Nostradamus: 2012 (Another DVD Giveaway)
~By Bill Stone~
Is it the end of violence, or a violent end?
That’s the question asked by the History Channel’s special called ‘Nostradamus: 2012’. When the prospect of reviewing this thing for A&E Home Video came to me, I had to ask myself, “What the hell does Nostradamus have to do with the Year 2012?” After all, it wasn’t Nostradamus, but the Myans that predicted that something big was going to go down that year. Lemme rephrase that… The Myans predicted NOTHING would go down in 2012. Their calendar ends on December 21, 2012. MANY people believe that that day marks the end of time.
In case you didn’t know, although the Myans didn’t have the technology to make telescopes or anything, they were experts at using the stars for timekeeping. Hundreds of years before our so-called civilized societies, they’ve not only predicted EVERY SINGLE lunar AND solar eclipse, but they’ve used the stars to calculate the exact length of a year up to a thousandth of a decimal point. They had the galactic equinox, and the center of The Milky Way all mapped out for us WAY before we even got here.
That’s just astronomy. Astrology is something altogether different. It seems that they knew all about that stuff as well, and they were DISTURBINGLY accurate. They predicted when their own civilization would end. Some say that they predicted both world wars. They predicted the astronomical phenomenon called “Galactic Alignment” where The Sun will align perfectly with the center of The Milky Way Galaxy. It happens only once every 26 THOUSAND years. Apparently it’s going to go down on December 21, 2012. The FINAL day of their calendar.
Some say that that date will mark the end to all violence in the world, we will finally have peace, and it will be a new beginning for all of us. Others say it will be our doom.
I’m going to lay out the whole science aspect for you real quick since it wasn’t covered in the DVD, and because I really dig this stuff.
The science of the whole thing is sound. It’s all about the destructive gravitational influence of the black hole at the center of The Milky Way. Because of the black hole, the galaxy is flat and round. It sits on what is called the ‘Galactic Plane’, ‘Gravitational Disc’ or ‘Galactic Equator’. It’s believed to be 
paper thin, and the closer the Earth gets to it, the more unstable our environment will become. Volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters will be more frequent, and more severe. The effects MAY have already begun. Let’s not forget the “Galactic Plane’s” effect on other objects in space. Some orbits will be changed. Smaller celestial objects will be sent off in who knows what direction like missiles guaranteed to destroy anything that gets in their way. When the Galactic Alignment happens, the earth will cross the densest part of the ‘Galactic Plane’. IF all the current data is correct, it will take the Earth a few years to cross it, and the gravitational forces that the earth is subjected to during that short time period will create Hell on Earth.
That whole science part wasn’t in the DVD, and it ain’t no prediction. It’s physics.
So the question is, why didn’t the Myans go any farther in time beyond the Galactic Alignment? Apparently they knew what they were doing, prediction wise, so maybe the end of their calendar IS cause for alarm.
Tryin’ to think… I don’t feel like looking it up. What happened 26,000 years ago, the LAST time this happened? And the time before that?
About Nostradamus…
The thing with Nostradamus, he predicted EVERYTHING! It’s unfortunate that nobody knows what he predicted until AFTER it actually happens. When it happens, all the scholars say “You know… He predicted this”.
World War 1? He predicted it.
The Antichrists? Oh yeah.
World war 2? Yup
JFK assassination? He not only predicted it, but some say he predicted that Oswald was actually innocent.
9-11? Everyone said he knew about that too.
Tsunami? Sure!
EVERYTHING… but unfortunately, they were all predicted after the fact by interpreters and translators.
This is the problem with Nostradamus. He lived in an era of religious persecution where predicting the future could get him killed by the church. Because of this, he wrote everything as riddles in the form of four line poems called “Quatrains”. Now, 500 years after he died, we’re still trying to figure out and decipher his bullshit. It isn’t until after a disaster happens where someone says, “hey, if you read this quatrain he wrote, you can see how he predicted this thing.” They twist his quatrain to make it mean what THEY want it to mean.
That’s why he’s connected with the 2012 thing. It’s big in the news because that day is approaching quickly. Even Roland Emmerich is making a movie about it guaranteed to fill seats, and drop IQ points. Might as well throw Nostradamus into the mix and see if it sticks.
I’m not saying he’s a fake. There are some quatrains that are uncannily accurate. I’m just saying that people try too hard to connect that which has no connection, and they do it WAY TOO LATE.
Did Nostradamus predict the Alignment of 2012? I suppose it’s possible, but even after I watched the DVD, I really have no idea. Just like all of the other people who claim he predicted things, this video attempts to make it convincing, and interesting.
