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DIANA, IN MEMORIAM
It is ten years ago precisely that Diana, The Princess of Wales died. And in memory of her life and death I thought it appropriate to include a few thoughts here on Astrolutely.com. They come in the form of a chapter in my book, Starstruck.

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The Science of Seers (Page 3 of 4)

By the way Dee's preoccupation with 'rays' extended to the notion that the rays from the planets and celestial bodies could pierce the soul. He also opined that since light could be manipulated with the use of lenses and mirrors, celestial rays could also be deflected. In this way you could ameliorate the planets in your horoscope. Have a difficult Saturn? No problem, just adjust this mirror!

Elizabeth I, Sept 7th, 1559. 3:00pm LMT, London, England.
(Click image for enlarged view)

Dee was fortunate to be living in a momentous era. When he was forty-five years old a brilliant new star appeared. And, unlike the 'star' of Bethlehem this really was a new star. It was Cassiopeia. And while this discovery shook the foundations of science - how could a star suddenly appear, then disappear, which it did roughly a year later - it certainly fuelled the belief that the heavens were in a state of turmoil, which would inevitably wreak havoc on the lives of men and nations. To John Dee the appearance of Cassiopeia was another sign of even greater things to come. In 1583 Jupiter and Saturn were to again conjoin in the sign of Pisces, which meant another nine hundred and sixty-year cycle was coming to an end. There were fears of the end of the world and at the very least the end of the Catholic Church. Certainly, it seemed many of Nostradamus's predictions were set for an unprecedented period of fulfilment. And in retrospect those fears and expectations were justified: Europe was on the threshold of the Thirty-Years War, one of the most bloody and terrible conflicts to grip the continent.

Now, if all this makes John Dee seem like a paragon of intellectual respectability, read on. Dr Dee was fascinated by the occult, the mysterious and the divine. To this end he spent much of his time trying to fathom the secrets of life and the universe. In his quest for truth and enlightenment he was aided by a very strange, mercurial individual called, Edward Kelly. Reading all the documentary evidence of the life and times of John Dee it seems he fell completely under the spell of this near-lunatic skryer, Edward Kelly. While Dee, consulted planetary Ephemerides, observed the heavens and cast his horoscopes Kelly peered into a crystal ball and summoned various angels and spirits. This motley crew caused more trouble for the two of them than all the political spin-doctors at court put together and much of the information supplied by the Archangels Michael and Uriel and the spirit, Madimi, seems to owe more to the rambling mind of Edward Kelly than anything remotely sent from heaven.

Dee and his aide-de-camp, Kelly, spent four long, arduous years putting together an angelic language and cosmology supplied by their visiting angels. Sadly, little of this remains because Dee was ordered by another spirit to burn all twenty-eight volumes, which he duly did.

In many ways, Dee was a more eccentric and controversial figure than Nostradamus. Yet the legacy he left us in terms of his mystical journey and pioneering scientific theories was huge. By the Nineteenth Century he was considered the English Nostradamus, the founder of The Rosicrucian movement and the inspiration for The Golden Dawn. However, he died a broken man, long forgotten by Court and his reputation in shreds. Nostradamus, on the other hand died, his renown in tact, mourned by the many and leaving an extensive fortune.

Of all the many interesting features of the life and work of these two contemporary astrologers, how they made their predictions has to be near the top of the list. It is clear that neither of them relied upon astrology alone: they depended upon psychic agents, in Dee's case, crystals and the skryer, Kelly, and in Nostradamus's case, clairvoyance and clair-audience inspired by peering into a vessel of water. And I would say that the same is true today. You need more than an ephemeris and an astrological cook book to make a prediction.

When Nostradamus committed his prophecies to print he made it clear that they covered the span of many centuries - right up until 3797 to be precise - yet only a handful of quatrains deliver a clear date and, as mentioned earlier, the predictions were not assembled in chronological or thematic order. Thus, he made it deliberately difficult for interpreters to fathom his visions. The dates he does give and the astrological markers he provides - for astrological configurations are a clear way of establishing specific periods of time - confuse rather than clarify:

L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois		The year 1999 Seven month

Du ciel veiendra un Grand Roy Deffrayeur		From the sky will come a great King of Terror,

Resusciter le grand Roy D'Angle-Mois,		(who) will resurrect the great King of the Mongols,

Auant apres Mars regner par Bonheur		Before and after War reigns happily.

