Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of decoding the unknown as always I'm your host Sim here one of my rights this case Kevin thanks Kevin has written me a script Nostradamus did he actually predict anything I mean I feel like anyone who watches this show or listens to this show regularly will know that my you're probably thinking my media to be like no absolutely not what nonsense and it's like yeah of course not of course it's nonsense but also I feel like nostradam has probably predicted a lot and it's like you know the more
you predict the more likely you are for something to be right like if I just sat down and came up with like a thousand predictions for the future today some of them are going to come true and then in 10 years people can't Lo back and just cherry-pick the ones that I got right which I feel is exactly what I'm was with Nostradamus but obviously precognition and telling the future is obviously nonsense so thanks for watching well that was quick no let's go thanks [Music] Kevin I've heard a lot about many predictions of nostras throughout
my life he wrotes thousands of prophecies which people continue to pour over and one of my my grandfathers was even a big believer of Nostradamus because of all this I like most people belied that Nostradamus spent his entire life working as a charlatan respect granddad but he was never portrayed as some sort of starving artist like many others often are so I always assumed that he was born independently wealthy and just fritted his life away as a sear it turns out that I could not have been more wrong and I was shocked to discover that
while researching Nostradamus that he had a regular 9-to-5 job which he was quite good at and it wasn't until his retirement that he began spouting nonsense oh I just assume that he was spouting the daners like I did appear that I did think that he was like independently wealthy I just assumed he'd be like yeah yeah yeah it's my latest nostro book and it's like what's this predictions for like 2160 yeah the world's going to end buy it it's like seven Shillings or whatever based on the posts your crazy relatives are always making on Facebook
this actually seems like a pretty normal life trajectory I suppose I also shouldn't call nostradamus's prophecies nonsense yet since we haven't examined whether or not he successfully predicted anything though if you're holding out hope that a closer look at his work will reveal the Nostradamus really was a genuine psychic then I welcome you to your first video on this channel yeah exactly that's I say everyone knows it's like this Channel's called decoding the unknown it's like nostradamus's predictions and then immediately there's a sarcastic British man telling you that it's all rubbish I I like the
people watch this channel because I love like all over this stuff but it does surprise me because it it does seem like the channel doesn't deliver what you might expect it should just be called like skeptical head regardless Nostradamus is still a surprisingly interesting historical figure people who came claim to possess of the worldly powers are a dime a dozen and it's extremely rare for any of them to become famous during their lifetimes it's even more rare for someone to become famous for their success in these Endeavors rather than just as a wellp publicized liar
if you think about any famous modern day medium or psychic they are almost always reviled and regarded as conmen who prey on the desperate and stupid I won't name any names since they've managed to avoid conviction despite perpetrating obvious frauds but you know exactly the type of person I'm talking about yeah I mean in my opinion the famous dude who bends spoons might be one of these just that's my opinion and I'm not referring to any particular famous spoon bending litigious dude right now no one in particular at all definitely not conversely by the time
Nostradamus had died he was personally employed by the queen of France even if people were more superstitious back in the 1500s that's still a remarkable level of success there has to be some sort of justification for nostradamus's Prestige and notoriety as a sear so let's examine the life of Michelle the nostr one of the world's most famous plague doctors oh [ __ ] okay so that was his day drop I was like as soon as Kevin saided was employed by the queen of France I'm like yeah not is like Nostradamus the dude who predicts the
future it's going to be like Nostradamus whatever his 9 to-5 day job was that he was apparently good at and being like the Queen's doctor or whatever you're like that means you're a good doctor right today's video is brought to you by the Legends over a Ridge who are making a fantastic gift this year this could be a great gift for someone that you really like really beautiful gifts or maybe just for yourself maybe you're like I deserve it I've worked hard this year I deserve a ridge wallet I want to get rid of my
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are a lot of apocryphal tales about nostradamus's life which make it difficult to sort the facts from the fiction but I'll try my best to stick with the things that that are verifiable rather than just rumors and legends it All Began in the 1400s with nostradamus's grandfather guy gon these guys are all French I assume not like this guy but I mean like these dudes they're all French and I'm just guessing in their pronunciations which I always do like it's spelled gaset and I'm always just I don't know throw like a bit of a French
accent on there imagine that you're saying like ah Saucy s and just uh just throw that on a name and take off the last consonant guy gon sounds vaguely racist doesn't it it's okay with a French right cuz they like they rib the British we rib the French it's all in good fun I'm sure there's French people listening to this but like oh s you roast beef guy was from a Jewish Family and is reported as having been from a long line of rabinal Scholars various accounts report him as either being a grain dealer a
money lender or a physician and a cabalist a type of Jewish Mystic it's often said that not Nostradamus was educated by both of his grandfathers but this is almost certainly false guy appears to have been born in 1430 which would have made him 73 by the time Nostradamus was even born sometimes I'm like I have such an incredibly small brain I don't know how this thought entered my brain but I'm like wait grandfather would do he have four grandfathers and then I'm thinking how many grandfathers do you have Simon hold on I've got a package
oh God I'll be right back special delivery sorry I'm back every day it's the FedEx man was quite excited about this one I'm not sure who this video is sponsored by but I just got a new pair of vessies in the mail which are a regular sponsor pretty excited about that as soon as this is done I'm going to go try those on what was I talking about oh yeah my grandads I'm not sure why I thought for a moment that are four grandads I I mean I I'm in a step family so it's a
little bit more confusing CU I had like three grandads although two of them were dead before I was even born which perhaps even adds to the confusion but look why are we talking about this no reason let's carry on guy appears to have been born in 1430 which would have made him 73 by the time Nostradamus was even born okay so it'd be like 93 when he was being educated or whatever although it was the past so people would get educated younger but then people also lived for a much shorter time right 1430s he was
73 was still alive the past but what he definitely did get from his grandfather with his famous name obviously not gasan but denron you see guy had been born into a Jewish Family in the plague wasn't the only dangerous threat for Europe during this time there was also this nasty thing you might have heard of called the Inquisition so in 1455 guy decided to convert to Catholicism to avoid persecution whether he actually converted or just got baptized for show is a matter of debate but his new Christian Life meant that he needed a new Christian
name I mean if someone was like yeah yeah we're persecuting your religion packed boy I don't have any religion but they so you need to be like pasta fa whatever it's like yes all hell the pastor monster that's me love him carry on where do I have to go it's definitely not a show love that yeah love that and there is no possible name name that he could have chosen better that says I'm a Catholic living in France better than Pier Inon Pierre had a son named J sorry French people J maybe who grew up
to be a notary and had a son named Michelle with his wife R the couple also had at least eight other children but they're not important yeah those seven children that's that's the historical footnote that you have nostradamus's brother we know your name we don't care you're like they're seven children not important that's it that's the historical reference for your entire life seven people and honestly listener that's probably going to be your place in history probably even less because you don't have a super famous brother or maybe you do God it's depressing isn't it we're
all going to be forgotten I mean it's not really depressing it's kind of nice in a way it's kind of freeing no matter what you do that's depressing oh God it's like yeah eventually Hitler will be forgott it like oh and he was a right knob Michelle was born to December of 1503 though the exact day is not known it was clear early on that Michelle was a bright child and he studied maths astronomy and astrology by way was like yeah what do you study today well we're doing mathematics we're going to be looking at
