閱讀諾查丹瑪斯 Nostradamus在旅游地理的作品!!! | |||
諾查丹瑪斯幼小的時候起就因他非凡的才能而十分引人註目。他所受的教育主要來自於他的祖父，拉丁語、希臘語、希伯來語、數學，以及被稱之為天體學的占星術等，無所不學，無所不通。祖父去世後，他回到住在巴裏大街的父母身邊，繼續接受外祖父對他的教育。不久，諾查丹瑪斯被送到阿維尼翁去學習，與居住在當地的幾位表兄弟住在一起。
諾查丹瑪斯對占星術顯示出了極大的興趣，在同學們中間，有關占星術的討論時常發生。他支持地球圍繞着太陽旋轉的天體論學說，在當時，這使得他的父母常常擔憂他會不會被當成異端分子而受到鎮壓，因為他們畢竟曾經是猶太教的信徒。
1522年，諾查丹瑪斯19歲時，傢裏人送他到了蒙彼利埃，為了讓他改學醫學。3 年之後，他輕輕鬆鬆地獲得了學士學位，並拿到開業許可證。之後，他决定離開大學返回故裏，全心全意地去救助可伶的傳染病的犧牲者。
諾查丹瑪斯 - 與病疫戰鬥的日日夜夜
16世紀，惡疫成了法國南部地方的風土病，特別是炭疽病的流行，使得人們整天在驚恐不安中度日。在諾查丹瑪斯的一生中，曾有過不少的中傷者或反對者，但對他面對疾病時的勇氣、人性，以及對患者傾註的愛心，對貧睏者的寬容，無一人表現過異議。早在1525 年，他就成了當地知名度頗高的好醫生。 諾查丹瑪斯走街串巷，並研治出若幹種獨特的處方及治療方法，與各種病疫戰鬥，這從他於1552年出版的著作中亦可找到佐證，為了救助患者，他傾註了心血。他從納爾榜輾轉到卡爾卡鬆。在那裏，他時常為當地的司教開一些長生不老的處方。他期望他的處方能奏效，倘若真的有效的話，豈不可以將更多的患者從死亡綫上輓救下來嗎？卡爾卡鬆之後他又去了圖盧茲。後聽說波爾多疫性嚴重，他又奔赴波爾多。
當他再次回到阿維尼翁後，他花了數月的時間對各種病疫進行了潛心研究。也許正是在這段時間內，他對魔法與玄學産生了濃厚的興趣，因為在阿維尼翁圖書館此類藏書甚多。當時，教皇使節與馬耳他的騎士團長正在阿維尼翁。於是諾查丹瑪斯以最佳配方為他們配製了 鮮美的溫博果凍。以現代人的眼光來判斷，是一種含糖過多的食品。
近 4年的輕鬆生活之後，為了取得博士學位，諾查丹瑪斯返回蒙彼利埃，並於1529年10 月23日再度就讀於醫學部。因為他的名聲與成功。以至於在醫學部內部樹敵甚多，使得他難以對自己的獨特見解進行深入研究與發表。然而，由於他的學識與能力是誰也無法否認的事實，所以他輕而易舉地就得到了博士學位。他選擇了在蒙彼利埃執教的道路。在一年多的短暫的教學生涯中，由於他的新的理論招致衆多的非議，他毅然辭職離去，繼續開始了他飄泊不定的遊醫生涯，身着黑長袍，夜宿黑色帳篷，擁有學者風度的諾查丹瑪斯，給人以典型的猶太人的印象。
在圖盧茲工作時，諾查丹瑪斯收到了僅次於伊拉斯漠的著名哲學家斯卡裏傑爾的信。諾查丹瑪斯的回信令斯卡裏傑爾十分高興，並發出了歡迎諾查丹瑪斯去阿讓小住的邀請。 1534年前後，諾查丹瑪斯與一位“身份高貴而極富魅力的美女”結婚（遺憾的是迄今為止我們也未能查到該女子的姓名），婚後生下一男一女。斯卡裏傑爾的幫助，加上他精湛的醫術與非凡的才能，使他過上了安穩而幸福的生活。
然而，好景不長，一連串的悲劇給諾查丹瑪斯以沉重的打擊。惡疫肆虐阿讓，儘管他拼命與惡疫搏擊，但無奈惡疫的流行迅速，以至於連妻子及兩個孩子都被無情地奪去了生命。 連自己的親人都無力醫救，這一事實對他這名醫生來說，無疑是無情而致命的打擊。接踵而來的是與斯卡裏傑爾的關係越來越糟，最後失去了他的友情。儘管斯卡裏傑爾是一個與什麽人都要爭吵的人，但在這種情況下失和，不能不說是船漏又遇頂頭雨。更悲慘的是亡妻的傢人逼他返還嫁女時所帶去的財産，甚至到法庭提起了訴訟。
令人難以相信的是，1538年，他竟因幾年前的出言不慎而被人密告當局，當局將他作為異端分子加以追究。事由很簡單，諾查丹瑪斯曾對一位正在製作聖母瑪利亞青銅像的匠人說 ：“你製作的是惡魔。”儘管諾查丹瑪斯反復說明他的本意是說匠人的作品缺少銅像所特有的美的魅力，但宗教法官仍然命令他去圖盧茲自首。諾查丹瑪斯壓根就沒打算去自首，更不想心甘情願地接受法庭的懲罰。為了逃避教會的糾纏，在其後的6年中，他在教會管轄不到的地區顛沛流離。風餐露宿。
諾查丹瑪斯 - 預言集在宮廷中引起巨大反響
諾查丹瑪斯於11月回到薩朗。不久便與富翁的未亡人安努·蓬薩爾結婚。直到現在，我們仍可以在普拉斯·德·拉·普瓦索努利的一角見到他們婚後居住過的那幢房捨。
與安努·蓬薩爾結婚之後，諾查丹瑪斯過上了一段安穩的家庭生活。據推測，他對玄學的關心、預言性洞察力的産生正是在這一段時間。他把他的主要精力放在潛心鑽研玄學及著書上，很少顧及長期以來的行醫事業。從1550年起，他每年要編製一套年歷，1554年以後，開始出版預言集。也許最初的成功給他增添了巨大的信心。他全身心地投入了他的預言工作。