		Centuries 10 Q: 72

Now, this is quite specific: July, 1999. However, by the end of July 1999, no great sign had been seen in the sky and no great king or leader had been brought back to the land of the living.

Likewise, "Saturn and Mars in Leo, Spain occupied" (Centuries 5: Q 14) Spain can only be said to have been occupied once since Nostradamus wrote his Centuries and that was during the Penninsular War of 1807/8. However, Saturn was in Scorpio then so this remains a quatrain to be fulfilled in the future. Mars has an eighteen-month cycle, while Saturn has a twenty-eight-year cycle so technically these two planets will come together in Leo every twenty-seven to thirty years. The next time they are set to conjoin in Leo is in 2006, although at this point in time it does seem unlikely that sunny Spain will be occupied by anyone other than its own people and its usually welcome visitors.

However, here is another quatrain that remains unfulfilled:

De la felice Arabe contrade		From the rich Arab region

Naistra puissant de loy mahom-Etique		will be born one powerful in the laws of Mohammed

Vexer l'Espaigne, conquester Granada		it/he will vex Spain and take over Granada

Et plus de mer a la gent Lygustique		And more, by sea, the Ligurian people and the Adriatic.

		Centuries 5 Q: 55

This adds some fuel to the fire of speculation that Spain could be occupied, not necessarily by an Arab leader but by the 'law' of Mohammed. Liguria, by the way, means Italy - the Ligurians came from the area around Genoa. And it's not completely out of the question that given enough time Islam, as a religion - and, of course it is a law too - could spread across southern Europe via Spain and Italy.

L'Oriental sortira de son siege,		The Man from the East will leave his base,

Passer les monts, Appenis voir La Gaul		He will pass the Appenine Mountains to see France

Transpercera ciel, les eaux & Neige		will cross the sky, the waters and the snow,

Et chascun frappera de sa gaule		And strike everyone with his rod.

		Centuries 2 Q: 29

Here we almost certainly have the same powerful Arab leader referred to in the previous quatrain leaving his home-land, his base, and coming into Europe. And since Nostradamus uses the phrase crosses the skies indicating flight, which, of course, was not possible in those days it is clearly a quatrain that refers to the Twentieth Century and beyond.. Striking everyone with his rod could imply that this powerful leader is bent on killing everyone with some kind of nuclear device but there is another interpretation - that he could communicate with everyone over the air-waves, thereby spreading his message far and wide.

Certainly, from the vast amount of references to the East in the quatrains, Nostradamus is in no doubt that Christendom (the West) will be threatened, if not beaten into submission, by an individual from the Arab world and by Islam.

Not only does he give us many quatrains about the rise and rise of Muslim power but there are countless predictions about the collapse of the Catholic Church. Some of the many quatrains about the fall of the Holy See could be seen as the triumph of Protestantism over Catholicism in England - which happened a matter of years after his death when Elizabeth I succeeded Mary, but some of the predictions about the end of the Papacy have simply not yet been fulfilled.

Par la puissance des trois Roys temporelz		By the power of the three temporal Kings

En autre lieu sera mis le saint Seige		The Holy See will be placed elsewhere:

Ou la substance de l'esprit corporel		where the substance of the material spirit,

Sera remys et receu pour vray siege		*will be replaced and received as the true see.*

		Centuries 8 Q: 99

Le Prince Arabe, Mars, Sol, Venus, Lyon		The Arab prince, Mars, sun, Venus, Leo

Regne d'Eglise par mer succombera:		The reign of the Church will end by sea

Deurs la Perse bien pres d'un million,		Toward Persia very close to a million

Bisance, Egypte, ver. Serp inuadera		will invade Turkey and Egypt ,the true serpent

		Centuries 5 Q: 25

Both these quatrains suggest that the Holy See will either be removed or eradicated by forces from the East. This may not be immediately apparent in the first quatrain. However, that phrase - Roys temporelz begs closer examination. We know Nostradamus delighted in anagrams and we have an interesting one here - switched around these letters create Roys en petrols - kings of petrol ergo oil kings. Thus, taking these two quatrains together Nostradamus could be suggesting that the rulers of the various oil states in the Middle East unite - and since he mentions three, we may be talking about Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran - and with their combined military power take over the near East and Europe. Clearly, once Islam is established in Italy, there can be no place for the Pope as well!