the planets and then we're going to learn about Taurus okay in addition to learning to read Latin Greek and Hebrew again it is said that both of his grandfathers tuted him but this does seem unlikely his paternal grandfather was 73 when he was born and his maternal grandfather disappeared from the historical record when he was 1 years old that doesn't mean it's impossible just that it's really unlikely the only reason the question of who was educating Michelle matters is because it is believed he was taught about cabalar and mysticism from his grandparents it was just
about who taught him Math and Science no one would really care when Michelle was 14 years old he began attending the University of Avon to earn his bachelor's degree unfortunately he was kicked out after less than a year it was nothing personal there had just been an outbreak of the plague so the school kicked everyone out out and shuted their doors for a while there's no indication what he did for the next four years but when Michelle was 18 he began traveling the countryside to research Herbal Remedies this continued for eight years with Michelle re
researching and working as an apothecary just so there's no confusion an apoy is just the old timey word for a pharmacist or a chemist and lots of actual medicine does include plants yeah like my family that was like the family business for a long time Apothecary ISM or whatever it's called I don't know much about it because my family don't really talk much about that stuff but I do know that they were apothecaries and they had like Apothecary shops and would like deal people herbs and allergic drug dealers with rights by any estimation Michelle was
still largely dealing with science at this point though astrology was also a part of Medical Science back then because it was believed that the celestial bodies had an influence on the body's humors they don't and the body's humors weren't even real and that is why I'm glad I was not born before germ Theory or antibiotics yeah can you born between germ Theory antibiotics like yeah yeah we know there are these tiny things killing you but we can't do about it are rubbish before it was just like oh what's killing you Spirits can you do anything
El we can pray brilliant carry on with the prayers and then ger Theory comes around you're like oh no the suici of the spirits Wen doing anything anyway in 1529 at the age of 26 Michelle enrolled at the University of montellier to earn his Doctorate in medicine unfortunately he was again kicked out of school and this time it was personal the school had a strict policy against doctoral students having performed a manual trade it's very snobby isn't it which would have qu ify Michelle because of his work as an apothecary he was also allegedly talking
about the doctors there which wasn't going over so well that's fascinating the past is fascinating that's also like my family that they went from apothecaries to doctors like when doctoring became a thing and I didn't I think I think my Grandma she's dead now was a little bit a little bit disappointed I wasn't a good enough student to go to medical school anyway so it wasn't it was like it was ever an option Nan um but I think she was probably a little bit disappointed I didn't become a doctor I'm not sure but probably of
course but my dad was also like don't do it and I'm like why not and he's like us really hard work okay well noted why do that of course this is also debated a bit as well with many sources claiming that Michelle did in fact graduate from melier but allegedly the original expulsion document still exists in the school's faculty Library I can't find an image of it and I don't think Simon is going to pay me to fly to France to go look over it myself you're goddamn right Kevin but it would be very bold
claim to make if it were not the case so I'm inclined to believe it and if anyone watching or listening to this I'm live in France and wants to go to the more peler faculty Library please feel free to check out register as 2 folio 87 and let me know in the comments if the expulsion slip is really there if someone actually does this you Legend the good dot there's a lot of people who listen to this show it's entirely possible that someone is listening in Monier in which case bonjour Pierre the good doctor after
leaving school Michelle went back to trampling as an apothecary and a plague doctor he quickly gains a reputation due to the success of of the rather unusual methods he employed to combat outbreaks of the plague for example he advise citizens to remove the dead diseased corpses from the streets to practice basic hygiene on a regular basis to only drink water that was known to be clean and to get some fresh air once in a while nostras what are you talking about beer to nostr whatever the fu name was Michelle the nostradam it's like uh obviously
none of that's all [ __ ] you just got to pray harder Michelle come on he also explicitly forbid the practice of blood letting on his but what nonsense that's how you let the spirits out even though this was the standard method of treating the plague it was the standard method of treating pretty much anything and Michelle's strong stance against it made him a bit of a renegade even though all of this stuff is obvious to us now and it's shocking that they wouldn't have figured it out by the 1500s all of these practices really
were seen as strange back then it's like what are you doing drinking that clean water you idiot just pray harder and bleed everywhere what the they understood ideas like social distancing and quarantining to combat an outbreak but that wouldn't be enough by itself as every body had horrible hygiene and left dead bodies around all willy-nilly oh my God I'm so glad I don't live in the past just in general like everything was worse and it's like for me I'm like a white British dude the past was not I mean it was and it for me
it would have been like not the worst ever but it would still be [ __ ] and can you imagine being a woman like oh my God the past even the recent past it's like holy sh like when is like when did women get the right to vote it's like sometime in the 20th century and I know it sounds like it's like yes I'm and of course the past was different but it's not that long at the older I get the older I get the more I realize that it wasn't that long ago cuz when
you're like 12 or whatever you're like 100 years sounds like forever and now I'm like in my 30s I'm like 100 years is only a third three times the amount of time I've lived ago and you're like it doesn't seem that long at this point it's also important to note how difficult it was to get gain a positive reputation as a plague doctor michia was expelled from onee without earning his medical degree but plague doctors were volunteers who didn't actually need to be licensed physicians in fact most of them probably W since those that were
actual doctors were either terrible at their job or young doctors that were just starting out when a plague doctor rolled into town dressed from the head to the toe in the iconic and somewhat terrifying costume for which they're famous not somewhat terrifying Kevin just terrifying it was the last thing people wanted to see plague doctors were seen as harbers of death their job wasn't really to cure people it was just a count how many people were dead and infected they would be contracted by towns who were facing infection with those contracts forbidding them from seeing
non- plague patients and forcing them to essentially live in quarantine at all times except when visiting a sick patient the fact that these plague doctors didn't all die off immediately was really an accident more than anything else the iconic costume provided a lot of protection from the disease as they wore gloves boots long cloaks and a mask that made it impossible to get too close to a patient but these masks weren't actually designed to do that yeah with the weird like long beaky mask thing that was just I know this and I'm about to I
don't know why I'm saying this because gin's about to mention it I'm just probably saying it to show what a big brain I am but they stuffed it full of herbs and because they were like oh yeah my asthma Theory the smells make people sick so if we just stuff it with lavender everything will be fine and obviously that has nothing to do with it but having the uh the big beak thing just meant they weren't like basically getting right up in people's faces and getting their diseases so that's nice but these masks weren't actually
designed for that they were designed to store lovely smelling herbs and spices that would counteract the bad smells that caused disease because that's how doctors thought the world worked with all these doctors that only showed up when people were dying and had Liz to offer beond bloodletting services that would make things worse it's not shocking that people would have a poor opinion of them it's also not shocking that Michelle's recommendations of effective preventative measures would have helped him quickly gain a solid reputation but what made him most famous as a plague doctor were his Rose
