ON THE NOSTRADAMIAN METHOD OF TRANSMITTING HIS DISCOVERY
It is indeed disconcerting for a scientist of our century to conceive that a 16th century astronomer could have discovered, by himself, three planets[1], which were the subject of very complicated calculations and required telescopes much more advanced than those of Galileo himself. And let's not forget that the telescope was invented at the beginning of the 17th century and that the Nostradamian texts were published from 1555 to 1568.
Nostradamus could neither have had the mathematical knowledge nor the instruments necessary for such discoveries.However, we have the documents before our eyes and we have never been able to dispute the authenticity of the editions where those quatrains have been published.
There remains the problem of interpretation. On this Nostradamus is quite clear: a quatrain can only have one solution. If we respect the rules of the game, we have the chance to go beyond the stage of interpretations and achieve real solutions.
But knowing the rules of the game of Nostradamian language implies long experience and a method of decryption that is adequate for the method of the prophet. To interpret is to sing by ear. Finding solutions means knowing how to read a score. Both the theoretical presentation and the practical application of such a method can be found in my works of 1976[2] and 1986[3]. There is no space to present them here.
Nostradamian thinking is of great concentration. It sometimes expresses itself with perfect clarity, at other times through figures specific to its method of occultation. In the quatrains presented here, the prophet speaks on several levels: astronomical, astrological, and mythological. The decryptor must discover for each term on which level it is located and when it must be considered on several levels at the same time. He must also show the logic of each step he takes and how this logic corresponds to the Nostradamian method and not to that of someone else’s.
A new element in these quatrains is the reactualization of the manner in which ancient astronomy personified the constellations. By linking the brightest stars with lines, geometric figures are obtained, which can be then identified with animals or fabulous, mythological beings, which can be regarded as true archetypes of our collective unconscious.
We will see how Nostradamus, in the natal charts of the three planets, will show us geometric figures formed by classical planetary "aspects" and how these figures evoke significant symbols of the respective planetary gods or of the astrological characters of these planets.
Compared to the ancient astronomers, who connected the stars by arbitrary lines, the Nostradamian process is much more logical, because it is strictly limited to the classical aspects and even of these, limited to those more exact (with an orb lower than that practiced in current astrology).
As these three quatrains form a unit, when the author suggests a symbol in the configuration of one of the three themes, it is our duty to look for whether, there are not similar cases in the other two.
This is the beauty of the Nostradamian style: this encounter between the poetic paradigms of Mythology and the scientific truths of our universe. We can look at these three quatrains as three gems of his writings. They prove five things:
1. That Nostradamus knew of the existence of these planets.
2. That he knew their distance from the Sun and their periods of revolution, without which he could not have calculated their astronomical positions a few centuries in advance.
3. That he was able to predict their day of “birth”: the days of their official discoveries.
4. That he was able to calculate with astronomical precision their natal charts.
5. That he was able to predict the names they would be given.
THE DISCOVERY OF URANUS: QUATRAIN VIII-69
Auprès du jeune le vieux Ange baisser,
Et le viendra surmonter à la fin:
Dix ans esgaux aux plus vieux rabaisser,
De trois deux, l’un huitième Séraphin.
Beside the young one the old Angel falling,
And he will come to surmount him at the end:
Ten years equal to the oldest lowering,[4]
Of three two, the one eighth Seraphim.
THE DISCOVERY OF URANUS
March 13, 1781, Greenwich, 9:10 pm (Hypothetical Hour)
Discovered by English astronomer William Herschel (1738-1822)
THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE: QUATRAIN IV-33
Jupiter joinct plus Venus[5] qu’à la Lune
Apparaissant de plénitude blanche:
Venus cachée, sous la blancheur Neptune,
De Mars frappée par la gravée[6] blanche.
Jupiter joined more to Venus then to the Moon
Appearing of white fullness:
Venus hidden under the whiteness Neptune,
Struck by Mars through the white graininess.
THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE
Night of 7-8 August, 1846, at midnight, Northumberland Observatory.
Date chosen by Nostradamus, half way between August 4 and 12, 1846, when the planet was observed by English astronomer James Challis (1803 - 1882) of Cambridge.
THE DISCOVERY OF PLUTO: QUATRAIN I-84
The following quatrain is another masterpiece of Nostradamian gnosis. The precision of clairvoyance is surpassed only by the beauty of the text (construction, rhythm, musicality, metaphor, etc.)
Lune obscurcie aux profondes ténèbres,
Son frère passé de couleur ferrugine[7],
Le grand caché longtemps sous les latèbres[8],
Tiédira fer dans la playe sanguine.[9]
Moon obscured in deep darkness [10],
Her brother passed from ferruginous color
The great one hidden for a long time under the shadows[11],
Iron will cool[12] in the bloody wound
This end-of-the-world atmosphere has always inspired the most catastrophic interpretations. No one has seen that this atmosphere is nevertheless quite appropriate to evoke the god of hell.
We have therefore calculated, the natal chart of this last planet of our solar system. The first observation was made on January 23, 1930 at Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, around 9 to 11 p.m.
In this exceptional theme, we find three geometric figures formed by planetary aspects of perfect symmetry:
a) The "Diamond" of Neptune (the planet whose disturbances allowed the calculation of the position of Pluto). Neptune is here the pole of the axis of symmetry.
b) The "Coffin" or the "cave" (latèbre) of Pluto. It is a pentagon where Pluto is the pole of symmetry. Pluto is also the point of symmetry of a triangle that it makes with its two brothers Neptune and Jupiter. These three gods had dethroned their father Saturn and then divided the universe between them.
c) Pluto's spearhead. The spear is the symbol of Pluto himself, according to Mythology. Pluto is here the head of the axis of symmetry (formed by the opposition with Mars). It is to this "iron" that the last line of the quatrain alludes. It goes from Pluto to Mars, wounding the latter by a very exact malefic aspect. This corresponds to the verse:
" Tiédira fer dans la plaie sanguine "
where "playe sanguine" is a metaphor for Mars (as above: "couleur ferrugine”).
FIG. I. - The “diamond” of Neptune.
FIG. 2. - The "coffin" or the "cave" of Pluto.
FIG. 3. - The "iron" of Pluto's spear.
But who is "the great" of whom the quatrain speaks? First of all, one must observe that this quatrain, having 24 words, its center of symmetry is precisely "the great". This suggests that this "hidden great" is the central figure of the quatrain. But "hidden" is exactly the meaning in Greek of the name "Haïdes" or "Hades", the Greek name of Pluto. (Aidès comes from "a" privative and "eido", to see, to know. So: "the invisible", "the hidden", hence the English "to hide").
The fact that it was "long under the shadows” (longtemps sous les latèbres) hints at two things: that the planet will long remain hidden in the darkness of space, and that the god Pluto has his home in the "shadows" of hell. In the figure of the "Grotto" (in the form of a coffin), Pluto is "hidden" in the darkest eternity, opposite the door (if we consider the semisextile Saturn—Mercury/Venus/Sun as an opening), also marking the axis of symmetry.
The quatrain also alludes to the two brothers, Apollo and Selene (the sun and the moon). But according to mythology, Selene was only the celestial aspect of the goddess Hecate, who had two others: on earth it was Diana and in the underworld Persephone or Proserpina. And it is to her, who is the wife of Pluto, that the quatrain alludes, because it is she who lives "in deep darkness". This also has an astronomical meaning: in the planetary chart, the Moon is below the horizon, near the bottom of the sky (IC, Imum coeli).
THE DISCOVERY OF PLUTO.
January 23, 1930, hypothetical hours: 9:00 pm (I) and 11:00 pm (II), local hours. Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, 35° 12’ N, 111° 39’ W. Date of the first photographs taken by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh (1906 – 1997).