Can’t say whether it succeeds on the convincing part, but it was definitely interesting. I enjoyed it.
I have to say this though…
If we’re still here, and the world hasn’t ended, or at least started to end by December 22, 2012, I don’t want to hear another end of the world prediction EVER again. I’m tired of getting my hopes up.
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Oh, and stick around. I got Volume 1 of the third season of Monster Quest to give away pretty soon too!
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I’m not up on my Nostradamus, but one thing I recall about the Mayan “Doomsday” is that, according to their predictions, the *age* would end with water. I remember that being referenced on the History Channel a few years ago. So, there’s nothing really saying that the world will end or a great tragedy would strike (necessarily), but that one era would be replaced by another, brought about by water. The global warming scare and the ice caps melting are rather curious when taken into consideration with this.
Also, as for the reference to events every 26,000 years: that’s how long it takes the earth to complete its wobble, known as conical precession. The wobble comes from Earth not being a perfect sphere and being simultaneously tugged on by the gravity of the sun and the moon. One of the side-effects of this is a gradual change in the zodiac, which was originally established by the Babylonians a few thousand years ago. For example, instead of Aries having his place on the Spring Equinox, it is currently Aquarius, making this the Age of Aquarius (which, ironically, has everything to do with water).
Apart from that, and despite my passion for astronomy, I found myself a little lost regarding the Galactic Equinox as I can’t find any reference to that *outside* of articles and books written specifically about 2012. Our solar system resides rather far away from the center of the Milky Way and the supermassive black hole there, us being nestled quite happily in one of the spiral arms. We are not in much of a position to fall into a catastrophic allignment with the black hole for, unless the galaxy should suddenly collapse, we are a plenty safe enough distance away for it to not have any effect whatsoever on our planet. The galaxy does rotate, as spiral galaxies are wont to do, but I would imagine that our proximity to other *stars* would have more of an effect than our distant friend: the black hole. Also, the rotation of the galaxy is much, much, much, much slower than 26,000 years, and I thought it amusingly coincidental that such a span of time happened to be the same length of the conical precession. The actual orbital period of our Sun (and ergo solar system) around the core of the Milky Way, once all the math is factored in, is approximately 230 million years…which is quite a significant difference.
So, if the Mayas were making predictions in thousands of years as opposed to millions (which is more likely), it was Earth’s wobble that was a deciding factor moreso than the galaxy itself. And, the matter of the alignment with the supermassive black hole, given that it’s the very core of the galaxy, we’re always at some level of “alignment” no matter what our position would happen to be.
I think deciding what Nostradamus “predicted” after the fact is akin to seeing Christ in a piece of toast– People are seeing what they want to see. (Sometimes out of a need to make sense out of things, to rationalize them.) ‘nough said.
What I really want to know is… When can I stop paying bills and just have fun becuase the world is gonna end? 😉
Hello views http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzBATjFs_yg
YAY! RENA WINS!!!!!
Hi,
I am trying to research what happened 26,000 years ago and happened across your site. That led me to this particular loop of posts. Someone please tell Rena that Aquarius is an AIR sign. Pisces, Cancer, & Scorpio are the only water signs. I know science and I know astrology. A lot of “science” people make this mistake w/Aquarius. It’s not a big deal but before it goes any farther into other “unknown’s minds” I just thought I would add my two cents.
To first state my bias I have to admit that I do not hold any beliefs in the Nostradamus predictions or the Mayan calendar. You can get deep into the hermeneutics of any predictions or prophesies and make them fit whatever cause that you are trying to advance. Remember that there are people who take ANY reference of herbs in the Bible as legitimizing the recreational use of marijuana. I’ve read through the entire Bible more than once, and as far as I can tell there is never one specific mention of marijuana or any encouragement of recreational drug use. If you want to believe something or to justify it, then you are going to use any means necessary to show everybody else that you are right.
Right now I predict that there will be at least five more major catastrophes that someone will claim that Nostradamus predicted. “Something” will happen in December 2012 that someone will claim validates the end of the Mayan calendar even when the world does not end or planetary-black hole alignment chaos does not ensue. Somehow, somebody is going to justify the Mayan calendar and everyone of Nostradamus’s predictions. Why? It’s because they want to, and they already believe that they are divine prophesy.
Sure, it’s fun to play around with the Mayan and Nostradamus stuff, but I have to admit that I will not miss any more Mayan claims when we enter 2013. The Nostradamus stuff will probably be around forever. It’s too bad that so many are so eager to believe in these prophesies and not look to science for answers. Believe me if there was any kind of scientific basis for the end of the world and people actually knew it, our world would be a very different place.