Several days after my previous brief mention of Nostradamus, NPR broadcast a story about Mahmoud Abbas. While listening to it, I was still in a prognostication frame of mind and put together some Nostradamus writing with Mr. Abbas.
I don’t put a lot of stock in Nostradamus, but one prediction that seemed to go beyond coincidence is the use of the name “Hister” in relation to a prophesy of a certain German dictator. Nostradamus didn’t use proper names that often, so it’s not like he threw a bunch of names into his quatrains and just happened to get lucky here. He did, however, use another proper name once, allegedly in reference to his “third antichrist”: Mabus.
When listening to the story, I realized it is not much of a leap from “Mahmoud Abbas” to “M. Abbas” to “Mabus”. Foolishly thinking I might be onto something, I googled for “Mahmoud Mabus” and, naturally, got a bunch of hits from Nostradamus fanatics who figured this out a long time ago.
Unfortunately, most of these brains seem to completely ignore what Nostradamus actually wrote. While I have a more or less pluralist view of different belief systems (all belief systems, including mine, are equally useless), it bugs me when people completely ignore the rules of whatever belief system they claim to follow. If you are someone who claims to run your life by following the Anasazi Oracle, that’s great, so long as you actually follow that oracle’s rules.
What Nostradamus wrote about Mabus was this (Century II, Quatrain 62)
Mabus puis tost alors mourra, viendra,
De gens & bestes vne horrible defaite:
Puuis tout à coup la vengeance on verra,
Cent, main, soif, faim, quand courra la comete.
…which means (as translated by John Hogue):
Mabus will soon die, then will come,
A horrible undoing of people and animals,
At once one will see vengeance,
One hundred powers, thirst, famine, when the comet will pass.
This seems to be a pretty clear prediction that someone named “Mabus” will get killed, then a bunch of bad things will happen immediately after. That’s it. For some reason, however, most of the Nostradamus “scholars” out there will go on at great length about how Mabus is the third antichrist and speculate about who he is, in spite of the fact that the above prophesy says nothing of the kind. It is just as likely that the third antichrist kills Mabus. You can’t tell from this prophesy.
An entire belief system seems to have deluded itself by completely ignoring the rules of the system in which they claim to believe (rules like “pay attention to what the prophet actually said”). There have even been TV shows based on the idea that Mabus is the antichrist when there seems to be no foundation for this idea within Nostradamus’ work.
I’m sure at least one Nostradamus fanatic will point out the error of my ways. (Someone will also no doubt point out that if you hold “Mabus” up to a mirror, you get a good approximation of “Saddam”.) I’d also love to hear from anyone who has references to what people before 1900 A.D. thought Mabus meant.
In any case, if Nostradamus is to be believed and if Mahmoud Abbas really is Mabus, sounds like his impending wacking will ignite quite the powder keg. I predict it will also ignite a wave of “we told you sos” from the Nostradamus faithful and at least one TV special, probably on Fox.