Nostradamus

Born in 1503 in St. Remy, France, Nostradamus whose formal name was Michel de Nostradame, made his mark on history with a series of prophecies. His predictions were wide ranging covering everything from crop failures to wars and the fates of dictators. Many references are believed to be to the modern era. Indeed one of his most intriguing, if not vague references, is to a "Hister" that many take to be Hitler himself.

Nostradamus started his adult life as a physician who specialized in treating the plague, probably not the best line of work to be in during the 1500s. No effective medical remedies existed at the time, so its no wonder that Nostradamus resorted to astrology and divination, making predictions in writings called quatrains, which are short poetic verses. Nostradamus published his seminole work, a collection of quatrains called The Prophecies in 1555. The book has remained in print ever since, and has forever made Nostradamus famous. This monumental work followed a series of almanacs he had written from 1550 onwards that had made Europe's nobility take notice. Many often called on him to make predictions and cast horoscopes.

To be completely honest, the quatrains are very vague and open to a lot of interpretation. As mentioned above, one of the most controversial if not promising references is to "Hister", which believers have taken to represent Adolph Hitler. Here is a translation of the quatrain provided by author Erika Cheetham:

Beasts wild with hunger will cross the rivers, the greater part of the battle will be against Hister. He will cause great men to be dragged in a cage of iron, when the son of Germany obeys no law.

Cheetham substitutes "Hitler" for "Hister", but I've left the original word in there since its subject to interpretation. Hister referred to a region of Germany near the Danube river (which flows through Austria, Hitler's birthplace). Much is left to interpretation, so I'll let you be the judge. 

Interestingly Nostradamus claimed, or shall we say admitted that he got his prophecies from "divination". According to Cheetham, he read "secret forbidden books" and used a bowl of water placed on a brass tripod. Who could have forbidden the books other than the Catholic church? Sounds like something out of the movie the Ninth Gate. Anyway, Nostradamus would stare into the water until he saw a vision of the future. As he wrote:

Sitting alone at night in a secret study; it is placed on the brass tripod. A slight flame comes out of the emptiness and makes successful that which should not be believed in vain.

Skeptics will say that if you dim the lights and stare at the reflection of a flame in a bowl of water, you're going to see what you want. Your mind is going to create a bunch of crap is what they're basically saying. Believers, on the other hand, might view this as a way of opening the door, so to speak. A method that enabled Nostradamus to extract information about the future. This method of prediction was known in the middle ages as divination or "Scrying", a term which means "reveal". Critics at the time would say this was a method used by witches. 

Nostradamus was born into Judaism but his family converted to the Roman Catholic church in 1512 (gee I wonder why?). Later in life, he suffered from gout which eventually led to his death in 1566.