Pasteu<\/em>r is just French for &#8220;pastor&#8221;, and an honest translation would have just said &#8220;the pastor will be celebrated &#8230;&#8221;, which is in tune with all his other vague allusions to things happening.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>The blood of the just will be demanded of London<br \/>\nBurnt by fire in the year &#8217;66<br \/>\nThe ancient Lady will fall from her high place<br \/>\nAnd many of the same sect will be killed.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Seems like a match for the London fire of 1666. But again checking the original French and the commentators, the second line is more properly &#8220;burnt by fire in 23 the 6&#8221;, which a fanciful translator rounded off to 20 * 3 + 6 = 66 and then assumed was a year. The <a href=\"https:\/\/skeptico.blogs.com\/skeptico\/2005\/03\/nostra_dumbass.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">experts<\/a> say that this is really a coded reference to 23 Protestants being burned, in groups of six, during Nostradamus&#8217; lifetime (many of his quatrains are references to past or present events, for some reason). This sounds more compatible with the &#8220;many of the same sect will be killed&#8221; ending.<\/p>\n<p>I had a weird experience writing the end of this first part of the post. When I was a kid, reading through my parents&#8217; old books, I came across an weird almanac from the 70s that had a section on Nostradamus. It listed some of his most famous prophecies, including the ones above, but also (reconstructing from memory and probably getting some things wrong, sorry):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>The way of life according to Thomas More<br \/>\nWill give way to another more sweet and seductive<br \/>\nIn the land of cold winds that first gave it birth<br \/>\nWithout strife, without a war it will fall<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230; and the 70s almanac interpreted this as meaning Soviet communism would fall peacefully. Reading this in 1995 or whenever it was I read it, a few years after Soviet communism <em>did<\/em> fall peacefully, I was really impressed: this is the only example I know where someone used a Nostradamus quatrain to predict something before it happened.<\/p>\n<p>But I searched for the exact text so I could include the correct version in this essay, and I didn&#8217;t find it &mdash; this is none of Nostradamus&#8217; 942 prophecies! The almanac authors must have made it up, or unwittingly copied it from someone else who did.<\/p>\n<p>But I remember this very clearly &mdash; the almanac was from 1970-something. <em>So how did the faker know Russian communism would collapse?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The moral of the story is: just because Nostradamus wasn&#8217;t a real prophet, doesn&#8217;t mean nobody else is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest post at Astral Codex Ten, Scott Alexander considers prophecy &#8220;From Nostradamus to Fukuyama&#8221;. Here&#8217;s the section on Nostradamus (because I don&#8217;t have a lot of time for Fukuyama, you&#8217;ll have to read the rest at ACX): Nostradamus was a 16th century French physician who claimed to be able to see the future. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1117,7],"tags":[1085,686,947,1034,134],"class_list":["post-76832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-france","category-history","tag-fakenews","tag-futurism","tag-mysticism","tag-superstition","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-jZe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76835,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76832\/revisions\/76835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}