The History of the Future
Nostradamus: How Did He Do It?
Tool 4: A Computer from Another Time
by Larry A. Filoso, February – September 2023, revised May 2024
A Computer from Another Time
Nostradamus was a lifelong astrologer. He left us clues that he had some way to accurately calculate the positions of heavenly bodies hundreds of years or more into his past or future with relative precision.
In the mid 1970’s I was studying astrology and Nostradamus. Some of the phrases he wrote lead me to suspect that, when he made astrological calculations, he had used some device which was far more advanced than the technology available in Europe in the 16th century.
He wrote that he had made astrological computations far into the future: …and are perpetual prophecies from now to the year 3797 [Leoni, pg 127]. The experts scoff at the idea that he could compute and predict that far into the future, but I wanted to keep an open mind. That capability would not have been possible with the astrolabes in use during his lifetime.
“Astrolabes” had been used by astrologers for centuries as a less-than-accurate machine to calculate where in the sky the stars and planets would appear on any given date. Sailors used a similar device, called a “sextant”, to navigate by the positions of the stars in the night sky.
Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, a Jewish genius writing in Hebrew 400 years before Nostradamus, produced works on science, astrology, and especially the construction and use of the astrolabe. His texts were very influential in Renaissance Europe. [43]
Michel de Nostredame’s grandfathers had been of the Jewish faith, and taught him to read and write Hebrew. It is very likely that he studied Abraham ben Meir’s work in the Medici secret hidden library (see Part 3b).
An astrolabe was used to determine the positions of the stars and planets by inputting the time and place, whereas a sextant was used to determine the place by inputting the positions of the stars and the time.
They were functionally equivalent with inputs and outputs just reversed. Could both technologies have come from a master device which would have been much more ancient, advanced and accurate?
To answer this question in the mid 1970’s, I resorted to the “Google” of the time, aka, the public library. There I found translations of ancient Greek writings which described “clocktowers”, similar to Big Ben today but standing only 20 or 30 feet tall.
Some of these mechanical clocks displayed not only the date and time of day, but also the phase of the Moon, upcoming eclipses, and the positions in the zodiac of the five visible planets and the Sun and Moon. [44]
At any time of the day one could look at that clock and see a moving astrological chart for that time and place.
The ancient Greeks wrote that several cities had one of these geared time-computer towers.
Historians ignored these writings, calling them “fiction” as they had done for centuries with the story of the Trojan War.
I believe that Nostradamus used this type of ancient computer. It would have been a small, portable version of the Greek clocktower.
He may have received it from his astrologer grandfather, or from the Medici’s, or from the Habsburgs. The device may have been passed-down through a secret society for centuries. You may remember from Tool 1 that the Habsburgs had probably provided him with an Aztec psychic mirror.
He would use the computer to calculate a map of the heavens for a future date, and then send his mind (by astral projection) to that Time and Place to experience what would happen, then afterwards it would be written down. It’s what my family and friends call one of my “Crazy Weird Theories” [CWT].
His astronomical computations were not quite as accurate as our modern digital supercomputers. But they were much more accurate than those of his contemporaries considering that at that time people believed that the Sun and “Wandering Stars” (the planets) all revolved around a flat Earth.
To hide his computer, I believe that for many of the horoscopes he did for his clients which could become public (some of which survive today), he used the flawed ephemerides of the times so that the authorities would not suspect his secret.
This astronomical and astrological computer was not digital, it was mechanical. It was made of brass with a crank to turn the gears to different dates which then moved “hands” on the clock for each astrological planet to the correct position in the zodiac for that date.
Believe it or not, an example of this ancient astrological computer has been discovered. In the year 1900 AD (CE) Greek treasure hunters found the sunken remains of an ancient Roman trading ship. It was deep in the Mediterranean Sea off of the coast of a small Greek island named Antikythera (AN-tih-KIH-ther-ə).
Later they brought up and sold to museums many of the items that it had been transporting. The objects included 2,000-year-old vases, coins, jewelry, marble and bronze statues, and what appeared to be a lump of barnacles about the size of a cereal box.
In 1902 archaeologist Valerios Stais examined the lump and claimed that it contained a gear. At the time historians and archeologists believed (and most believe today) that there was no machinery until modern times.
Therefore, his findings were ignored both by scientists and their financial backers who could have paid for the research. It is human nature to cling to old, comfortable ideas, and scientists are human beings.
Seventy years later a courageous Yale University professor and his team took x-ray and gamma-ray photographs of the inside of this object. They found several gears with regularly-spaced teeth.
They published a 70-page paper of their findings in 1974. Again, the scientific community promptly ignored this proof because these facts conflicted with what they had been taught. I read this paper a few years after its publication. The fact that astrological computers had existed, almost two thousand years before Nostradamus, strengthened my conviction that Michel had used one to make long-term calculations of the positions of the stars and planets in the sky. Astrologers use that information to make predictions.
