What Did Nostradamus Know?

Victor Baines is no psychic, but as the founder of the Nostradamus Society of America, he feels he has a pretty good sense of what the future holds. Nothing in the writings of his favorite prognosticator, however, prepared him for what he found the morning after Sept. 11, 2001.

"I woke up on 9/12 and I turned on my Outlook Express and it froze," said Baines, 45, of Ft. Worth, Texas. “I had something like 11,000 e-mails. It just collapsed my system.”

Nostradamus, it seemed, was hot stuff -- again.

Five hundred years after his birth, this French-born physician who claimed to see the future is the subject of a seemingly endless stream of books, articles and web sites. Many, Baines included, believe anxiety fueled by terrorism and war has driven much of the recent interest in Nostradamus. Others credit a savvy public relations machine run by an ardent fan club of “believers.” Either way, his popularity shows little sign of waning.

"I’m amazed at the number of books that keep coming out," says J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute of the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif. “You go down to Borders and there’s always three or four on the bookshelves and one or two come out every year.”

Born Michel deNostredame, a Catholic with Jewish ancestry, Nostradamus was renowned even in his lifetime for his apparently prophetic talents. He counseled kings and queens but also met the wrath of the Catholic inquisitors, and harbored a deep interest in the occult and biblical revelations of Armageddon. He died in 1566, leaving behind “Les Propheties,” volumes of four-line verses claiming to predict the future for centuries to come.

Wading through these cryptic “quatrains,” his fans have found evidence for everything from the French Revolution and the rise of Hitler to signs foreshadowing Sen. Ted Kennedy and global warming. Many interpreters have been flat-out wrong, including those who predicted a nuclear attack on New York in July 1999. But with every major historical event, Nostradamus’ devotees pore over the quatrains, looking for signs that the great seer saw it coming.

Some of these Nostradamus interpreters believe the world is now poised at the brink of seeing several of the seer's predictions come true, including a lengthy world war, the "Mediterranean War" he predicted would begin at the dawn of a new millenium. Quatrain 2:62 refers to "Mabus," a tyrannical ruler who will suffer defeat. Although Mabus has been identified with numerous tyrants, many now speculate he could be Saddam Hussein. Numerous quatrains (1:67 and 4:67 and others) also speak of global flood, fires and famine, which some have linked to contemporary concerns about global warming.

After the World Trade Center attacks, some turned to Nostradamus for “sheer survival,” argues Baines, a writer, musician and one-time paralegal who created the web-based Nostradamus Society in 1996, in part to promote his own book.

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