Pod Insights Noble Blood The Life and Prophecies of Nostradamus About this episode Nostradamus's names and predictions are famous, centuries after his death. But the man behind the predictions is still largely unknown. Was he a true believer, or a savvy opportunist?
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0:47 Dana Schwartz? France 1564, and the country is, to be perfectly honest, a bit of a mess. 14-year-old King Charles IX has just formally ended his regency, but the young monarch has no real interest in governing. After all, he's just 14 years old. His ineptitude means the former regent, his mother Catherine de Medici, continues to be the dominant power in French politics. Before the regency's official dissolution, Catherine managed to address the country's increasingly violent religious conflict by brokering the Edict of Envois, which ended
1:31 Dana Schwartz? the first stage of the French Wars of Religion and brought on a brief period of official peace between the Hugonots, or French Protestants, and Catholics. In an effort to enforce the edict and to rally support for the crown in the wake of the unrest, Catherine and little Charles set out in March of 1564 for a two-year grand tour of France. The tour took the pair and their roughly 20,000-person entourage across the country, from Paris to Provence, Brittany to the Bourbonnet.
2:12 Dana Schwartz? Each stop on the tour was carefully planned to strengthen loyalty in the provinces, but there is one stop designated for the king and queen mothers' personal agenda.
2:25 Dana Schwartz? In October, the tour reached the quiet southern town of Salon de Provence, home of the famed physician and occultist Nostradamus. That iconic name is likely known by a majority of modern listeners. But even at the time of the royal visit, Nostradamus’s infamy had already spread throughout the country and beyond its borders. In fact, the validity of his predictions had become another point of contention in the religious conflict. Protestants were arguing he was a fraud. Catholics believed he had a divine gift.
3:08 Dana Schwartz? Catherine, a devout Catholic, came to Salon seeking a message from the stars, delivered through Nostradamus. Later, writing to the Constable of France, Catherine happily recounted that the astrologer “promised all kinds of good things to the king, my son, and that he shall live as long as you.” That prediction would come true, but not in the way Catherine brightly anticipated. Today, more than four centuries after Nostradamus’s death, his prophecies continue to be a subject of discussion. Have they predicted major world events?
3:50 Dana Schwartz? Or are they simply vague enough to be easily applicable to any number of situations? But there’s one more question, perhaps most interesting of all: Were his prophecies even original? For all of this debate, the man behind the predictions remains, to many, a mystery. I’m Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.
4:20 Dana Schwartz? The famous future astrologer was not born Nostradamus the Great and Powerful, or Ol Nasty if you've been listening to the "Rain" recap series over on the Noble Blood Patreon. Instead, his parents called him Michel de Nostradam, when he was born in 1503 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Michel was only the second generation to be born with the last name Nostradam. His paternal grandfather had been a Spanish Jew, forced to convert and take a Christian name around 1455 due to hostile new edicts.
5:01 Dana Schwartz? So his grandfather, Guy Gasonnet, became Pierre de Saint-Marie before settling on Pierre de Nostradam, the surname meaning "Our Lady." Michel Nostradam's Jewish heritage will come up later in debates surrounding his legitimacy, so remember that point. It's traditionally believed that Michel started his education young, taught by his maternal great-grandfather, who was a physician. Those early studies are said to have focused on Latin and, yes, some astrology, which at the time was a respected scholarly tradition with a long history,
5:41 Dana Schwartz? although the Renaissance period saw increasing skepticism of astrology and those who practiced it. Later in life, Nostradam would claim to still treasure the astro-labe he inherited from his great-grandfather. Sometime between the ages of 14 and 16, Michel left for the nearest major city, Avignon, where he sought higher education at the local university. In Nostradamus's day, university curriculum consisted of the Trivium, which was grammar, rhetoric, and logic, followed by the Quadrivium, geometry, arithmetic, music, and astrology.
6:22 Dana Schwartz? However, our young scholar never got the chance to advance to the Quadrivium's astrology lessons because in 1520, a plague outbreak forced the university to close its doors. Covid-era students, I'm sure, can relate.
6:41 Dana Schwartz? In a later diary entry, Nostradamus reflected on life following the university closure. "I spent most of my young years on pharmaceutics and the knowledge and study of natural remedies across various lands and countries, constantly on the move to find out the source and origin of plants involved in the purposes of the healing art." That is a long sentence to say he became a self-taught, traveling apothecary. Perhaps he was inspired by his close encounter with the plague, or maybe he was following in his great-grandfather's footsteps.
