Raising Hell (29 page)

XVII. The Stars.
A young girl kneels, naked, by a pool of water under eight stars—one large one and seven smaller. In keeping with the ancient astrological view, the central star is earth, with seven others—the planets then known—revolving around it. Sometimes the star is tied to the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the magi to the birthplace of Christ. The pool may represent the waters of life, and the urns which the maiden uses suggest the pouring forth of new ideas and rejuvenating energy. Full of hope and optimism and fulfillment, the card advises you
to feel confidence in your future and be emotionally expressive to others.

XVIII.
The Moon.
The moon rises between two towers—one dark and one light—and a winding path recedes into the far distance. In the foreground, two dogs bay, and a crawfish clambers onto shore. An eerie scene, it suggests the path of wisdom, which man must follow, by the partial light of the moon (a reference to human, as opposed to divine, reason), after crawling up, like the crawfish, from the pool of illusion. The card calls up envy and deceit, slander and dissimulation. To you, it might be a reminder that all is not as it seems and that aiming at unrealizable goals is futile and fruitless.

XIX.
The Sun.
The sun shines down upon (and sometimes sheds tears over) a boy and girl, innocent and unclothed within a walled garden. Eliphas Lévi contended that the two children represented Faith and Reason, the two feet upon which every man must stand; that the children were nearly naked was a sign that they had nothing to conceal. The card suggests friendship and affection, riches and health, and to you it might encourage enjoying good fortune to the utmost. It also advises you to share the wealth, to spread goodwill wherever you go.

XX.
Judgment.
A winged angel, presumably Gabriel, blows the celestial trumpet, and dead men and women rise from their graves. This card represents the freeing of man’s nature from the mortal coil and the material world below, and it offers the same to you—forgiveness and renewal, tempered by accountability for your previous life and actions.

XXI.
The World (or Universe).
A woman whose body is lightly veiled, enclosed by a green wreath, which suggests nature. In the four corners of the card, the four elements and evangelists are symbolically suggested. In the upper left corner, we see air, and an angel representing Matthew. In the upper right, we see water, and an eagle representing John. In the lower left, earth,
along with a bull representing Luke. In the lower right, fire, and a lion symbolizing Mark. As the last of the cards in the Greater Arcana, this one indicates completion and finality, the arrival at your destination after a long trip. To you, it might also indicate that all the wealth in the world is nothing compared to true awareness and mastery over the things around you.

MOTHER SHIPTON AND THE CHESHIRE PROPHET

Although their fame spread less widely than that of Nostradamus—and their very existence has sometimes been called into question—the two English seers known as Mother Shipton and the Cheshire Prophet were known throughout the British isles. Fifteenth-century contemporaries, they were respectively cast as a witch and a fool, but their prophecies nonetheless have been said to predict everything from the Great Plague to the rise of Oliver Cromwell.

In regard to Mother Shipton’s origins, what records exist seem to point toward the town of Dropping Well, in Knaresborough, Yorkshire; there, a reputed witch named Agatha Southill gave birth to a baby daughter, Ursula, in 1486. Some of the townsfolk claimed that the girl’s father was a necromancer; others, insisting that it was Satan himself, called her the Devil’s Child. Her unfortunate appearance seems to have helped that label stick.

According to Richard Head’s
Life and Death of Mother Shipton
(1684), her “body was of indifferent height, her head was long, with sharp fiery eyes, her nose of an incredible and un-proportionate length, having many crooks and turnings, adorned with many strange pimples of divers colours, as red, blue, and dirt, which like vapours of brimstone gave such a lustre to her affrighted spectators in the dead time of the night, that one of them confessed several times in my hearing that her nurse needed no other light to assist her in her duties.” Given the undoubted hyperbole of this description, and overlooking the
question of how the author managed to interview anyone who had known Mother Shipton (who died in 1561) well over 120 years later, it remains a powerful portrait of a witch whose prophecies were closely studied by kings and commoners for many generations.