pills not only were Michelle's recommendations on hygiene and drinking clean water able to help prevent outbreaks from spreading but when combined with his Rose pill he was reported to have a very high rate of success in actually curing sick patients of course this was again done by accident the rose pills contained a variety of herbs and spices that were pulverized along with rose petals then sprinkled with rose juice I didn't know you could juice a rose so they could be formed into lenes patients were instructed to keep these loes under their tongues and let them
dissolve as they were designed a very strong sweet odor that would Ward away the evil sense of disease what could this possibly be doing surely this is just like a placebo effect of course we Now understand that that's not how science or medicine work these pills were successful because they were essentially just a large dose of vitamin C an important vitamin for the function of your immune system which doesn't mean that if you take lots of it you're not going to get a cold which was the crazy scientist who was banging on about this forever
even though it's been like massively disproven I remember my mother-in-law once for like one Christmas or whatever it was a weird gift she bought me and my wife just a big bag of like pure vitamin C and I looked at it it's like you know half a kilo of vitamin C or whatever and I'm like looked it up on Google I'm like you're supposed to have like less than a thimble full or like a pin pinned like head of a pin amount per day and I like yeah lot drinking lots of vitamin C means you
never get sick and I'm like that's not real but my mother-in-law also believes in like Crystal healing and stuff so uh to say we have a difference of opinion on that sort of thing we'll be putting it rather mildly she once bought her the dog got like um uh what the for ball cancer testicular cancer got ball cancer and he didn't have an operation schedule for like a few weeks or whatever and in the meantime she went onto the internet and bought some really expensive like cancer CDs and you might be thinking what's a cancer
CD and because I realized that's not a great way of describing it it's basically some person online selling for I'm sure what was a ton of money uh CDs which contain music which cures cancer and uh and and that's not real and it's a scam and my mother-in-law waste a lot of money on this stuff is that what you doing stop please stop buying crystals in 1531 he was invited by je Cesar scaller a leading scholar and physician to come to Asian France to work once there he married a woman with whom he had a
son and daughter though sadly a name has been lost of time eventually everything was going great we are continuing to travel and work as a doctor curing people with his combination of vitamin C and common sense but back then it wasn't so common was it but then in 1534 tragedy truck while the great plague doctor was out traveling to treat patients back home his family had died of the plague oh the past is horrible it's like no you're like oh no his wife dies or something it's like no his whole family died of the thing
he's out there treating take note Alanis moris because that is actual irony unfortunately this severely damaged Michelle's reputation how could anybody trust a doctor that couldn't even save his own family sure he was probably a 100 miles away at the time but that's hardly an excuse a few years later Michelle found himself accused of of heresy by the church of Asia due to some offhand remark he made about a religious statute He was ordered to go to too to appear before the Inquisition not particularly wanting to walk into his own execution he instead fled to
Italy where he continued to study and practice medicine he remained there for about 6 years until his travels brought him back to France hopefully the inquisition's chilled out a bit by then when he returns in 1545 Thea aided the prominent physician Louis s in commiting a major outbreak of the plague in Marseilles he then continued onward tackling a couple more major outbreaks on his own one of these was in one of these was in or provance the capital of the provance region a popular story is that he was so successful in fighting the plague there
that he was given a pension for life as thanks afterwards though that's probably not the case allegedly Michelle received multiple pensions for Life thanks to his work as a plague doctor though there doesn't appear to be any evidence to support this there are surviving documents detailing the negotiations and final contracts between towns and other plague doctors and these doctors were not well paid for their services negotiations usually consisted of trying to secure a doctor while offering them as little money as possible with some contracts even being amended after they had been signed in order to
cut the salary and benefits of the doctors yeah that's a when you're always bidding for the the when you're the person who's bidding for a contract and it's just going to be awarded to the cheapest person I don't know that's a kind of sucky business to be in granted most plague doctors were pretty whereas Michelle was accidentally very competent so it's possible he was receiving much better pay in benefits personally I could go either way on that one but I do find it unlikely that he would receive such exceptional contracts without any evidence of them
surviving It ultimately isn't that important because he had a much better way to secure his financial future you see the plague wasn't all bad news Salon provance was the site of one of the other major outbreaks that Michelle had combed on his own after returning to France so it seemed like the perfect place to settle down this is the thing like while the plague like killed like half a people or something ridiculous like that it also meant there was a ton like less more resources for everyone who survived which is super dark but it's all
yeah that whole family would died and then their Farm came on the market and it was real cheap because loads of farms were coming on the market so the survivors were like yes cheap property the rental all we need now to solve like the housing crisis is for loads of people to die it feels like a James Bond villain's plan doesn't it it's like how are we going to solve this problem it's for the good of humanity we must kill half of humanity it was there in 154 47 he met a wealthy 21-year-old Widow named
Anna ponsard Michelle got a good reputation a new rich wife and at the advanced age of 43 he was ready to retire from the grinds and get down to some love making he and Anna had three sons and three daughters Michelle had nothing but time you could have use that to raise his children and be a good father but instead he decided to dive head first into the occult and he definitely did it because he was a magical psychic not because he was in it for the money I feel like I've been saying that sarcastically
but isn't he rich now he just married a rich 21-year-old it's like he's he's done well he's like I'm sorted like the rise of Nostradamus Michelle's literary career began in 1550 with the publication of his first Almanac it was a common practice for authors to latinize their names especially those engaging in intellectual Pursuits rather than Fiction Latin was also the language both of Scholars and of the church and using a latinized version of one's name would immediately give them more credibility as a man of intellect and so it was that with the publication of his
first Alman act that Michelle D notredam became Nostradamus almanacs were very popular at the time for a few reasons from a practical standpoint they were closer to pamphlets than books which made them much cheaper and easier to produce this meant that you could reach a wider audience who might then be inclined to purchase your future Works however magazines are really expensive these I haven't bought a magazine in forever because I subscribe to this um either I subscribe to the magazine which makes it like super cheap or free I not free but like you know it's
online so you don't get a paper copy or I use a app called Reedley and this is not a sponsorship but it's incredible it's just like an app you pay I can't even remember how much it's really cheap it's like a few pounds or like it's less than 10 bucks a month or something and you get all of these magazines it's crazy how many magazines you get every month just in this app and I read it on my iPad and I'm like this mean all the free time I have to read magazines but like I
do read some and I'm like it's amazing but I was say sorry my whole point was that magazines let you go into the shops now it be like I swear it's like6 S8 for a magazine I'm how much is a book 12 13 for like a paperback am I out of touch with that that seems about right and it's like when did books become the same price as magazines this meant that you could reach a wider audience who might then be inclined to purchase your future Works they were a really good way to dis disseminate
important and useful information the sort of things that we take could granted for granted today if you want to know when the next full moon is you can just look over at the calendar that your bank gave you for free last January Kevin what year are you living in your bank sent you a calendar what this is the sort of [ __ ] that I'd see in my as a child like I'll be in my Nan's house and he'd be like Nan what's why have you got a calendar from Nat West on the on the