7:25 Dana Schwartz? By 1529, schools had reopened their doors. We know this because 1529 was the year Michel enrolled in the university at Montpellier to study for his medical doctorate. His written enrollment confirmation, penned in shaky Latin, remains in the university's library to this day. Though this may be a point of pride for that university now, the reception Nostradamus received at the time was quite different. In fact, he was expelled shortly after arriving.
8:03 Dana Schwartz? The confirmation of his expulsion also still exists in library records, reading, "He whom you see crossed out here has been an apothecary or quack, and through the students we have heard him speak ill of doctors." This was the first, but certainly not the last, time Nostradamus would be called a quack. While being an apothecary was deemed inferior to being a doctor, it was also forbidden for university students to have practiced a "manual trade."
8:42 Dana Schwartz? Academic snobbery and Nostradamus's overconfidence were a bad mix. So Nostradamus returned to the life of a traveling apothecary for the next few years, following Hippocrates's famous advice to "seek out old wives" or "alternative remedies."
9:04 Dana Schwartz? In 1531, he settled into a stationary life in Agin, where he was invited to be the personal apothecary of a famed scholar he had befriended. There, he married his first wife, Henriette, with whom he had two children. His time there, as his time had been in Avignon and Montpellier, was once again destined to be brief. By 1534, Michel Nostradamus faced the triple loss of his wife, son, and daughter, all to another plague outbreak. The mortality rate of the 16th-century plague epidemics
9:45 Dana Schwartz? was still lower than that of the Black Death in the 14th century, but the effects were still devastating. Known treatments were ineffective, and a famous piece of advice at the time for doctors was, "Get out fast, stay well away, come back late." I don't remember that part of the Hippocratic oath, but I am no doctor. If you can't find a doctor, you might as well turn to a less respected professional. After two years spent as the aide to a prominent physician, a Montpellier alum, no less, in Marseille, Nostradamus's services were procured by the city of Aix-en-Provence.
10:29 Dana Schwartz? Our apothecary was likely motivated to aid, where others fled for a number of reasons. The chance at renown, certainly, but also the chance for medical discovery. Almost certainly, the chance to fight the same disease that took his family away.
10:49 Dana Schwartz? It was there that he treated residents with his would-be-famous rose pill. I wouldn't recommend trying this at home, but if you're curious as to how a rose pill is made, you can turn to Nostradamus's 1555 best-selling medical cookbook. Wellness influencers pumping out a book, tale as old as time.
11:13 Dana Schwartz? The Rose Pill formula calls for, quote, "one ounce of the sawdust shavings of cypress wood as green as you can find, six ounces of Florentine iris, three ounces of cloves, three drams of sweet calamus, and six drams of aloes wood. Next, take three or four hundred infolded red roses, fresh and perfectly clean and gathered before dewfall." From there, the concoction is to be shaped into a lozenge and left to dry. But as a bonus, he notes that the mixture may also be made into a perfume. Quote, "Add as much musk or amber grease as you either can or wish.
11:58 Dana Schwartz? If these two are added, I do not doubt that you will produce a superbly pleasant perfume." This same cookbook, part of a rapidly growing genre of recipe books, often called Books of Secrets, marketed to DIY-minded readers, many of them women, also includes formulas for teeth whitening, hair coloring, and a love tonic so powerful that Nostradamus claimed "a few drops placed in a woman's mouth while kissing her would trigger a burning passion." When describing the rose pill, Nostradamus dedicates time to recounting
12:39 Dana Schwartz? the horrors he witnessed in Ex as the plague tore apart families and graveyards overflowed, but he notes that his concoction provided relief, protecting its users from infection. We can't say for certain or with any likelihood that the pill was an actually effective preventative measure, but as in many cases, what mattered was that people believed in it. That rose pill was the catalyst that set Nostradamus on the path to fame, and he soon became known as the "Plague Doctor." In reality, it appears that the Ex plague naturally subsided after around nine months, which was a typical timeline.
13:26 Dana Schwartz? While his prowess may have been exaggerated, Nostradamus rightfully deserves credit where it's due for staying where many doctors fled, and for trying what hadn't been tried. He continued to help a number of other cities over the next few years, before settling in the town that he would call home for the rest of his life: Célon. By this point, he was in his early 40s, and alongside his new success, it appears he sought another chance at a stable family life. On November 11th, 1547, he married his second wife, a wealthy widow named Anne Ponsard.
