Jeanne Dixon had nothing on Nostradamus. The venerable tabloid supermarket sage only predicts the future a month at a time. Michel de Notredame (that’;s his full name) wrote upwards of 1,000 quatrains that told exactly what was going to happen from 1552 to the Apocalypse with baffling—no, make that disturbing—accuracy. Or is any guy who makes a bunch of predictions gonna hit at least a couple of them over 450 years?

For the record, Nostradamus was a 16th-century physician and astrologer praised for ministering to the afflicted during the plagues. It was for his writing, however, that he has become venerated. Nostradamus composed The Prognostications and The Centuries around 1552. The former was the Farmer’;s Almanac of its day and applied to the immediate future. The latter was his 10-part epic of 1,000 four-line quatrains and an assortment of six-line “sixains,” which contain predictions for the distant future. His visions gained early credibility when he predicted the specific manner of death of French King Henri II. “He will pierce his eyes in a golden cage,” wrote Nostradamus, which actually happened when Henri was stabbed through his metal visor in a joust in 1559.

reality check

The Way the Fortune Cookie Crumbles

Reality Check: The more vague the prediction, the more chance it has of coming true. Whether it’;s Nostradamus, the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner (“Nick of Time,” where honeymooners become addicted to a penny machine), or a humble fortune cookie, you take from a prophesy what you bring to it. Just for fun, the next time you’;re at a Chinese restaurant with a group of friends, read the words “… in bed” at the end of whatever the fortune says.

What most often frustrates literalists about the predictions is that they are enigmatic to the point of confusion. The reason usually given is that Nostradamus was writing during the time of the Inquisition (“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”) and, had he been more explicit, he would have been toast. Additionally, he was foretelling the future with 16th-century French, which didn’;t have words for “computer” or “A-bomb.” Nevertheless, some of his predictions are startling (note: the following are out-of-context translations). Numerical references are to quatrains:

• “Beasts ferocious with hunger will swim across rivers, the greater part of the army will be against Hister. The great one will cause him to be dragged in a cage of iron when the German infant observes no law” (2–24). This has been taken to predict the rise of Nazism and World War II and has stunned people by naming Hitler, almost

• “The Antichrist will start uniting the monetary systems of his region to help merge them into a single political entity. His ambition to rule the world will be advanced by instituting a single currency with others going defunct” (1–40). What does this say about the Eurodollar and the consolidation of the European Union?

• “Man will upset the balance of the earth and cause great changes in the climate and seasons, causing much hardship and famine” (2–95)

• “A weapon detonated at night will cause victims to think they have seen the sun at night. The weapon produces a large explosion of light. In addition to vast climactic damage the weapon will produce monstrous birth defects in babies” (1–64). Sounds like thermonuclear weapons.

• “The ransacking of the Vatican library by the Antichrist will bring to light and open to the world information, facts, and knowledge that had been suppressed for several centuries” (1–62). This Antichrist cuts both ways, however, revealing Nostradamus’;s suspicion of the Catholic Church

Nostradamus also made references in his quatrains to events that have been interpreted as the discoveries of microorganisms by Pasteur and of microchips. The advent of Watergate, AIDS, and even the Challenger shuttle disaster are also counted among the predictions.

Nostradamus died on July 2, 1566. It would be a cheap shot to say that he died unexpectedly.