Erika Cheetham
Erika Cheetham | |
---|---|
Born | London, England |
7 July 1939
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. London, England |
Nationality | United Kingdom |
Other names | Erika McMahon-Turner |
Occupation | Writer, linguist, medieval scholar |
Erika Cheetham (7 July 1939 – 3 May 1998[1]) was an English writer, best known for her controversial interpretations of Nostradamus' writings.
Contents
Early life
She was born Erica Christine Elizabeth McMahon-Turner in London. Her parents enrolled her in a convent school, from which she was expelled for positing the non-existence of God. Later while attending St Anne's College, Oxford, she married James Nicholas Milne Cheetham.[1]
After earning her doctorate (in medieval language) at Oxford she worked as a staff writer for the Daily Mail, a London tabloid. She began translating Les Prophéties de M. Nostradamus in 1963, which culminated in the publication of her first book The Prophecies of Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow in 1965. This was the basis for the 1980 Orson Welles film of the same title.[1]
Positions on specific prophecies
"Angolmois"
Prophéties 10:72 is one of Nostradamus' most infamous quatrains:
- L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois,
- Du ciel viendra vn grand Roy d'effrayeur:
- Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois,
- Avant que Mars regner par bonheur.
Cheetham interpreted Angolmois as a cryptic anagram for "Mongols", predicting the rise (circa mid-1999) of an Antichrist—ostensibly the third such figure (after Napoleon and Hitler)—a tyrant ("king of terror") of Genghis Khan's calibre. However, other scholars have argued that this is merely a variant spelling of Angoumois, a province of western France now known as Charente, and that d'effrayeur was actually supposed to be deffraieur, i.e. one given to appeasement.[2]
"Samarobryn"
The first word of the third line of Prophéties 6:5 has been variously interpreted as a reference to the USS. Sam Rayburn, a ballistic missile submarine, or even to individual SAMs, i.e. surface-to-air missiles:[3]
- Si grand Famine par unde pestifere.
- Par pluye longue le long du polle arctique:
- Samarobryn cent lieux de l'hemisphere,
- Vivront sans loy exempt de pollitique.
However, Cheetham dissents again from other Nostradamian scholars—and from herself—by proposing that Nostradamus derived the word samarobryn either:
- From the Russian words само and робрин[4]—meaning something to the tune of "self-operated", i.e. a self-operating machine in space, 100 leagues from the hemisphere (or atmosphere), "living without law [and] exempt from politics",[3] or:
- From the trade names of wonder-drugs Suramin and Ribavirin.[3] Pondered Cheetham: "Perhaps the remedy for AIDS will be produced in a sterile laboratory circling the Earth?"[5]
"Pau, Nay, Loron"
Cheetham cited quatrains 1:60 and 8:1 of Nostradamus' Prophéties as a cryptic reference to Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Un Empereur naistra pres d'Italie,
- Qui à l'Empire sera vendu bien cher,
- Diront avec quels gens il se ralie
- Qu'on trouvera moins prince que boucher.
- PAU, NAY, LORON plus feu qu'a sang sera,
- Laude nager, fuir grand aux surrez:
- Les agassas entree refusera,
- Pampon, Durance les tiendra enferrez.
Whilst the uppercase letters (preserved from Nostradamus' original) may suggest a deeper meaning, sceptics will note the mutual proximity of the Aquitainian villages Pau, Nay, and Oloron (in southwestern France), which form a small triangle not 70 kilometres (43 mi) about.[6][7] Though more esoteric interpretations have pegged this region "more fire than blood" as a future nuclear waste site,[8] Cheetham's observation was that the capitalised letters can be arranged to spell something like "NAYPAULORON", i.e. Napoleon. Singer-songwriter and hist-rock pioneer Al Stewart also favoured this interpretation in his 1974 song "Nostradamus", wherein he deliberately pronounces and spells Bonaparte's name in a similar idiosyncratic manner.[9]
- An emperor of France shall rise who will be born near Italy
- His rule cost his empire dear, Napoloron [sic] his name shall be
"Hister"
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Prophéties 2:24:
- Bestes farouches de faim fleuves tranner :
- Plus part du champ encontre Hister sera,
- En caige de fer le grand fera treisner,
- Quand rien enfant de Germain observera.
Cheetham interpreted this as a reference to Adolf Hitler, the "child of Germany [who] obeys [no law]". This conclusion disregards Hitler's Austrian heritage and the Latin use of Hister (derived from the Milesian–Greek settlement of Histria in ancient Thrace, and in turn from the Scythian river-god Ίστρος/Istros) to refer to the Lower Danube.[10] Nonetheless this too is preserved in Stewart's lyrics:[9]
- One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germany
- No Law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be
Israel
Prophéties 3:97:
- Nouvelle loy terre neufve occuper,
- Vers la Syrie, Judée et Palestine:
- Le grand empire barbare corruer,
- Avant que Phoebus son siecle determine.
This prophecy, according to Cheetham, predicts the establishment of the modern State of Israel.[11]
Bibliography
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Notes
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- ↑ See also Google Maps
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- Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls
- EngvarB from August 2014
- Use dmy dates from August 2014
- Articles with hCards
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- 1939 births
- 1998 deaths
- English atheists
- English occult writers
- Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford
- Nostradamus
- Writers from London
- Daily Mail journalists
- Futurologists
- English women writers
- 20th-century women writers
- 20th-century translators