In 2008, a hundred years after its discovery, research began in earnest with the newest technology and it was finally admitted that this was an ancient sophisticated geared machine.
Since 2014, the object has garnered the financial support and scientific interest that it deserves, and we know quite a bit more about this mechanical astrological computer. The “Antikythera Mechanism” has been dated to between 250-80 BCE. [45] Scientists are finally beginning to admit that the ancient Greeks had machine technology.
Its engineering is uncanny because it contains an advanced gear mechanism which tracks the elliptical orbits of the Earth and Moon, making long-term eclipse prediction much more accurate. In fact, today’s scientists have learned something from its engineering that they call “an ingenious planar differential”.
It had dials which precisely tracked the eclipse cycles. You may remember from my previous article Nostradamus Dates the End of the World that he wrote that the end would occur around the time of the longest total solar eclipse since 4000 BCE.
Perhaps he was able to calculate the date of that longest eclipse using a machine computer like this one.
That eclipse in the 22nd century, and the one 18 years before it, will be in Saros series 139. The recent Great American Eclipse of April 8, 2024 was in that same series. See my photo of that solar eclipse in my article Nostradamus Dates the End of the World.
Saros cycles have been studied since ancient Babylonian times over 4,000 years ago. This computer also tracked another pattern in eclipses, called the Metonic cycle.
Whereas solar eclipses in the same Saros series are visible in about the same location on Earth, those in the same Metonic cycle occur in about the same location in the zodiac.
There’s even evidence that more than a thousand years before this mechanical computer was built, the ancestors of the Greeks, called the Minoans, had similar machines. A stone mould into which molten metal could be poured and hardened into the shape of a gear was found in 1899 and dated to around 1500 BCE. [46] Scientists are still ignoring this one.
Perhaps Hephaestus who, according to Homer, made machines and robots thousands of years ago, used this mould. You may remember that Homer also wrote about the Trojan War which had always been considered fiction by the experts, until the city of Troy was found just a hundred and fifty years ago.
In the early 1980s I travelled across the ocean to Greece on a fact-finding mission to do some of the research which has resulted in these articles. I particularly wanted to see this little computer in the Athens museum. That was certainly a thrill.
But to my amazement, in another room in that museum I saw a large round object displayed up on a pedestal. It was about 5 feet in diameter, less than two inches thick, a perfect circle with many teeth regularly-spaced around the edge, structural reinforcements, and a hole in the center.
I found a curator who spoke English and asked him, “Where did this gear come from?” He politely replied, “I know it looks exactly like a gear but it couldn’t be, because the Greeks didn’t have gears.” He didn’t know about the gears hidden within the Antikythera Mechanism, just a hundred feet away.
I suspect the large gear that I saw was a reproduction of a metal gear which had been part of an ancient clocktower or other machine. Perhaps one of the reasons why it has taken science so long to begin to accept this idea is because little evidence of ancient metal gears still exists. I believe that long ago almost all pieces of machinery were melted-down and the metal was used to make weapons. It’s possible that some ancient metallic gears still exist, hidden away from science in private collections.
The following is one of those sections of Michel’s book which tipped me off that he might have had an accurate astrological computer like this. Writing around 1557, Nostradamus foretold a sequence of future events. He wanted to specify the year that those events would begin, but in secret code.
He used a technique which requires some of the most difficult astronomical calculations, even for modern astronomers. He determined the dates and locations in the sky when the planets would “go retrograde”. Retrograde occurs when, night-after-night as planets slowly move through the stars in the sky, they appear to stop, then move backward for weeks or months. Then they stop again, “go direct”, and resume their forward motion.
Remember that in Nostradamus’s time, schools taught that the flat Earth was the center of the universe, and that the Sun, Moon, planets and stars all revolved around it. Given this flawed concept, it would have been an impossible task to make precise retrograde calculations, especially far in advance.
Yet somehow Nostradamus listed the month and day that each of the visible planets would go retrograde and direct in that secret year, along with which sign each would be in.
These are details that only a reader who is an astrologer or astronomer might be able to understand. Even for them, finding a specific year within a 2000-year period just based on retrograde dates and positions would be like trying to find a white polar bear in a snowstorm.
Michel also provided other astrological details. He was calculating astronomical data about that specific year, 50 years in advance; a date 40 years after his own death.
If you would like to see my translation of his text into English, compared with the corresponding astronomical calculations using a modern digital computer, click here.
The secret year he was referring to? You guessed it – 1606. This demonstrated to me that Nostradamus had the ability to accurately calculate the positions of the stars and planets far into the future.
From the Hands of Nostradamus to the Hands of Newton
In Part 3 Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, I wrote about Michel de Nostredame’s prognostication of two supernovae (exploding stars), probably based upon the Ancient Hidden Astrology Book by Abu Ma’shar. The second one was visible in 1606, a date about which Nostradamus wrote multiple predictions.
The Saturn/Jupiter grand conjunction in Sagittarius in December 1603 began the transition to a new anchor sign (Sagittarius) and element (fire).