W she be like well they gave it to me for free and I'm like it's just advertising it's just like talking about Nat West she's like well I need to the calendar didn't I but it's like it's 2023 Banks aren't is this like an American thing because I know you guys still do checkbooks which blows my mind like the last time I saw a check was uh 20 years ago maybe I don't know it was a long time I was a kid and I had a checkbook like you know when you get First Bank account
is like a checkbook and I had a GU a check guarantee card which would guarantee a check up to £50 and I was like feeling fancy if for some reason you care where High care when high tide is you can either look it up on your phone or in the newspaper but this sort of convenience didn't exist in the 1500s Alman a provided all sorts of useful information particularly for Farmers related to moon cycles the tides weather predictions planting dates sunrise and sunset times and other stuff that would have been nice to have in one
place while the weather predictions were obviously going to be various on this most of the information was useful and reliable but when Almanac were first created hundreds of years earlier people didn't really understand how you could predict things like the tides without some sort of divination or magic is that I don't know how do you predict the tides CU they follow a repeatable pattern like what the it's like I think tonight will be a full is that because last night it was almost a full moon is that what you're thinking how do you do that
magic as soon people already thought these almanacs were the result of a cult divination authors decided they might as well add horoscopes their almanacs as well give the people what they want right nostradamus's Almanac was no difference with his earliest prophecies appearing in his 1550 work much to his Delight his first Almanac was a critical and Commercial Success so he decided to publish at least one Almanac every year sometimes more his almanacs alone are known to contain 6,338 prophecies though it's possible this isn't a complete list these are not the prophecies for which he's most
well known today but nostradam has made quite the name for himself in the day thanks to his almanacs his work was exceptionally popular with an ability while The Peasants weren't all big fans the upper class found his prophecies to be fun and requested he do their own psychic readings while the lower class thought he was the tool of the devil the rationale usually given for this is that the poorer people were usually more superstitious but this doesn't really make a lot of sense both sides were superstitious enough to believe the Nostradamus could see the future
it's just half of them found it to be cute and half of them thought it was evil prominent people far away relatively speaking began writing to him requesting horoscopes and advice which he was more than happy to oblige however he requested that they provide their own birth charts that he could use for his astrological mumbo jumbo typically a professional astrologers would do this work themselves and in the rare instances Nostradamus attempted to do it for someone he would usually do it incorrectly often forgetting to adjust for their time and location of birth it's almost as
if he didn't know what he was doing and was just in it for the money he's just making this up in addition to his almanacs Nostradamus wrote at least two medical books during this time sort of anyway he definitely had at least two medical books published but we could definitely debate whether or not he actually wrote either of them the first book was a very loose translation of a book written in the first century ad his second book trade of arore contained recipes for medicine Cosmetics preservatives and a love potion sounds very medical doesn't it
was in his medical text something love potions and such this book was almost entirely plagiarized as well though he did include his recipe for Rose pills as well as his other plague treatments that recipe book was published in 1555 the same year as nostradamus's most famous work Le propheties or the prophecies this book delivers exactly what the title promises as it contains a thousand prophecies broken up into 10 Centuries with a 100 prophecies each each prophecy was written as a quatrain a four-line poem that is usually written with alternating lines of text rhyming of the
quatrains contained within the prophecies all but one rhymed they did in French anyway don't expect them to still rhyme when we start talking about the English translations of specific quatrains later also don't let that Central organizational system fool you these prophecies were in no way written in chronological order oh okay I was like if he did 100 prophecies for each century and specify the century when they were going to happen I'd be more impressed I mean I still think it still would think it's utter nonsense but I'd be slightly more impressed than my level of
impress now which is zero the book is mostly written in French though it also includes greek latin and okitan a language spoken by the people in the region of provance oh is that why that what's that fancy um o ocanal or something oan oan my wife loves it um and is very nice um oxital or something is that why it's called that it's from provance I know there fancy French soaps and [ __ ] it's not ordered chronologically and it is believed to contain anagrams and other secret codes to further obscure the meaning it is
believed that this was done by Nostradamus in an attempt to avoid running a foul of the Inquisition again even this is a matter of debate as most likely neither prophecy nor astrology would have been considered heresy at the time either way this book wasn't nearly as well received at first as his Almanac had been it did well enough but like his previous work it mainly seemed to appeal to the upper class I mean isn't that fine they're the ones with all the money although I suppose it's an almanac how much can he charge for it
although I feel like charge a little for the almanac just charge like 50p for the almanac or whatever and then be like yeah yeah yeah it's good right you want me to come and read your future ,000 boom business but that's fine because they're the ones with the money anyway yes Kevin and I same page it's also important to note that because of how Publications worked at the time every printing of the prophecies is slightly different essentially one person would read the original manuscript while another would types set the printing press when you're taking dictation
like this mistakes or inconsistencies bound to pop up and that's what happens but because people like to search for meaning or secret messages when none exist just remember that any differences between printings was not some Grand plann by Nostradamus to conceal information it was just a pair of minimum wage employees who couldn't be [ __ ] to double check their work and due to some other issues with Publishers not all of nostradamus's prophecies have survived to this day the prophecies was published in installments and it seems that he kind of just released whatever he had
finished by that point the second installment finished with the first 42 quatrains of his 7th Century but the new publisher for the third installment refused to start the book in the middle of a century it's unclear if or how those remaining 58 quatrain from the 7th century were ever published but no copies have survived to this day while his almanacs were a big success the prophecies received much more mixed reviews there were still superstitious peasants that thought nostras was an evil sorcerer and there was still the nobility that found it all absolutely delightful however there
was a growing population that believed he was a fraud pedling a load of [ __ ] really he was was he ironically the vocal group calling him a fraud were professional astrologists oh God the past the most vocal is Lauren Videl who in 1558 published a pamphlet entitled Declaration of the abuses ignorances and seditions of Michelle Nostradamus in the book Videl accused Nostradamus of using a faulty method of predicting the future he's like well he's in that way of predicting the future you idiot this is the only way to predict the future he also noted
that he wasn't even using the fake method properly Vell wrote I can say with complete confidence that of true astrology you understand less than nothing as is evident not merely to the Learned but to Learners in astrology too as your Works amply demonstrate you who cannot calculate the least movement of any Heavenly Body whatsoever H the bull is calling out another [ __ ] it's brilliant that's pretty scrathing especially since Nostradamus claimed that his predictions were based on judicial astrology judicial astrology uses the locations of planets and stars to make predictions though it isn't intended
to predict specific events when used properly a term I use very Loosely when discussing astrology this method is designed to only determine the quality or potential of a specific day ah yes all of this stuff sounds so real for example they may use the planetary alignment to determine May the 27th of that year was the best date to hold a coronation they would reason that good things happened when the planets had been in a specific configuration before so it would be the ideal day to try again it was still only meant as a probability though
and things could go horribly of course I'm sure that' argue it would have gone even worse if a different day had been chosen regardless this all would rely on someone's ability to calculate where celestial bodies will be at a given point in the future something that nostradamus's contemporaries felt he was completely incapable of doing and even if he had been able to do so they took objection to his use of compar narrative horoscopy this is similar to judicial astrology except instead of determining how good a day will be it assumes that you can make specific
