Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (465 page)

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Rejoice! Taxes are going to be reduced! In twenty years' time you will still own what you do today!

Love each other, for no shadow will fall on your lives! Disarm, there will never be any more idiotic wars!' The energetic news apparatus would hardly be set in motion for cheerful messages like that.

The 'spirits above' still exclusively transmit, as they have always done, descriptions of imminent catastrophes, world destruction, misery and famine. A wretched job for a messenger, but who warns anyone about happiness?

What does even a brief glance at the annals of visionaries 'reveal'?

The itinerant Greek priest Peregrinus Proteus at first preached the doctrine of Christianity; then he had doubts and changed his philosophy. He became a cynic, one of those philosophers who cultivated the ideal of frugality to the point of folly. The convert was not happy. He 'saw' - and as a preacher naturally told everybody - that mankind was on 'the brink of annihilation'. As he did not want to take part in this mass disaster, he logically burnt himself to death during the Olympic games in 165.

The Phrygian prophet Montanus (156) belonged to an early Christian sect which aroused among people a brief-lived hope of the imminent return of Jesus. In order to be well prepared, the prophet exhorted his followers to practise rigorous asceticism, for otherwise 'the end of the world was at hand'.

In 140 the Roman apostolic father Hermas in his book 'The Shepherd' (which formed part of the New Testament for a time) called on Christians to do penance as the ultimate salvation 'from the imminent Last Judgment'.

Over 400 years ago (1568) the Provencal plague doctor Michael Nostradamus (1503-1566) posthumously published his book Les Propheties [17]. His prophecies, extending down to modern times, which in the opinion of scholars tally with recorded facts, consist of a non-stop list of wars, pestilences and disasters. The fact that most of the events are supposed to have taken place according to plan is small con solation.

If we made ourselves a present of a collected volume of prophecies it would be as thick as a New York telephone directory, and poring over disasters is no fun - especially if we've got them at home! But it is fun to meet and talk to a living prophetess.