Nostradamus — ornamental prophecy

Nostradamus and the Millenium. By John Hogue. Bloomsbury/Roulston Greene. 1987. 209 pp. Illustrations. $45,

(Reviewed by Philip Bradley)

In a book with a striking, post-modernistic cover, Nostradamus has made it to the coffee table. As an ornament, the book could not be bettered. I only hope New Age people don't consider such ornaments pretentious because this one has been written for them.

It begins with a biography of Nostradamus which stresses the herbal and holistic methods he used against the plague and ends discussing his predictions of a new spiritual leadership, the apocalypse, and the Age of Aquarius. In between, in lavishly illustrated pages, many of Nostradamus' prophecies are related to history or to the near future. Emphasis is give to such matters as the papacy, A.I.D.S. (Nostradamus' references to pestilence come in handy here), and the Middle East.

For non-occultists the book will also have value—as an agreeable diversion, when Trivial Pursuit has palled, finding the text's innumerable blemishes and bloopers. Examples from chapter one: cliche—"The wealthy and nobleborn of Europe beat a path to his door..."; hyperbole—

"High-born women of his day rushed to his residence...to seek his advice on cosmetics"; unintended hilarity—''The flooded rivers were dotted with bloated corpses...The rains triggered one of the worst bouts of pestilence... Nostradamus surfaced in Marseilles, then Aix... administering cures to the sick"; errors of fact—Mary Queen of Scots ''met her death in the Tower of London."

The author of all this, John Hogue, says: "For his (prophetic) trances Nostradamus may have experimented with mind expanding herbs such as nutmeg." I can believe it (but nutmeg is not a herb, and is it really mind-altering?) for the quatrains Nostradamus wrote are obscure or nonsensical, The book's real value, if it has any, will depend on its interpretations of the quatrains. Thus, Hogue is wrong saying "One remarkable man produced all that is in this book," especially as the so-called "Rules of Play" allow him such great interpretative freedom.

Take the quatrain Hogue labels C1 Q81: "Nine will be set apart from the human flock/Separated from judgment and counsel:/Their fate to be determined.on departure .../... The unripe fruit will be the source of great scandal/Great blame, to the other great praise." Did you get it? It's the space shuttle disaster!

"To the other great praise" refers to the contrasting success of the Soviet space programme. To his credit Hogue admits the number should have been seven, not nine, but says otherwise it "comes amazingly close" to events. (The text here is superimposed on a two-page colour spread of the exploding space vehicle with an inset of the ill-fated astronauts enjoying weightlessness. Some may find this tasteless.)

Given the potential for disagreement Hogue's translations follow those of Erica Cheetham (1973) remarkably closely, but there are some equally remarkable divergences. Compare the translations of quatrain C10 Q31: line one—

"The Holy Empire will come to Germany" (Cheetham). "The Russians will enter Afganistan" (Hogue); line three—

"The asses will also want Carmania" (Cheetham), "The Afgans would like to keep Afganistan" (Hogue). Hogue certainly strives for topicality.

To counter the grimness of the apocalyptic predictions Hogue makes much of the predictions of a coming Aquarian age. Frankly, I obtain much more reassurance from the "proved" predictions being so fancifully argued and at times dependent on distortions of historical fact.

The author in his concluding acknowledgements thanks Labyrinth Publishing for making the book '"'a beautifully designed reality." Actually, I think it an overdesigned reality, but, as I said, the cover is striking. At $45 Nostradamus and the Millenium is well priced for an ornament.