predictions based on the past for example if Caesar was assassinated when Mercury was in retrograde is that really a thing like Mercury being in retrograde I thought that's the sarcastic thing when people talk about when they talk about astrology yeah yeah it's going to be a good day for me Mercury's in retrograde it's the sort of thing I'd say being sarcastic but apparently it's a real thing and Neptune was Dawning in the age of Aquarius or what wait is Kevin like Kevin's making this up isn't he comparative horoscopy would say that the next time the
celestial bodies were in the same configuration that some important Emperor or Monarch would be assassinated again I understand the history repeats are the very least Rhymes but I'm 100% confident it has nothing to do with the motion of celesti or bodies and everything to do with humans being greedy and stupid unfortunately by the time bedell's pamplet was published it was entirely too late that didn't happen until 1558 but in 1956 Nostradamus was summoned to Paris by Queen Katherine deichi she wanted to ask him about one of the quatrains from his first century as it appeared
to be predicting the death of her husband King Henry II She also asked him to do horoscopes for her children money money money nostras he's done this pamphlet and now he's going to like go milk the queen for all his money yes Nostradamus was understandably worried that this was all going to lead to his execution yes but nostro high risk High reward baby it's the the Queen the Catherine was actually just a big fan of his work he was appointed to the role of counselor and physician in ordinary meaning that he was a permanent physician
working for the Royal Court he was even able to maintain this position and remain the beneficiary of Katherine's generosity after his prediction came true and Henry II was killed in 1559 uh oh I'll be like did you kill him nostro with his Newfound position working directly for the royal family he was now Untouchable by both the Inquisition and the scathing words of Adel and other professional astrologists they must be super pissed how how did nostr he doesn't even know how to retrograde Mercury and now he's the Queen's retrograd but Nostradamus was running out of time
by this point he suffered from severe gout throughout his later life the pain of which made movement difficult the gout eventually developed into Emer and is possible that this may have been the cause of his death other reports indicate that he likely died of congestive heart failure we've already seen this episode how terrible Medical Science was at the time there's really no way to get a definitive art what I just died I know he's slightly old just hurty chest and so that ends the the life of Nostradamus he made a name for himself as a
successful plague doctor thanks to his combination of doing the obvious and accidentally creating vitamin C lingers as he went on to become even more famous as a prophet despite the objections that he knew less than nothing about the astrology that he claimed to be using and this brings us to the main question of today's episode did Nostradamus successfully predict anything he wrote a thousand quatrain for the prophecies and over 6,000 more prophecies for his almanacs even a broken Clark finds aorn once in a while and with a sheer volume of predictions by simple statistics he
should have at least gotten something right yes yeah I mean that's my theory he's like going to get something right I mean or is it just it's just such nonsense it's going to be like super vague you be like yeah I guess okay the prophecies nostradamus's prophecies deal heavily with doom and catastrophe there's lots of talk about wars natural disasters a handful Antichrist According to some interpretations in the end of the world but even if everything he wrote was correct there's some good news in the preface to the prophecies nostras said that his predictions extended
from now 1555 until 3797 so if anybody tries to tell you that he predicted the world will end in 2024 or something you can rest assured that no he did not in fact Nostradamus very rarely included dates in his quatrains it's often reported that he would enter a trans-like state and use water gazing as a means to Divine the future this is almost certainly untrue for reasons we'll get into later he's just like yeah yeah what are you going to do I'm going to go look at the water and divide the future whereas really just
goes into a back room and he writes out whatever [ __ ] enters his mind to be like yeah at some point between now and the next like few Millennia but whatever method he used to write his prophecies are there are many who believe he predicted a startling number of events his single most important prediction was the death of King Henry II this was the prophecy that caught the eye of Katherine deichi and the first that was believed to have come true the quatrain read the young line will overcome the older one on the battlefield
in single combat he will pierce his eyes through a golden cave Age Two wounds become one and he dies a cruel death oh my God it's so broad it's so broad on June the 30th 1559 King Henry was celebrating the marriage of his daughter to King Philip II of Spain the festivities included a jousting tournament which Henry took part in what was it pierce the eyes through a golden cage okay during his joust against the younger count of Montgomery the Count's Lance struck the king's helmet and shattered a fragment of the splintered Lance passed through
the helmet and pierced through Henry's eye passing into his brain he died of sepsis 11 days later it's not like he didn't die from getting his brain pierced he just died because they did have antibiotics holy I mean although you could still die from like something like that today that seems pretty intense but also you're jousting my dude like what do you expect what's going on like why would you do that to readers of the prophecies this seemed extremely straightforward Henry and the counts both had Lions adorning their Shields and Henry hry was the older
of the two they engaged in a jous and Henry was pierced through the eye he was also pierced through the brain which I don't think they were aware of at the time but whether they knew of the second wound or not it was definitely a cruel death with those events transpiring just four years after the prophecies was published it certainly gave a lot of credibility to nostradamus's work for people that want to believe in him but now things will get a little bit more abstract more abstract is already abstract it's like okay so they had
Lions on their Shields um a young lion will overcome an older one it's just like in Battlefield on the battlefield they're not on a battlefield they're jousting it's a game he will pierce his eyes through a golden cage there was no golden cage he was just wearing a helmet two wounds become one well I didn't get two wounds that's like saying oh yeah I got shot and it went through my skin and into my lung and I got two wounds skin and lung maybe a bone as well three wounds you know it's just it's just
you you're you're trying to shove something to make it fit and it fits perfectly a little tight in the crotch to be honest uh okay so here's another another one Paul nay luron will be more of fire than blood to swim in praise the great one to flee to the Confluence he will refuse entry to the PES the depraved ones and the Durance will keep them imprisoned the reason that was hard to read is because it was it was just like what the Paul and Lauren are towns in France but together they form an anagram
for Napoleon Roy which I guess is supposed to be king Napoleon spelled wrong oh please or perhaps I just don't understand how Nostradamus constructed his anagrams as he seems to have a specific method for doing it just so that I can't figure it out that makes much more sense than this just being a case of man searches for something and he finds what he's looking for anyway this is one of multiple quatrains believed to be about Napoleon this is ridiculous oh yeah it's an anagram these three towns if you match them together they sort of
Spell Napoleon that's like you're doing a cross word you're like there's my words but it's not in a straight line it's like yeah yeah yeah because you get the second letter in in the line below no no the reference to being more fire than of the blood is because Napoleon Rose to power out of the French Revolution rather than having been of Royal lineage the second half is believed to be references to Pope's Pi the six and P the 7th trying to read roman numerals on the Fly there it's like here a 5+1 bi oh
we're imprisoned by Napoleon next let's look at a much more literal quatrain the L thing is discovered hidden for many centuries pastor will be celebrated almost as a Godlike figure this is when the moon completes her great cycle but by other rumors he shall be Dishonored okay so I assume we're talking about Louis Pastor who antibiotics right pasturization Fleming was antibiotics Louis Pastor pasturization um so celebrating as a Godlike figure so this could anyone who was called Pastor and did something slightly impressive not that realizing pasteurization wasn't that was very impressive um it was hidden
