The Magic of Nostradamus

In one of his excellent articles on the subject, “Nostradamian” Charles A. Ward stated that Nostradamus indeed genuinely believed to be endowed with a faculty of divination. And at the end of the sixth Century the reader will find four Latin lines headed “Legis Cantio Contra Ineptos Criticos”, or “An Incantation Against Inept Criticism”.

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“Let those who read these verses meditate them seriously,” Nostradamus says here. “Let the profane and ignorant vulgar not handle them!” – Astrologers, together with “fools and savages” (sic!) have to stand off… And he who acts contrary to this statement, will be “cursed according to the rites of magic”.

Where it concerns the quatrains of Nostradamus, magic is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end of it all. In the first quatrains of Century I he offers us a glimpse of his “modus operandi”:

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At night, studying alone in a secret place,

sitting on the brass tripod stool,

a tiny flame comes out of the solitude

with prophecies that may be believed.

Sitting on a hard seat and working by night, Nostradamus can both fight off drowsiness and keep the spirit receptive. The tiny flame is the one which descended at Pentecost on the head of the apostles, symbolizing the Holy Spirit… or divine inspiration.

With the divining rod in the hand at the heart of the tree,

with a wave shaping the fringes and the feet,

and a voice which makes me fear and quake in my sleeves

because God, in divine splendour, is near.

With a wand, a branch – which is also the doctor’s symbol, the caduceus of Mercury -, in other words: with a divining rod of laurel, forked like the winchel rod used by of the water-finders, and with one fork in each hand, Nostradamus has the power to evoke the messages of God. Sitting in the quiet writing room at the top of his house in Salon de Provence, seated on the brass tripod of the prophet, he is ready to receive inspiration. He uses the metaphor of the tree of life, into which he climbs to dowse for water – or for words, shaped into “the fringes and the feet” of his verses. 

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The “wave” both refers to water and to his words, as the “fringes and the feet” both are referring to his verses and his own body. Indeed, in the brazier that holds the water, he will also moisten himself and the fringe of his robe and feet. The rod thus becomes electrical, and makes him hear voices, makes him shuddering with fear, up to the elbows… because the summoned Deity, in its divine light, now is very near.

Instead of “heart of the tree”, some interpreters have read the “Branches” in the original verse of Nostradamus as an allusion to the pagan rite of the god Branchus – but this is much to far fetched for Charles A. Ward. There is a Greek myth about Branchus, begotten by Apollo. His mother dreamed that the sun entered her mouth and, passing through her, she gave the child at birth the name “Branchus”, meaning “the throat”. Branchus kissed Apollo and became endowed with the gift of prophecy. He had a temple at Didyma, also dedicated to Apollo, and the oracles at Didyma were inferior to none but Delphi. The name “Didymean” meant “double” and stood for the double light of the sun and the moon. In Branchus, sun-touched and moon-struck madness and inspiration were said to meet, as out of one throat also came good and evil words.

Interpreters of Nostradamus such as Le Pelletier have said that Nostradamus, with the wand in his hand, touched the branches of the tripod as the priests of Branchus once did. He then invoked his familiar spirit, which appeared in the vapour floating above a bassin of water, consecrated according to the prescribed magical rites. In this water he dipped the fringe of his garments and his feet, while an involuntary shiver agitated his hand and caused him to write down the dictations of the spirit voices. Other scholars have said that the rod is a pen, held in the middle of the branches – or fingers -, and the water is the ink. Wetting limb and feet then means: covering the paper all but the four margins.

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