Here is a classic encounter - today's most celebrated investigator of the supernatural versus the most famous of all prophets, the legendary 16th-century astrologer and physician, Nostradamus. In The Mask of Nostradamus James Randi writes the first in-depth interpretive biography of the man who some claim predicted such events as the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon and Hitler, even Watergate. His legendary work The Centuries, a unique book of prophecies, has captured multitudes of readers for more than four centuries.
Randi's research and analysis illuminate Nostradamus's historic origins, his bone fide role as a physician, what his amazingly ingenious prophecies forecast, the factual truth of his alleged prophetic successes, and how the rationalizations of Nostrdamus's armies of followers have perpetuated his fame through the ages.
Highly respected by many scientists for his investigations of pseudoscientific and paranormal claims, Randi explains how this cleverest of all astrologers flourished in his own time. He shows how Nostradamus skillfully used ambiguous phraseology and sometimes "predicted" events after their occurrence. But Randi is more understandable of Nostradamus than implacably hostile, and drawing on recent research reveals how Nostradamus risked death in the Inquisition for his genuine Protestant beliefs.
James Randi is a world renowned investigator of claims of the paranormal. In 1991 he presented a six part television series in the UK: James Randi - Psychic Investigator.
"...imposing and fascinating investigation..." - Chicago Tribune
"Randi's done his homework..." - Village Voice Literary Supplement
Reviews in The Skeptical Inquirer and The Skeptic
256 pages
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