(1562 engraving of Nostradamus at the age of 59 years)

Michel de Nostredame (1503-1566), better know as Nostradamus, is the most renowned seer of Western Europe. Some would maintain that he is the greatest seer of all times, but in this comparison he would compete with many men of lesser reputation but perhaps greater talent, such as Edward Kelley, Merlin, and Swedenborg. The three men I have named were known for other occult gifts besides their ability to see visions of things to come, but the fame of Nostradamus rests solely on his faculty to foresee and predict future events.

He was born in St. Remy, a small town in the French district of Provence. His father, James de Nostredame, worked as a notary. His family may have been converted Jews who adopted Christianity as their faith sometime in the fifteenth century. His mother, Reneé de Saint Remy, came from a professional family of physicians and mathematicians. In later years Nostradamus would claim that his gifts for occultism and mathematics had descended to him from his ancestry -- he believed that his talent for math came from his mother's side of the family, and his gift of second sight from his father's side.

While he was still a young boy, his great-grandfather taught him the art of astrology. In those times astrology was largely a matter of precise observation and mathematical calculation. Accurate charts showing the positions of the planets did not exist. After the death of this mentor, Nostradamus attended school at Avignon, where he studied the humanities, and went on to attend the university at Montpellier, where his courses concentrated on philosophy and medicine. Montpellier was famed at the time for having the greatest medical school in France.

A plague in 1525 drove Nostradamus out of Montpellier. He moved to Narbonne, and from there to Toulouse and Bordeaux, practicing as a physician to earn his living. Around 1529 he returned to the university at Montpellier to take his Doctorate, which he achieved in record time and to the universal acclaim of his peers and teachers.

For a time he lived and practiced at Agen, a town on the Garonne River. He married a woman of good family whose name has not survived, and by her had two children. Both died young. When his wife also passed away, Nostradamus returned to his native Provence.

So great was his reputation as a physician, he was invited by the Parliament of Provence to reside in Aix and was paid a wage from the city for three years. Plague broke out in the city in 1546. Nostradamus stayed to fight it. He so well succeeded, that for several years after the plague, while he still resided at Aix, he was voted a yearly pension by the leaders of the grateful citizens.

Seeking further advantages, he moved to Salon de Craux, a town midway between Avignon and Marseilles. Here he married Anna Ponce Genelle, or Anna Pons Jumel, or Anne Poussart (all three names for his second wife are given by various authorities). There is a similar uncertainty about the number of children he had by her, but they appear to have been three boys and either one or three girls -- perhaps two girls died in infancy, a common enough occurrence in those days.

It was at this stage in his prosperous but unremarkable life that Nostradamus felt a sudden irresistible urge to scry into the future. He could not explain this enthusiasm for prophecy, but it became an uncontrollable passion. He began to scry nightly, and wrote down his visions in the form of the poetic verses that form his Centuries.

For some time he kept his predictions private, fearing persecution on the charges of sorcery and witchcraft. Finally his desire to give others the benefit of his visions compelled him to make his writings public. The first of the Centuries was published in 1555, and was dedicated to his infant son, Caesar, who was at the time only a few weeks old.

There is some confusion over the identity of the man in the portrait shown at the top of this page. It is labeled "Caesar Nostradaemus" in its original form (I have modified it somewhat for the sake of clarity), yet Grillot de Givry, who printed it in his Illustrated Anthology of Sorcery, Magic and Alchemy (Paris: 1929), asserts that the engraving was executed in 1562 and is of the famed seer. I can only conclude that either de Givry's date for the engraving is wrong, or Michel de Notredame adopted as his Romanized name (a common custom of the time) Caesar Nostradamus, the same name that he gave his son.

The Centuries attracted considerable praise and blame, and caught the eyes of King Henri II and Catherine de Medici. Nostradamus was invited in 1556 to Paris to appear before the Royal Court. The King ordered that Nostradamus live at the palace of Cardinal de Bourbon, the Archbishop of Sens, during his residence at Paris. Soon after his arrival, Nostradamus suffered a painful attack of gout. The regard of the king and queen may be judged by the gift of 300 crowns in gold they sent the seer to lessen his suffering. After he recovered, Nostradamus was dispatched by the royal couple to Blois to cast horoscopes for their children, the three princes and future kings Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III.

After his return home to Salon, Nostradamus set about completing his Centuries. This was accomplished in 1558, when he dedicated the later prophetic verses to his royal patron, Henri II.

One of the most famous predictions of the Centuries occurs in Quatrain 35 of Century I. It reads:

The young lion shall overcome the old
On the field of war in single combat
He will pierce his eyes in a cage of gold.
This is the first of two loppings, then he dies a cruel death.

Henri II proclaimed a tournament for July 1, 1559, at the Rue St. Antoine, the site of the Bastille, which was then in the countryside. It was in honor of the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to Philip II of Spain. The king entered himself in the lists against all comers. At the end of the day, his side in the tournament victorious, Henri commanded Comte de Montgommeri, captain of his Scotch guard, to tilt against him. At first the younger man refused, but the king would not allow him to decline and became angry. Montgommeri's lance struck Henri in the throat just under his gilded birdcage visor. The lance shattered, and a large splinter was driven under the raised visor and lodged just above the king's right eye. The king survived ten days before dying in great agony. Both men in the duel bore the symbol of the lion on their armor.

After this seemingly miraculous prediction, the fame of Nostradamus was assured. Both the Duke of Savoy and Princess Marguerite of France, who was sister of Henri II, came to consult with Nostradamus at his home in Salon. In 1564, while traveling through his kingdom, the young Charles IX, who was only thirteen, stopped at Salon. The first person he asked to see was the celebrated prophet. The King spoke bitterly about how neglectful the townspeople of Salon were toward their most famous citizen. Charles made Nostradamus his Physician in Ordinary and gave him the title of Counselor. On the return leg of his journey Charles again stopped at Salon and made a gift of money to the seer.

Nostradamus was 60 years old at the time of this sudden royal favor. The example of the French king induced scholars and nobles to flock to the home of the seer. It must have been a heady but trying period. Over the next eighteen months he received a constant stream of visitors hoping to learn some useful fact concerning the future. But the health of Nostradamus was failing. He was tormented by the pains of gout and arthritis, and by dropsy which inhibited his breathing. On July 2, 1566, shortly before sunrise, he died of suffocation. During the night he had informed a friend who sat up with him to keep him company that he would not live to see the sun rise.

His body was buried at the church of the Franciscans at Salon. His wife erected an image of the seer on a marble tablet, along with the epitaph:

Here lie the bones of the illustrious Michael Nostradamus, whose almost divine pen alone, in the judgment of all mortals, was worthy to record, under the influx of the stars, the future events of the whole world. He lived 62 years, 6 months, 17 days. He died at Salon in the year 1566. Posterity, disturb not his sweet rest! Anne Ponce Gemelle hopes for her husband true felicity.

It was said of Nostradamus that he was somewhat short-tempered and impatient with others. He generally had little to say, but could talk eloquently when the occasion demanded it. Most of the time he remained wrapped up in his own reflections. His mind was very keen and his memory retentive throughout his life, even up to the time of his death. He slept no more than four or five hours a night, and spent much of his time in fasting and prayer.

Little is known concerning the details of the method of scrying used by Nostradamus. He did not provide a precise description. However, in various places in his letters and other writings, he mentions a spiritual fire and water.

Only two verses of his Centuries deal with his procedure -- Quatrain 1-52 and 1-53 of Century I. Their meaning is obscure, and open to several interpretations. I will quote them here:

Gathered at night in study deep I sat,
Alone, upon the tripod stool of brass,
Exiguous flame came out of solitude,
Promise of Magic that may be believed.

The rod in hand set in the midst of the Branches,
He moistens with water both the fringe and foot;
Fear and a voice make me quake in my sleeves;
Splendour divine, the God is seated near.

These enigmatic verses represent almost all Nostradamus had to say about his actual method. Significant are the mentions of the tripod, flame, the rod set with branches, water, and a voice that causes Nostradamus to tremble. In my book Scrying For Beginners I have tried to give a detailed analysis of exactly what these quatrains may signify, supported by other fragments of the writing of Nostradamus, and illuminated by ancient records concerning forms of divination used in classical times by the Greeks and Romans. Those seriously interested in the method of Nostradamus should consult this book.

The usual opinion is that Nostradamus scried in a basin of water, using it as a form of magic mirror. This is partly correct, but it appears from hints provided by the seer that sound was involved, as well as the appearance of fire. This fire was probably spiritual in nature, rather than a physical fire. Nostradamus made a veiled allusion to it as being bright white, like a flash of burning gunpowder. The sounds produced during the divination very likely caused the water in the basin to vibrate and ripple. The seer also seems to have been conscious of a spiritual presence, which he characterizes as "the God" seated near. Note that he did not write God, but the God -- perhaps Apollo, the Greek god of prophecy.

In my opinion, the visions of Nostradamus were preceded by intense flashes of white light seen in the depths of the scrying basin, and the prophetic words heard by the prophet were carried on harmonic vibrations produced in the basin by the action of the rod, which caused the basin to ring and the water in it to vibrate with circular ripples. These vibrations were probably produced by drawing the moistened end ("foot") of the green and leafy wand slowly around the smooth lip of the basin ("fringe") to yield the same sort of clear ringing tones that can be made by moistening the finger and drawing it slowly around the rim of a crystal goblet. This sort of harmonic vibration would indeed make Nostradamus "quake in his sleeves" in the sense that he would be able to feel the vibrations of sound in his forearm through the wand.

It is common for those who hear psychic voices or noises to perceive them veiled or clothed in other background sounds, such as the static on a radio, or the rhythmic swipe of windshield wipers, or the patter of rain on the roof, or the crackle of a burning fire, or the wave sounds in a sea shell. These background sounds appear to give the faculty of clairaudience something to work with. I believe that Nostradamus used the harmonic ringing of his basin as the basis for the prophecies he heard. He probably also relied on the ringing as a trigger for his visions, and regarded it as a signal that "the god" should draw near. It served as the physical mechanism for his scrying.

After studying some of the predictions of Nostradamus, I find myself not overly impressed. They are vague and can be applied to many conditions. It is hardly surprising that over a span of so many years, a few of his verses should be found applicable in a general way to isolated circumstances in history. I do not suggest that Nostradamus was a fraud -- I am certain that he was completely genuine. However, I doubt his accuracy and utility as a seer.

There are numerous intelligent individuals, living and dead, who do not share my cynical view regarding the accuracy of Nostradamus. His fame continues to increase, and will undoubtedly endure for centuries into the future, perhaps for as many centuries as he wrote about.