(eerie music)
- [Voiceover] Reality Films.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] His name
was Michel de Nostredame,
and he was born in 1503 in
Saint-Rmy-de-Provence, France.
He's known better
as Nostradamus,
the apothecary and seer
who published his
collections of prophecies.
From the rise of Adolph Hitler
to the nuclear destruction
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
From the terrorist attacks of
2001 to the end of the world,
Nostradamus has
always been there.
But all of these prophecies
were discovered after he died,
after he had written them
down, and after the events.
- [Voiceover] The day
of doom is coming!
- [Narrator] Now
then, his quatrains
are predicting our
own immediate future:
The fall of technology,
and the almost total destruction
of mankind as we know it;
the rise of a huge Islamic
army led by the antichrist
that will begin a
third world war;
the invasion of the West
by the Chinese hordes.
All of these and more
are being discovered
in the writings of a man
from 16th century France.
Now we are seeing
the interpretations
of his predictions
before the events.
The question is: is it true?
Are we about to witness
the most cataclysmic era
in mankind's history?
The world of Nostradamus
was a world of secrecy.
(bleak music)
He spent years building around
himself an aura of mystery.
He claimed that the
danger of his own time
required that his
words were written down
in enigmatic sentences that
he called cloudy obscurity.
In 1558, a text stated
about Nostradamus
that he was: "a certain
brainless and lunatic idiot
"who is shouting
nonsense and publishing
"his prognostications and
fantasies on the streets."
The astrologer Laurens
Videl wrote in his
"Declaration of the
Abuses, Ignorances
"and Seditions of
Michel Nostradamus"
that, "If I wanted to
recite all the ignorances,
"errors and idiocies that
you have been putting
"in your works for the
last four or five years,
"it would need a
pretty big book."
Ever since the publication
of his first book in 1555,
it has almost never
been out of print.
It is said he predicted
worldwide events,
births, catastrophes,
and even world wars.
(gunfire)
Most academics say that any
associations with real events
and the prophecies of
this 16th century man
are purely coincidental,
mistranslations,
or are so thin as it takes
nothing to make them snap.
(emotional music)
But is this the truth?
As we are now well
into the 21st century,
could there be prophecies
that have new meaning?
Could there be a new
science to explain
just how Nostradamus
predicted the future?
Indeed, there are
predictions that he made
and which are fast approaching.
Better now to know
the truth before.
(severe music)
We will begin by taking
a look at his life.
Michel de Nostredame was one
of at least nine children
of the notary Jaume de
Nostredame and Reynire,
the granddaughter of a
physician in Saint-Remy.
His father's family
had been Jewish
but had converted to Catholicism
and taken the surname
Nostredame, meaning 'our lady'.
There is very little known
about the childhood
of Nostradamus.
We know that at the age of 15
he entered the
University of Avignon,
stayed there for one year,
and then was forced to leave
when the plague broke out
and the university
closed its doors.
According to the
accounts of Nostradamus,
he then proceeded to travel
the countryside for eight years
as he researched
herbal remedies.
He then entered the
University of Montpelier
to study medicine.
He was then expelled for
practicing apothecary
and slandering other doctors.
The actual document
still exists.
And so, even though
his publishers would
call him doctor,
the truth is that
he never made it.
He continued life
as an apothecary,
and became widely known for
his invention, the rose pill,
which apparently protected
against the plague.
By 1531, he was so well known
that a leading man
of the Renaissance
invited him to Agen, where he
married and had two children.
(somber music)
His new wife and children
died in 1534 from the plague,
his rose pill presumably
being of no use.
He then traveled again
across France and into Italy.
In 1545, he then
returned to France
and became the assistant
of a famous physician
in his fight against the
plague in Marseilles.
He then moved on to his home
town and region to do the same.
In 1547, he finally settled
down in Salon-de-Provence,
married a rich widow
named Ann Ponsarde,
and had three sons
and three daughters.
After a visit to Italy,
Nostradamus decided to
move away from medicine,
and steered himself
towards the occult world.
