THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS, Manly P. Hall.

9.  THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS
Eleven years after Columbus reached our shores, an extraordinary man was born in France.
In adult life he was both a respected physician and a mystic who was able
to write accurately the history of the world to come. ... There was no indication at the time
that in the Western Hemisphere would arise a great nation,
but Dr. Michel Nostradamus saw a civilization established there
that would observe (always on a Thursday) a day to express thanksgiving
for freedom of religion, freedom of opportunity, and freedom of life. ...
He prophesied that this nation would free itself from the bonds of the mother country,
would greatly prosper, but would have to fight several wars--one with the Orient--
before becoming a great power in a pattern of world peace,
with other nations looking to it for leadership. ...
All that he foretold is precisely according to the Platonic tradition.

HISTORIES are generally written about the men who prominently influence the events that make history;  little is written--though it might be of greater interest--about those shadowy figures who seem always to stand behind the men who make history.

Michel Nostradamus, seer of France, is among the most extraordinary of such men; born in 1503, and possessed of some inner source of knowledge beyond the reach of ordinary mortals, he wrote the history of the world to come !

Two hundred years later, the celebrated Illuminist and Rosicrucian, the Comte de St. Germain, remarked to his close friend, Prince Carl of Hesse-Cassel, that he was the one who had assisted Nostradamus in the calculation of his remarkable predictions.

All this is far too shadowy for sober historians, although a number have spent considerable time and developed numerous headaches trying to trace the life of the illusive Comte, who was called by Frederick the Great, "The man who does not die."

Nostradamus was a respected physician, a man of outstanding medical accomplishments.  Few details of his life are available, but from the context of his manuscripts, his epistles to the King of France, and his letters to his own son, it is evident that he too belonged to the Order of the Quest.  Mystic, philosopher, astrologer, alchemist, and cabalist, Nostradamus was versed in all the secret lore disclosed only to those who have bound themselves with the oath of the brotherhood.

The prophecies of Nostradamus might have come entirely as revelations of the spirit;  but it is equally possible that in his quaint old doggerel verses he included part of the plan of things to come as already well set in the minds and purposes of his brother initiates.

The first edition of the Prophecies of Nostradamus was published in 1660.  At that time the Americas were still the happy hunting ground of Spanish adventurers.  There was no indication that in the Western Hemisphere would arise a great nation.  Yet Nostradamus writes at sufficient length of the future state of America to indicate an extraordinary knowledge.

The old seer refers to this country under several names.  He calls it the Hisparides, the Blessed Isles of the West.  In another place he simply names it America.  And his third designation of it is, the Land Which Keeps the Thursday.

This last form is the most astonishing.  For it refers to the unique American holiday, Thanksgiving, which always falls upon a Thursday.  And this the only holiday which depends upon the day alone for its observance, and is peculiarly the American holiday which expresses thankfulness for freedom of religion, freedom of opportunity, and freedom of life.

To summarize the opinions of Nostradamus concerning the future destiny of Western civilization is difficult, because of the involved idiom of the original text.  But he points out clearly certain things that will happen.  He saw that a great civilization would rise in the western world.  This civilization would free itself from the bonds to its mother country, and then assume a free place among the temporal powers.  The new country would flourish and extend its domain across the entire continent.  It would grow rich and powerful, he predicted, and live at peace with its sister, (Canada).  He said that America would have to fight several wars, including one with the Orient.  This conflict he describes as an eagle flying against the rising sun, and in his day neither the eagle nor the rising sun had significance of the slightest importance in the symbolism of nations.

Fulfilling its destiny, Nostradamus foretold that America would become a great power in a pattern of world peace and would be looked up to by other nations for leadership against the common evils of the time.  In short, as Nostradamus foretells the story of the Blessed Isles it is precisely according to the Platonic tradition;  and we can not but wonder if he was a party to that tradition, and knew exactly whereof he spoke.

