Are We Still In Kansas?

Toto, are we still in Kansas? This is the question that a dazed and confused Dorothy asked her little dog just after they were carried into the land of Oz. (Excerpt from the Book "The Wizard of Oz", by Frank Baum.) Poor Dorothy refusd to believe what her eyes were showing her about this strange far away land of Oz. We often behave like Dorothy when we are suddenly faced with strange new incomprehensible circumstances over which we have no control. We turn to anything familiar and ask "what's going on?", or in Dorothy's case, "Are we still in Kansas?" It is instinctual to try to avoid these bewildering events by attempting to peer into the future so that we have some glimmer of understanding "What's going on". People who fall into this category generally turn to those who offer prophetic gifts to provide some sort of guidance to the future.

Admittedly, I am obsessed with watching the unfolding of events both nationally and around the globe. Like many before me, I am always looking for signs which provide solid correlation with specific events described in ancient or modern prophecies. Once a match between current events and one forecast in some prophetic writing is discovered; I experience the release of observing a new viewpoint of anticipatory expectations of the next significant series of events in human history. Needless to say, I hve been feeding this interest fo a long, long time. Over the decades, I chose to become at least a part-time student of one of the most mysterious prophets that has lived within the last 400 years, Michel Nostradamus (1503 - 1566). In this regard, I keep my observational sensitivity tuned to world events rather than the daily gushing media postings of the political and entertainment gossip merchants. A thumbnail description of Nostradamus is all that I can offer here, as publications about the prophecies of Nostradamus have existed and circulated throughout Europe over the past 438 years, and are second only to the Bible.

The knowledge of Nostradamus was beyond being classified as encyclopedic. He had an intimate knowledge of leaders and nations, past, present and future. My view of Nostradamus is of a human who could see history in three dimemsions, Past, Present(in his time), and Future. The rise and fall of Adolph Hitler was predicted in the Centuries Prophecies and validated by many. Certainly there are likewise many detractors of Nostradamus' prophecies who offer arguments against the application of any prophecy beyond the lifespan of Nostradamus. The central reason that there is so much disagreement lies in the fact that all of the few original copies of Nostradamus' "Book of the Centuries" have been lost, so that copies of his originalBook that are currently available as very rare books were written by people claiming to be close associates of Nostradamus when he was alive. If by some miracle, an original copy (circa 1555) of Nostradamus Book was found, our problems would be just beginning, as we have NO TRANSLATION capability for the old french that Nostradamus spoke and wrote at the time. You see, during Nostradamus' lifetime there were at least three evolving forms (not dialects or accents) of the french language in use in different parts of France. And since language dictionaries hadn't been invented at the time, there is no documentation of these evolving forms of the pre-french laguage. In the 1600's these mutant forms of pre-french finally evolved into the language now known as old french. The only french to english dictionary translations are based on this final evolved form of old french. To quote the Bard, "Ah, therein lies the rub..." But regardless of these problems, the prophecies that have come down to us are still intriguing and filled with cryptic mysterious revelations about the future.

Enough of the background, let's move on to the particular correlation that is of interest. Today's (Nov. 29, 2004) headline read "China Forges landmark free trade pact with Southeast Asian Nations." The text of this article could well be summarized by the following statement contained in the press release, "China's deal with the Association of Southeastern Asian Nations was sealed as the 10-nation group agreed to another pact that would build an ASEAN community, much like the European Union, by 2002. " It should be obvious to all that China is rapidly moving beyond being the dominate country in asia towards domination of all control and consolidation of the nations of Asia. The oil reserves in the South China Sea, which by in large are untapped, are being claimed by those nations whose coastlines lie around the sea. In the past China used military threats to keep these nations from allowing international exploitation of these offshore reserves. As a footnote, the offshore deposits in the South China sea have been reliably geological surveyed as being a full magnitude greater than all of the original middle east oil deposits combined! China views the South China off shore deposits as belonging exclusively to China and no one else. This free trade pact and luanch of the ASEAN Community is the first step towards China's unchallenged leadership in Asia and shows how rapidly she has evolved from an uncompromising totalitarian communist state to a sophisticated diplomatic and commercial powerhouse.