He wrote an almanac in 1550,
and this is the
first time his name
becomes Nostradamus
and not Nostredame.
It was a success, and so
he decided to continue.
In total, he wrote
over 6,000 prophecies.
Soon he was coming to the
attention of the nobility
who began ordering
their horoscopes
and asking for psychic advice.
He then proceeded to do
something very strange:
he would write a book
containing 1,000 quatrains
of undated prophecies.
These are the prophecies he
is now known for worldwide.
And it is because
these are undated
that they remain open
to interpretation
in every generation.
(insidious music)
He believed what he was doing
was against the religious
rules of the day,
and so he obscured
what he was doing.
He mixed the languages,
using Greek, Latin,
Italian and Provencal,
and used word games.
In truth, he would have
had to have practiced magic
to upset the Inquisition;
prophecy and astrology
were permitted.
His book, The Prophecies,
had a mixed reception.
Some believed he was
a servant of Satan.
Others believed
him to be insane.
But others thought
him enlightened.
Many of these were from elite
families, such as the Medicis.
Catherine de Medici
summoned him to Paris
after she read about his omen
of threats to the
royal families.
(gentle music)
She had him draw up
horoscopes for her family.
She made him councilor,
and physician to her son,
who would be Charles
IX of France.
Nostradamus suffered from
gout, a type of arthritis,
and in 1566 it was making
movement problematic.
In June of that year, he
was drawing up his will.
By July the 1st, he
told his secretary,
"You will not find
me alive at sunrise."
The following morning,
he was found dead.
It seemed this was one
prophecy he did get right.
But the man left behind
a vast volume of work,
and it is to these prophecies
that we now must turn.
(contented music)
There are many problems
with the works.
Firstly, the typesetting or
printing in those early days
was done by word of mouth, and
so each no edition different.
We cannot assume
that the spelling,
of words for instance,
contain codes.
Since his death, there
have been over 200 editions
of his prophecies, and they
remain as popular today
as they were in
his own lifetime.
It has always been an easy task
to take the vague,
undated ramblings
and associate them with any
particular period in time.
He produced his
works, he claimed, on
astrological judgment,
or the possibility of events
such as births and coronations.
(insidious music)
There is evidence,
however, that he stole
and adapted collections
of ancient prophecies,
making them relevant
to his own time.
It is fact that he stole
from Livy, Plutarch,
Suetonius and more, and
much of it word for word.
Today we would call
this plagiarism,
but in the 16th
century it was common.
There is, in fact, a method of
prophecy called bibliomancy,
and it is believed
he practiced this.
All you do is randomly
select a book,
and whichever page it falls
open on gives you your prophecy.
It's all very scientific.
In fact, Nostradamus refused
to call himself a prophet.
He wrote, "Although, my son,
"I have used the word prophet,
"I would not attribute to myself
"a title of such
lofty sublimity."
And again, "Not that I
would attribute to myself
"either the name or
role of prophet."
His book was entitled "The
Prophecies by Nostradamus,"
not "The Prophecies
of Nostradamus."
We do not know the specific
methods Nostradamus used
when writing his
prophecies down.
It is believed he did tell us
that he used flame and water
gazing to enter trance,
but nobody is completely sure.
He did say that he emptied
his soul, mind and heart
of all care, worry and unease
through mental calm
and tranquility.
The majority of his prophecies
speak of catastrophes;
earthquakes, wars, floods,
plagues, murders and more.
All are undated.
Some deal in generalities
and others in specifics
and particular people.
There is a major theme, and one
that has been taken up today
by many believers: the
impending nightmare
of a Muslim invasion of Europe.
They would follow the
antichrist himself.
This, as today, was simply
a mirror of current events.
In the days of Nostradamus,
the powerful Ottoman Empire
was a constant threat,
and many believed
they would soon invade.
(anxious music)
It is this doom that could bring
about the end of the world.
It was a popular theme, and
even Christopher Columbus
published a collection
of such prophecies.
So what is it that Nostradamus
supposedly predicted?
Why has it become so infamous
to the greatest of prophets?