諾查丹瑪斯將他在薩朗的住宅的最頂層改造成他的研究室，每到夜間，他總是與他那些神秘學的書籍為伴，在研究室中展開細緻的研究。據他本人後來的記述，他習慣於將他讀過的書籍讀一本燒一本。作為一個學者，是否真會這樣去做，是令人懷疑的。毋寧說是對教會當局施放的一種煙幕彈，以逃避教會的糾纏罷了。
他魔法的靈感、幻想的源泉，來自於1547年裏昂出版的《神秘埃及》。在他的預言集中多處引用了該書的段落，因此可以斷定，當時他手頭上擁有這本書。
1554年，據說波努市長埃姆·姆·傑維尼竟然辭去市長職務，敲開諾查丹瑪斯的門，請求收他為弟子，專門研習占星術與天文學。
諾查丹瑪斯去世後，傑維尼為整理編纂老師的預言集作出了巨大的努力。但正如諾查丹瑪斯的兒子賽紮爾所說，傑維尼有時過於誇張了與老師之間關係。這在諾查丹瑪斯的遺囑中亦能找到證據。諾查丹瑪斯的遺囑十分冗長，他詳細記述了有關金錢及全部財産的分配，囑咐將一切交給長大成人的兒子處理。諾查丹瑪斯特別在遺囑中指出，傑維尼有過“寒窗之苦”，但並沒有說他是一個真正的學者。但無論怎麽說，傑維尼在得到了諾查丹瑪斯夫人的同意後，替老師整理了大批的遺稿是一個鐵的事實。
1555年，諾查丹瑪斯完成了他的第一部預言集，預言的時間跨度是從他所生活的時代直至世界末日。《諸世紀》這一題名與“百年”的概念沒有關係。而是因為每一部預言集由百首自由體詩或四行詩構成，故而得名，他打算寫一千首詩，編成十部預言集。但不知何故，第七部並未完稿（也就是說收入的預言詩未達到一千首）。當整理他的遺稿時發現，他曾經還想寫第十一部與第十二部，但未能實現便離開了人世。
詩是以晦澀難懂的文體寫成的，其中有法語、普羅旺斯方言、意大利語、希臘語以及拉丁語等，時間順序也故意被打亂，估計是為了逃避教會的加害而這樣做的，因此，詩中所隱藏的真正含義及秘密，非是專傢是難以破解的。
1555年，當他未完成的預言集公開出版後，諾查丹瑪斯在法國乃至歐洲名聲大震。出版物選用了他的前3部（300 篇）及第4部的部分內容。在當時，書是昂貴的奢侈品，衹有貴族或有錢人才能買來閱讀，而普通的平民多半是文盲，預言集在宮廷內引起了巨大的反響，因為其中有一句似乎預見到了國王的死。
諾查丹瑪斯 - 準確預言王妃及其子女的命運
應卡特琳娜·德·梅迪西斯王妃的招請，諾查丹瑪斯於1556年 7月14日前往巴黎。因為王妃的特別關照，原本需要 8周的旅行僅用了一個月的時間就順利到達了巴黎。諾查丹瑪斯 在聖米謝爾的一處旅店找到了住處。王妃恨不得立刻見到諾查丹瑪斯，於是第二天一早便招他進宮。在當地警察署長的帶領下，諾查丹瑪斯接受了王妃的召見。遺憾的是，沒有任何人對這次召見做過任何記錄。二人的會談長達兩小時。據傳說，王妃嚮他詢間了暗示國王之死的四行詩，並對諾查丹瑪斯的回答表示滿意。事實上，卡特琳娜至死為止都一直很相信諾查丹瑪斯的預言。
國王亨利二世對諾查丹瑪斯並不感興趣。雖然接見的時間極短，但仍然賞賜了他 100枚金幣。王妃後又追加了30枚，對諾查丹瑪斯來說，這點賞賜實在是太少，因為他來巴黎的路費就花去了100多枚金幣。然而值得安慰的是，他的住處被移到了大主教的豪華住宅。在巴黎滯留的二周裏，他會見了許多慕名來仿者，並利用占星術，給其以預見性忠告。其間，王妃又一次召見了諾查丹瑪斯，並要求他對瓦盧瓦的七個孩子的運勢進行預言。這的確是一件微妙而睏難的事情。其實，在業已公開出版的書籍中已經明確預言了他們的悲劇性命運。但此時此刻也衹能對卡特琳娜說：“您的兒子都能成為君王”。他的預言並不完全正確，因為其中有位叫弗朗索瓦的在繼承王位之前就離開了人世。另外，假如他實際的天啓是會出現四位君王的活，預言就再正確不過了。亨利三世在重登法國國王之前，曾是波蘭國王。
之後不久，諾查丹瑪斯受到巴黎警方的追查，其理由是他以魔法惑衆。為此他不得不慌慌張張返回薩朗。可為他回到故裏時，卻被作為名士受到了歡迎。
回故裏後，因患痛風及關節炎，他幾乎沒有做多少像樣的工作。大多數時間用於接待來訪者或著書立說。1568年，也就是他去世兩年之後，所著的著作纔得以公開出版，其實在此之前，他很多的預言早以被他人引用，說明他的部分書稿在出版之前就已流傳於世，而諾查丹瑪斯對此並不十分在意。
諾查丹瑪斯之所以對他的預言在社會上廣為流傳保持沉默，大概是由於國王駕崩（1559 年）所致，因為事實驗證了他預言的正確性。儘管如此，他仍對這一預言感到有些不安。為 了不至於引起各界的恐慌，他對社會上流傳的預言衹好保持沉默。但就在次年（1560），娶蘇格蘭女王瑪麗為王妃的弗朗索瓦二世撒手人寰。從此宮廷中的人也公然引證預言詩。 長子，
不幸的婚姻無後的寡婦
二島紛爭
十八青春未成人
更有少年將成婚弗朗索瓦二世是亨利二世的長子，他在即將滿18歲的六星期前告別妻子離開人世。蘇格蘭女王瑪麗返回故鄉後，兩國産生不和。弗朗索瓦的弟子聶爾年僅11歲便與奧地利的伊麗莎白結成婚約。