Despite her frightening countenance, Ursula seems to have snared a husband, one Tobias Shipton, a carpenter in York, by the time she was twenty-four. Her reputation as a seer gradually began to grow, until word of it had actually reached the court of Henry VIII. Many of her predictions related to prominent figures in the king’s court—Cardinal Woolsey, the powerful prelate, for one. Woolsey had openly declared that he planned to move his household to York, and Mother Shipton, by local accounts, had said he would never reach the city. Woolsey sent three noblemen, in disguise, to meet this seer and find out if she truly had the gift of prophecy.

No sooner had they knocked on her door than she welcomed them in, greeting each one by his proper name and offering them cakes and ale. Their cover blown, the noblemen told her why they’d really come. Mother Shipton then reiterated her prophecy about the cardinal and the city of York, but reminded them, “I said he might
see
it, but never come to it.” The noblemen, hearing the words from her own lips, warned her that if the cardinal did come, he’d probably have her declared a witch and burn her at the stake.

Mother Shipton was unfazed. Taking a linen handkerchief off her head, she tossed it into the fire, saying, “If this burn, so shall I.” Fifteen minutes later, when she retrieved it, the handkerchief was intact and undamaged.

A short time later, on his way to York, the cardinal himself climbed to the top of a castle tower and saw, about eight miles in the distance, the city of York. But before he could even climb down again, a messenger from the king arrived, with the news that he was urgently needed at court. Turning around, the Cardinal set out for London but fell ill in Leicester and died there.

Score one more for Mother Shipton.

But famous as she was in life, she became even more so after her death. Her prophecies were collected and reprinted, and sometimes even added to by later astrologers. William Lilly, who published one such almanac of her predictions, began by stating, “All I can say is, that I fear they will prove true, more true than most men imagine, as Mother Shipton’s prophecies were never yet questioned either for their verity or antiquity, so look to them to read the future with a certainty and act accordingly.” Many people did just that.

In an account left by the writer and diarist Samuel Pepys, Prince Rupert was sailing up the Thames on October 20, 1666, when he first heard about the great fire ravaging London. “All he said was,” according to Pepys, “now Shipton’s prophecy was out.” The prophetic lines that Prince Rupert must have had in mind read: “Time shall happen. A ship shall sail upon the River Thames till it reach the City of London; the Master shall weep and cry out: ‘Ah, What a flourishing city was this when I left it, unequalled in the World!’ But now scarce a house is left to entertain us with a flagon.” It’s easy to see why the prince jumped to the conclusion he did.

Others did the same, time and time again. In one of her prophecies, Mother Shipton seemed to imply that the town of Yeovil, Somerset, would be struck by an earthquake and flood in 1879; the locals were so worried about it that many of them deserted their homes on the eve of the presumed destruction, while others, who were anxious to catch a sight of the cataclysm, traveled from all over England to be on hand for the spectacle. Which, as we now know, did not come to pass. Nor did the end of the world, which another one of the prophecies (almost undoubtedly a later addition, thrown in by the editor) predicted would occur in 1881; still, the fact that it was included in Mother Shipton’s predictions was enough to send waves of panic throughout the English countryside. Villagers spent the night in open fields or in fervent prayer in their churches.

Legend has it that Mother Shipton lived to a fantastically old age, then died at Clifton in Yorkshire. A headstone marking her grave there reads:

“Here lyes she who never ly’d,

Whose skill often has been try’d,

Her Prophecies shall still survive,

And ever keep her name alive.”

Wise as Mother Shipton was considered to be, her counterpart, known as the Cheshire Prophet, was thought to be a sort of idiot savant—a fool who could occasionally glimpse the future without having any notion of what he’d seen.

His name was Robert Nixon, and by most accounts he was the younger son of a farmer who lived in the Vale Royal, Delamere Forest, Cheshire. Born in or about 1467, Nixon led a life of absolute anonymity, performing various simple chores. But every now and then, he would stop whatever he was doing and suddenly blurt out a cryptic prediction, which would, as his neighbors soon began to notice, come true. Most of what he said had only a local relevance, but one day, while plowing a field, he pulled his team to a sudden stop, then gesturing with his whip, shouted, “Now Richard! Now Harry!” He wiped his brow, then cried, “Now Harry, get over that ditch and you will gain the day!”

