Scary
Posted on August 31, 2003 in Fact-Dropping Myths & Mysticism
Skeptical Enquirer revealed in its September/October issue that Yahoo Buzz searches for Nostradamus topped out at 3000 three days after 11 September 2001. Searches for “Osama Bin Laden” peaked at around 800 on the 13th. “Sex” experienced a modest rise to the neighborhood of 600 on the 15th which happened to be Saturday night.
Researchers discovered that they could convince people that Nostradamus predicted world events even if they took words and phrases and scrambled them! See if you can spot the real Nostradamus vs. the faked one:
The two nephews brought up in diverse places,
Naval battle, land, fathers fallen,
They will come to be elevated very high in making war.
To avenge the injury, enemies succumbed.
Through long war all the army exhausted,
Too great a faith will betray a monarch,
Instead of gold or silver, they will come to coin leather,
To avenge the injury, enemies succumbed.
Perhaps you care to hazard what events these prophecize?
I think the interest in Nostradamus after 9-11 signaled two distinct phenomenon: first, fear of uncertainty. 9-11 brought out conservative-type dread of attack. Years of brainwashing by Fundamentalist super-sects had conditioned them to seek signs of the “Last Days.” People turned to vague, nonbiblical prophecy to see if they should run to confession or declare their love for Jesus. After all, our intelligence agencies had failed to see this coming (which actually was not true — only the man at the top and the Attorney General ignored the reports that something was up) and there was plenty of “evidence” (stretched to fit the frame) that Nostradamus had been “right” in the past.
Second, a certain arrogance figured in. “Oh,” Americans said to themselves. “A Muslim. We already know about Muslims.” There was a different kind of addiction to certainty here wherein web surfers did not seek to test their presumptions about the man and the religion he purported to represent. Nostradamus let them have whatever flavor of Muslim suited them. They let them feel like someone who wasn’t a government official had the “real handle” on the situation.
We’re a nation which moves not when we have thought things through, but when things happen and when our leaders tell us what we want to hear to be able to go along with abridgements of the Constitution and war. Nostradamus suits many of us as “information” because of his built-in elastic allusions. The question is when will we stop being the victims of history? When will we ask for the full facts before we act instead of hiding our embarassment at not seeing things coming? When we will choose the real and available information in preference to strange verses which many have given a place alongside the Bible? When are we going to stop looking for Armagaeddon? When are we going to stop making mystical charlatantry a secular religion? When are we going to prepare our nation not for the Second Coming, but for our descendants who will be living in the 22nd Century?