1564年，攝政掌權的卡特琳娜王妃决定率領次子聶爾九世及其一族，巡幸法國全疆。
因為此次巡幸需要兩年時間，所以把隨行大臣等人削減到最低限度的800人。
當巡幸至普羅旺斯時，卡特琳娜理所當然地訪問了薩朗，會見了諾查丹瑪斯，並邀請與其共同進餐。卡特琳娜還前往諾查丹瑪斯的私宅拜會了諾查丹瑪斯，對其子女給予了贊譽。會見時，卡特琳娜賞賜給諾查丹瑪斯300枚金幣，並授予他常任侍醫的職銜。這一職銜除了薪金之外，更伴隨着諸多金錢以外的利益，使得諾查丹瑪斯喜出望外。
在卡特琳娜訪問薩朗期間，另外還發生了一件令人饒有興趣的事情。
在隨從中有一位少年。諾查丹瑪斯對他說：“讓我看看你身上的一顆痣。”少年害羞而不允。次日，正當少年還在熟睡時，諾查丹瑪斯悄悄地看了一眼便預言說：“這位少年未來 將會成為法國的國王／儘管當時卡特琳娜尚有兩位兒子健在……。這位少年就是納瓦爾的亨利，即後來的亨利四世。
長期忍受痛風折磨，並逐步並發水腫的諾查丹瑪斯意識到自己不會活得太久，於是於1566年6月17日寫下了他的遺囑。他的全部財産達3444枚金幣，在當時着實是一筆不小的數目。7月1日，他請當地的神父為他舉行了最後的儀式。是夜，當傑維尼嚮他告辭時，諾查丹瑪斯對他說：“我再也不會活着見到你了。”第二天早上，當人們發現他的遺體時，正如他本人所預言的那樣：“將會發現僵硬地躺在椅子與床之間”。他被葬在薩朗的方濟會派教會的墻壁中，妻子安努用最精美的大理石為他立下了碑。
在大革命時期，迷信的士兵們將他的墓掘開，把遺骨埋到薩朗的另外一個教會裏，這就是聖·羅蘭教會。如今人們若是去那裏的話，仍可以看到諾查丹瑪斯的墓及其肖像。
諾查丹瑪斯 - 再版達400餘年的“新的聖經”
在評價自稱有預言能力的人物的業績時，首先要做的有兩件事：一是要判斷手中資料的真偽；二是要確認其出版發行的年月日。幾個世紀來，諾查丹瑪斯幾乎成了衆多贋作的犧牲者，並且受到了許多不公正的評價，細想起來，倒也不難理解。
他著作的初期版本中，包括《諸世紀》在內，顯得十分的混亂。那是因為那些著作最初被分成兩部分，分別於1555年與1568年印刷所致。1555年所印的那一部分，連印刷日期都沒有。正因為如此，難免有一些被篡改過的、與真正的初版相隔數百年之遙的“初版”在世間流傳。
《諸世紀》出版的數量之多自不必言。但除聖經之外，再版達400餘年而仍不絶版的，恐怕除諾查丹瑪斯的《諸世紀》之外就再也沒有了，他所喚起的人們的關心是絶無僅有的。《諸世紀》也好，對《諸世紀》所做的註也好，大約30册的書籍在他死後的各個世紀，從未中斷過出版。甚至在法國大革命以及第一、二次世界大戰那樣不同尋常的時期，那些書籍仍然在大量出版發行。其中雖然有許多惡劣者，放棄公正的判斷，根據自己的需要任意篡改原文。也有人以批判的、懷疑的眼光去看待這些書籍。然而，卻沒有一個人企圖全面否定諾查丹瑪斯的正確的預言中所閃爍的星光。
諾查丹瑪斯 - 諾查丹瑪斯證實了法國革命的勝利
上自1649年，下至20世紀80年代的今天，諾查丹瑪斯一直被人們作為宣傳工具而加以利用。
1649年，馬紮蘭樞機卿的反對派們，對馬紮蘭在法國宮廷中的強有力的影響力深表不快，便公開發行了被認定為1568年版的《諸世紀》，其中硬是插入了對樞機卿極為不利的 四行詩。
1789年7月14日，巴士底監獄發生暴動時，革命志士們就是從《諸世紀》中得到感悟的。根據是在獄中的桌子上有一部分供閱讀用的《諸世紀》影印件，被關押的囚犯們在十天 中相互傳閱，以此堅定了行動成功的信心。
拿破侖是在妻子博阿爾內的勸導下纔把目光轉嚮《諸世紀》的。然而他卻成了被認定為是諾查丹瑪斯粗糙而雜亂的偽作的犧牲者。那實際上是一本叫做“奧立弗利斯預言集”的偽 作，出版於1820年，其後又有類似的贋作如“奧爾弗爾”流傳於世。但所有這類書籍，與諾查丹瑪斯都沒有一絲一毫的關係。
諾查丹瑪斯不僅在法國十分有名，在整個歐洲也享有盛譽，《諸世紀》的各種版本，在 初版發行後的25年內就遍布了整個歐洲。在此很難列舉出他全部的版本，但就目前所知的 而言，就有26種版本與4種贋作。從書籍作為珍貴的奢侈品的1555年至1643年，歐洲不斷出版《諸世紀》這一事實來看，就足以說明諾查丹瑪斯是何等地受人歡迎。
諾查丹瑪斯 - 被希特勒的宣傳材料所利用的四行詩
1860年以後，在法國某偏僻的鄉村，有一位叫阿貝·杜爾耐的牧師。此人以諾查丹瑪斯弟子傑維尼的名義，嚮世人推出了若幹册諾查丹瑪斯四行詩的註解書。他的這一舉動震撼 了法國，並對當時的許多重大决策起到了很大的影響。阿貝·杜爾耐相信波旁王族必將復歸法國王位，同樣確信在下一次戰爭中，法國將會經瑞士而被侵略。受這一情報的支配，當時法國的參謀長下令修築了可悲的馬其諾防綫。據說 其根據是《諸世紀》第4章的第80首詩，這話聽起來挺荒唐，但卻是事實。希特勒對諾查丹瑪斯的關心，是由於約瑟夫·保羅·戈培爾夫人讀到了一首有關臭名昭著的希恩塔的四行詩而引起的。正如戈培爾夫人所說的那樣，1939年，同樣是這首詩，引起了約瑟夫·保羅·戈培爾對諾查丹瑪斯的興趣。
