Internet discussion forums seems abuzz with talk that Nostradamus forecast the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Thousands of people have received e-mails from known/unknown sources containing this prophecy, often with a second part forecasting that the attack on the twin towers will mark the beginning of World War III. Several versions are doing the rounds. This is one of many:
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-ive degree.
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 city is burning.
The author of the first link came up with the following conclusions :
--2001 is the first year of the new century and this is the 9th month.
--New York is located at the 41st degree Latitude.
--Nostradamus also said that this would be the third World War and it would be bigger than the last two wars.
The author wrapped-up his posting by uttering his anxiety - "I hope he is wrong, but judging from his predictions of Hitler, Napoleon, and Pearl Harbor...."
Really a scary situation, indeed- if really happens, isn't it ? But as being a skeptic and rationalist, I have investigated the whole issue thoroughly, and I respectfully disagree with the above mentioned "wishful" prophecy. Before giving my reply to above-mentioned post, lets check the common FAQ about Nostradamus from a skeptic's point of view.
Michel Nostradamus was a 16th century French physician and astrologer. But his modern followers now a day consider him as a prophet. They found some magical quality in his prophecies: they are muddled and obscure before the predicted event, but become crystal clear after the event has occurred ! Nostradamus actually was educated as a physician in his early life and was noted for his work during the plagues of the 16th century. But in later years, he worked as an astrologer to clients who included the Queen of France.
Nostradamus wrote four-line verses (quatrains) in groups of 100 (Centuries). Nostradamus' methods of prophecy can be broken down into three techniques:
First, he takes past events and puts them in symbolic language (nowhere any real name, place or event used) which renders these events unrecognizable, then puts them in the future tense,
Second, he describes a series of well-chosen probabilities based on contemporary conditions, and also puts these events in the future tense,
and the Third technique for predicting the future is Nostradamus' series of random guesses.
An Unbiased study on Nostradamus and his famous prediction by the skeptics and rationalists proved that his prediction or prophecy is far from being a "miracle", but it is just a hoax. Skeptics consider the "prophecies" of Nostradamus to be mainly gibberish. Success of His "prediction" now a day entirely dependent on misleading and wishful translation of his supporters. The supporters of Nostradamus are very good at predicting events not before but AFTER THE FACT occurred, often relying on doubtful translations of the original French to bolster their case. But they have had absolutely NO SUCCESS at predicting the correct future. His prediction AFTER THE THINGS HAPPENED is just a hoax. His supporters ("believers") have attempted to show that some of Nostradamus's quatrains predict the career of Adolf Hitler, and even the Japanese aggression in 1941 in the same way that the apologists try to prove that Quran or Bible predicted Big Bang, Black hole or Red Star Nebula etc.
Up until a few years ago most Nostradamus books were predicting a nuclear war between America and the USSR. None of them could predict correctly the breakup of the Soviet block. They only started chaos after the things happened.
One of the great believers of Nostradamus, Erika Cheetham, believe that Nostradamus foresaw the invention of bombs, rockets, submarines, and airplanes. He predicted the Great Fire of London (1666) and the rise of Adolph Hitler and many other wonders.
Here I wish to quote the original French version of a verse of Nostradamus as an example:
Bestes farouches de faim fleuves tranner
Plus part du champ encore Hister sera
En caige de fer le grand sera traisner
Quand rien enfant de Germain observa.
Erica Cheetham Translated as :
Beasts wild with hunger will cross the rivers,
The greater part of the battle will be against Hitler.
He will cause great men to be dragged in a cage of iron,
When the son of Germany obeys no law.
Readers may see that Erica Cheetham wish fully used "Hitler" in his translation. There was no mention of Hitler in the original verse of Nostradamus. Yes, there is one word "Hister" (not Hitler). There is no relation at all between those two words- Hister and Hitler. It sounds as if someone interpreting "Erica Cheetham" as Erica Cheatingbaz (cheater).
Skeptics, such as James Randi, have rejected such interpretation of Nostradamus' quatrains. His translation of the above verse is -
Randi's translation:
Beasts mad with hunger will swim across rivers,
Most of the army will be against the Lower Danube.
The great one shall be dragged in an iron cage
When the child brother will observe nothing.
You see there is no Hitler in the above verse. "The great one shall be dragged in an iron cage" - if someone wish to give a humane face of "great one" - can easily interpret as Stalin, Lenin, Saddam Hussain, Muhammed, Hitler, Halaku khan or even Osma Bin Laden ! So you see it entirely depends upon translator's tricky interpretation.
Famous Bengali Rationalist Prabir Ghosh (
http://humanists.net/avijit/prabir/ ) and His son Peenakeey Ghosh documented some of the more spectacular (mis)interpretations of Nostradamus in their famous book "Alukik Noy, Loukik" (Nothing Supernatural- 4th part), and showed them to be completely bogus. Not content simply to showed the silliness of others, both Randi and Prabir Ghosh provides a few interpretations from the original French. They showed that the most famous 'predictions' are nothing but wishful translation of the translator.
