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Last night, there was this silly TV quiz on which asked a question on Nostradamus — which actually contained mis-information.

The question they asked was `Who predicted the 9/11 attacks on New York & World War II?‘

Funny thing is: the thing about 9/11 is totally wrong:

Anyway, quibbling over words is futile, given that Nostradamus didn’t even write the passage. He died in 1566, nearly a hundred years before the date of attribution. The quatrain in question is nowhere to be found in his entire published oeuvre. In a word, it’s a hoax.

More precisely, its attribution to Nostradamus is a hoax. The passage was lifted intact from a Web page (since deleted from the hosting server due to overwhelming post-9/11 traffic) containing an essay written several years ago by college student Neil Marshall entitled “A Critical Analysis of Nostradamus.” Marshall invented the quatrain to demonstrate — quite ironically, in light of its subsequent misuse — how a Nostradamus-like passage can be so cryptically composed as to lend itself to myriad interpretations.

 
See how the media simply assumes something to be true and tries to serve it as fact? Do you realize how easily this could be done with other so-called facts?
 
Anyways, reading some of his quatrains got me thinking — I had learned of Nostradamus before, predicting an anti-christ with a blue turban that would attack on 1994… In the following quatrain:

Mabus then will soon die, there will come
Of people and beasts a horrible rout:
Then suddenly one will see vengeance,
Hundred, hand, thirst, hunger when the comet shall run.

..most people rather read Osama or Saddam in stead of the following explanation:

Contemplating Mabus it occurred to me that, if you turn the “M” upside down and substitute the “a” for an “h,” Mabus is an anagram for W Bush. During the 1980’s many noticed that Ronald Wilson Reagan is numerological 666 (six letters in each name). They point out that Reagan introduced Performer Q, the Hollywood Who’s Who, when President of the Actors Guild, which is constantly maintained at exactly 666 stars (”Parade Magazine,” March 11, 1979). When Governor of California, Reagan introduced the Universal Price Code (UPC) which all contain three sixes, at the beginning, middle and end of each mark, according to “The New Money System” by fundamentalist Christian, Mary Relfe, 1984. The April 30, 1987 “San Francisco Chronicle” ran the headline: “Is 666 St. Cloud a Presidential Address? A Visit to Mr. Reagan’s Neighborhood” (Section B, page 1). The Reagans moved to 666 St. Cloud Drive in 1989 and made headlines again when Nancy had the address changed to 668 to avoid the Antichrist stigma. John’s Revelation, Chapter 13, states that this Antichrist, whose name numbers 666, “will cause all, both rich and poor, to receive a mark with the number of his name in their right hand and between their eyes.” This is called “the image of the beast.”

History is replete with people accusing political foes of being the Antichrist. Yet how could Nostradamus possibly have foreseen “Mabus” being an anagram for the Third Antichrist some 500 years ago?! Was Nostradamus just lucky to have likewise predicted the names and atrocities of Napoleon (”Pau Nay Oloron”) and Hitler (”Hister”)?

The article I refer to has a good conclusion which I also support:

I don’t claim to know the answers. I’ve been working on this article for three months since September 11th and the only thing I can say for sure is that Nostradamus and Orson Welles are extremely fascinating characters. Did they really see the future? Or are tyrants merely force-fulfilling their terrifying visions in order to conquer the world? Only time will tell.

Propaganda, Misinformation, War On Terror, 911, Nostradamus