1940年，德軍用飛機撤下了大量的“取自於”諾查丹瑪斯的偽預言詩。散發的預言告訴人們：希特勒的勝利是必然的；戰爭不會波及到法國的東南部。通過這些“預言”，想達到的真正目的是為了削弱入侵巴黎的通道及英法海峽各港口的防備。
另一方面，英國的情報機關也毫不示弱。他們從被稱得上是世界上最大的騙子的路易·德·保羅那裏藉來智慧，投入巨額資金，展開了反德宣傳。他們從空中嚮比利時、法國 拋撒用德文編集的諾查丹瑪斯的預言詩。這些事情發生在1943年，離我們現在並不遙遠。
諾查丹瑪斯 - 多元宇宙的註視者
有關諾查丹瑪斯的最後一個問題，他到底是一個真正的預言傢，還是一個騙子？他本人確信自己具有某種能力，但他也有理由說明不能根據他人的需要而引發這種能力。在他的預 言集中，的確存在部分降低他的價值的預言。因此，對於讀者來說，哪些預言可信？400年前的他到底能否對未來的偶發事件作出預見，他是否是憑靠某種直感作出的推斷？這都需要用自己的眼睛去做判斷。
有心人應該明白，在現實生活中，絶大多數人相信自己的未來是可以通過思考與行動而發生改變的。預言無非是否定這一事實，言明所有的未來都是不可改變的、固定的東西，人類面嚮未來無論如何掙紮也無濟於事。也就是說，神也好，命運也罷，一切都是由某種絶對的東西支配着的。我們通常堅信人類必須擁有自由意志。但是，即使我們把諾查丹瑪斯的預言詩的95％看成是與歷史的巧合而加以排除的話，同時也不得不承認仍有部分預言詩是不應該草率地去對待的。
路易十六世逃往瓦倫。拿破侖戰敗、希特勒死亡、伊朗國王退位，這些事實都在諾查丹瑪斯的預言之中，難道我們可以無視這些預言詩嗎？那些能明確預見到事件發生年月的詩又該如何解釋呢？比如預言波斯與土耳其將於1729年10月簽訂秘密協定的詩；再比如指出君主被暗殺月份與日期的詩等等。要想清楚地解開這類詩中的謎，是十分睏難的。我們認為這决不是偶然與巧合。
現代的愛因斯坦的信奉者們衹承認永遠的現在。古代的神秘主義者也同樣相信永遠的現在。假如說存在未來的話，（未來現象的）預知便是事實。進步的知識的整體傾嚮將會把物理學的各種法則適用於四元連續體，也就是說，適用於永遠的現在。如果真的這樣去做的話，那麽，過去、現在、未來將會同時存在。於是，變動的豈不就是我們的意識了嗎？事情總會弄清楚的，倘若果真如此，預知將會成為被人們所接受的事實。
另一方面，解答或許隱藏在多元的思想中。即相互平行運行的，可變換的二者擇一的未來已經定型在了所謂的多元宇宙的概念之中。
諾查丹瑪斯也許能夠幻視出某人在初期階段自由决定的行動，或許會發生、或許不會發生的時間的平行綫。無論從什麽意義上說。人始終不是死海中的一座孤島，人們的所有行動都會相互影響。因此，假如路易十六世采取不同的行動留在巴黎，而不驚慌失措地逃往瓦倫的話，本書中豈不是又會出現一首難以理解的四行詩嗎？同樣如此，無論你覺得多麽離奇怪，當初希特勒的註意力若不被預言集中英國與波蘭的關係所吸引的話，他果真會發起那場戰爭嗎？
讀者不妨可以把自由意志的概念與數學上的概率加以融合。充分調動透視或者類似透視的能力，也許你就會朦朧地看到或者捕捉到未來。當然，這種未來是因感知者的修養不同而 相異的、有條件的未來…… 人類似乎總是在重複某種錯誤。諾查丹瑪斯的部分預言詩之所以能正確地預言到相隔一個世紀以上的事件，正是證明了這一事實。倘若我們要回避諾查丹瑪斯為人類所預見到的不吉利、黑暗的未來的話，我們就必須從過去數百年延襲至今的行為模式中解脫出來。在嚮世界和平和全球經濟一體化不斷邁進的同時，從饑餓、戰亂、悲劇的諾查丹瑪斯的中世紀的理性概念中獲得自由。
Most academic sources maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains are largely the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate) or else are so tenuous as to render them useless as evidence of any genuine predictive power. Moreover, none of the sources listed offers any evidence that anyone has ever interpreted any of Nostradamus's quatrains specifically enough to allow a clear identification of any event in advance.
Biography
Nostredame's claimed birthplace before its recent renovation.
Childhood
Born on 14 or 21 of December 1503 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the south of France, where his claimed birthplace still exists, Michel de Nostredame was one of at least nine children of Reynière (or Renée) de Saint-Rémy and grain dealer and notary Jaume (or Jacques) de Nostredame. The latter's family had originally been Jewish, but Jaume's father, Guy Gassonet, had converted to Catholicism around 1455, taking the Christian name "Pierre" and the surname "Nostredame" (the latter apparently from the saint's day on which his conversion was solemnized). Michel's known siblings included Delphine, Jean I (c. 1507–77), Pierre, Hector, Louis, Bertrand, Jean II (born 1522) and Antoine (born 1523). Little else is known about his childhood, although there is a persistent tradition that he was educated by his maternal great-grandfather Jean de St. Rémy – a tradition which is somewhat vitiated by the fact that the latter disappears from the historical record after 1504, when the child was only one year old.
Student year
At the age of fifteen the young Nostredame entered the University of Avignon to study for his baccalaureate. After little more than a year (when he would have studied the regular trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic, rather than the later quadrivium of geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy/astrology), he was forced to leave Avignon when the university closed its doors in the face of an outbreak of the plague. After leaving Avignon, Nostredame (according to his own account) traveled the countryside for eight years from 1521 researching herbal remedies. In 1529, after some years as an apothecary, he entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine. He was expelled shortly afterward when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary, a "manual trade" expressly banned by the university statutes. The expulsion document (BIU Montpellier, Register S 2 folio 87) still exists in the faculty library. However, some of his publishers and correspondents would later call him "Doctor". After his expulsion, Nostredame continued working, presumably still as an apothecary, and became famous for creating a "rose pill" that supposedly protected against the plague.
Marriage and healing work
In 1531 Nostredame was invited by Jules-César Scaliger, a leading Renaissance scholar, to come to Agen. There he married a woman of uncertain name (possibly Henriette d'Encausse), who bore him two children. In 1534 his wife and children died, presumably from the Plague. After their deaths, he continued to travel, passing through France and possibly Italy.
Nostradamus's house at Salon-de-Provence, as reconstructed after the 1909 earthquake.
On his return in 1545, he assisted the prominent physician Louis Serre in his fight against a major plague outbreak in Marseille, and then tackled further outbreaks of disease on his own in Salon-de-Provence and in the regional capital, Aix-en-Provence. Finally, in 1547, he settled in Salon-de-Provence in the house which exists today, where he married a rich widow named Anne Ponsarde, with whom he had six children – three daughters and three sons. Between 1556 and 1567 he and his wife acquired a one-thirteenth share in a huge canal project organized by Adam de Craponne to irrigate largely waterless Salon-de-Provence and the nearby Désert de la Crau from the river Durance.
Seer
After another visit to Italy, Nostredame began to move away from medicine and toward the occult. Following popular trends, he wrote an almanac for 1550, for the first time Latinizing his name from Nostredame to Nostradamus. He was so encouraged by the almanac's success that he decided to write one or more annually. Taken together, they are known to have contained at least 6,338 prophecies, as well as at least eleven annual calendars, all of them starting on 1 January and not, as is sometimes supposed, in March. It was mainly in response to the almanacs that the nobility and other prominent persons from far away soon started asking for horoscopes and "psychic" advice from him, though he generally expected his clients to supply the birth charts on which these would be based, rather than calculating them himself as a professional astrologer would have done. When obliged to attempt this himself on the basis of the published tables of the day, he always made numerous errors, and never adjusted the figures for his clients' place or time of birth. (Refer to the analysis of these charts by Brind'Amour, 1993, and compare Gruber's comprehensive critique of Nostradamus’ horoscope for Crown Prince Rudolph Maximilian.)
He then began his project of writing a book of one thousand mainly French quatrains, which constitute the largely undated prophecies for which he is most famous today. Feeling vulnerable to religious fanatics, however, he devised a method of obscuring his meaning by using "Virgilianized" syntax, word games and a mixture of other languages such as Greek, Italian, Latin, and Provençal. For technical reasons connected with their publication in three installments (the publisher of the third and last installment seems to have been unwilling to start it in the middle of a "Century," or book of 100 verses), the last fifty-eight quatrains of the seventh "Century" have not survived into any extant edition.
