Nostradamus, a French seer in the 16th century, is famous for his prophecies. He was a pharmacist and treated the plague before publishing almanacs and a book of prophetic quatrains. He drew on biblical allusions and planetary alignments, but obfuscated his prophecies to avoid accusations of heresy. Nostradamus died at 62, but his prophecies remain popular and continue to apply to major world events.
Nostradamus was a French seer who lived in the 16th century. His predictions of the future are among the most famous in history and continue to enjoy widespread popularity to this day. With the exception of the biblical prophets, his visions are by far the best known of the many seers that have existed in recent centuries.
Nostradamus was born Michel de Nostredame at the dawn of the 16th century, to a notary and grain merchant. In his early adult years, Nostradamus practiced as a pharmacist. He attended medical school for a time, but was expelled when his background as a pharmacist was discovered. He spent the next few years of his life fighting the plague in France and Italy.
In his late forties, Michel de Nostredame changed his name to the Latin Nostradamus and began to publish treatises on the occult. He began writing annual almanacs, which contained thousands of prophecies among them. These almanacs began to enjoy commercial success, and their success prompted many notable people to request individual astrological consultations from Nostradamus.
Nostradamus wasn’t particularly an astrologer, however, and the charts he prepared are consistently full of simple factual errors. He typically asked his clients to provide him with their own astrological charts to interpret. The success of his almanacs and private consultations led Nostradamus to embark on a more ambitious project, in the form of an enormous book of prophetic quatrains, the remains of which are the work for which he is best known.
At the time, neither astrology nor prophecy were considered heretical practices, and Nostradamus actually had a relatively positive relationship with the Church. However, he has always been wary of inciting the wrath of the Inquisition, particularly as his prophecies began to attract attention. Although it was clear that he did not use magic to prophesy about him, people still began to accuse him of being in cahoots with the Devil to predict the future.
To address this problem, Nostradamus somewhat obfuscated his prophecies. Most of the prophecies found in his main collection are in the form of quatrains, often using puns and various classical languages to hide their meanings. This also allows for a variety of interpretations to be placed on each quatrain, helping to ensure that those who wish to find the truth in them can match them to actual events as they occur.
Nostradamus drew heavily on Biblical allusions and prophecies to make his predictions about the future. In addition to adding some weight to his writing, it also helped bolster his claims that his insights were spiritually guided, rather than the work of the Devil. Many of Nostradamus’ prophecies refer to events that occur in the Old and New Testaments, and also draw on characters from the Bible.
Throughout his oeuvre, Nostradamus rejected the “prophet” label, holding it in reserve for biblical prophets whom he considered to be truly inspired by a direct connection to God. His work instead presented as rationalistic, looking at planetary alignments in history and correlating future events with events that occurred in the past. Unlike many other historical prophets, many of whom the Church considered heretics, Nostradamus never claimed to use any special form of trance or mysticism to carry out his work, but rather presented it as an exercise of the mind, similar in form and function to the other natural sciences of the time.
Nostradamus died of gout in 1566, aged 62, after supposedly predicting his own death to his secretary the night before. His works continued to be quite popular for a period after his death, with most of the prophecies published together in 1568. Although most of his other works, such as the Almanacs that brought him fame during his lifetime , or the Orus Apollo, soon fell into obscurity, the Prophecies themselves saw a massive resurgence in the wake of the 19th century occult revival. Nostradamus’ prophecies continue to apply to major world events and will likely continue to apply to events in the future as well.
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