Whoever hasn’t heard about the most famous French personality after Shakespeare has probably been living under a rock.
Because of him, many remember France for much more than the French revolution, the stories of Romeo and Juliet and the city of Paris. Many remember France for her great prognosticator Michel de Nostradamus.
Few men in history have been ascribed the same reverence as the one attributed to this man of mystery. There have been numerous historians, there have been many philosophers, astrologers, and astronomers, but only a few can hold a candle to this individual.
He is known as one of the world famous astronomer, physician, and seer who ever walked the earth.
He has been the subject of different conspiracy theories, and in contemporary times he has been the subject of several movies such as the record-breaking movie called ‘the prophecies of Nostradamus and many others.
Regardless of what anyone knows about him, there is what posterity remembers him for. Nostradamus was known for his prophecies which were compiled in a book called Les Propheties which is a collection of about 950 different poems or poetic quatrains which all foretold future events.
This particular book of poetries has been the subject of speculations, controversies and in spite of the veracity of some of the prophecies, a dark cloud still hangs over Nostradamus and his famous work.
Several years ago, many years after the year 1555 when the first edition of his book was published, an allegation emanated in some quarters about the veracity, authenticity and the originality of this book.
Many believed that contrary to popular opinion, Nostradamus was not the author of these iconic quatrains. Instead, he was a privileged benefactor of these manuscripts from his father.
The elder Nostradamus (his father) was a known collector of ancient and contemporary psychic manuscript, and these manuscripts had been in the Nostradamus family archive until the invention of the printing press.
What began as a rumor gradually became a theory dangerous enough to almost erase the history of monsieur Nostradamus from history books.
The objective of this blog post is to examine if those allegations are a spurious claim or if they are backed up by evidence?
To properly understand if this story about Nostradamus is true or false, let’s find out a little about who Nostradamus is.
WHO IS NOSTRADAMUS?
Nostradamus was born on the 14th of December in the year 1503 in a place called Saint Remy de Provenance in France. Saint Remy was famous for several famous French monuments such as the hospital that treated Vincent van Gogh, the triumphal arch, ruins of Galum and a place of residence for Princess Caroline and artist Pierre Daboval.
During his lifetime he served as an astrologer, author, consultant, translator, and physician.
Midway through his university education at the University of Avignon, he was expelled for practicing apothecary, and he also lost his wife and two children to one of the many plague outbreaks in France. Talk of tragedy and you would be referring to the person of Michel de Nostradamus.
Nostradamus didn’t just write about ill-omened future events; his life was tainted with ill omen, which is why many believing he must have doctored the book of prophecies to be the way they are? Well, who knows?
Enough about the life of Nostradamus and let’s check out the famous but contended work of Nostradamus.
Les Propheties: Stolen work or self-written work
After much contemplation and contention, the book, Les propheties was finally available for revision and investigation.
The result of the findings will shock the most ardent Nostradamus follower and excite the avid Nostradamus cynic.
Professional astrologers of contemporary times such as Monsieur Laurens Videl and several others found out many similarities between the book and certain astrological anthropological documents.
The contents of the book were discovered to have been copied from works of Plutarch, Richard Roussat, Joachim of Fiore and the French friar, Friar Savonarola. The results of this investigation showed that the works of these individuals were copied word to word to form Nostradamus’s book of prophecies.
Other results gotten from professional interpreters and astrologers who studied the book discovered that some of the contents, such as the preface, contained over 20 quotes from the bible.
In contemporary times, Nostradamus would have been found guilty and probably punished for plagiarism, but such laws didn’t exist then.
The work of certain psychics like the book called De honesta disciplina authored by Petrus Crintus and other materials by authors Psellos Micheal and Iamblichus were also found word for word in Nostradamus’s book.
What does this mean?
The consequence of this is that the allegations were not wrong after all. With all the overwhelming evidence, there is only one conclusion.
The conclusion researchers came to was that this magnificent book was a product of the works of several authors both dead and alive which lends credence to the fact that most of the ancient and contemporary manuscripts collected my Nostradamus’s father were used in the compilation of the book.
Time has passed, and interestingly many still attribute the book and its contents to Nostradamus and not to the several other psychics whose works were plagiarized.
A paper trail of controversies
There are several other controversies that were also associated with the book, such as it being a collection of occultist works. This was responsible for its ban by the Catholic Church for a long time back then.
Because 16th century French was different from contemporary French, the book has been a subject of mistranslations, misinterpretations, and misconstructions.
This has made many certain academicians claim that these errors in interpretation and translations were the work of translators who wanted the prophecies to fit the events they had in mind.
It is little wonder that some of the content of the book sound vague and are often of poor quality.
The truth is out fellows. This iconic book is a mix of verity and falsity. Falsity because of the unauthorized use of the works and verity because of the exactness of some of the prophecies.
