This particular Nostradamian piece comes to us originally from
Italy. Luciano Sampietro is, yet another, authority on not only Nostradamus but
– here we go again – the Green Language. Sent to me by the publishers
themselves(1) rather than being a somewhat lame Christmas gift, I found more to
like in Nostradamus: The Final Prophecies than I did in the previous
book I’ve read, The Secrets of Nostradamus. While Ovason
concentrated on things that had already “come to pass,” creating a
pedantic and not-quite exciting interpretation of the seer’s prophecies
(who wants to read about things form a prophet that has already happened, I
wonder?) regardless of his interpretation techniques, Sampietro instead
concentrates on what’s to come, which makes it world’s more
interesting. Subtitled A Revolutionary New Interpretation For Today’s
World gives that away right on the cover.
Originally written in 1999 in Europe, Souvenir Press has found it interesting enough to translate and publish on our side of the pond in 2002. Initially the discussion turns to the two precursory letters that M. Nostradamus’ prefaced his two sets of Propheties with. The one to his son Cesar and the other to King Henry of France. Taking apart the two letters with a very fine-toothed comb, Luciano immediately shows us various ways to interpret the text – and how Nostradamus would supposedly cut the text up in W. Burroughs style in order to mix up true meanings behind his words. Of particular importance is his interpretation of timelines utilizing the Liturgy mention in one of these letters, to which Luciano believes he can accurately date future happenings. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s one of the best chronological attempts of the mish-mash that is the Propheties’ timeline I’ve read thus far.
Luciano uses some exceedingly loose ways of interpretation throughout. The funniest of which is your typical word jumble style of reforming words from others. Some of these carry weight with his explanations, but others just seem silly to me. Surely I could get the prophecies to read whatever I like using some of these extremely loose methods of arrangement. I’ve even, with Luciano’s help, managed to retranslate one of Michel’s prophecies to discuss the formation of one of my soccer teams(2). So you see how easily it can be to make them read in almost whatever way you like.
Before you go off and pick this book up however, I must disclaim it for you. If you are in any way depressed, do not read this. Nostradamus’ future for all of us, according to Sampietro, is one of the bleakest, terrorizing and darkest chapters on Ragnarock style endings I have ever seen. My favorite prophecy is that the White House will be struck by a nuclear warhead in 2005 or early 2006, kicking off World War III which, by its end, will be devastating to all of humanity. Estimations of two thirds of the world’s population is utterly destroyed and the remaining third, due to radiation poisoning and general mayhem, will be having mutants born to them for years to come. Surely this is a time for Mel Gibson a’la Road Warrior to give us a hand.
But seriously…the future, according to this book, is very bleak indeed. So if you have anything to live for at all, don’t read this. I tend to walk a fine tack when thinking of the Big MN…and that’s pretty much that, sure, he may have had the gift of sight, but his writing is so far out that any interpretation can easily be truth – or bullshit. Just like they can translate the Bible into ten thousand different meanings and ideas, so can you with Nostradamus’ Propheties. But I’ll tell you one thing, I might look up to the sky a bit more than usual just in case as 2006 starts rolling in…
“Nostradamus: The Final
Prophecies”
Copyright © 1999 by Luciano Sampietro
Originally
published in Europe by Edizioni Piemme
Translated from Italian by Lowell
Fitzgerald
English translation © Souvenir Press Ltd 2002
ISBN: 0
285 63639 1
(1) Independent Publishers
Group
(2) See www.legendsmagazine.net/dragons if you’re
that curious.
