Nostradamus - Comet McNaught - Mabus - Saddam

January 11, 2007 10:49 AM

Comets have long inspired fearand it continues today. Nostradamus "prophesied":

Mabus then will soon die, there will come Of people and beasts a horrible rout: Then suddenly one will see vengeance, Hundred, hand, thirst, hunger when the comet will run.

But who is Mabus (Nostradamus' third antichrist)? Will the idea further inspire Muslim fundamentalists?
posted by spock (28 comments total)

Did Nostradamus predict that he was totally full of shit?
posted by interrobang at 11:03 AM on January 11, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Highly illogical.
posted by EarBucket at 11:03 AM on January 11, 2007

My first run in with Mabus was on late-night conspiracy radio. This radio personality (I sometimes had him on while I was sleeping) recounted a story about a woman who wrote an expose on Mabus.

One day she looked out her back window and Mabus was standing there. He asked her "Would you like to significantly better your life?" And the dog, which always barks, didn't make a sound.

Shoulda known it was Saddam. It all makes sense now.
posted by mammary16 at 11:08 AM on January 11, 2007

three antichrists? you can't tell the prayers without a scorecard.
posted by bruce at 11:10 AM on January 11, 2007

Nostradamus?
Nostradumbass.
posted by Floydd at 11:14 AM on January 11, 2007

Islamic fundamentalists might care what Nostradamus had to say, if not for that little bit about Muhammad being the seal of the prohets and all.
posted by textilephile at 11:19 AM on January 11, 2007

Mabus = Ma Bush = Barbara, daughter of Crowley. Duh. Deathwatch in 3, 2...
posted by mwhybark at 11:20 AM on January 11, 2007

But who is Mabus (Nostradamus' third antichrist)?

I vote for Paris Hilton.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:23 AM on January 11, 2007

He was obviously predicting that Ford would produce a small car in the 1960s that would get lousy gas mileage and require a lot of repair parts.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:38 AM on January 11, 2007

"Mabus = Ma Bush = Barbara, daughter of Crowley."

That's what I was thinking.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:38 AM on January 11, 2007

Did Nostradamus predict that he was totally full of shit?

If he did would that make him right? Or wrong?
**Head assplodes**.
posted by spock at 11:54 AM on January 11, 2007

'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war:
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.

Shakespeare, King Richard II, II, iv

(pedant alert: I know the line reads "meteors" and not "comets," but both were thought be be heavenly portents of calamitous change)
posted by pax digita at 11:56 AM on January 11, 2007

The week after September 11th, I worked on organizing the Islam section of the used bookstore I worked at, thinking many people in Arizona would want to find out more about a religion that was being mentioned every minute in the news as the cause of all this, that most Americans knew very little about.

Actually, as has been well-documented, it was Nostradamus whose books flew off the shelves and about whom I answered several phone calls hourly. This included fielding several requests for books by "Astrodamus", which got the oops-sorry-I-left-you-on-hold-for-ten-minutes treatment. The Islam section gathered dust and eventually wound up being collapsed into "Eastern Religions".

Around the same time, I pared the Christianity section down to a navigable size and red-lined all books that had sat on the shelf unpurchased longer than four years ("HELP, LORD-- THE DEVIL WANTS ME FAT!"), for which I received a strong talking to from the management, because keeping the Christianity shelves looking full and abundant was more important than what was actually on them.

In other words, if the comet comes, rather than deflect it with missiles, perhaps we can just alter the earth's rotation so that it hits Arizona.
posted by hermitosis at 12:07 PM on January 11, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

three antichrists? you can't tell the prayers without a scorecard. -bruce

Heh.
posted by Mister_A at 12:32 PM on January 11, 2007

That 9/11 on the $20 bill thing is way creepier.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:34 PM on January 11, 2007

1. We know what comets are. Seriously. They're balls of ice and gas on very long (and interesting to humans) orbits, not mysterious portents of the deaths of kings.