14:10 Dana Schwartz? It was in the years following his second marriage that Nostradamus became interested in the occult. He hadn't formally studied astrology since childhood, but the field was becoming increasingly more popular, as well as more controversial. His major influences included 1550's Book on the Nature of the Times and Their Changes, which used planetary patterns to define the world by cycles, the last of which would conclude with a predicted and notably inaccurate apocalypse, as well as the rising success of annual almanacs, which provided predictions and warnings for the year ahead.
14:53 Dana Schwartz? Though they were first introduced about a century earlier, almanacs were now so popular that two to three dozen were being published every year. With the country's increasing religious tensions, as well as economic and political strife, it was no wonder that people sought guides to the future. Nostradamus wrote his first almanac in 1550, and would continue to write one every year until his death. It was in his first almanac that we see the pen name Michel Nostradamus, as opposed to Nostradam. In trading his French surname for a Latin
15:35 Dana Schwartz? He aligned himself with the great thinkers of antiquity, a practice adopted by many scholars of the Renaissance. No copies of his first publication have survived, but the predictions it contained were recorded by his secretary. One reads, "Throughout Gaul," meaning France, "there shall be certain uprisings which shall be appeased by stern counsel." Fairly vague, but pretty predictably likely. Another report, "In the autumn, heavy rains, which shall be the cause of many setbacks, shall even confound some very great enterprises."
16:18 Dana Schwartz? A third prediction claims, "At this time, whether in wars or in illness, love, honor, and fear shall be the reason why people shall not be oppressed, but shall live in peace." Those are all decidedly short, vague, and reliable. Rain in autumn, groundbreaking. But as the years progressed, we'll see his predictive style change. Predictions will become wordier, heavier, and increasingly grounded in the movements of the planets. His almanacs sold well, but they didn't particularly stand out compared to the many
17:02 Dana Schwartz? other successful almanacs. His more lucrative source of income was a new practice: horoscope readings for wealthy clients. As opposed to other astrologists, however, he did not draw up these charts himself, instead asking the client to provide the material. His apothecary practice also continued, but you wouldn't be wrong to wonder where the shift from medicine to occultism came from. After his childhood studies, Michel hadn't shown an interest in astrology for his entire young adult and adult life.
17:41 Dana Schwartz? But now, in middle age, he was a practicing astrologist with visions of the future? This transition wasn't something Nostradamus wrote about in his journals, so we're left to analyze for ourselves.
17:57 Dana Schwartz? There's the cynical angle, that he saw the field becoming more lucrative and wanted a piece of the pie. And there's also the more optimistic angle, that he was an inherently curious person, constantly seeking new ways to understand the world around him. I would argue it's probably a mixture of both. And indeed, many scholars of the time saw medicine and astrology as intertwined. 1555 would be the year Nostradamus began to see real success in his new practice. For the 55 almanac, Nostradamus had the idea to write his predictions in verse, which not
18:41 Dana Schwartz? only set him apart from his contemporaries by calling back to the voices of ancient prophets, but poetic language also helped keep things open to interpretation. It's also in the 1555 edition that Nostradamus first claims to be divinely inspired. Quote, "By divine spirit, soul filled with prophecy, war, famine, plague, and upheaval shall come by. Floods, droughts, while blood shall stain both land and sea. Peace, pacts, praelets be born and princes die."
19:21 Dana Schwartz? He does not explicitly state his predictions came from God. That would be a step too controversial in certain circles. But any reader who wanted to believe that could certainly sense the true intent behind his words. Besides religious wars, lightning strikes, and crocodiles, yes, Nostradamus predicted an incident involving a mysterious crocodile, one particular prediction stood out among the others that year. "The king," he wrote, at the time still referring to Catherine de Medici's husband, Henry II, quote, "shall beware of some one or many of his court, lest they seek to do
20:05 Dana Schwartz? what I dare not put in writing, as the stars, in accordance with occult philosophy, demonstrate."
20:15 Dana Schwartz? A few years later, the astrologer Laurent Vidal, who ironically taught the subject at Avignon, where Michel was forced to abandon his studies before he reached the astrology courses, published a scathing indictment of Nostradamus in which he questioned that very prediction. “You say that you dare not declare what would happen that year. Why did you resort to such ruses, if not so that you should be sent for from the court? You knew perfectly well the king would want the truth.” In other words, you’re only being coy so the king will summon you.