Once again we have an astrological reference to work with - the sun, Mars and Venus in Leo. The most recent period that these three were all to be found together in Leo was in July and August 1987, some three years before the start of the Gulf War and they will be together again in July/August 2006 and August 2015. A rather more interesting interpretation of this astrological mix is made by the Italian translator, Luciano Sampietro. He has a bee in his bonnet about the identity of the third Antichrist and his primary candidate is the Syrian President, Bashar Al Assad. Sampietro discovered that the word assad means lion, therefore he translates this quatrain in this way: "The Arab leader bearing the name, Lion, when Mars, the sun and Venus are all in the same sign (2006) will destroy the kingdom of the Church from sea: in the meantime, from the Iranian front with almost one million men he will invade Turkey and Egypt in the name of the serpent." Of course, these astrological pointers could be informing us of the Arab Prince himself, a man with the sun, Venus and Mars in Leo...

Sampietro makes a stronger case for Syria's president playing an Anti-Christian role in one of the quatrains that I mentioned earlier - that very clearly dated prediction about the King of the Mongols being brought back to life. Sampietro suggests that we do not translate the first line as in the year 1999, the seventh month but in the year 1999 and seven months. In other words, July 2000. A great King of Terror then carries a double meaning, not only the Anti-Christ himself but a sign in the sky, a total eclipse, no less. Sampietro takes as his guide here a statement by Nostradamus in a letter to King Henry II that preceded the last volume of the Centuries. In this letter Nostradamus states that before the Antichrist comes to power there will - precede a solar eclipse, the darkest and most tenebrous that has ever been since the creation of the world up to the death and the passion of Jesus Christ." The last total eclipse of the last millennia took place on August 11th 1999 and it was indeed a daunting experience. A whole swathe of the globe was plunged into eerie and unnatural darkness as the moon passed in front of the sun. And as all good astrologers know an eclipse is active way before its moment of exactitude and some time after. On 17 July 2000, within hours of a total lunar eclipse and close on the heels of a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, Bashir Al Assid was inaugurated as Syria's president and given seven-year mandate at the highest level of power.

Nostradamus uses many names for the Antichrist - Aenobarbe, Mabus, Sabim, La Perse and Alus among them. And while other interpreters have endeavoured to make Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden out of these names, I do not think they can be said to have been successful. Sampietro, throws in Bush for good measure - an interpretation of Mabus (BUSh the AMerican) and Sabim - but much as this may delight the Democrats it doesn't come anywhere near as close as some of the other anagrams Nostradamus has used, like Napoleon, Roi and Hitler.

Sampietro claims to have decoded Nostradamus and worked out the secret behind the dates mentioned in the quatrains. I'd say the jury was still out here, especially as some of his time-lines have already been proved wrong. However, Sampietro was stunningly right about one quatrain and Nostradamus astonishingly correct:

Ennosigee feu du centra de terre		Sea of fire at the World Centre,

Fera trembler au tour de cite neufe:		will make tremble the tower of the new city:

Deux grands rochiers long temps feront la guerre		Two great rocks will be at war for a long time,

Then Arethuse rougira nouveau Fleuue		Then Arethusa will redden a new river.

		Centuries 1 Q: 87

In Nostradamus-speak the new city is universally held to be New York and this quatrain is quite graphic in its depiction of the Towers of the World Trade Centre being shaken and, of course, this event marked the beginning of what has become known as the War on Terror, although as far as Nostradamus is concerned this event precipitates the Third World War. Arethusa, by the way, was a nymph who while diving in the waters of a river was attacked by an evil entity living there. She appealed to Diana, who transformed her into a pure spring. It may be that Nostradamus is adding some imagery here to denote that this act of terror will precipitate more blood.

The Science Of Seers

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