In fact, these are difficult
questions to answer,
because so many people
have credited Nostradamus
with having predicted events
by looking back with hindsight
and assuming that what he wrote
actually meant that
particular event.
The great fire of London
is one of the big disasters
he supposedly predicted.
The rise of Adolph
Hitler is another.
In fact, even the
attack on New York
on September the 11th
has been claimed.
(somber music)
The famous skeptic, James
Randy, said that Nostradamus
suffered from modern day
manufactured reputation,
his words being fitted to events
that have already occurred
or are so close that they
are predictable anyway.
The truth of the
matter is simple:
absolutely no prophecy
written by Nostradamus
has been interpreted and
proven to have predicted
a specific event before
it became reality,
even those with dates.
Even the false claim
that Nostradamus
said the world would end
in 2012 is not only untrue
but never came true and
wasn't even said by him.
Of course, it could be
that none of his prophecies
have yet to come true,
and we're all waiting
around for it to happen.
(mysterious music)
A simple search of the
hundreds of websites and books
dealing with his prophecies
reveals one thing:
that the words were so vague
that almost anything
can be claimed.
If they were specific and clear,
then all the websites
and books would agree.
The truth is they don't;
they differ wildly,
and they do so because everybody
has a different ax to grind.
There are some major events
that are agreed upon, though:
the birth of Hitler,
the rise of Napoleon,
the French Revolution,
the world wars,
and even the nuclear destruction
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- [Voiceover] The day
of doom is coming!
Your blood will turn white!
Your face will turn green!
Your eyeballs will pop ...
with pressure!
Because our doomsday
show is the living end!
- [Narrator] The problem
is when the academics
started to get
involved in the 1980s,
they discovered that
none of the actual
documentary evidence backed
up any of these claims.
They had, in fact, been
taken from commentaries
on Nostradamus by other people
and not the actual words
of the man himself.
(solemn music)
Even the prediction of
the death of Henry II,
an event widely claimed
to have been predicted
by Nostradamus was
in fact not true;
It didn't appear in
print until 55 years
after the king's death.
The academics discovered
that the English translations
were so bad that
they were worthless.
(mysterious music)
They did not take into
account 16th century French,
and twisted the words to
fit contemporary events.
None of the English translations
were based on the
original source material.
It was, in fact,
a complete mess.
The question now is
this: if everything
that has been claimed
for Nostradamus so far
has been hogwash,
then could it be
that everybody is looking
in the wrong direction,
that there are predictions
about our relatively near future
that he made that
will come true?
(optimistic music)
Let's have a look at some
of the current theories
and interpretations.
One of the really big things
that grabs the attention
of the world right
now is Russia.
It is stated that Nostradamus
wrote a lot about Russia,
that Russia was even good,
and that events in Russia
will one day affect
the entire globe.
Russia, he said, will be
weak in the new century
compared with the West.
Well, in the 20th century
this turned out to be true.
Russia will have a
choice, to join the West
or to stick to its ideology.
By 2018, it is claimed,
Nostradamus said
that Russia will unite
under "his" rule,
whoever "he" is.
There will be a third world
war from 2018 to 2020,
and Russia will capture Europe.
(gunfire)
China will capture the whole
of Asia, apart from India.
By 2025, Russia will
be completely renewed
and then the messiah will rise,
bringing together the
religions of the world.
Well, that's what they say.
It's not too far off,
so we should know soon.
Of course, the other
great threatening element
of our modern
times is terrorism,
and specifically
Islamic terrorism.
There is a lot of
chatter on the internet
about how Nostradamus had
already predicted this.
(bleak music)
Here's how it goes:
in century two, quatrain
30, Nostradamus wrote:
"One who the infernal
gods of Hannibal
"will cause to be reborn,
terror of mankind.
"Never more horror
no worse of days
"in the past than will come
to the Romans through Babel."
Well, Hannibal isn't
around anymore,
and wasn't when
Nostradamus wrote this,
so he must have meant somebody
else, somebody like Hannibal.
While Hannibal was
obviously an enemy of Rome
and spent most of his
life fighting them,
his gods will cause
him to be reborn
and he will be a
terror of mankind.
(euphoric music)
With our modern eyes we can now
see this slight differently.
Hannibal attacked Rome,
so it has to be somebody
who doesn't like Christianity,
the mother church
of which is in Rome.
Hannibal originally lived in
what is now known as Tunisia,
a Muslim state that rests neatly
between Libya and Algeria.
So this new Hannibal
will be a Muslim.
According to the chatter,
this quatrain speaks
of the birth of
an Islamic nation
that will terrorize the world.
Well, we have one of
those, and we call it ISIS,
which strangely is the name of
one of the old gods of Egypt.
(bleak music)
ISIS is a self-proclaimed nation
that is the terror of mankind.
This terror appears
to come through Babel.
This was a city in the
country we now call Iraq,
a place where ISIS
is currently strong.
So ISIS, the new Hannibal,
will come through Iraq
and terrorize the
Christians of the world.
Now we can truly see how easy
it is, in almost any age,
to create something
out of almost nothing.
(ethereal music)
Of course, world events
are not so good right now:
there is terrorism and unrest;
jostling between
Russia and the West
is constantly in the news.
But the truth is that at
no point in human history
has it been any different.
Yes, immigrants are
piling into Europe
from the wars in
the Middle East.
And yes, among
them are terrorists
hellbent on destroying this
thing we loosely call democracy,
and bringing about
one world for Allah.
But nowhere does
Nostradamus predict
any of this specifically,
and what he did say
could easily have been
used in any century.
Before the first world war,
the so-called Muslim hordes
followed the Mahdi
and were rising again.
They murdered
Gordon of Khartoum,
who was there to stop them.
After the end of that episode,
many then followed
Lawrence of Arabia
in the First World War.
Was he the antichrist too?
(emotional music)
So what else is supposedly
predicted by Nostradamus,
and what truth is there?
This is one of his quatrains,
as has been manipulated
a great deal:
"Volcanic fire from
the center of the earth
"will cause trembling
around the new city
"Two great rocks will
make war for a long time.
"Then Arethusa will
redden a new river."
This is the quatrain
used and abused
to prove that
Nostradamus predicted
the terrorist attacks
on September the 11th.
(ominous music)
The words themselves are
often twisted and changed.
In fact, some even pop
the city New York in there
for good measure.
The text mentions no
New York or terrorists.
What they say is that two
great rocks were the two planes
that crashed into the World
Trade towers; a bit thin.
Arethusa, who will
redden the new river,
is in fact a nymph
from mythology
who changed into a fountain.
Any well-read person of the
time would have known this.
Whatever he meant
when he wrote this
is unknown, of course,
but filling in the gaps
and changing the text
is not scientific.
Of course, one of the
most famous quatrains
is the one about Hitler.
Here's how it goes:
"In the place very near,
not far from Venice,
"the two greatest ones
of Asia and of Africa
"from the Rhine and Hister
they will be said to have come.
"Cries, tears at Malta,
and the Liburian side."
Hister, apparently, is Hitler.
And it is claimed this quatrain
is about a meeting of
Hitler and Mussolini.
Now, that takes some
serious twisting.
(somber music)
Hister is in fact a term
used widely at the time
for the river Danube;
hence, the Rhine and
Danube, or Hister.
Again, whatever else this all
means is mere speculation.
Another man from history
that is said to appear
in the prophecies of
Nostradamus is Louis Pasteur.
Here's the verse:
"Lost, found, hidden
for so long a time,
"the pastor will be
honored as a demigod;
"before the moon
finishes its full period
"he will be dishonored
by other winds."
Apparently this is about
the coming of Louis Pasteur
and his work with microbes.
It says nothing of the kind.
In fact, a pastor is
simply a religious leader.
And then there is
the famous prediction
that Henry II of
France would die:
"The young lion will
overcome the old one
"on the field of battle
in single combat:
"He will put out his
eyes in a cage of gold:
"Two fleets one, then
to die a cruel death."