Dear Readers, Have you forgot about the famous prediction of doomsday by Nostradamus just a year back ? Here is the report of the failure of his "famous" prediction.
Interpreters, including fashion designer Paco Rabanne, have said Nostradamus' writings had predicted doomsday for the solar eclipse Wednesday. Many were disappointed that the scene was far from apocalyptic.
Report from Paris: "SURVIVOR'S APERITIF"
-------------------------------------------------
A group called "F..k the apocalypse" invited fellow residents of the city to a "survivor's aperitif" on the solar eclipse day, in front of fashion designer Paco Rabanne's botique on the fashionable Rue du Cherche-Midi. As the city of lights did not disappear in the ball of
fire as predicted by Rabanne, the party began at 12.23 pm, exactly one minute after the predicted devastation.
Based on the predictions of the 16th century astrologer Nostradamus, Rabanne had written a book forecasting that the Russian space station Mir would tumble into Paris and destroy the city during the solar eclipse. Though the book sales went well and the forecast was taken seriously by some, Rabanne's prediction was good humour for many. The residents' association in the south-eastern city of Lyon had created a "provisional government of France without Paris", to "take control" of the country if Rabanne's prediction came true.
The problem is nobody wants to remind those failure stories or remembers them, because human beings have a tendency toward "confirmation bias", as psychologists call it - we remember events that confirm our beliefs but forget those that do not, which is probably why 69% of adults in a recent poll said they believe in miracles (Ref. http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hunt_19_3.html article of Morton Hunt) .
Now let's discuss logically whether Nostradamus could really predict the recent New York attack. Many people actually do not want to investigate what actually written in Nostradamus's famous book -"The centuries". One of our Mukto-mona member (Free person Smith) have investigated the issue and found the following (Ref. Mukto-mona message # 2360)-
"I have received numerous emails about an alleged prophecy by the famous secret Jew and Kabbalist Nostradamus. The alleged prophecy supposedly predicted the destruction of the Twin Towers and a warning that WWIII will soon follow.
I was suspicious about this so-called prophecy because it did not quote a source in Nostradamus's book, "The Centuries."
I made contact with the world renown Nostradamus expert John Hogue, who confirmed for me that this so-called prophecy is indeed a hoax. Hogue calls it a "pretty clever fraud because it takes real lines from other Nostradamus prophecies and ties them to completely spurious insertions."
Whoever started this false prophecy has alarmed and frightened many. This is a grievous sin especially in light of recent events. Please advise everyone you know that this so-called prophecy is a definite fraud. (received by Rabbi Ariel bar Tzadok)"
Another member Nasima Khatun, after investigating the facts wrote in Mukto -mona (message #2352) :-
"This mail is with reference to the Nostradamus quote that is flying all over the net. I would like to tell to all that it is a hoax. Being Intrigued myself, I went to check Nostradamus' writing. What i found was that somebody had taken different words and sentences from different sections of his book and put it together to make out that it represented Tuesday incidents."
Dear Readers, If we think logically we would perceive that Nostradamus died in the year of 1566, so it's rather unlikely he wrote this passage in 1654. Most importantly, the quatrain which is fly in the Net to scare people is not to be found in his published oeuvre. It's a hoax.
I also personally investigated the whole issue. I found from a various sources from the Net that the text apparently originated on a Web page entitled "A Critical Analysis of Nostradamus," written several years ago by a student named Neil Marshall. Marshall made up the quatrain to demonstrate — quite ironically, in light of how it is now being misused — that the writings of Nostradamus are so cryptic that they can be interpreted to mean almost anything.
A Mukto-mona member Bulbul Amir made a very interesting comparison regarding the Nostradamus's prediction (message #2355) :
Take one A1 size paper sheet (may be of 1000mmX1000mm size) and draw many thousands of dot on it in an irregular fashion. Now you declare it is the N sheet that can predict any thing, will happen in future. But be sure always prove it once things are happened. How ? its simple, just join different dots of your sheet to draw a picture that resemble the happening want to be predicted.
NOSTRADAMUS prediction is also same, difference is, it uses alphabets instead of dots, and prove a prediction by showing words (or sentences) what you have to do it by a picture.
NOSTRADAMUS prediction, thus, is a HOAX.
So, dear readers, do not scared by so called flying prophecies in the Net, as we already found that -
"In the city of thunder/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 city is burning."
This was NOT written by Nostradamus. It was written by a high school student in 1996 to illustrate how a "randomly made up" quatrain could be interpreted to mean almost anything.
Interested readers can check the following links:
http://fury.com/article/925.php http://www.ed.brocku.ca/~nmarshal/nostradamus.htm
http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa091101b.htm
http://www.nostradamus-repository.org/cityofgod.html
www.hippy.freeserve.co.uk/prophecy.htm
Interested readers can take a look of the two book (A good general "skeptic" reference) on Nostradamus:
The Mask of Nostradamus
James Randi
Charles Scribner's Sons
ISBN 0-684-19056-7
BF1815.N8R35 1990
Aloukik Noy, Loukik (in Bangla)
Probir Ghosh (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Part)
Dey'j Publication.
Regards,
Avijit
