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Happy Birthday to...

Nostradamus, born in 1503.

It's difficult to find a consensus on even the basics about his life—some people think he received his doctorate from a medical school, but some people think that school expelled him for being an apothecary, a manual trade which was not permitted in the world of higher education.

Some people think he was extraordinary in healing those afflicted with the Plague, but others think he was a dismal failure, trying out all kinds of treatments that failed.

Some people think he was a prophet, but others think he wrote and often plagarized his jumbled quatrains cryptically so as not to be persecuted by the Church. When his books were translated into English, often incorrectly, they made even less sense and are all too easy to misinterpret.

Whatever you think about the wacky guy, you have to give him credit for staying power. I guess we all just wish we could see into the future just a little. I wonder if he predicted that?

Comments

peahen said…
I did try reading him once. My own (rather cynical) opinion is that you can write any random nonsense and some people will find it spookily accurate, which is just how newspaper horoscopes work.
8:18 AM
dive said…
Happy birthday, Nostradamus.
I suppose we cannot blame the man for the epidemic of charlatans who have created an industry "interpreting" his ramblings.
If he had truly foreseen that, he would be giggling in his portrait.
8:20 AM
Neponset River Bridge Dig said…
Nostradamus say: man who go to bed with itchy butt wake up with... was that Nostradamus or Confucius?
9:22 AM
Maria said…
I just like his name. I mean, his mother didn't name him Ed or Joe or Micky. No. It was a name that sort of slides around on your tongue. I like a name that does that....
3:26 PM
Mrs. G. said…
I remember reading about this guy in high school and being freaked out at his predictions. They actually scared me a little.
4:42 PM
Scout said…
Peahen, and people will translate it in their own native language to mean whatever they want.

Dive, I have read he never actually claimed to be a prophet but people misinterpreted.

Rich, hee hee hee.

Maria, his mother named him Michel.

Mrs. G, I would be scared, too, if he actually predicted anything, but he really just wrote jibberish in various languages, and it was reinterpreted to mean other stuff from century to century.
4:57 PM
Maria said…
Oh...well....um...never mind.
9:40 PM
Sassy Sundry said…
Credit where credit is due. He reminds me a bit of Madonna with his staying power.
2:09 PM
Gina said…
For some reason, I've never liked Nostradamus. Too much of a wet blanket kind of guy.
1:59 AM
Anonymous said…
Robyn mentioned in passing,

"I guess we all just wish we could see into the future just a little. I wonder if he predicted that?"

Why yes, he did:

"In the year of the dung beetle
The Robin will write Frenchie stuff with horns.
Smoke will rise from the cow butt
And confirmation bias and cold reading shall be called Johanian Edwardsum."

Whoa.

P.S. I haven't figured out how to make the new Blogger sign-in write "Lou FCD" instead of my blog address since the recent change, but I guess you've realized that by now. (It did it the first time, what's up with that?)
10:18 PM
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