20:57 Dana Schwartz? Whether or not Vidal was right about Nostradamus’s intentions, he was wrong about one thing in particular. It was not the king whose attention he caught, but rather the queen’s. In the summer of 1555, Nostradamus received the queen’s summon to attend court in Paris. According to the contemporary chronique lionaise, he apparently “feared greatly that harm would have been done to him, for he said himself he was in great danger of having his head cut off.” Evidently, it was not his head Nostradamus had to worry about, but his feet. He was only at court a short amount of time
21:42 Dana Schwartz? before he was bedridden with a bad flare-up of gout. As later reported by his son César, Nostradamus actually read the charts of eager nobles right there from his bed. In a letter, Nostradamus wrote, “As a fine reward from the court, I became ill there. The queen paid me thirty crowns, and there’s a fine sum for having come two hundred leagues. Having spent a hundred crowns, I made thirty.” This may seem an oddly irreverent tone from a man who was highly respected by the queen, but that letter was written to a man to whom Nostradamus owed money,
22:24 Dana Schwartz? and so he sought to downplay his wealth. He does, however, make sure to tell the man how much he sung his praises to Catherine. According to a later account from Nostradamus's son, the seer's duty on that first trip was to examine the birth charts of the three princes, who would become Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. The queen was evidently pleased, and Nostradamus's son later reported that his father returned to Salon a hero, heralded by the people as "the most famous prophet in all of France."
23:05 Dana Schwartz? The next project for this most esteemed Frenchman was his magnum opus, The Prophecies, released in three volumes from 1557 to 1558. Rather than predicting a single year's events, as was the task of his almanacs, he would predict thousands of years' events. He was certainly not the first to attempt such an undertaking, but he would be the first to do so in French, the language of the people. It was such a major project, in fact, that upon publication, it included a dedicatori letter to King Henry II.
23:49 Dana Schwartz? Published treatises during this time were frequently dedicated to existing or potential patrons. By addressing his work to Henry, Nostradamus communicated his lofty ambitions to both the king and to his readers. He was making the inaccessible ancient art of prophecy accessible, and I mean that in a more literal sense as well. He was essentially translating the existing work of the ancients into French. As described by Peter Lemaire in his biography, The Unknown Nostradamus, Michel's writing directly reflected the major events and developments
24:33 Dana Schwartz? first told by ancient prophets and later reproduced in 1522's Mirabilis Liber, which was a popular collection of predictions from numerous Christian saints and diviners, in Latin, of course.
24:50 Dana Schwartz? In his book's preface, Nostradamus writes that his prophecies concerned future events, "about which the divine being has granted me knowledge by means of astrological cycles." He contradicts himself in the same preface, however, writing, "Even though, my son, I have used the word prophet, I have no wish to attribute myself a title of such lofty sublimity at present." "Here," "at present" means "in the present work." In his biographer's words, "the material was certainly not Nostradamus's copyright,
25:28 Dana Schwartz? only in the matter of detail, of the who and where and when, was his own hand evident." Even then, his predictions relied on the expectation that history would repeat itself. For example, he wrote numerous times that Europe would be invaded from the east and south by massive Muslim forces. There are passages fully plagiarized from historical sources, including Livy, Plutarch, and other classics. This all sounds rather scandalous to our modern ears. Revealed, Nostradamus plagiarized his predictions, but this was actually a very common practice at the time, seen more
26:12 Dana Schwartz? as paying homage to the greats than infringing on their intellectual property. In one quatrain that would become particularly famous, Nostradamus mirrors the deposition of the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelus. It reads in Nostradamus's standard verse style, "The young lion shall surmount the old on martial battlefield in a single duel. His eyes he'll put out in a cage of gold. Two forces joined, and then a death most cruel."
26:49 Dana Schwartz? Nostradamus was right that history would repeat itself, but in a way no one could have expected. In 1559, a tournament was held honoring the marriage of Henry II and Catherine's daughter Elizabeth to King Philip II of Spain. King Henry was an avid jouster and decided to participate in a festive triple joust with his captain of the Scottish Guard, Gabriel of Montgomery. In the third round, Gabriel's lance splintered and pierced Henry's eye so severely it penetrated his brain.
27:29 Dana Schwartz? Despite their best efforts, the royal doctors found there was nothing to be done, and the king died 10 days later. There are some clear parallels to Nostradamus's verse. For example, both jousters had lions as their emblems. While martial battlefield isn't exactly the same as a celebratory joust, Henry did lose his eye wearing a gilded helmet. And suffering in agony for 10 days before finally succumbing to brain damage? I would certainly qualify that as a "death most cruel." At the time, however, those parallels were not drawn.
28:13 Dana Schwartz? Instead, some people wondered why Nostradamus failed to predict anything about the death of a king. In the letter at the beginning of his book addressed to Henry, Nostradamus even described the king as "most invincible." While Nostradamus had his fair share of denouncers, mainly fellow astrologists who saw him as a hack, this snafu wasn't enough to hinder his rise. Even in England, diplomats discussed "quatrains" referencing the ascension of Queen Elizabeth and the marriage between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Henry's young successor, Francis.
28:54 Dana Schwartz? Nostradamus mania officially swept the country. Foreign ambassadors were reporting back to their home countries that it was becoming difficult to conduct any business in France, for the country's collective mind was fixated on one thing. International clients were also rolling in, including the Crown Prince of Vienna and a prominent Duke of Savoy. Catherine herself became a regular client, asking for readings for the new King Francis and for his younger brother, Charles. Nostradamus's 1560 almanac allegedly predicted the early death of King Francis II, which
29:39 Dana Schwartz? occurred in December of that year. If you recall this episode's introduction, the early years of Francis's younger brother, Charles IX's, regency, saw the country on the brink of civil war. In the end of 1561, Nostradamus wrote to a friend that the troubles had reached Salon and that he and his family had been forced to rent a safe house in Avignon as his famed mysticism made him suspect. In the chaos, Michel failed to get the required license from a bishop for the publication
30:20 Dana Schwartz? of his 1562 almanac, and he was thrown into prison at the castle of Marnay. The governor of Provence left his sentencing to Charles IX, and Nostradamus was freed. Thus began his "reputation" era. He always had his detractors, but upon his release from prison, the movement against him gained more traction than ever. A famous published critique called him, and I will be adding this phrase to my personal vernacular, "a 24-karat liar." Another pamphlet sought to discredit him on account of his Jewish origins, while additionally framing him as some
31:04 Dana Schwartz? Something of a court jester. "I who was there," meaning court, "at the time know perfectly well that there was nobody there who was not convinced that you had come there expressly in order to receive by way of reward all the mockery that all your poor little treatises and fantastic statements richly deserved." That's such a good takedown, you know the guy who wrote that would have killed on Reddit. But the heart of this entire revived debate was between Protestants and Catholics. After Pierre de Ronzard, a Catholic poet with royal patronage, composed a flattering
31:45 Dana Schwartz? portrait of Nostradamus, a Protestant pamphlet was published denouncing Ronzard by appealing directly to Queen Catherine. It read, "Ronzard, you fool, how dare you take to heart this damned Nostradamus and his art, calling him true and for a maniac's word, betray the revelation of the Lord." As a brief aside, takedowns being written in verse feels like the 16th century forebearer of rap battles. Catherine, as we know, paid those detractors no mind, and she soon embarked on her trip with King Charles to Salon, where we began this episode.
32:29 Dana Schwartz? Michel's son, César, was only 10 at the time, but he would recount that visit in his later years. Apparently, Nostradamus asked to examine Charles's younger brother, Henry, to assess his future prospects. He pronounced that, according to the placement of the moles on his body, he would not only become king, but rule for a long time. When the young prince did ultimately succeed to the throne, it said he would often recall the occasion with amusement. As for Nostradamus's other prediction that Charles would live as long as the Constable
33:09 Dana Schwartz? of France, that also came true, albeit bleakly. He died three years later, in his 70s, and King Charles only lived for another seven years, dying at just 23.
33:28 Dana Schwartz? Years before Charles’s death, however, Nostradamus was called upon to bless the proposed union between the new French king and Queen Elizabeth of England, who was twice his age. Whether or not Nostradamus saw a bright outcome, it appears he had no choice but to say he did. The proposal was sent to England with a copy of Charles’s birth chart and Nostradamus’s commentary. Elizabeth delicately refused the proposal, and is said to have replied, “My lord is too great for me and yet too small.” Still, Nostradamus had gained enough acclaim with Catherine de Medici that he was appointed
34:13 Dana Schwartz? privy councillor and physician in ordinary to the king, and awarded a grant and pension. The Spanish ambassador, reporting the “lunacy of what is going on here” to his king, wrote, “He has all the guile in the world and only ever says what is pleasing to whomever it may be.” The ambassador continues, “The Queen said to me today, ‘Do you know, Nostradamus assured me that in 1566 a general peace would reign across the world, and that the Kingdom of France would be the most peaceful, and that the situation would settle down. And while saying that, she had an air of earnestness, as if somebody had been quoting
34:58 Dana Schwartz? Saint John or Saint Luke at her.’” Despite what outsiders thought of him, though, Nostradamus had made it to the top. But not long after arriving, his chronic gout became increasingly more painful. In a December 1565 letter to a colleague, he wrote, “At Arles recently, a fiery arrow was seen, a kind of falling star.”
