THE CURE FOR NOSTRADAMUSITIS

 FROM THE DESK OF THE MINDWARRIOR

Came across this item flipping through FLIPBOARD this morning:

For centuries, the more superstitious corners of

popular culture have been obsessed with the

prophecies of a 16th-century French astrologer

and soothsayer named Michel de Nostredame,

or as he's known by his Latinized name,

Nostradamus. As Sky History notes, four and a

half centuries after their publication, the

soothsayer's quatrains - poems of four stanzas

- are still analyzed and debated.

There is a cure for this.  Nostradamus and His Prophecies (All the Prophecies in French and English, with Complete Notes and Indexes) by Edgar Leoni (1982).

For over 400 years the prophecies of the controversial French prophet Michel Nostradamus (1503-66) have fascinated people because they project far into the future (A.D. 3797), and because they are open to countless interpretations. Until the publication of this book, however, there was no truly complete translation of the prophecies with even the minimum of scholarly apparatus required. Edgar Leoni’s comprehensive, definitive study not only fills that gap but goes far beyond.

This edition includes parallel texts in English and French of all Nostradamus’s prophecies (arranged in "centuries," or collections of 100 rhymed quatrains). Also included are explanatory notes, a series of indexes, historical background to the prophecies, a Commentary section, including the most famous — and infamous — interpretations; a critical biography of Nostradamus, his will and personal letters, and bibliographical material on both Nostradamus and his commentators.

Reviewing Leoni’s opus in the American Historical Review, Harvard historian Crane Brinton praised the book’s "meticulous scholarship" and obvious worth to historians, adding that "it also makes surprisingly interesting reading."

You can buy a used copy for $1.75 on Amazon.  No prescription needed.  Only known side-effect: may cause reason.

You can see for yourself if you have reached the age of reason what the original French says and how easy it is to treat it like a Rorschach ink blot.