Nostradamus (1503–1566)

Robb was an early twentieth century interpreter of Nostradamus's prophecies, with a big emphasis on Nostradamus's supposed prophecies of French history. No biggie there, as Nostradamus was a French prophet, wouldn't most of his prophecies be geared at the French? Robb here does his admirable and scholarly best to try and prove that the quatrains he choose do that. But, of course, it is all a matter of post-diction, selective cherry-picking, and outré interpretations of words and phrases and show more anagrams sometimes but not others. Oddly, Robb doesn't select the young lion, old lion joust quatrain to explify. And Robb is okay with admitting Nostradamus is wrong, like p. 37: "It seems then that Nostradamus got the color of his hair wrong." And, prophecy C87, Q71 on astrologers in 1607? Robb repeats the fiction that there was a Council at Malines in 1607 that condemned astrology. Even Hogue is honest enough to admit there was no such council or ruling or anything in 1607 that could conceivable be construed to fulfill this prophecy. If Nostradamus (and his commentators) can be so wrong, how can he ever be right? A broken clock is right... show less

A masterful collection of all extant Nostradamus prophecies. Hogue's interpretations of past events are thought-provoking and generally on, but his predictions for the future tend toward the liberal, neo-hippie line. For instance "King of Terror" is global warming, and Christianity is a stagnant religion that must be Easternized. I doubt the Judaeo-Christian Nostradamus, even if inclined to the occult, would have written about the inadequacies of Western civilization and Christianity.

An odd, slim, little hardback volume. The title uses an incorrect word, "prophesies," and there is no editor, i.e. translator and annotator, indicated. There are creepy new agey illustrations. There is a brief biographical sketch, the complete translated texts of the Preface and Epistle, and a selection of prophecies from all ten centuries. The prophecies are in translation, the original is not given, and underneath each is a curt explanation in brackets. "The death of Franklin Roosevelt" show more for Q1.100, or "Leoni sees discovery of an ancient temple" for Q8.5. Hardly a great exegetical work! Still, it serves as a sort of index for the major interpretations of Roberts, Leoni, and the like, and a "greatest hits" of the prophecies. Mainly this is a primer, and, even though odd and dated, it is still better than the books by Mario Reading (or, for that matter, more truthful than those of Dolores Cannon). show less

A masterful collection of all extant Nostradamus prophecies. Hogue's interpretations of past events are thought-provoking and generally on, but his predictions for the future tend toward the liberal, neo-hippie line. For instance "King of Terror" is global warming, and Christianity is a stagnant religion that must be Easternized. I doubt the Judaeo-Christian Nostradamus, even if inclined to the occult, would have written about the inadequacies of Western civilization and Christianity.