35:28 Dana Schwartz? He believed this meant varied woes were to plague the land, including invasions, drought, and famine. But maybe he should have been looking inward. In his "Final Surviving Letter", he wrote an update to Catherine, predicting a vastly different future than the Falling Star portold. Quote, "I find by various celestial patterns drawn up in this place that all shall be in peace, love, union, and concord, even though there shall be some great contradictions and differences. But in the end, everybody shall return content of mouth and heart."
36:12 Dana Schwartz? Perhaps he simply forgot to mention the invasions, drought, and famine that the Falling Star had told him about. But really, a prediction of peace, love, and concord is pretty safe. Because if you say that everything will be okay in the end, and things aren't okay yet, it just means the end hasn't come. Nostradamus completed his final almanac for 1567, only a fortnight before his end came, in the beginning of July 1566. He did not predict his own death,
36:51 Dana Schwartz? but November 1567's entry was posthumously edited by his secretary to fit the circumstances of his passing.
37:04 Dana Schwartz? That's the life of Nostradamus. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a bit about how his prophecies have been interpreted in modern times.
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37:44 Speaker 04 I'm like a kid when I play music and I make music and I'm constantly asking questions. You know, whether it's an instrument I haven't played, or it's a melody that seems foreign. You know, there's every night you play a show and it's the same set, but it's not the same show. At a certain point, your brain kind of goes on autopilot. When I'm in the studio, or if I'm making music, that's where that curiosity kind of comes back, you know? I haven't lost it yet, but I'm also on my sophomore album, so, and you, you obviously are an expert here.
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38:20 Speaker 03 Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.
38:38 Speaker 05 Man, I'm a Black and Mexican kid from San Pedro, and I grew up in Inglewood as well. I never liked to be like boxed in. Both of my parents colored outside of the line. I mean, even them being together at the time in L.A. was just not typical. And so I think that has always been a part of my DNA. There's a defiant something in me that feels like what we get to do with, with what we're given that's greater than us is to maybe connect people to ideas that they wouldn't naturally, you know, connect to. That's really me. I'm just kind of like defiant with love, though.
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39:25 Dana Schwartz? There are numerous events in more recent history that people believe had been predicted by Nostradamus, including the French Revolution, the death of Princess Diana, and the rise of Adolf Hitler. The latter is a particularly interesting one, as Nostradamus became a figure of government propaganda. Astrology was gaining popularity again in 1930s Europe, and publishers were putting out multiple Nostradamus books a year. The New York Times reported that men and women of all social stations, including officers at the front, were turning to Nostradamus's prophecies for insight. One of his quatrains stands out.
40:09 Dana Schwartz? Quote, "Beasts wild with hunger shall swim the rivers; most of the host shall move against Ister. He'll have the Great One dragged in iron cage when the child, the German Rhine, surveys." Ister, spelled "Hyster" in the old French, was referring to another name for the Danube River, but the 20th-century mind saw a clear reference to the name Hitler. On the eve of war, France's propaganda agency sought to publish a favorable interpretation of Nostradamus. Centuries after he was sought out by Catherine,
40:51 Dana Schwartz? Nostradamus was once again tasked with predicting a hopeful future for France. Seeing the effectiveness of that strategy, the Nazis began to publish their own interpretations of Nostradamus's quatrains, and Hitler himself was interested in astrology. That didn't stop the Allies from using him in their propaganda. In fact, their new plan was to make Nostradamus a movie star in the US, with MGM producing short films about the Seer. As said by the studio's production supervisor, the vision was to, quote, "Make a given verse say what you wanted it to say."
41:34 Dana Schwartz? In terms of the times and in terms of the interest and in terms of the dramatic value of your interpretation, it's something to keep in mind when you see people making grand predictions on the internet, people reading into clues and symbols and signs, that throughout history, vague enough predictions have been used as propaganda, and we've always been looking to the stars for answers.
42:13 Dana Schwartz? Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer, Reema Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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43:25 Dana Schwartz? This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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