The quatrains, published in a book titled Les Propheties (The Prophecies), received a mixed reaction when they were published. Some people thought Nostradamus was a servant of evil, a fake, or insane, while many of the elite thought his quatrains were spiritually-inspired prophecies. In the light of their post-Biblical sources (see under Nostradamus' sources below), Nostradamus himself encouraged this belief. Catherine de Médicis, the queen consort of King Henri II of France, was one of Nostradamus' greatest admirers. After reading his almanacs for 1555, which hinted at unnamed threats to the royal family, she summoned him to Paris to explain them and to draw up horoscopes for her children. At the time, he feared that he would be beheaded, but by the time of his death in 1566, Catherine had made him Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to her son, the young King Charles IX of France.
Some accounts of Nostradamus's life state that he was afraid of being persecuted for heresy by the Inquisition, but neither prophecy nor astrology fell in this bracket, and he would have been in danger only if he had practiced magic to support them. In fact, his relationship with the Church was always excellent. His brief imprisonment at Marignane in late 1561 came about purely because he had published his 1562 almanac without the prior permission of a bishop, contrary to a recent royal decree.
Final years and death
Nostradamus' current tomb in the Collégiale Saint-Laurent, Salon, into which his scattered remains were transferred after 1789.
By 1566, Nostradamus' gout, which had plagued him painfully for many years and made movement very difficult, turned into oedema, or dropsy. In late June he summoned his lawyer to draw up an extensive will bequeathing his property plus 3,444 crowns (around US$300,000 today) – minus a few debts – to his wife pending her remarriage, in trust for her sons pending their twenty-fifth birthdays and her daughters pending their marriages. This was followed by a much shorter codicil. On the evening of July 1, he is alleged to have told his secretary Jean de Chavigny, "You will not find me alive at sunrise." The next morning he was reportedly found dead, lying on the floor next to his bed and a bench (Presage 141 [originally 152] for November 1567, as posthumously edited by Chavigny to fit). He was buried in the local Franciscan chapel in Salon (part of it now incorporated into the restaurant La Brocherie) but re-interred during the French Revolution in the Collégiale Saint-Laurent, where his tomb remains to this day.
Work
Copy of Garencières' 1672 English translation of the Propheties, located in The P.I. Nixon Medical History Library of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
In The Prophecies he compiled his collection of major, long-term predictions. The first installment was published in 1555. The second, with 289 further prophetic verses, was printed in 1557. The third edition, with three hundred new quatrains, was reportedly printed in 1558, but now only survives as part of the omnibus edition that was published after his death in 1568. This version contains one unrhymed and 941 rhymed quatrains, grouped into nine sets of 100 and one of 42, called "Centuries".
Given printing practices at the time (which included type-setting from dictation), no two editions turned out to be identical, and it is relatively rare to find even two copies that are exactly the same. Certainly there is no warrant for assuming – as would-be "code-breakers" are prone to do – that either the spellings or the punctuation of any edition are Nostradamus' originals.
The Almanacs: by far the most popular of his works, these were published annually from 1550 until his death. He often published two or three in a year, entitled either Almanachs (detailed predictions), Prognostications or Presages (more generalized predictions).
Nostradamus was not only a diviner, but a professional healer, too. It is known that he wrote at least two books on medical science. One was an extremely free translation (i.e. a "paraphrase") of The Protreptic of Galen (Paraphrase de C. GALIEN, sus l'Exhortation de Menodote aux estudes des bonnes Artz, mesmement Medicine), and in his so-called Traité des fardemens (basically a medical cookbook containing, once again, materials borrowed mainly from others) he included a description of the methods he used to treat the plague – none of which, not even the bloodletting, apparently worked. The same book also describes the preparation of cosmetics.
A manuscript normally known as the Orus Apollo also exists in the Lyon municipal library, where upwards of 2,000 original documents relating to Nostradamus are stored under the aegis of Michel Chomarat. It is a purported translation of an ancient Greek work on Egyptian hieroglyphs based on later Latin versions, all of them unfortunately ignorant of the true meanings of the ancient Egyptian script, which was not correctly deciphered until the advent of Champollion in the 19th century.
Since his death only the Prophecies have continued to be popular, but in this case they have been quite extraordinarily so. Over two hundred editions of them have appeared in that time, together with over 2000 commentaries. Their popularity seems to be partly due to the fact that their vagueness and lack of dating make it easy to quote them selectively after every major dramatic event and retrospectively claim them as "hits" (see Nostradamus in popular culture).
Nostradamus' source
Nostradamus claimed to base his published predictions on judicial astrology – the astrological 'judgement', or assessment, of the 'quality' (and thus potential) of events such as births, weddings, coronations etc. – but was heavily criticized by professional astrologers of the day such as Laurens Videl for incompetence and for assuming that "comparative horoscopy" (the comparison of future planetary configurations with those accompanying known past events) could actually predict what would happen in the future.
Recent research suggests that much of his prophetic work paraphrases collections of ancient end-of-the-world prophecies (mainly Bible-based), supplemented with references to historical events and anthologies of omen reports, and then projects those into the future in part with the aid of comparative horoscopy. Hence the many predictions involving ancient figures such as Sulla, Gaius Marius, Nero, and others, as well as his descriptions of "battles in the clouds" and "frogs falling from the sky." Astrology itself is mentioned only twice in Nostradamus's Preface and 41 times in the Centuries themselves, but more frequently in his dedicatory Letter to King Henri II. In the last quatrain of his sixth centurie he specifically attacks astrologers.