Whether the 16th Century physician of France had his visions from within himself, or whether he merely wrote down what was given to him by another, we can never know.  Conventional thinkers, doubting such prophetic powers, incline toward the second alternative.  And that will leave them scarcely less comfortable of mind, for the existence of this secret brotherhood plan is then virtually admitted.

Nostradamus is not the only prophet who sensed or knew the future of western empire.  There was Dr. Ebenezar Sibly, who flourished in England about the close of the 18th Century.  It is reported that Sibly had a shrewish wife and it was to escape her tongue that he retired to a garret of his house to ponder the mysteries of the Universe, his meals being passed to him through a hole in the door.  Dr. Sibly divided his time between an infallible elixir which, if dissolved in wine, would dissolve all human ills, and the writing of long books dealing with astrology, physiology, and anatomy.

In his day, the American republic was in its infancy; and brilliant politicians on the floor of the House of Commons were predicting that the rebellious colonies would soon be begging on bended knee to be restored to the British commonwealth.  Sibly, though a stout Britisher, expressed his regrets that he had to point out that, in one detail at least, an astrologer in his garret would prove wiser than the best politicians in Europe, for sad to relate, the American colonies would not come home--the stars decreed otherwise.  Not only would they remain outside the fold, he said, but they would grow rich and powerful;  extending themselves across their continent, Americans would build great cities and develop world trade and industry.  And, one day--horrible thought!--they would be stronger than the mother country !  And this was the truth that must be spoken, if only through a hole in a garret door.

It should be remembered that among the ancients, astrology was one of the sciences of government.  The prognostic aspect of the subject was not the main interest in the minds of such men as Pythagoras and Plato;  these philosophers saw in the motion of the heavenly bodies and the order of the cosmos a great pattern of natural laws.  The Universe was a celestial empire populated with planets, and suns, and moons, in a heavenly arrangement which was a clue to the proper distribution of human affairs.  The State, they advocated, should be patterned after the Cosmos.  Governments of men should be in harmony with the larger government of the world.

Many old astrological books indicate clearly that planetary symbols were used to represent the elements of a political system, and that the astrologers themselves were part of the Order of the Quest.  Beneath the cloak of professional astrologers, they were counselors advising kings and princes to establish better laws and rule their peoples more wisely.

Nostradamus was consulted by three kings.  Europe's most powerful Queen, Catherine de Medici, also consulted him on numerous occasions.  His advice was always temperate and directed toward the public good.  His scholarship gave a perspective on political problems that was beyond the scope of the professions of statescraft.

All the petty princes of Europe in medieval times had their Merlins, wise old men who in many instances were the actual rulers of the State.  It is obvious that if these counselors Were bound together by some common purpose their collective power would be considerable.  And they were bound together, in the secret society of unknown philosophers, moving the crowns of Europe as on a mighty chess board.  Men of this calibre bring about the mutations of empire.  It is the general opinion that revolutions begin with the common people, but this is not true;  the benevolently informed always guide and direct public opinion.

Through the centuries the prophesies of Nostradamus have continued to exercise a powerful force on the political destiny of the world.  They have been translated into most of the languages of Europe;  they were frequently quoted and reprinted during the period of the First World War; and in the Second World War both the Axis and the Allied powers have quoted Nostradamus variously to serve their purposes.

It is in the larger picture of the world's future that Nostradamus indicates the coming of the great league, or assembly of world powers.  This league is to be the only human hope of peace, the only solution to a competition between nations.  The formation of this league begins the new life of the human race, will allow the human being at last to emerge into the estate for which he was fashioned.

Barbarism ends with the beginning of world civilization.  To be civilized, according to Cicero, is to reach that state of personal and collective behavior in which men can live together harmoniously and constructively, united for the betterment of all.  By this definition, we have never been civilized.  We have existed in a state of cultured savagery.

The promise of Nostradamus is especially meaningful in these difficult years; for he assures us that the commonwealth of nations is to become a reality.

Source: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/secret_destinyamerica/secret_destinyamerica02.htm#9.  THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS