The Predictions of Nostradamus

Michael De Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus, was born to a well-educated Jewish family in St Remy, France. The family worked in the grain trade and became owners of many poperties and had two children, Michael who was the eldest and Bernard, who passed into oblivion. The family converted to Catholocism and this introduced Nostradamus to the prophecies of the Bible. He also was introduced to the wisdom of Kabbalah and it was this combination of religions in his early years that attributed to his later predictions and publications.

In 1550 his famous Centuries Nostradamus was a weather almanac containing weather predictions. This was followed by his first edition of his quatrains in 1672. Michael De Nostredame was educated at home in Hebrew, Greek, Latin , Astronomy and other Sciences. When he reached the age of 19 he was sent to study medicine at the University of Montpellier. Physicians of that time did not make a clear distinction between alchemy and pharmacy and in Avignon he read works on magic and the occult. For his doctorate in Montpellier in the year 1529, Nostradamus defended his belief in various unorthodox remedies which he had used.

He became a doctor of medicine and work as a professor which lead him to Agen, where he met the famous scholar Jules-Cesar Scaliger. Whilst in Agen he married, had a son and daughter where he had a happy life before he lost his entire family three years later to an outbreak pestilence in 1538. He entire world crumbled as his family were gone and his patients abandoned him. Little is known of Nostradamus in the following years except he did visit Sicily and it was recorded that he returned to France in 1544 when he published Le Livre d'Orus Apollo.

In 1547 he re-married a very wealthy widow, Anne Ponsart Gemelle, and moved to Salon. It was at this time that he commenced his work on the famous astrology predictions Propheties (centuries 1555-58). He spend endless hours alone in his study using the power of scrying, divination by concentration and using a bowl of water balanced on a tripod to focus his concentration. It is possible that he used narcotic herbs as this was not uncommon at the time.

The book which is written in rhymed four-lined verses (quatrains) is a mixture of Latin, Greek, French and Provencal with the time sequences all mixed up. The book contains 353 quatrains which are arranged in centuries of 100 verses. It is written in the style of St John with a mixture of orthodox Biblical chronology. This particular section of the Bible which believes that the world was created in 4004 BC, will last for a period of 6000 years until the final battle against the Antichrist, overthrowing of Babalon, will lead to the last judgement days and a new age of peace.

Nostradamus lived to the age of 62 and died in Salon on 2nd July, 1566. He was interred in the wall of the church of the Cordeliers in Salon. The grave was exhumed in 1791 and his bones were removed and buried in the Church of St. Laurent in Salon. Since his death over 400 books have been written about this amazing astrologer, physician and prophet. The Nazis used his verses during World War 2 and his prophecies have attracted the imagination of milllions over the centuries. With the approach of the end of our millenium when apocalyptic fears reached their height, Nostradamus was once again brought to the fore with interest in his writings reaching new levels.