for centuries sure but that's the case with any Discovery like oh there's a coffee on my desk right now so I'm thinking of coffee it's like someone wasn't the story about the goats eating the coffee beans and it's like coffee was hidden for centuries yeah of course it was because that's how everything is until it's discovered um this is when the moon completes a great cycle I don't understand what that could possibly about but be by other rumors he shall be Dishonored okay so that's basically saying like Lou pastor did something which was a bit
spicy or something could be anything people could say that about me it's like Simon said once said he wanted a dog genocide it's like I didn't for one I don't know why I keep bringing this up I have to keep defending myself about what one time I said that I'd prefer a dog genocide over a human genocide if people are like dogs are so pure and I'm like yeah but people are fu people aren't they yeah uh well I'm just not sure about that right now anyway let's move on from that and see how people
try and find meaning which is not there okay this one seems a bit more precise since it gives a name and a time frame starting with the third line the moon great cycle refers to some sort of cycle that began in 1536 and ended in 1889 whether this is some real ason astronomical thing they're talking about or some astrological malar I couldn't tell you but for the sake of argument I'll take it at face value that this is a real cycle that exists Pastor is of course Louis Pastor who was indeed Famous by the end
of that cycle was he celebrated as a Godlike finger that probably is a matter of opinion but he was certainly celebrated he patented the process of pasteurization to save everybody's wine from spoiling and then applied it to beer and milk as well for those who don't know pasteurization is basically just boiling [ __ ] to kill any bacteria in it uh yeah but then being in a while in a sealed environment right so no new bacteria you can get in because we knew that if we we did know that if we boiled stuff before it
would kill all the bugs in it right we just didn't realize that we could keep the bugs out if it was in a can I don't know look I feel like Anyway let's just move on before I seem even more ignorant than I am this is indeed something that have previously done but it never really caught on because they had no idea the bacteria existed or why it might even help he also created the first rabies vaccine that was tested ac85 I did not know that which is basically the end of that moon cycle the
ability to save the life of someone who has been attacked by a rabid dog certainly made Pastor hero and it saved him from prosecution for having treated the boy's rabies despite not actually being a licensed physician I know the story of this I had just completely forgotten that it was the same Louis pastur who devised this which is crazy and as I often say rabies is crazy like you get bitten by a Rabbid dog you get one symptom of that rabies you're dead you have to get vaccinated before like you get bitten by that dog
you got to go to the hospital right away to get that rabies vaccine like immediately otherwise you just die you will die as the rumors those came much later in 1995 a book was published that portrayed Pastor as a liar and a thief stealing the work of others this was largely reviewed as revisionist history but it could technically count as dishonoring Pastor yeah okay we're really looking for stuff here aren't we moving on the blood of the just will commit a fault at London burnt through lightning of 23s the 6 the ancient lady will fall
from a high Place several of the same sect will be killed oh please where what are we going to read into this generic mumbo jumbo and do bear in mind these are just a well-known one ones there were like 6,000 something of these weren't there so here's a great example of what makes examining nostradamus's work so vexing reading this it doesn't seem like a clear prediction of any historical event and yet is widely regarded as prophesizing the Great Fire of London how you ask well 23s is 60 and six more is 66 so what if
we're just to translate these first two lines differently an alternative much more generous translation reads the blood of the just will be lacking in London burnt up in the fire of' 66 The Great Fire of London took place in 1666 so suddenly this seems a lot more obvious but as for this new translation the first line then seems to indicate that the just will no longer be dying in London because the fire killed off all the rats whose fleas have been spreading the plague once the fire was finally extinguished so too was London's fear of
the plague the part mentioning several of the same SE being killed could refer to the eight or so deaths that were believed to be caused by the fire though the part about the ancient lady is still anybody's guess there's a lot of stuff like this and I mean a lot but let's fast forward to some more modern examples among nostradamus's most famous predictions is the rise of Adolf Hitler he wrote from the depths of West of Europe a young child will be born of poor people he who by his tongue will seduce a great troop
his Fame will increase towards the realm of the East okay well first of all Austria Western Europe I mean if you want to divide western eastern Europe by the uh the Iron Curtain yes but that's a very modern post Hitler definition and Austria is definitely in central Europe geographically so no a young child will be born of poor people well a young child yes is born of poor people no Hitler's parents were quite Hitler's parents his his uh his father was uh he worked in the customs office or something like that and made quite decent
money Hitler was poor later but he wasn't born poor he was born with money he didn't work for ages he was like a layabout like man of leisure he who buy his tongue will seduce a great troop sure uh that's true his Fame will increased towards the realm of the East why his Fame increased everywhere because he was famous or inFAMOUS um so the it's it's just like yeah of course it's accurate for Hitler but it could be accurate for like any person any leader from Western Europe or Europe at all because we've just suddenly
said Austria is in Western Europe that sounds like a pretty accurate description of Hitler and really how could Nostradamus have possibly known that at some point between 1555 and 3797 somebody in Europe would be born poor and then Ascend a power because of his abilities as a public speaker that is some really compelling stuff yeah not to mention the part about it not being Western Europe him not being poor and it just be and it not just being the East sorry I shouldn't be so snarky I'm not supposed to be trying to debunk these prophecies
until the next section but I mean what the come on now that is the most broadly generic prediction you could possibly make does it accurately describe Hitler by sure sort Kevin not So Much by 3797 are there going to be lots of other people it describes yes but the reason that people latch onto this passage specifically with regards to Hitler is because of all the times that nras mentions Hitler by name in his prophecies for example the reign of the eagle will be much longer upon those seated in the realm of the East Hitler who
with Austria makes an understanding he will cause them to Reign Over the aqualin I mean okay there's definitely more to that one because he specifically mentioned in by name but I get the feeling we're going to I I mean let's see where this goes I have no idea who the acalanes are but this one one certainly sounds more compelling when Hitler is literally name dropped it's hard to argue with that there's a chance that Simon remembers how this passage is going to turn out thanks to a biographics video from 3 years ago but if so
try not to spoil it yet no chance Kevin I don't remember that at all we can let the people who believe in psychics hold on to hope for a little longer before pulling back the curtain but if Nostradamus was going to predict the rise of Hitler surely he had to have predicted World War II as well right well don't worry we've got that covered beasts ferocious with Hunger will cross the rivers the greater part of the battlefield will be against Hitler into a cage of Iron Will the great one be drawn when the child of
Germany observes nothing um when he's a child of Austria he was born in Gratz where was Hitler born no it was like Imon something or like where the was Hitler born why didn't I know that this is one of multiple passages that are regarded as predictions for the second world war but it's among the most blatant there's also another one that mentions G by name but this one is particularly interesting because Germany wouldn't even exist until 300 years after Nostradamus died at the time the area was the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nations so
so he had to predict not only the rise of Hitler but that the people referred to as German would form their own nation and would choose to in fact call it Germany um they didn't though they call it deuts land the rest of the world calls it Germany because of Germanic language Roots something like that is that right I don't remember but they don't call it Germany we call it German they call it Deutsch land if Nostradamus knew this much about World War II you best believe he was able to predict the stunning conclusion near
