The Prophecies of Nostradamus [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONIn the autumn of 1939, soon after Germany had declared war on Europe, Frau Dr Goebbels was lying in bed reading an obscure book on occult literature. It contained some predictions made by a certain Nostradamus, printed in 1568. Her husband was asleep, but Frau Dr Goebbels was so excited by what she had read that she woke him and made him read the relevant passages. He was sufficiendy impressed to arrange that his Propaganda Ministry hired the services of a Swiss astrologer named Ernst Krafft who was soon to be found reproducing material based on Nostradamus' Prophecies, using them to some effect psychologically in occupied Europe. How could an obscure medieval French doctor cause such consternation in both Goebbels' and Himmler's Departments? How could he also cause the British Secret Service to spend a reputed sum of L80,000 on retaliatory propaganda?He was Michel de Nostredame, more commonly known by the Latinized form of his name, Nostradamus, born at noon on December 14, 1503 by the old calendar, in St Rémy de Provence. His family were not the illustrious line of Jewish-Italian doctors working at the Courts of King René of Anjou and of his son, as has commonly been claimed, but people of simple lineage from around Avignon. His grandfather was Peyrot or Pierre de Nostredame, an established grain-dealer, who married a Gentile girl named Blanche. Their son Jaume or Jacques, Nostradamus' father, moved to St Rémy in 1495 and gave up the family trade. Here he married Reyniere de St Rémy who was the grand-daughter of an ex-doctor, turned tax-collector. The family were converted from Judaism to the Catholic faith by the time Nostradamus was nine years old, as his parents are listed in 1512 as being part of the new Christian community. It is important to remember the Jewish element of Nostradamus' childhood when trying to decipher the Prophecies, as he was gready influenced by occult Jewish literature. Nostradamus was the oldest son, and had four brothers; of the first three we know little; the youngest, Jean, wrote a great