It's The End Of the World - then again maybe not

Once again it look likes it the end of the world is coming. And it is also the birthday of Nostradamus, well truthfully no one knows for sure if it was December 14th or December 21st. Whoa...December 21st? Nostradamus's birthday could be on the day the world ends? Who could have ever imagined that?

Well if the world doesn't end and Nostradamus was still alive -then he would be 510 years old. Amazingly his books of prophesies have never been out of print. No matter how bright the light of skepticism and logic shines every generation rediscovers the dark mystical and seductive idea that the future can be seen before it happens. It's always been a good premise in fiction, from the myth of Cassandra to Phillip K Dick's story The Minority Report, though knowing the future doesn't seem to change the results.

The last time I remember Nostradamus being a popular topic was at a college New Year's Party a couple of years after the release of Al Steward's album Past, Present and Future, which featured the 10 minute ballad of Nostradamus. The song was too long for commercial radio stations but it became clandestinely popular with those who wanted a cosmic connection to the world. The hosts of the party were new age people, happy to be alive and see the end of the Age of Pisces; the future promised to be something better. There was a discussion on how Nostradamus would meditate while staring into a shallow bowl of water to see his visions and sometime after midnight each of us at the party tried our hand at it. As far as I can recall our predictions were silly, pretentious and of course totally wrong.

No one invented anti-gravity shoes, wars are still fought and everybody didn't covert over to solar energy. There's always the strong prejudice to predict the world you would like to see. Atheists don't predict the second coming of Christ, Muammar Gaddafi was planning on having a huge 70th birthday blow out in 2012 and Ann Romney wanted to find out what the White House would look like with red velvet curtains. The future is a tricky business -or as one old gambler said you never know if you picked the winning horse until after the race is over.

I believe there was a Victorian politician who said if you want to control the world all you have to do is know God's mind for the next fifty years. A century ago the world's superpower was England. English engineering, fashion and institutions were what the world aspired towards. If you ever wondered why the Japanese drive on the left -it's because they thought the English would endure and America would eventually fade away.

So somewhere in the mumbled and sublimely vague quatrains of Nostradamus people look backwards into history to marvel how he got things right. Others can argue that it's so much wishful thinking of partisans editing the words to fit the facts. I fell pretty secure the world will not end this Friday because Nostradamus had predictions that ran right up to 2016. So we'll soon find out if who's right Nostradamus or the Mayans.

Hey -does anybody remember Jeane Dixon? In the 1960's she was the toast of the psychic world. The Age of Aquarius was coming, the Pentagon was studying psychic warfare and on May 13th 1956 Jeane Dixon predicted that whoever was elected President in 1960 would die in office.

When Kennedy was assassinated everybody remembered Jeane Dixon, though they forgot that she predicted Nixon was going to win or that the Russians would be the first on the Moon. The term "the Jeane Dixon Effect" was coined, where a couple of correct predictions could over shadow a whole bunch of wrong ones.

Long before Jeane Dixon's revelation -Robert Ripley, the creator of Ripley's Believe It or Not, wrote about the the coincidental pattern of Presidental deaths. In 1934 Robert Ripley noticed since 1840 that President William Harrison and every President elected five terms later (twenty years) died in office. Robert Ripley left a line of question marks for 1940. FDR was re-elected in 1940 and died in office in 1945. I don't think it was a big stretch for Jeane Dixon to think history was going to repeat itself again in 1960.

One of these men is the Amazing Kreskin and the other Amazing Criswell. If you said Kreskin on the left and Criswell on the right -then good for you.

Come this New Year's Eve you might again see the Amazing Kerskin give his predictions for 2013 on CNN. The Amazing Kreskin never promoted himself as having paranormal powers but has always been a showman and a "mentalist".  


The Amazing Criswell ... well he is amazing. Once long time friend of Ed Wood -yes that Ed Wood, Criswell starred in world's most notorious grade Z movie, Plan 9 From Outer Space. So after the after the countdown of 2012 and 2013 begins, it might be the perfect time to read a few select passages from Criswell Predicts From Now To The Year 2000 !  -And if that's enough campy fun to start 2013 with then rent Plan 9 From Outer Space -or if you can, get a copy of Orgy Of The Dead, another film Criswell made with Ed Wood. It's all so bad and unintentionally very very funny.  

So until next time .... I'll see you in the future. I plan to be there and I expect you plan to be there too.