THE TOMORROW MAN UNPLUGGED

He first left Avignon, a city in Southern France, at age 14, exactly 500 years ago, and travelled across the countryside exploring and ‘researching’ herbal and other native, or natural, remedies.

He embarked on a career as an apothecary, eight years later (1529), following which he enrolled at the University of Montpellier, for a doctorate in medicine.

He was barred subsequently when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary — a chemist, mixing and vending their medicines — a ‘manual vocation,’ explicitly excluded by the university edicts, more so, because the seer-to-be was denigrating doctors.

No prizes for guessing who the preamble is keyed to and whose spirit — if at all it is possible — is cock-a-hoop at present.

You got it right without fluttering your eyelids — Michel de Nostredame, or Nostradamus, the famed mediaeval seer, the man who saw ‘tomorrow,’ even before it came, like never before, or never after.

It’s no surprise, that, from the time the COVID-19 scourge — a catastrophe, caused by a sinister microorganism, never before incarnate in history, brought the world to its feet — the demand for the master crystal-ball gazer’s encrypted, puzzlingly ‘possible’ prophecies, in print, and on the web, has multiplied manifold in a host of climes.

Yet, one big question has not changed in its dimension. It continues to ‘haunt’ the laity, which has lapped up the prophet’s work, lock, stock, and barrel, as also the scientific community that has always had reservations vis-à-vis its prophecies.

Agreed that the underlying principle of Nostradamus’ predictions cannot be scientifically validated, but what takes the cake is their uncanny ‘gist’ for far-reaching themes. While Nostradamus sculpted most of his prophecies with the best of intentions, if not clarity of purpose, several have been manipulated by his disciples, and others, and also misinterpreted, or twisted, by a legion of scholars, who may have shot into limelight soon after an ‘event’ — not necessarily before it. Yet, the fact is, Nostradamus often acknowledged that his prophecies were perpetual, based as they were on a cyclical view of history.

Also, the seer’s model was not as simplistic, albeit its principle was faithful to the genre. Reason — history is often periodic, and what may have happened at some point in time is most likely to happen again, given the appropriate ‘planetary’ and human conditions. Nostradamus implied, no less, that nothing could change the planetary variables .

However, the only thing that could avoid, or bring about the event in question, as scholars acknowledge, is human fault, or (mis)demeanour. This brings us to the idea Peter Lemesurier, a noted Nostradamus researcher and author of “Nostradamus in the 21st Century,” examines and puts forth, with an attached sense of detachment, especially given the relevance of the seer’s disturbing prophecies.

Picture this — the death of Henry II, the Great Fire of London, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the assassination of John Kennedy, the emergence of Kim Jong-il, COVID-19, the ongoing Russian offensive, among several other divinations. Now, the COVID-19 ‘horribilis’ question.

Did Nostradamus predict the diabolical emergence of the deadly virus like no other? Possibly, yes — with his signature style, or panache. The prophecies of Nostradamus, it is now asserted, fittingly refer to a "plague, lightning and hail at the end of March," a great calamity through America and Lombardy. “The fire in the ship, plague and captivity; Mercury in Sagittarius, Saturn warning.”

The allusions point to the sick and the dead; America and Italy. Lombardy is located, as you’d know, in Italy. The US, Italy, and Spain, were, obviously, the preeminent COVID-19 infected countries, at some point. Yes, you’ve it all, and more, in Nostradamus’ fertile mind. Not only that. L e m e s u r i e r chronicles a blow-by-blow account ‘detailing’ the 2022 ‘invasion in Europe’ (read Ukraine) by a massive military power, through several ‘new’ verse translations. He also contends that one should not view the seer’s prophecies as mere forecasts of inevitable doom, but as a project in which humanity can co-operate, or guide themselves — and, perhaps, avoid their ‘fruition.’

For one simple reason. Forewarned is forearmed; more so, for humanity’s sake. This is not all. Nostradamus was, quite simply, or paradoxically, a genius, yes. He never gave a particular date to a possible future event.

A fact, as Lemesurier says, has allowed his ardent fans to constantly argue, “Well, it hasn’t happened yet.” Just think of it as pure windfall — one that has allowed the prophet himself to steer clear of ever being proved wrong.