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Here's some interesting stuff on Nostradamus . . .

 

God Bless,

Brad

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]

 

 

 

" 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 succumb,

The third big war will begin when the big city is burning "

 

Nostradamus 1654

 

 

 

 

Origins: The turmoil of recent events has us all scrambling, some to look

for solace and meaning, others for the terrorists responsible, and yet

others for signs that what happened could have been prevented or at least

foreseen. The 11 September 2001 attack on America destroyed not only the two

World Trade Center towers in New York City, a chunk of the Pentagon in

Washington, and caused untold loss of life, it also shook America's sense of

invulnerability. No longer do Americans presume safety in an unsafe world.

 

For some, that realization is an eye-opener, unsettling but necessary, in

that a child's blissful unawareness has been replaced (at great cost) with

an adult's more clear-eyed view of the world and its sometimes horrifying

ways. For others, it spells the beginning of the end, in that they equated

an illusion of safety with its reality and thus now feel their world is

ending. It is the fears of that second group that are given voice in the

Nostradamus prediction circulated on the Internet even before the dust had

settled in New York.

 

The French physician and astrologer Nostradamus (1503-1566) penned numerous

quatrains populated by obscure imagery that the credulous have ever after

attempted to fit to the events of their times. These predictions can often

ring somewhat true in that the images employed are so general they can be

found in almost every event of import, but by the same token, the prophecies

are never a dead-on fit because the wordings are far too general. Not that

this stops anyone from believing in them; our society's need for mysticism

runs far too deep to ever allow for that.

 

Those looking for the certainty of a Nostradamus prophecy come true have

been known to sledge hammer the results to force a fit by inventing fanciful

translations from the original French, bend over backwards to assert one

named term is really another, and (as in this case) outright fabricate part

or all of the prediction.

 

Nostradamus did not write the quatrain now being attributed to him. (One

wonders how a guy who died in 1566 could have written an item identified as

being penned in 1654 anyway.) It originated with a student at Brock

University in Canada in the 1990s, appearing on a web page essay on

Nostradamus. That particular quatrain was offered by the page's author, Neil

Marshall, as a fabricated example to illustrate how easily an

important-sounding prophecy can be crafted through the use of abstract

imagery. He pointed out how the terms he used were so deliberately vague

they could be interpreted to fit any number of cataclysmic events.

 

It appears someone mistook Marshall's illustrative example for an actual

Nostradamus prophecy and, not content to let well enough alone, added " The

third big war will begin when the big city is burning. " A fabrication was

thus further fabricated.

 

But that wasn't the end of it. More fakery was piled on in later versions

that now included all of the text quoted in the Example section above but

now concluded with:

 

 

 

On the 11th day of the 9 month,

two metal birds will crash into two tall statues

in the new city,

and the world will end soon after.

 

 

 

 

Similarly, another enhanced version incorporates the " Example " text quoted

above into a more detailed prophecy:

 

 

 

And Nostradamus predicted this (who knows how long ago):

 

In the year of the new century and nine months,

From the sky will come a great King of Terror.

The sky will burn at forty-five degrees.

Fire approaches the great new city

 

 

In the city of york there will be a great collapse,

2 twin brothers torn apart by chaos

while the fortress falls; the great leader will succumb;

third big war will begin when the big city is burning

 

 

 

 

This " prophecy " is bogus. The second quatrain is entirely made-up, and the

first quatrain is composed of lines taken from two completely different

prophecies of Nostradamus' linked together for effect (Lines referencing

" Normans " and " Mongols " which have no plausible application to current

events have been excised by whoever concatenated these two pieces.) The

first two lines are from a verse which describes events that would

supposedly have taken place in July of 1999 (not September of 2001) and has

long since been associated with a wide variety of occurrences -- both real

and fictional. (An excellent dissertation on this " prediction " can be found

here.) The second two lines of the first quatrain are taken from what is

often cited as a Nostradamus writing identified as Century 6, Quatrain 97:

 

 

Cinq et quarante degrez ciel bruslera

Feu approcher de la grand cité neuve

Instant grand flamme esparse sautera

Quand on voudra des Normans faire preuue.

 

 

 

An approximate English translation would be:

 

 

Five and forty steps the sky will burn

Fire approaching the large new city

Instantly a great thin flame will leap

When someone will want to test the Normans.

 

 

 

Even if this is a real prophecy of Nostradamus', it simply provides more

evidence of how much shoehorning has to be performed to get one of these

vague " predictions " to fit modern occurrences. It cites no date whatsoever.

The line about a sky that " will burn at five and forty steps " (or " degrees " )

is interpreted to refer to New York City, the forty-five degrees being the

Big Apple's latitude -- never mind that New York City is actually below the

41° latitude mark, and that several major North American cities (e.g.,

Boston, Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, Toronto, Montreal) are much closer

to 45° latitude than Gotham. (You can bet that if events had occurred in a

more southern city, such as Dallas, the Nostradamus buffs now would be

claiming that the " five and forty degrees " was obviously meant to refer to

air temperature, not latitude.)

 

As well, New York is one of North America's oldest cities and is only " new "

in the sense that its name contains the word " new " (a criterion which

describes many other of the world's large cities, such as New Delhi) and

from the perspective of the 16th century, any North American city would

qualify as " new " ; the flames resulting from the terrorist attack in New York

were anything but " thin " (or " scattered " ); and nobody has a clue what

" Normans " (what we would call " Vikings " or " French " ) have to do with

hijacked airliners crashing into American cities. (Apparently Nostradamus

could predict the exact date and location of a terrorist attack on New York

City several hundred years in advance, but he couldn't see that America

would be a mixture of many different ethnicities by then.)

 

All in all, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 is a much better fit for this

one. So is the explosion resulting from the collision of the ships Mont

Blanc and Imo in 1917, which killed thousands of people and destroyed much

of Halifax -- a city just a few degrees shy of 45° latitude. In fact, the

devastating Peshtigo forest fire (which occurred on the same night as the

Great Chicago Fire) claimed 1,200 lives and occurred right on the 45th

parallel. To top it all off, this very same verse was widely cited several

years ago as having predicted the discovery and approach of the spectacular

Hale-Bopp comet in 1995, and then again several months later as having

predicted the mysterious crash of TWA Flight 800 in July 1996. This prophecy

is truly the Mr. Potato Head of predictions -- if the parts don't fit to

your liking, just rearrange them and try again.

 

Just once, we'd like someone to tell us what one of Nostradamus'

" prophecies " means in advance of the event it supposedly describes. If

Nostradamus was such a great seer, then why is it that not one person in the

world was able to decipher his warning in time to prevent the horrors of 11

September 2001? If I didn't have to explain what my " prophecies " meant until

after the events they supposedly predicted had occurred, I'm sure I could

manage a pretty impressive record for accuracy too.

 

Barbara " la cosa nostradamus " Mikkelson

 

Last updated: 11 September 2001

 

 

 

 

 

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/predict.htm

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2001

by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson

This material may not be reproduced without permission

 

 

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