2. While I'm not a Nostradamus expert, neither is anyone posting to this thread, and as a general rule I find that prophecy tends to be a matter of veiled social commentary rather than the secrets of the future. Given that as a bet, I'd take it.

3. Contemporary interpretation of prophecy generally tends to be a matter of reading one's own circumstances into a text that was totally unrelated. Furthermore, there is a very large industry made entirely of selling books to convince people that the end of the world is imminent, so most doomsday prophets are probably selling something.

4. Hitler was a generally evil SOB, but while I'm not generally fond of Napoleon, I seriously think using him as the "first antichrist" is way out of the dude's league. Unless you were a French soldier on the retreat from Moscow, maybe.

5. While Hussein was a general bastard (mostly if you were Iranian or Iraqi or, for a brief time, Kuwaiti), he was pretty much a standard issue contemporary dictator other than the fact that the US turned against him in a spectacular fashion. Sort of a "rule by the brutal secret police guy," not a reign of unparalleled terror that you'd want from an antichrist. At the very least, he was no Hitler.

So I think we're safe for this one.
posted by graymouser at 12:39 PM on January 11, 2007

This is my favorite part, excerpted from the antichrist link.

Try this experiment: Take a piece of paper and write "SAddAM." Hold it in front of a mirror.

Then say "Bloody Mabus" three times. I double dog dare you.
posted by aliasless at 1:12 PM on January 11, 2007

Will the idea further inspire Muslim fundamentalists?

Only the stupid ones who are easily led...
posted by doctor_negative at 1:33 PM on January 11, 2007

spock's **Head assplodes**

Is that literally or figuratively?
posted by porpoise at 2:02 PM on January 11, 2007

My first run in with Mabus was on late-night conspiracy radio. This radio personality (I sometimes had him on while I was sleeping) recounted a story about a woman who wrote an expose on Mabus.

One day she looked out her back window and Mabus was standing there. He asked her "Would you like to significantly better your life?" And the dog, which always barks, didn't make a sound.

I heard that too. It was Coast to Coast with either Bell or Noory. That and the story about the guy who remote viewed Lucifer creeped me out. I love that show in a Blair Witch Project sort of way.
posted by Brown Jenkin at 2:59 PM on January 11, 2007

I follow the prophecies of Negrodamus.

The prophet thinks Nostradamus is a bitch.
posted by photoslob at 3:30 PM on January 11, 2007

"At the very least, he was no Hitler."

"Saddam, I served with Adolf Hitler. I knew Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a friend of mine. Saddam, you're no Adolf Hitler."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:32 PM on January 11, 2007

Aunty Christ¿

Probably find Mabus at Christian Camp.

It's all there, Christian children training to be soldiers for God, kids who speak in tongues, pray for judges to outlaw abortion and lay hands on a cardboard cutout of President Bush.

Is it the American version of the Taliban¿
posted by alicesshoe at 3:49 PM on January 11, 2007

Nostradamus is Time Cube and you are all educated stupid.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:19 PM on January 11, 2007

For being a complete babbling fruitcake space cadet, Nosty sure gets a lot of press.

Someone should write a computer program to spinout one of these infusions every day.

Here's one for Friday:
Fyxandre's horus tommorow spout, the ides of terror beset all men, oh the horirr cometh, and woe until all are boned
posted by Twang at 6:41 PM on January 11, 2007

Didn't someone a few years ago successfully hoax the Nostradamus believer community by creating a fake quatrain?
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:27 PM on January 11, 2007

mabus couldn't be saddam because the comet became visible after saddam's death

it's robert anton wilson ... has to be
posted by pyramid termite at 8:32 PM on January 11, 2007

hm, 2007-01-11...
m = 13
a = 1
b = 2
u = 21
s = 19

21+2=23

bu

13+1+19 =33

mus

2 + 7 + 11 = 21

WHEREAS

YOU MUST BE 21 TO LEGALLY CONSUME ROLLING ROCK, 33, LEAVING 23 TO SIGNIFY THE PASSAGE OF ST. RAW. SO BE IT.
posted by mwhybark at 10:56 PM on January 11, 2007