Another correspondence between the quatrain and the Plutonian theme is made by what we are told of the "brother" of the Moon, Apollo-Sun: it will be "passed from ferruginous color" (passé de couleur ferrugine), that is to say that the Sun, which advances twice as fast as Mars, will have passed it at the time of the discovery. The Sun had, in fact, passed Mars by 14°.
It should be mentioned that Haïdes also has a Phoenician etymology. It means "plague", or "playe" of the quatrain comes from the Latin "plaga", plague. This word is also an allusion to the astronomical symbol of Pluton, symbol which is the form of the first letters of the terms Pluto, and "pl-aye" or "pl-ague":
We now wonder if, in the Plutonian chart, we are given the cycle of this planet, as we were given for the other two. We find it indeed, and with sufficient accuracy. If we consider the two lateral sides of the "Coffin" or "Grotte", we have for the left side 124° and for the right side 123°. Their sum is 247, which indicates the cycle of Pluto, estimated 247 and a half years.
CONGRUENCES BETWEEN THE THREE QUATRAINS.
As we have already said, to seek the symbolic meaning of the geometric figures formed by the planetary aspects is a process similar to that by which the ancient astronomers designated the constellations.
The Plutonian chart contains a spearhead (constructed by the aspects), precisely the mythological insignia of the respective god. We also discover a coffin or a cave, forms quite suggestive of the kingdom of the dead.
Another constant is the fact that in each chart we find the cycle of the respective planet.
By analogy with the Plutonian spearhead, we found a trident in the chart of Neptune and in the chart of Uranus, planet of explosions, just the figure of an explosion.
What's also interesting is that each of these three planets is "Master of Tensions" in its own chart.[13]
Another analogy is the fact that each of these planets is in opposition to Mars in its own chart, which is indicated both in the Neptunian quatrain and in the Plutonian one. The probability of these three oppositions occurring by chance is:
The three quatrains studied are situated, by their visionary content, by the astronomical knowledge involved, and by many other implications that we have not had the space to present here, at the level of mysterious interferences, which link man to his mythological origins, to his archetypes and to the cosmos, on which his being and his destiny seem to depend.
NOTES:
[1] From a reduced variant of the study “Nostradamus et les planètes trans-saturniennes” (Nostradamus and the Trans-Saturnian Planets) published in the journal "Atlantis'', No. 325, March 1983, Paris, pg. 205-241). For the musical and cyclological implications, cf. this study. https://www.association-atlantis.org/revue.
Patrice Guinard reviewed this article in “Atlantis”, No. 404, 2001, Paris, pg. 63. READ MORE about this in his 2003 article.
[2] Vlaicu Ionescu, Le Message de Nostradamus sur l'Ère Prolétaire [MNEP] (The Message of Nostradamus on the Proletarian Era), 1976, Dervy-Livres, Paris, France
[3] Vlaicu Ionescu, Nostradamus - L'Histoire Secrète du Monde [NHSM] (Nostradamus - The Secret History of the World),1986, Éditions du Félin, Paris, France
[4] or “reducing”
[5] Ellipse: “plus Venus” for: plus à Venus.
[6] Old French: “grave”, (dim. “gravelle”), stony ground, gravel. Metaphor: “la gravée blanche”, The Milky Way.
[7] Latin ferruginus: rust-colored, ferruginous.
[8] Latin: latebrae: dark places to hide, caves, holes, or dark cavities, hiding places.
[9] In the first editions the accents are almost completely missing. We have put the accents for: ténèbres, frère, latèbres and téidira. As for the word "passe", it can remain without accent (present indicative) or with accent (past participle) The metric need and the parallel with "obscurcie" and "caché" nevertheless impose the past participle.
[10] or “gloom”, or “hidden in deep shadows"
[11] or “hiding places”
[12] or “He will cool his sword”
[13] The “Master of Tensions”, MoT. is the planet whose sum of angles to all other planets is the greatest. The probability of a planet being MoT is 1/10, The probability that all three are MoT in their own chart is 1/1,000.