What did Nostradamus really write?

If you watch the History Channel enough, you are bound to come across a 1 to 2-hour show about Nostradamus. They love to show some of the verses (quatrains) he wrote, with some ominous music in the background and making certain words glow red and increase momentarily in size. That is great theactrical effect, but the reality is often what they show Nostradamus writing, he did not write.

Obviously, as a Frenchman Nostradamus wrote in French, and an English presentation on the History Channel can't show the French. However, it is not a simple thing to translate the French to English. This is where most people (including French speaking people) do not actually know what Nostradamus wrote. They depend on a translation being accurate, and they have not been accurate.

The reason is Nostradamus did not originate the words. The words come from a higher source. Therefore, the words are not limited by any one definition related to any one word. All definitions can apply. That means there is no way to maintain syntax, when any one word can have multiple meanings, with all being applicable to the meaning of the quatrain. This means that the French cannot read the French of Nostradamus correctly, because syntax is not present. It means that translators of the words of Nostradamus cannot translate them so they appear to have meaning, because they can only translate syntactically.

If you have never studied philosophy, you probably are not familiar with the premise of Occam's Razor (also spelled Ockham's). William of Ockham wrote "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or "plurality should not be posited without necessity." This can be boiled down to meaning, "less is more," such that when there is no need to further explain, the more one adds the weaker the defense becomes. This philosophy applies to the words of Nostradamus. One word, alone, means more than if that one word was necessarily connected to another word for its meaning. This is how one must read Nostradamus for understanding.