NOSTRADAMUS, ASTROLOGY AND THE BIBLE
INTERVIEWS / REVIEWS
Did Nostradamus predict the death of Bin Laden?
Interview by Nog steeds wakker Nederland, Radio 1 NL, May 4, 2011

A false quatrain
On May 1, 2011, the world was surprised by the communication by president Obama that Bin Laden was killed. Nobody had expected this communication, except Nostradamus, who had predicted countless events and according to some also Bin Laden's death.
My answer to the question if Nostradamus had predicted Bin Laden's death, was negative. The quatrain which was supposed to contain this prediction and which was published in a Dutch article on Internet, with comment, is a feigned, false quatrain. Its text reads as follows:

My answer to the question how, if this quatrain was written by Nostradamus, one could derive that it contains allusions to Bin Laden, was that the one who compiled this quatrain, adjusted its contents to the events of the past days.

Open to various explanations
My answer to the question if the predictions of Nostradamus have the same impact as the predictions in the gossip magazines, which are so general that everybody can relate them to their own circumstances, was that most of the predictions by Nostradamus don't contain a fulfillment date, which means that they cannot be linked to events. The author of the Internet-article writes about "hindsight", which means that only after the event, it becomes clear that a certain quatrain is fulfilled.[3] Whoever links a prediction of Nostradamus to an event in such a way, must be pretty convinced that in future no event will happen which corresponds better with the contents of the prediction than the one he/she had in mind. By the lack of fulfillment data, the predictions of Nostradamus are open to various explanations and can be linked to countless events. This undermines their predictional value.

Predictions which were fulfilled in the past
My answer to the question if my research showed if some of Nostradamus' predictions were fulfilled in the past, was that, as far as I could see, none of these predictions were fulfilled. The problem is that the majority of predictions don't contain fulfillment data and are quite unclear about the involved countries. This means that it is impossible for me to link them to events in the past, because it is impossible for me to verify what Nostradamus had in mind when he compiled these predictions. It is Nostradamus who has to provide clearness, it is not up to me to look for such a clearness.

A persistent reputation, circular reasoning
My answer to the question why, when there are events like the attack on the World Trade Center in New York or the terrible events in Japan, this year (the earthquake, the tsunami and the problems of the nuclear power-station in Fukushima) there are always rumours that Nostradamus predicted this, was that this is caused by his persistent reputation of being a prophet. In the case of important events, there are always people who look through the Centuries in order to find out if they contain a prediction which to some extent corresponds with the event. When they find a correspondence - or when they fake a correspondence - they will publish their findings worldwide: this was - ievitably - predicted by Nostradamus, since he is a prophet, and not just a prophet, but a famous one. Something like that can be read in the Internet-article: Nostradamus not only predicted Bin Laden's death, but also the attack on the World Trade Center. The prediction of that attack also contained an allusion to Bin Laden. Like that, the circle closed.

It is possible to predict the future
Because of my own experience in the years in which I practiced astrology, my answer to the question if it is possible to predict the future, was positive. If someone wants to know if this kind of predictions is reliable, the astrologer must tell him/her about the nature of what is going to happen in the future and the fulfillment date of his/her predictions. In case of world events, the astrologer must mention the involved countries. Provided that the nature of predictions permit this. In the case of Nostradamus and me, we deal with astrology. Astrology is suited to inform about the nature of an event, its date and in case of mundane astrology the involved countries. 
In the years in which I practiced astrology, I erected the birth chart of a friend of mine. By means of important events in her past, I corrected her birth time. My answer to her question when she would move to a house, was that four months later, this would happen. Her answer: time will tell. Four months later, I got a phone call. She had moved to another house. Well, I said, I told you so in my predictions. Yes, she answered, and she told she felt quite uncanny.[4]

De Meern, the Netherlands, May 4, 2011,
T.W.M. van Berkel
Updated on May 28, 2011

Notes

1. The URL of the interview: http://www.radio1.nl/contents/30017-voorspelde-nostradamus-de-dood-van-bin-laden. [text]
2. See: http://mens-en-samenleving.infonu.nl/sociaal-cultureel/72187-nostradamus-en-osama-bin-laden.html. This article, written by Hermesse James, is dated on May 2, 2011 and is part of InfoNu.nl, a website which describes itself as an online-library with information of various kinds. At this moment, according to its homepage, InfoNu.nl contains more than 51.000 contributions, written by more than 2000 authors, named "infoteurs".
   On February 28, 2011, the first of a series of articles, written by Hermesse James, a woman who according to her short autobiography loves secrets, oracles and solving ancient riddles, was published on InfoNu.nl. Hermesse James is especially interested in Nostradamus. Up to now, six articles she wrote about Nostradamus, were published on InfoNu.nl. This website also published articles by Hermesse James about the Templars and the shroud of Jesus Christ. 
   In her article about Nostradamus and Bin Laden, Hermesse James writes that because of copyright reasons, she is not allowed to quote the original French quatrain and that the Dutch translation of the quatrain she discusses, is "recoded", without explaining what is meant by this. In a similar way, she also presented a quatrain in which according to the the attack on the World Trade Center was predicted. The Dutch quatrain in which according to Hermesse James the death of Bin Laden is predicted, carries the number 5-33. The original French text of quatrain 05-33 reads as follows:
   
   Des principaux de cité rebellee
   Qui tiendront fort pour liberté rauoir:
   Detrencher masles, infelice meslee,
   Crys hurlemens à Nantes piteux voir (facsimile-Chomarat-2000, p.112).
   
   Actually, the quatrain upon which Hermesse James based her version, is quatrain 10-76. The original French text of this quatrain reads as follows:
   
   Le grand senat discernera la pompe,
   A l'vn qu'apres sera vaincu chassé,
   Ses adherans seron à son de trompe
   Biens publiez ennemys deschassez. (facsimile-Chomarat-2000, p.222)
   
   The Dutch translation, made in 1941 by mr. dr. H. Houwens Post, reads as follows:
   
   De groote Senaat zal den luister toekennen
   Aan iemand, die daarna zal worden overwonnen en verjaagd.
   Aanhangers zullen zij maken met bazuingeschal.
   De weldaden worden bekend gemaakt en de vijand wordt verjaagd. (vertaling-Vreede-1941, p.195).
   
   The version, presented by Hermesse James, reads as follows: 
   
   De grote Senaat ontdoet zich van haar pompeuze methoden
   om die ene te pakken waarop ze hebben gejaagd
   Zijn volgelingen zullen bij het verraad aanwezig zijn
   dat groots over de wereld zal worden aangekondigd:
   Hij is verslagen.
   
   It looks as if Hermesse James adjusted her translation of quatrain 10-76 to the death in 2011 of Bin Laden. [text]
     
3. Such an idea was already phrased in 1850 by the German Century-scholar Edouard Roesch in Die erstaunlichen Bücher des Grossen Artztes, Sehers und Schicksals-Propheten Nostradamus in’s Deutsche übertragen und dem Verständnisse aufgeschlossen. THe closing lines of a six-line verse which he wrote about the Centuries, read as follows:
    
   Denn eine lange Reih' von Vorfäll'n ist verzeichnet,
   Die man erst dann erkennt, wenn sich die Tat ereignet. [text]
    

4. In order to predict by means of astrology, I used the "minus-one-system", developed by Jan Bernard Gieles (1918-2007), a Dutch astrologer who was the editor-in-chief of the astrological magazine Sagittarius, for which I worked as a freelance cooperator for some years (see the paragraph Sagittarius and J.B. Gieles in my article Letter on quatrain 01-70, elsewhere on this website). [text]