Dakota Beacon

This is the first Saturday of our new decade.  It is always a sort of mystical time of the year, a time when we pause to consider what happened in the years just past and ponder what might be in store in the future.  We often read our horoscopes, we listen to our soothsayers. I don’t know who the prognosticator of the day is now, but there was a time when it was Jean Dixon, whose predictions were not always perfect but who made some astonishing ones which came to pass.  The one man whose prophecies have come back again and again to enlighten - andc to haunt - us, is the Sixteenth Century foreteller of events we know as Nostradamus.  

Nostradamus has his believers as well as his detractors.  Detractors cite his deliberate obfuscations of dates, his cryptic predictions.  They discount his fear of the Inquisition by discounting him as not as important as a random Protestant they might prefer to torture.  He is too “obscure” they say, but his fear might have been well justified inasmuch as he predicted very accurately the strange demise of Henry II of France.  Not too many of your average Protestant shopkeepers were doing this. So his fear might have been quite reasonable. In any case, you must make up your own mind about this remarkable man and his work.

Born in the south of France of Jewish converts to Christianity in 1503, the man known to us now as “Nostradamus”, Michel de Notredame, studied medicine and astrology.  First a doctor, he discovered that clean water and air cured the Plague, but was not able to save his own wife and children from the disease. He became successful, however, and came to the court of Henry II at the behest of his queen, Catherine de Medici.  It was the most splendid court in Europe at that time. However, Nostradamus might have cast a cloud over the splendor with his dire prediction for Henry II’s demise. He predicted that the king would die with both eyes put out with one blow, “inside a golden cage”.  It sounded bizarre, but the queen pleaded with her young husband not to take the field in a friendly jousting competition. Tragically for Henry II, the improbable prediction became a final reality.  

Nostradamus began writing his prophecies in the form of poetry - quatrains.  He apparently feared being seen as a “witch” for his accurate and often catastrophic predictions.  He used the odd Greek or Latin word to make his phrases, mainly in his native French, less clear. When he finished his monumental work he threw the pages all into the air, scattering them, and he reassembled them randomly, to slow their interpretation and give himself time and cover.

Every year we hear a renewed discussion of his visions - for he saw the things he predicted in visions.  There is always room for error in anyone’s interpretation of another’s words, but puzzling his out, using hsi astrological references and his sometimes deliberately obscure descriptions, we can but wonder at the accuracy of many of them.  He predicted not only the assassination of John Kennedy, but also the implication of an innocent man in his murder. He predicted also the murder of Robert Kennedy.. He predicted the American Revolutionary War over 200 years before it happened.  He predicted the great fire of London, the rise of Napoleon with startling particularity, as well as the rise of Hitler and the Spanish Civil War. He predicted our landing on the moon (impressive back in 1555). He predicted the attack on the Trade Towers.  He predicted the downfall of his own France in our times “through neglect”. He foresaw the Islamic takeover of Iran, the decline of communism, the leadership of the United States in recent history. His predictions have been nothing short of amazing.  

So what of the future?  Nostradamus has described a “third world war” with horrific detail.  We have come to think of this in terms of nuclear warfare. After all, that is the state of the art of our war machinery.  We have envisioned mushroom clouds and obliteration of everything beneath them. But is that what he really meant? I have a different interpretation.  I’m not an astrologer, of course, nor a Nostradamus scholar, nor a general or nuclear physicist. I am just an observer.  

I found today a fascinating documentary.  It is intriguing for several reasons. I’m posting it here for you.  Warning - it is a little long (an hour and a half) and a lot of it is not that pleasant.  But I think it is well worth watching. You see, it is a bit of a “time capsule” in itself.  It was made in 1979. 

Remember the world of 1979?  It wasn’t a good year, we all remember that.  It was bad enough to bring down the one-term Jimmy Carter with the attack on our embassy in Tehran.  The events of the past week are a faint echo of that year, in fact. But what happened since? This is where I find the documentary truly fascinating.  In 1979 the writers and narrator are only speculating on what is meant by an attack on the “First City” in the West, on an invasion of Europe, on the demise of communism.  They are still trying to understand the meaning of these predictions in 1979, and we have a different perspective now.  

Much of what Nostradamus has foreseen and many of his predictions for the future seem utterly improbable to say the least.  The last Pope, Francis (a prediction reiterated by St. Malachy), fleeing Rome, an alliance between Russia and the United States against the darker powers of the East.  What do these predictions even mean? Well, we can join thousands of our predecessors in trying to figure it all out.  

I have my own ideas of how to interpret it, but they wouldn’t mean much.  I do think that there is a tendency among the human race to listen to the words of someone like Nostradamus and just say, “Well, I guess I’m off the hook - can’t change the future.”  But I think we are supposed to try to do things to affect the future in the best ways we can. We are not intended to become fatalistic, but to play the game - do what we think must be done.  I am not “fatalistic”, although I think there are things that can be seen by those with the gift to see them, as well as those things which an ordinary thinking person can predict with common sense.  (Like making concessions to bullies doesn’t work well except for the bully, which we might apply at this time to Iran’s behavior.)  

One last thing.  Some people have discredited Nostradamus by saying he predicted the end of the world by 2012 and it didn’t happen.  Well, at least not for most of us. But others have read in his cryptic words that the end of the world is slated to be 3739, so I guess we still have time to make some differences.  And maybe complete our own bucket lists.  

I hope you have a list!  I do, but it changes all the time, so I don’t know if mine counts.  I realize I’m rambling now, so time to turn it over to those who have delved deeply into this subject and actually made a documentary about Nostradamus.  (They obviously thought it was worth getting up in the morning.) I have two different documentaries here. The first was made in 1979, and for obvious reasons is the most interesting.  The “current period” or “future” part of this begins at about 1:05:00 or so of the film. Here it gets really interesting. As you watch, avoid the clichés with the mushroom clouds. Think how else you might interpret “war”.  I think you will see what I mean. I apologize for the poor visual and sometimes poor sound quality. Remember that this is a vintage documentary. But it is so much more interesting because of its time. I think it’s worth it to watch.  The second is a later documentary. In this one some of the events anticipated with fear and some confusion have taken place in ways we never would have guessed in 1979. Some time markers are obscure. Nostradamus has indicated that this massive war would begin sometime around 1981, but would be “well underway” by 1999.  He also said it would last for 27 years. This almost certainly precludes the kind of war some predicted - nuclear war - for no one can imagine sustaining nuclear warfare for 27 years. Nonetheless, this war is to be horrific. I think we have been in an undeclared war at least since 2001 or before.  

In any case, some will believe in his prophecies and others will laugh at them.  Who will be proven right? A lot depends upon interpretation, translation, understanding of context.  It might be worth studying him or maybe not. It depends upon your interest. But in a world increasingly confusing and unpredictable, there is temptation to look to Nostradamus and wonder what he really knew or saw.  

So here they are - a couple of intriguing and challenging documentaries to ponder as we begin the 2020s.

The 1979 documentary:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ka3NsIgVBY  (1:36:49)

More recently, c. 2015:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbZ8cDmOCjk  (45:22)

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