His historical sources include easily identifiable passages from Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch and other classical historians, as well as from medieval chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Jean Froissart. Many of his astrological references are taken almost word for word from Richard Roussat's Livre de l'estat et mutations des temps of 1549–50.
One of his major prophetic sources was evidently the Mirabilis liber of 1522, which contained a range of prophecies by Pseudo-Methodius, the Tiburtine Sibyl, Joachim of Fiore, Savonarola and others. (His Preface contains 24 biblical quotations, all but two in the order used by Savonarola.) This book had enjoyed considerable success in the 1520s, when it went through half a dozen editions (see External links below for facsimiles and translations) but did not sustain its influence, perhaps owing to its mostly Latin text, Gothic script and many difficult abbreviations. Nostradamus was one of the first to re-paraphrase these prophecies in French, which may explain why they are credited to him. It should be noted that modern views of plagiarism did not apply in the 16th century. Authors frequently copied and paraphrased passages without acknowledgement, especially from the classics.The latest research suggests that he may in fact have used bibliomancy for this—randomly selecting a book of history or prophecy and taking his cue from whatever page it happened to fall open at.
Further material was gleaned from the De honesta disciplina of 1504 by Petrus Crinitus, which included extracts from Michael Psellus's De daemonibus, and the De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum (Concerning the mysteries of Egypt...), a book on Chaldean and Assyrian magic by Iamblichus, a 4th century Neo-Platonist. Latin versions of both had recently been published in Lyon, and extracts from both are paraphrased (in the second case almost literally) in his first two verses, the first of which is appended to this article. While it is true that Nostradamus claimed in 1555 to have burned all of the occult works in his library, no one can say exactly what books were destroyed in this fire. The fact that they reportedly burned with an unnaturally brilliant flame suggests, however, that some of them were manuscripts on vellum, which was routinely treated with saltpeter.
Only in the 17th century did people start to notice his reliance on earlier, mainly classical sources. This may help explain the fact that, during the same period, The Prophecies reportedly came into use in France as a classroom reader.
Nostradamus's reliance on historical precedent is reflected in the fact that he explicitly rejected the label prophet (i.e. a person having prophetic powers of his own) on several occasions:
Although, my son, I have used the word prophet, I would not attribute to myself a title of such lofty sublimity – Preface to César, 1555 (see caption to illustration above)
Not that I would attribute to myself either the name or the role of a prophet – Preface to César, 1555
[S]ome of [the prophets] predicted great and marvelous things to come: [though] for me, I in no way attribute to myself such a title here. – Letter to King Henri II, 1558
I do but make bold to predict (not that I guarantee the slightest thing at all), thanks to my researches and the consideration of what judicial Astrology promises me and sometimes gives me to know, principally in the form of warnings, so that folk may know that with which the celestial stars do threaten them. Not that I am foolish enough to pretend to be a prophet. – Open letter to Privy Councillor (later Chancellor) Birague, 15 June 1566
His rejection of the title prophet also squares with the fact that he entitled his book
Detail from title-page of the original 1555 (Albi) edition of Nostradamus's Les Prophetie
(a title that, in French, as easily means "The Prophecies, by M. Michel Nostradamus", which is precisely what they were; as "The Prophecies of M. Michel Nostradamus", which, except in a few cases, they were not, other than in the manner of their editing, expression and reapplication to the future.) Any criticism of Nostradamus for claiming to be a prophet, in other words, would have been for doing what he never claimed to be doing in the first place.
Given this reliance on literary sources, it is doubtful whether Nostradamus used any particular methods for entering a trance state, other than contemplation, meditation and incubation (i.e., ritually "sleeping on it"). His sole description of this process is contained in letter 41 of his collected Latin correspondence. The popular legend that he attempted the ancient methods of flame gazing, water gazing or both simultaneously is based on a naive reading of his first two verses, which merely liken his efforts to those of the Delphic and Branchidic oracles. The first of these is reproduced at the bottom of this article: the second can be seen by visiting the relevant facsimile site (see External Links). In his dedication to King Henri II, Nostradamus describes "emptying my soul, mind and heart of all care, worry and unease through mental calm and tranquility", but his frequent references to the "bronze tripod" of the Delphic rite are usually preceded by the words "as though" (compare, once again, External References to the original texts).
Interpretation
Most of the quatrains deal with disasters, such as plagues, earthquakes, wars, floods, invasions, murders, droughts, and battles – all undated and based on foreshadowings by the Mirabilis Liber. Some quatrains cover these disasters in overall terms; others concern a single person or small group of people. Some cover a single town, others several towns in several countries. A major, underlying theme is an impending invasion of Europe by Muslim forces from further east and south headed by the expected Antichrist, directly reflecting the then-current Ottoman invasions and the earlier Saracen (that is, Arab) equivalents, as well as the prior expectations of the Mirabilis Liber. All of this is presented in the context of the supposedly imminent end of the world – even though this is not in fact mentioned – a conviction that sparked numerous collections of end-time prophecies at the time, not least an unpublished collection by Christopher Columbus.
Nostradamus enthusiasts have credited him with predicting numerous events in world history, from the Great Fire of London, by way of the rise of Napoleon I of France and Adolf Hitler, to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, but only ever in hindsight. Skeptics such as James Randi suggest that his reputation as a prophet is largely manufactured by modern-day supporters who fit his words to events that have either already occurred or are so imminent as to be inevitable, a process sometimes known as "retroactive clairvoyance". There is no evidence in the academic literature to suggest that any Nostradamus quatrain has ever been interpreted as predicting a specific event before it occurred, other than in vague, general terms that could equally apply to any number of other events.