the gates and within two cities there will be scourges the like of which was never seen famine within plague people put out by Steel crying to the great Immortal God for Relief the two cities are of course Hiroshima and Nagasaki of course of course they are with the atomic bombings being the scourges the like of which were never seen put out by Steel could be a reference to planes that dropped the bombs uh please uh with the remainder referring to both nuclear fallout and radiation sickness even if we're giving these prophecies the benefit of the
doubt that one does feel like a bit of a stretch maybe this one will be more clear the ancient task will be completed from on high evil will fall on the great man a dead innocent will be accused of the deed the guilty one must remain in the midst what I I have no idea I have no idea the ancient task will be complet is some sort of assassination a den innocent will be accused of the deed oh nice it should go without saying that this is of course a reference to John FK of course
it is JFK being assassinated by shots fired from above and the subsequent conspiracy to pin the blame on Lee Harvey Oswald Oswald was unable to defend himself on being account of murdered while he was in custody and the truth behind the assassination has remained a mystery the only unclear part is why this would be considered an ancient task I don't remember any biblical scenes where God said to Moses [ __ ] the kennedies that seems to be a much newer sentiment mostly localized to the area where we had the same Kennedy as senator for 50
years the final prophecy we're going to look at is another one which should be mostly obvious to which it refers the sky will burn at 45° latitude fire approaches the great new city immediately a huge scattered flame leaps up when they want to have verification from the Norman I feel like I know this one it FR to like 911 or something but reading it now I have no idea how I have no idea how that could possibly be interpreted like this 45° latitude passes through New York okay so naturally the great new city is New
York York City the Flames leaping up are obviously references to 9911 and the attack on the Twin Towers okay the reference to the Norman is a little less clear as this could be somebody from Normandy the region of northern France or it could be a reference to someone descended from the Scandinavian Vikings I don't believe Asama Bin Laden ever signed up for 23 in me so perhaps he was either part French or part Scandinavian and we just don't know about it does seem unlikely while there are a lot of other examples there are some of
these are some of nostradam 's most famous predictions even the famous ones are some are more contested than others and True Believers don't agree on everything because of the subjective nature of a lot of these quatrains I'm guessing that Simon is Thoroughly unimpressed by the prognostic abilities of nostras thus far you're goddamn right Kevin but for any of you watching that R it is now time to thoroughly debunk all of this fake it to you make it if I recall I said that the prophecies was not nearly as popular during nostradamus's time as his almanacs
were it has since become his most famous work but the delay in recognition is in no Spore Part the result of the various translations that have been produced because of the nature of the printing process at the time early versions of the prophecies were slightly different it doesn't help that as time goes on fewer and fewer people properly understand middle French and this has all led to a breadth of wildly different translations of nostradamus's work yeah the Hitler thing must have been a mistranslation right I don't remember that from the biographics episode I made about
him but it's that just feels right these translations have been adjusted and adapted over time and and English translations have become increasingly liberal in how they are interpreted this is generally done after an important event has taken place and people have decided they want to attribute to one it to one of nostradamus's quatrain for example they talking about World War II I mentioned that Nostradamus makes explicit reference to Hitler multiple times that's actually a lie and he never once wrote Hitler's name shocking what he actually wrote was Hiser which sounds a lot like Hitler it's
close enough that many translations like the one used earlier simply replace with Hitler on the assumption that Nostradamus just spelled the name wrong oh my God it's ridiculous this is ridiculous however at the time he was still alive his was just a name for the lower danu region and that is almost certainly what nostras was referring to the line mentioning Hitler in Austria is actually Hiser and auster given the context of middle French the supposed portance of the Austrian Hitler's rise to power is actually stating that the lower danu region and its host will get
along and laugh but well that's not nearly as exciting is it in fact Nostradamus never actually referenced anybody by name in his prophecies doing something like that would be far too specific and make it easier to disprove his psychic abilities which is why he also makes no reference to specific years the earlier reference to Lou Pastor is a deliberate misinterpretation of the writing while he did write Pastor in the affir menion quatrain it was not a name it's just the French word for pastor because of course it is even when we give them the generous
interpretation and the Mis transations they're still rubbish and when you look at the original ones it's how is this a thing how is this a thing the supposed reference the gray Fire of London is also fairly ridiculous the original Tech states that the fire was started by lightning but the great fire was caused by an accidental fire in a bakery the more generous translation I included both removed that inconvenient comment about lining and interpreted the numbers as equating 66 and thus meaning 1666 there's no reason to make either of these changes to the text other
than to make it more closely fit what had already happens then there's the supposed 9/11 prediction there's a more popular one circulating that specifically references steel Birds crashing down on the Metropolis but that is entirely fictional so I didn't include it it was created as a hoax to prove a point and was cited as being from Nostradamus in 1644 nearly a 100 years after his death I like whoever came up with that hoax I like it because it's just like a slam dunk you can imagine just having a conversation with someone like there's a member
of my family who believes in all this nonsense or like not nonsense they don't really believe in this they just believe in conspiracy theories but I could imagine them saying like oh yeah what nostr said about the steel birds and I'll be like well actually someone on the internet made that up and they even wrote the wrong date on the quote on purpose so that they could come back later and be like no I made it up he was dead and you know that person would just be like yeah yeah yeah actually I think that's
wrong and you'll be like okay because that's the end of the conversation isn't it it's like you can think that and I'm not going to change your mind am I cuz you're insane unfortunately people couldn't be been have been bothered to read the entire story and quickly circulated the alleged prophecy as a fact the passage I did include is equally useless looking at the original French it doesn't seem to mention 45° latitude at all there's nothing there that I keep even fathom had it be mistranslated as such but even if it had it is only
technically true that 45° passes through New York it goes through the very northernmost tip nowhere near New York City it would be more likely to assume that the city in question would be Milan Belgrade or Belfast rather than anything in North America oh my God that is a broad like oh yeah it could be New York City or Belfast or Belgrade that's pretty far east like compared to New York in fact a lot of the supposed prophecy seem to do with America the JFK assassination and 911 are both American Events and the atomic bombings were
a combination of America and Japan on the other hand this makes a lot of sense the United States is the greatest and most important country in the world I mean I know Kevin's like maybe writing that with a little bit of sarcasm but like as an impartial Observer like like it or not currently the United States is the greatest and most important country in the world I think maybe China's cominging for you America but right now it's true the greatest economic power certainly political power cultural power I I think so English is the most common
spoken language around the world and is the source of many of these translations and of course English was invented in the United States whereas steady on where it was then made our national language we also invented democracy the photograph and the taco with this great land being the center of the world obviously lots of important events would be worthy of foretelling that would take place in America the only problem with all of that other than blatant sarcasm dripping off all of those factual inaccuracies is that Nostradamus explicitly said his predictions weren't about us he wrote
a letter to Henry II that included a forward in the prophecies and stated that these predictions corresponded to towns and cities of all Europe including Africa and part of Asia where most of all these coming events have transpire not am America there are a couple of different ways to read the read the phrase most of all and seeing as I'm not an expert on middle French I'll let you take your piic it's possible that he was saying that the vast majority of his prophecies were going to take place in Europe Africa and part of Asia