It is also important to keep in mind that the discovery of these vast deposits of oil in the South China Sea is what caused President Nixon to break with the longstanding cold war tradition of isolating communist China and initiating his now famous "Ping Pong diplomacy", which he used to unfreeze relations between the United States and China. Those initiatives resulted in several American oil companied being invited in by China to build a small number of offshore oil drilling platforms. This invitation lasted long enough for the Chinese engineers to learn the technology and then the American oil companies were then quietly dis-invited from the region. Since then China has made it clear to the world that they are the only caretakers of all of the reserves in the China sea. That was in the post-Nixon era. Now fast forward to the present time, with the Chinese maintaining a multiple billion trade deficit with the United States. On a more serious note China is currently holding billions of dollars of American debt in the form of U.S. Treasury Bills. America is currently being cowered under the threat that China might decide to start selling off some of these vast holdings of American paper. This fact has emboldened China and she has started making challenging moves both economic and political throughout the world. China is America's competitor for oil in the markets around the world. She has adopted the American philosophy of using up the oil available on the world market before touching her own reserves close to home. There is no question that China is expanding both in industry and economy.

Now to Nostradamus. There are many books covering the prophecies of Nostradamus and I am referring to the 1946 edition of "The Complete Prophecies Of Nostradamus" by Henry C. Roberts. I chose this version because it's translation is clear and at the time it was written, China was still completely devastated by the ravages of World War II. So to predict that China would be a world power in 1946 would have been consided pure nonsense. Roberts interpreted Quatrain 49 in Century I as follows, "In the year 2025, by ritual, China, having completed her industrial and economic expansions, will absorb almost the whole of Nothern Russia and Scandinavia." Edgar Leoni, in a much more recent (1982) publication titled, "Nostradamus and His prophecies", takes issue with Roberts interpretation of Quatrain 49 of Century I. Leoni disagrees with Roberts' date of 2025 as the original french states that the date is 1700. Leoni also states that the old french phrase of "Aquilonaire corner"used by Nostradamus in the Quatrain loosely means northern wind or northern country, and thereby would encompass many more nations than the Roberts' abbreviated listing of just Russia and Scandinavia.

Concerning the difference between the two dates of 1700 and 2025, Nostradamus created several puzzles involving his Centuries, and provided some crytic clues as how to solve them. The solution to one puzzle provides the means of extracting the actual calendar date from the dates written in his quatrains. Nostradamus inferred in a letter to his son Caesar that one must solve the numerical puzzle in order to get the offset parameter which when calculated with the date in the quatrain will give the correct calendar date. He also provided crytic clues to another puzzle. The solution to this puzzle will provide a formulation which when successfully calculated and properly applied will put the quatrains into their real proper chronological order. (Nostradamus stated that after he had written out the original Centuries, that rewrote them again, this time scrambling the order of the Quatrains throughout the Centuries. This he did on purpose because he felt that for mankind to know his future destiny would ultimately constitute a sin before God!) Henry Roberts however claimed that he had figured out the date adjustment puzzle and that's how he derived the date of 2025. Obviously Edgar Leoni didn't believe Roberts had accomplished this feat, but he also assumes that it is not clear that the original Quatrain date of 1700 is the correct date for the prediction.

However, my take on this dispute is to look at the events as they unfold. The trends of events if they track the sense of the prediction thus provide a degree of verification. In this case Nostradamus is emphasizing that as a result of many many intrigues, China will cause many "great ones" to be carried off, resulting in near subjugation of the "Aquilon corner" (Asian Triangle?). I believe in this instance Nostradamus is not talking about the conquest of the northern nations. He is instead using a paradigm which may relate a lessor important smaller event in the historical past to the future event he is predicting. It is not important that there be an exact one for one scenario match between the two events, rather it is the style of the unfolding of the two events and the results thereof that is similiar. It is sort of a form of derivative association, or a new application of the ancient scriptural style of Pesher composition. Hence, in this regard, I believe he is talking about the almost complete subjugation of Asia itself. Why is this important? Because it setting the stage for the activation of another ancient Bibical Prophecy of the great war between the Occident and the Orient. The trends are clearly evident if one practices due deligence in maintaining the proper viewpoint while evaluating the real news from around the world. Nuff' said!!