That grand conjunction occurred exactly 100 years after Nostradamus’s birth, but as always it took time for all of the effects to manifest.
You might be wondering why Nostradamus emphasized the year 1606. He foresaw that this would be a pivotal year during a period of dramatic changes in Western civilization. For one thing, he foresaw that the Catholic Church would reverse its stance on the progress of the Renaissance.
England made a major shift from the Catholic faith to the Protestant one in 1606. For a few hundred years after that year, most major advancements in science and technology occurred in that country.
Two of Science’s early “prophets”, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, lived in England.
This was also the year which saw the beginning of the British colonization of America by one of the first major multi-national corporations. I believe Nostradamus foresaw that one day corporations would be more powerful than governments.
The following is one of my most “Crazy Weird Theories” [CWT]. So far I have only anecdotal evidence, but I will continue researching to find confirmation.
Long before his passing, knowing in advance the date of his death, Nostradamus set up his will. However, he waited until his last moments of life to specify to whom his most valued objects would go. One of these was his brass “astrolabe”. [47] It went to his son, but history lost track of it after that.
I believe that Nostradamus’s rare and invaluable “super-clock-computer” was passed down through a secret society. Perhaps Nostradamus included instructions to make sure that it ended-up in the hands of Isaac Newton, who was born in 1642 (Old Style calendar) in England.
It’s possible that an intact specimen of this mechanism exists today, hidden-away in a private collection.
Newton’s natal chart shows a wide Saturn/Jupiter conjunction in Pisces in his 5th house, in a wide conjunction to Nostradamus’s natal Uranus (the planet symbolizing astrology, astronomy, and unusual inventions).
Newton’s Sun was conjunct Nostradamus’s Sun, Midheaven, and Mercury. Newton’s Mercury was conjunct Nostradamus’s Galactic Center. Newton’s Uranus was exactly conjunct Nostradamus’s Moon. Newton’s Pluto opposed and his Neptune was conjunct Nostradamus’s Pluto.
Perhaps Michel de Nostredame was not just predicting the future; he may have been affecting the future.
I suspect that Newton received either Nostradamus’s computer, or one like it. It would have been similar to the Antikythera Mechanism. He likely also had access to some of the Ancient Hidden Astrology Books like his predecessor Nostradamus had used.
Because of this ancient astronomical computer’s accuracy, especially concerning the elliptical orbits, and by studying its gear ratios, I believe Newton was able to envision and calculate the mathematical formulae with which today’s astronomers and physicists define our solar system, and which make space travel possible.
Newton created the science called “Celestial Mechanics”. He is considered the culminating figure of mathematics, physics, and astronomy in the scientific revolution of the 17th century.
The author of a modern astronomy book refers to Newton’s groundbreaking conception of the mechanics of the solar system as “The Clockwork Solar System”. [48] Did this become a core concept of science, that the universe and everything in it (including living beings) are like machines made of smaller replaceable parts like gears, and follow operational rules, like the Antikythera Mechanism?
Perhaps one day soon Humanism, which was lost at the end of the Renaissance, will be reborn, and will merge with modern Science to improve our World even more.
Newton also wrote about the history of astrology and about ancient Sais, Egypt, translated hieroglyphs and discussed Orus Apollo, just like fellow Cambridge graduate John Dee, and Doctor Nostradamus did. [49] It’s possible that they were all members of the same secret society.
A recently published online article about some of Newton’s notes which had been auctioned at Sotheby’s states, “People like Newton decided Egyptians had secret, esoteric knowledge that had been lost.” [50]
Most scientists and engineers who use his mathematical formulae many times a day are unaware of this side of his genius. For fear of ridicule and reprisals from the scientific community, these writings have only circulated in secret, until recently.
In another hidden tome printed in 1733, Isaac Newton wrote about the “End of Days” prophecies of the Bible and tried to predict the dates when they would happen, just like Michel de Nostredame had done. [51]
Newton used his newly-created mathematical ideas to be the first in modern times to calculate the rate of the Precession of the Ages. It took a few hundred years after Newton for modern scientists to begin to accept the idea of Precession. They thought it was another one of those “crazy Greek stories”. Newton believed that the Golden Age would begin on or after 2060 AD (CE), at the time of a grand conjunction (grouping together in the night sky) of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars.
**The next and final installment will contain a summary of the fascinating Tools which I believe Nostradamus used to make his wildly popular “Prophecies”. See you then!
References, Citations and Notes
All charts and planetary positions were calculated using Solar Fire version 9 in Windows.
Within my text, direct quotations from Nostradamus are printed in Red, usually with the citation source next to the quotation for easy reference.
Nostradamus: How Did He Do It? Tool 4 was published in the American Federation of Astrologers magazine “Today’s Astrologer” in the July 5, 2024 edition, Volume 86, Number 7.
The AFA was founded in 1938 to promote the art and science of astrology through education and research. It was the first American national astrological organization to administer certification examinations to encourage a high standard of professional ethics among astrologers.