in which case we could maybe let the vast quantity of American predictions slide it's worth noting as well that Nostradamus is unlikely to have known Japan existed so it would not be a part of Asia to which he referred and would likely be another outlier another way to read this phrase is that most of all means of most importance and is possibly a somewhat awkward sounding sentence due to the translation while this would be a Smoking Gun that nothing involving US events could ever have been predicted by Nostradamus sadly I think this reading is less
likely he used the phrase most of to describe his quatrains at least half a dozen times in this letter so it seems like a clear sign that he was trying to hedge his bets and leave everything open to in as much interpretation as possible of course he was although speaking of Henry II's you may still be wondering about that quatrain that predicted his death it was by far the most accurate sounding of any of these the Lions the battle the two wounds the slow painful death of course a lot of this is just surely coincidence
lions were the most common animal to appear in medieval Coats of Arms and it's not really close injuries to the eye were likely relatively common in battle as full plate mail would have protected a person's body with the slits in the helmet's visor being the only somewhat exposed area Henry II also didn't die in the field of battle he died in a playful joust being performed to celebrate his daughter's wedding and a newfound PE which is sort of the opposite of battle but most notably there is again the letter written by Nostradamus to Henry the
quarin predicting Henry's death was part of the first publication in 1555 but this letter was written in 1558 the letter was addressed to the most Invincible most powerful and most Christian Henry King of France II there's no evidence that Henry was ever referred to by the title Invincible outside of this letter which just means it was nostradamus's own personal appraisal of the man obviously I'm not suggesting that he actually thought Henry was Immortal but he was only 39 years old at the time and should have had a long life ahead of him why on Earth
would nostras refer to someone as Invincible if he already knew that the person would be dead within the year okay so maybe these prophecies aren't quite what they've cranked up to be they are heavily open to interpretation and the well has been poisoned by mistranslations both deliberate and accidental even without being mistranslated I have to emphasize how ridiculous the quatrain that allegedly predicted the rise of Hitler was all nostradam said was that somewhere in Europe in the next 2,000 years a poor person will rise to power and Hitler wasn't even poor that's pretty much it
that is so absurdly vague that of course eventually something is going to happen but wait a minute I did mention a few more specific predictions while they are exceedingly rare I believe occurring less than a dozen times in the total of a thousand prophecies Nostradamus did Ina occasionally include a date let's have a look at one of those the year 1999 7th month July of 1999 okay from the sky will come a great king of Terror shall be revived the king of angle Moy before and after Mars to rain as chance will have it okay
look I'm pretty sure don't remember much about July 1999 I was but 12 years old like what nothing I don't remember some King Of Terror coming down from the sky feel like that would be notable weird but I don't seem to remember any terrifying world leaders coming back from the dead in 1999 in fact just suddenly Stalin just rises from the grave or maybe it's hist in fact nobody has been able to figure out what the hell happens in 1999 that this could have possibly been referring to and it's not for lack of trying and
this quarin has been retranslated and reinterpreted everywhere imaginable but any possible meaning continues to elude us fine so maybe Nostradamus wasn't really a psychic but neither is anybody else at least he meant well and was trying his best it's not like he could possibly have been in this for the money right what about all those long nights he spent water gazing and placing himself into a mystical trance as it turns out that almost certainly never happens if you recall the two medical books that I mentioned ostroda publishing one was just a paraphrasing of an ancient
text and the other was almost entirely plagarized is there any reason to think that the prophecies would be any different how could he possibly have written this book while in a meditative trance if he needed to pay attention to the copy of mirabilis Liber that he was copying word for word no he didn't mirabilis liber liber liber Lia was a massive compilation of predictions made by various Christian Saints over the course of nearly a thousand years it was very popular when it was first published in 1522 but it quickly fell out of favor not because
people didn't find it interesting but because it was mostly written in Latin and lots of confusing abbreviations that made it difficult to read nostradam has plagiarized his prophecies from the mirabilis Liber the 12 Caesars lra deat mutations blah blah blah something in French which had been published by Richard rat only six years earlier and countless other sources if Chad GPT had existed in the 1500s I've no doubt that it would have published a thousand prophecies per week yeah and then people would look back at it on as some sort of God basically all Nostradamus did
was copy a bunch of other people's doomsday prophecies and sprinkle in vague references to historical events using comparative horos horoscopy is that a real word and since Experts of the day felt he was incapable of accurately calculating the motion of celestial bodies he probably did the last part wrong anyway to be fair to Nostradamus even though I don't think that's necessary at this point yeah [ __ ] aamus this blatant plagiarism would have been SC wouldn't have been scandalous at the time the idea of plagiarism didn't really exist and it was common for ORS to
copy or paraphrase the works of others without giving them credit especially when it came to classical Works a what a better time this was the present day I be like yeah [ __ ] hiring writers I'm just going to find a video on YouTube and just read it in my own voice boom money printing but on the other hand Nostradamus was also probably deliberately being a dick Richard rard had proposed 2242 as a possible date for the end of the world while copying rat's work Nostradamus would have realized that he needed to make a different
prediction for the eventual apocalypse if he expected his book to sell so he just added 22242 to the current year of 1555 and that's why nostradamus's predictions ran through 3797 Jesus Christ Nostradamus how do people still remember you today you con artist wrap up Nostradamus was a highly successful plague doctor and that's really what he should be remembered as despite the complete misunderstanding of disease and medicine that existed at the time he was able to come up with actionable plans that genuinely saved lives even his Rose pills almost certainly helped decrease the mortality rate of
his patients even if he was completely wrong about why they were helping and before any pedants getting me in the comment and mention that his Rose Pills contain sweet calamus which is banned in the US for being toxic I promise it was fine it's true that the ingredient is banned but it's toxic in high doses after long periods of time which is not how patients were taking it yes it is also a carogen but if the options are die from the plague tomorrow or maybe get cancer in 20 years there a pretty easy Choice the
vitamin C lozenges may not have been as effective as antibiotics would have been but they still provided a very real benefit and I think he deserves credit for that yes agreed the whole plague doctor thing was legit beyond that like I'll just be like the drinking clean water thing that is way great but what Nostradamus does not deserve credit for is predicting anything literally anything all of the prophecies are so extremely vague that they could be interpreted to fit whatever the reader wants them to it's also important to know that the prophecies has never been
used to accurately predict a future event his qurain have only ever been perceived as making accurate predictions of an event after that event is already happens which is so useful and can then be applied retroactively there has never been a reading of his work that produced a meaningful and specific prediction that came to pass even if that had helped it wouldn't have mattered anyway nostradam still wouldn't have successfully predicted anything he would have just plagiarize the work of somebody else but hey would you rather be able to say you died with Integrity or would you
rather be able to leave leave $2 million behind for your family I have to say I think I'd rather die with oh I don't know no Integrity if I'm dead who gives it my family are going to need some money because I'm the bread winner baby let's Nostradamus this thanks for being here that's where we end Today's Show leave a review on Spotify or a rating if you're watching on YouTube like And subscribe and I'll see you next time that I can predict for [Music] sure oh