(whispering)
Four years later, Henry
was in fact killed
from a lance in the eye at a
match with Captain Montgomery.
It was not on the field of
battle, but instead at a party.
Today, people say
that this prophecy
made Nostradamus famous.
This is a blatant
historical lie.
The prophecy itself
was not even known
until 50 years after his death,
when it was first
published posthumously.
(otherworldly music)
We have to understand
people do lie, often.
Another one of those prophecies
that is held up by
believers as proven
is the concept that Nostradamus
predicted World War II
and the arrival of
the atomic bomb.
(whispering)
Here's what he supposedly said:
"Near the gates and
within the cities
"there will be two scourges
"the like of which
was never seen;
"famine within plague,
people put out by steel,"
"crying to the great
immortal God for relief."
(whispering)
A lot of interpretations
get this completely wrong.
Firstly, they state the
French word "portis"
is seaport; in fact, it
means gate or doorway.
(twinkling electronic music)
So the location of a
seaport is totally wrong.
In fact, all this quatrain does
is explain the
terrors of the plague
that we already know had
spread across Europe.
This is not a nuclear attack.
The sentence "people put out
by steel" is mistranslated.
It really meant some kind
of Medieval weaponry.
It is almost beyond
comprehension
that such a quatrain could
be twisted and turned
to mean World War II
and nuclear explosions.
Nostradamus apparently
also predicted
the great fire of London.
Here's what he said:
"The blood of the just will
commit a fault at London,
"burnt through lightning
of 23 to the six:
"The ancient lady will
fall from her high place,
"several of the same
sect will be killed."
"The blood of the just
will commit a fault;"
well, the just are either the
religious or royal leaders,
and yet the fire was started
by an ordinary person
as far as his name,
and it is speculated
that it was in a bakery.
It is claimed that 23 sixes
somehow works out
to the date 1666;
and yet, any schoolkid will
tell you 23 sixes is 138,
which could mean
almost anything,
such as a psalm in the bible.
(intense music)
The ancient lady falling
from her high place
is simple enough: London
was the ancient lady.
It is some kind of
prediction that royal
or religious leaders of
London will bring it down,
and some of their own
kind brought down with it.
Well, that had already
happened several times.
And in an age that
just witnessed the
monarch Henry VIII,
there is no wonder as it
would be a common idea.
It is also said that
Nostradamus predicted
the 17th century
ruler Oliver Cromwell,
the man who would lead
the armies of parliament
in a civil war against the
royal houses of England
and bring about a
period of a republic.
This is the quatrain
the believers quote.
Remember that England had
suffered many monarchs
who were brutal,
and would again.
"More of a butcher
than a king in England,
"born of obscure rank will
gain empire through force.
"Coward without faith, without
law he will bleed the land:
"His time approaches
so close that I sigh."
(dramatic music)
(gunfire)
Firstly, Cromwell, for all
his faults, was no coward.
He was not without faith;
in fact, he was
extremely religious.
He was not of obscure
rank, because he was born
from landed gentry; so
basically, the description
of the man himself is
miles off the mark.
The next quatrain is claimed
to have been a prophecy
about the children of
Henry II of France:
"The seven children
left in hostage,
"the third will come
to slaughter his child:
"Because of his son two will
be pierced by the point,
"Genoa, Florence, he will
come to confuse them."
This one couldn't be more wrong.
Henry had 13
children, not seven,
and only one of them
died an unnatural death;
so, completely wrong there then.
(bleak music)
The problem with the
prophecies of Nostradamus
is that they are so
vague and undated
that they can be twisted
to mean almost
anything at any time.
They are like scattering the
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
that never made a picture
in the first place.
You cannot put the
pieces together.
It is not a complex
puzzle; it never was.
Do not look for insights into
the future of mankind here,
for all you will find
are the occult ramblings
from a bygone age that made
little sense even then.
(celestial music)
There is no code, cipher,
algorithm or hidden secret.
Most of the interpretations
that are out there
are biased by the
individual creating them.
This can be for numerous
reasons: religious,
conspiracy theorist,
doomsayers, end-of-the-worlders,
and even alien hunters.