Alternative view
A range of quite different views are expressed in printed literature and on the Internet. At one end of the spectrum, there are extreme academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn, suggesting at great length and with great complexity that Nostradamus's Prophecies are antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind. Although Halbronn possibly knows more about the texts and associated archives than almost anybody else alive (he helped dig out and research many of them), most other specialists in the field reject this view. At the other end of the spectrum, there are numerous fairly recent popular books, and thousands of private websites, suggesting not only that the Prophecies are genuine but that Nostradamus was a true prophet. Thanks to the vagaries of interpretation, no two of them agree on exactly what he predicted, whether for the past or for the future. Many of them do agree, though, that particular predictions refer, for example, to the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, both world wars, and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is also a consensus that he predicted whatever major event had just happened at the time of each book's publication, from the Apollo moon landings, through the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, to the events of 9/11: this 'movable feast' aspect appears to be characteristic of the genre.
Possibly the first of these books to become truly popular in English was Henry C. Roberts' The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus of 1947, reprinted at least seven times during the next 40 years, which contained both transcriptions and translations, with brief commentaries. This was followed in 1961 (reprinted in 1982) by Edgar Leoni's comprehensive and remarkably dispassionate Nostradamus and His Prophecies. After that came Erika Cheetham's The Prophecies of Nostradamus, incorporating a reprint of the posthumous 1568 edition, which was reprinted, revised and republished several times from 1973 onwards, latterly as The Final Prophecies of Nostradamus. This went on to serve as the basis for the documentary The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. Apart from a two-part translation of Jean-Charles de Fontbrune's Nostradamus: historien et prophète of 1980, the series could be said to have culminated in John Hogue's well-known books on the seer from about 1994 onwards, including Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies (1999) and, most recently, Nostradamus: A Life and Myth (2003).
With the exception of Roberts, these books and their many popular imitators were almost unanimous not merely about Nostradamus's powers of prophecy, but also about various aspects of his biography. He had been a descendant of the Israelite tribe of Issachar; he had been educated by his grandfathers, who had both been physicians to the court of Good King René of Provence; he had attended Montpellier University in 1525 to gain his first degree: after returning there in 1529 he had successfully taken his medical doctorate; he had gone on to lecture in the Medical Faculty there until his views became too unpopular; he had supported the heliocentric view of the universe; he had travelled to the north-east of France, where he had composed prophecies at the abbey of Orval; in the course of his travels he had performed a variety of prodigies, including identifying a future Pope; he had successfully cured the Plague at Aix-en-Provence and elsewhere; he had engaged in scrying using either a magic mirror or a bowl of water; he had been joined by his secretary Chavigny at Easter 1554; having published the first installment of his Propheties, he had been summoned by Queen Catherine de' Medici to Paris in 1556 to discuss with her his prophecy at quatrain I.35 that her husband King Henri II would be killed in a duel; he had examined the royal children at Blois; he had bequeathed to his son a 'lost book' of his own prophetic paintings; he had been buried standing up; and he had been found, when dug up at the French Revolution, to be wearing a medallion bearing the exact date of his disinterment.
From the 1980s onwards, however, an academic reaction set in, especially in France. The publication in 1983 of Nostradamus's private correspondence and, during succeeding years, of the original editions of 1555 and 1557 discovered by Chomarat and Benazra, together with the unearthing of much original archival material revealed that much that was claimed about Nostradamus simply did not fit the documented facts. The academics made it clear that not one of the claims just listed was backed up by any known contemporary documentary evidence. Most of them had evidently been based on unsourced rumours retailed as fact by much later commentators such as Jaubert (1656), Guynaud (1693) and Bareste (1840), on modern misunderstandings of the 16th century French texts, or on pure invention. Even the often-advanced suggestion that quatrain I.35 had successfully prophesied King Henri II's death did not actually appear in print for the first time until 1614, 55 years after the event.
On top of that, the academics, who themselves tend to eschew any attempt at interpretation, complained that the English translations were usually of poor quality, seemed to display little or no knowledge of 16th century French, were tendentious and, at worst, were sometimes twisted to fit the events to which they were supposed to refer (or vice versa). None of them, certainly, were based on the original editions: Roberts had based himself on that of 1672, Cheetham and Hogue on the posthumous edition of 1568. Even the relatively respectable Leoni accepted on his page 115 that he had never seen an original edition, and on earlier pages indicated that much of his biographical material was unsourced.
However, none of this research and criticism was originally known to most of the English-language commentators, by function of the dates when they were writing and, to some extent, of the language it was written in. Hogue, admittedly, was in a position to take advantage of it, but it was only in 2003 that he accepted that some of his earlier biographical material had in fact been apocryphal. Meanwhile various of the more recent sources listed (Lemesurier, Gruber, Wilson) have been particularly scathing about later attempts by some lesser-known authors and Internet enthusiasts to extract alleged hidden meanings from the texts, whether with the aid of anagrams, numerical codes, graphs or otherwise.
Popular culture
The prophecies retold and expanded by Nostradamus have figured largely in popular culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. As well as being the subject of hundreds of books (both fiction and nonfiction), Nostradamus's life has been depicted in several films and videos, and his life and writings continue to be a subject of media interest.
There have also been several well-known internet hoaxes, where quatrains in the style of Nostradamus have been circulated by e-mail as the real thing. The best-known examples concern the collapse of the World Trade Center in the attacks of September 11, 2001, which led both to hoaxes and to reinterpretations by enthusiasts of several quatrains as supposed prophecies.