When a messenger later arrived in the town to proclaim the great victory Henry VII (aka Harry) had won at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the townspeople quickly told him that Nixon had been shouting about it already. The messenger repeated this story to the new king, who then sent for Nixon himself.

But even before word of this royal edict could get back to the town, Nixon knew about it. To the amusement of his neighbors, he was heard running about the streets, shouting that the king had sent for him, the king had sent for him! Nobody paid much attention until the messenger rode into town and asked where he could find Robert Nixon. Then they directed him to the family’s farm, where the messenger found him hard at work.

Brought to court, Nixon was introduced to the king, who’d already set up a little test for him. He told Nixon that he’d lost a priceless diamond ring, and nobody could find it. Could he?
Nixon simply replied, “He who hideth can find.” And the king was satisfied.

When he wasn’t making runic predictions, which were dutifully taken down, Nixon was fretting about being starved to death while he was at court. One minute he was declaring, “The weary eagle shall to an island in the sea retire, Where leaves and herbs grow fresh and green” (a prediction that was later thought to refer to Napoleon’s exile to Elba), and the next minute he was hoarding food and quaking with fear. The king, to calm him down, gave Nixon the full run of the palace—including the kitchens—and for a time Nixon seemed to relax.

But one day, when the king was setting out on a hunting trip, Nixon came running up to him in a panic and begged to come along. The king said that would be impossible and instructed an officer of the household to watch over him. Nixon insisted that if the king didn’t let him come along, he would surely starve to death before the king could return. The king scoffed and rode away, leaving Nixon shouting that His Majesty would never see him alive again!

Nixon quickly returned to the kitchen and larder, but the servants teased him so much, and he made such a racket, that the officer decided to lock him in a closet until he quieted down. Unfortunately, the officer was sent for shortly thereafter and left the castle without remembering to set Nixon free. When he got back, several days later, he opened the closet and found him—just as Nixon had predicted—dead.

NOSTRADAMUS

According to his contemporaries, Nostradamus predicted the precise time of his own death—and even composed one of his famous quatrains to commemorate the unhappy event. Translated from the original French, it read, “On his return from his embassy, the king’s gift put in place, he will do no more, having gone to God. By close relations, friends, blood brothers, he will be found near the bed and bench.”

Having just returned from a mission to Aries, the sixty-two-year-old seer was found dead, lying on a bench that he regularly employed to help himself get in and out of bed. Following detailed instructions he had left behind, his body was buried standing upright in a wall, just to the left of the door in the church of the Franciscan friars, in the town of Salon.

Arguably the most renowned astrologer and prophet of all time, Nostradamus, in predicting the conditions of his own demise, had only done for himself what he’d been doing for others—from commoners to kings—all his life: he had consulted the stars and cast his own fortune. His psychic gift, which has come down to us today in the form of one thousand rhymed prophecies, is one of the most celebrated, and debated, in history.

Born in St.-Rémy, France, in 1503, he was christened (though he came from Jewish ancestry) Michel de Nostradame. His father was a notary, but his grandfathers on both sides were physicians, and they undertook to make a doctor out of young Michel, too. In preparation, he was taught Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and astrology, then sent to continue his studies at the University of Montpellier. There, he excelled in the classroom and proved his mettle as a practicing physician when the plague broke out in Provence. Described as a short, florid, and energetic man, he made the rounds of the town unafraid and unaffected by the contagion.

After earning his medical degree, he spent eight years traveling in western Europe, and it was during this time that he began to exhibit his gift of prophecy. Legend has it that when he was in Italy, he passed a young swineherd named Felix Peretti, who had become a monk. Nostradamus fell to his knees and called him “His Holiness.” Peretti was as baffled as everyone else, though years later, long after Nostradamus was dead, he was indeed made Pope Sixtus V.