Nostradamus was financially
supported by Catherine
de Medici, and he wrote
numerous verses for her.
Some of these predicted the
downfall of Queen Elizabeth I
of England, and even
this didn't come true.
She was one of the
longest-serving monarchs
England ever had.
In his own time,
Nostradamus became a legend
because he spoke of
disaster, death and disease,
and almost gave a
sense of fate to it.
(severe music)
For if it were known
that these things
were to come to pass,
then that implied a plan,
and a plan implies
a divine wisdom.
There would be hope
from these words.
The people across
Europe were suffering
from plague, fire and
war; they needed hope.
We cannot technically say
that he was a conman or hoaxer
because astrology and
soothsaying was popular
and highly regarded in its day,
and he may well have believed
in his own ramblings himself.
The real error, and
even deception, comes
after his death,
when his words were, and are,
used for various agendas.
The language Nostradamus used
was mainly an ancient form
of French, and with the
ambiguity he created
it makes it doubly difficult
to find any real truth.
He has been credited
with predicting
the great fire of London,
the end of the world,
the rise of Hitler, the
Iranian revolution of 1979,
various terrorist
attacks, World War II,
and even an invasion of aliens.
All of which were
only ever stated
many years after his death,
apart from the aliens.
Not once has a
prophecy of Nostradamus
been accurately predicted
before the event.
Nobody has ever said
"Nostradamus will say
"this will happen tomorrow,"
and be proven correct.
(ominous music)
Nostradamus has been
used, and not always
by psychologically
challenged individuals
posting blogs on the internet.
During World War II, the
Nazis spread the propaganda
that he had predicted
the rise of Hitler.
This is where that
particular lie arose.
The Allies retaliated
by saying Nostradamus
predicted the fall of Hitler.
The world is full of lies.
The real truth,
behind all of this,
is much more sinister.
While stupid humans
are running around
wondering what the
regurgitated ramblings
of a 16th century
occultist apothecary
are really all about,
there eyes are diverted
from what is really
happening in the world.
As we sit and watch the
bullshit we are fed,
we don't question the reality.
Nostradamus was a
man of his time.
The world of the occult
gave answers to questions
they were not
equipped to answer,
questions that science
today have answers for.
Medicine, religion,
the occult and science
were all one in those days.
Today we have divided them,
because science and medicine
have deducted religion and
the occult from the equation,
using hard, very
viable, evidence.
Religion and the occult
have never been able
to provide hard
evidence for anything,
as we can see with the so-called
prophecies of Nostradamus.
And yet, we still
want to believe.
And because we want to believe,
the people in power and
authority will allow us to
and will use that
energy against us.
Do not search the internet for
the truth about Nostradamus,
for what you will find are
the unscientific ramblings
of people with
their own agendas.
(hectic music)
There are almost no unbiased
references to his work.
It is like abstract painting;
it can be so obscure,
that the viewer can
see almost anything
he or she wishes to see.
We no longer have the excuse
of living in an
age of uncertainty,
because we know that the
future cannot be seen,
just as we can no
longer revisit the past.
If it were possible,
then science would
be able to prove it.
A ball drops because of gravity.
We can predict that with
mathematic equations,
and then prove it in
laboratory conditions.
Under no circumstances do any
of the Nostradamus predictions
meet modern
scientific standards.
(bleak music)
Neither do the claims of
religions, psychics, mediums
and a whole host of
other unverifiable ideas.
They exist only in the mind
until they can be proven
in the real, physical world.
The problem is that evolution
has given us a brain
that wishes to connect the dots,
to see a face in the
cloud where there is none.
And when we read an enigmatic
quatrain from Nostradamus
we endeavor to make sense
of it, to join the dots.
And we all do this
in our own era,
with our own knowledge
of the world,
and make sense of the words
from our own perspective.
It is therefore time to stop
believing in such things
and to stop being the
pawns of the power brokers,
to judge when best to
join dots and when not to.
There is no face in this
cloud; it is just a cloud.
(dramatic music)