This alleged prediction made by the seer Nostradamus, as well as assorted prayers for peace, became grist for cellular phone texters yesterday, hours after terrorist attacks hit the US East Coast.
Although it is uncertain whether the almost too accurate "prediction" was in fact the creation of an imaginative texter, a website of a serious Nostradamus enthusiast lists his real writings which are believed to contain references to New York City.
Nostradamus writings were contained in a total of 942 quatrains, a quatrain being a poem with four lines. One hundred quatrains would be bundled together and called centuries.
The 16th century French astrologer and seer, born Michel de Notredame (1503-1566), would intentionally write in vague and poetic phrases so as not to alarm religious authorities in his day who would burn "magicians" at the stake.
In Century VI, Quatrain 97 of his works, Nostradamus writes:
"At forty-five degrees, the sky will burn, Fire approaches the great new city, Immediately a huge, scattered flame leaps up When they want to have verification from the Norman."
Nostradamus readers believe that in this phrase, the seer refers to a city in the new world of America near forty-five degrees latitude. They agree that this could only be New York City, apparently in an event involving huge flames, not unlike the scenes of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames upon being hit by two hijacked planes diving from the sky.
Quatrain 87 from Century 1 is also quite eerie. It quotes:
"By fire he will destroy their city, A cold and cruel heart, Blood will pour, Mercy to none."
The 110-floor twin towers were host to over 400 businesses, with about 50,000 occupants, many of whom are feared buried under the rubble. Thus, one would could argue that blood poured, with mercy to no one, especially to the innocent women and children airline passengers who crashed to their deaths.
The following quatrain says:
"Earth-shaking fire from the center of the earth, will cause the towers around the New City to shake, Two great rocks for a long time will make war, And then Arethusa will color a new river red."
One could conclude that the "towers around the New City," which crumbled to the ground with an "earth-shaking fire" may indeed refer to the two tallest towers in New York City, the World Trade Center.
Believers claim it was also Nostradamus who foresaw the two earlier alleged anti-Christs — Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler.
The seer was likewise credited with predicting the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and the brothers John and Robert Kennedy, and the appointment of Pope John Paul II as head of the Catholic Church.
In the movie "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow," the Nostradamus riddle was interpreted that missiles would be hitting New York and not a few had suspected that Saddam Hussein was the third anti-Christ when the Gulf War erupted in 1990.
Did Nostradamus really predict all these, including the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York the other day, almost 500 years ago? Believers certainly think so. Check out this website: www.crystalinks.com/quatrains.html