Ancient Prophecies Predict Disaster | Ancient Mysteries (S4, E2) | Full Episode | History

prophetic visionaries the oracle of delphi  joseph son of jacob nostradamus where they   shrewd imposters or gifted prophets explore their  astonishing predictions here on ancient mysteries before we unlock the future we  must find the keys to the past   i'm leonard nimoy join me and open the  door to ancient mysteries beginning now as ancient as the pursuit of wisdom is  the human yearning to foretell the future   a quest led across the centuries by  prophets sorcerers and visionaries but do individuals truly possess the  power to see beyond their own time is the ability to foresee the future known as  precognition a power dormant within all of us one of the the fundamental mysteries about this  whole process is whether it takes the form of   an ability that everybody shares the vast  majority of scientists however dismiss the notion   that this extraordinary ability actually exists premonitions and precognitive effects are  illusory that they don't in fact exist despite scientists skepticism however throughout  history there is intriguing evidence that some   individuals may have had the ability to  predict events that have not yet occurred in ancient greece 800 years before the birth of  christ the oracles of delphi prophesied plagues   war and the destruction of empires in 1911 a world-renowned  palm reader may have foretold   the worst seed disaster of all  time the sinking of the titanic many believe a french physician named  nostradamus prophesied the rise of two   of the world's most powerful despots  napoleon bonaparte and adolf hitler is prophecy nothing more than  humanity's psychological need   to impose order on the unknowable or is it an ancient truth  that science has yet to accept in our own time mankind has sent  probes deep into outer space   and unlocked the secrets of the atomic world yet one frontier remains an eternal enigma  nature's greatest mystery the future and yet since ancient times a handful of prophets   seers and oracles have believed they  could see beyond the barrier of time is the future discernible for  some or perhaps even for all of us thousands of people have experiences that are  precognitive ordinary folks nothing special   about them it may happen once in their life  twice and that's all on the other hand there   are clearly individuals who seem to have better  access to this ability despite the fact that many   believe in such powers most scholars insist  that the future simply cannot be foretold my own personal view is that  precognition and premonitions   are completely baseless that this in fact  doesn't happen that we live in a world   where the future is not  predetermined in any important way nevertheless many believers remain convinced  that humanity possesses a mysterious sixth sense it is a phenomenon known by many  names premonition precognition   and prophecy all share one fundamental  meaning the ability to foretell the future from tribal priests in africa to shamans in the  americas every culture has fostered its profits is it possible that some possess  the ability to foresee coming events in babylonia five thousand years  ago kings employed astrologers   to help them make crucial decisions of state in central america the ancient maya are said  to have predicted the arrival of the spanish   conquistadors more than six centuries  before their ships loomed on the horizon in tibet many believed that buddhist holy  men foretold the invasion of the british army   a hundred years before it took place were these true predictions of the  future were nothing more than coincidence in ancient greece those driven to know their  future would set forth on an arduous pilgrimage   that took them 70 miles from athens there  they would climb the forbidding slopes of   mount parnassus to reach the lofty site where  it was said the gods deigned to speak to man this was the mysterious sanctuary of the oracle  of delphi once inside the sanctuary a believer   would wind along a path called the sacred  way past solemn statues and hallowed stones   until he reached the temple itself there a priest would lead his visitor into the  gloomy depths the inner sanctum of the temple   seated over a fissure in the ground was a lone  woman known as the oracle the seer of the future she inhaled the strange vapors  issuing from the fissure   and in a trance-like state  spoke the words of the gods at the crucial moment the believer would  pose his question to the oracle also known as   apithia her reaction remains one of the most  tantalizing mysteries of the ancient world   i think if i could know anything about the delphic  oracle i would want to know exactly what happened   when the client asked the pithy of the question  that is i'd like to know where she was sitting   i'd like to know her facial features i'd like to  know if her voice changed i would like to know   how the clients looked at her and received  her answer that's what i would like to know all that is known is that the faithful  visitor would inevitably receive his answer   a prediction said to reveal his future ancient chronicles maintained that the prophecies  of the oracles were astonishingly accurate they are said to have foretold the genius of the  poet homer creator of the iliad and the odyssey   the pithias are also credited with predicting  the death of the roman emperor nero   i think that the pythias believed  that they were pronouncing the future   and i think that the clients  who received those answers   believed that they contained the future  i see no reason not to believe it over more than 10 centuries scores of sears  assumed the title of the oracle of delphi it was a position occupied only by women but were these legendary women truly psychic the delphic oracle it looked like they were  in some altered state like channelers do today   whether they were speaking with the voice of  the gods or speaking from an internal process   of psychic information that's a big question  but the information often came out correctly most scholars however discount the extraordinary  reputation of the oracles those prophecies tended   to be very very vague so pretty much no matter  what happened the oracle got credit for being   correct it's a you know heads i win tails you  lose situation in many of these prophecies whether the oracle's truly possessed  the sixth sense remains a mystery   what is known for certain is that for centuries  some of the most powerful rulers of the   ancient world made the pilgrimage to mount  parnassus to consult the oracle of delphi the oracle of delphi was by no means  the only prophet of the ancient world according to the bible in the age of the pharaohs  one visionary foretold the future through dreams ancient israel land of the bible in a holy place renowned for its prophets isaiah   ezekiel jeremiah the ancient practice of  foretelling the future was branded pagan sorcery for the role of the hebrew prophets  was not to predict the future   but to induce the people of israel to  adhere to their holy covenant with god nevertheless the hebrew bible  contains many accounts of seers   one of the most famous biblical  predictions comes not from a prophet   but from the son of the hebrew patriarch  jacob an ordinary man named joseph ordinary that is in all ways but one  he used dreams to foretell the future but is this possible can dreams offer  a magical window into the unknown four thousand years ago in ancient egypt  dreams were viewed as a terrifying enigma the egyptians considered them  ominous messages from the gods so the ancient egyptians believed  that every dream was prophetic   what you really need was  someone who could interpret it according to the bible joseph was gifted with a  mysterious ability to accurately interpret dreams as a boy his dreams foretold that he  would rise to a position of awesome power   as a man imprisoned in egypt he prophesied the  fate of others by interpreting their dreams   then one fateful day joseph was called before  pharaoh the egyptian ruler revealed that he was   deeply troubled by a dream one that not  even his wisest priests could decipher   in the pharaoh's dream seven emaciated cows  consume seven portly cows but get no fatter   then seven full ears of corn are  devoured by seven withered ears   joseph's insightful response is one of the  best known prophecies of the hebrew bible god has shown to pharaoh what he is about to do   there will come seven years of great plenty  throughout the land of egypt but after then   there will arise seven years of famine and  the famine will consume the land genesis 41 28 joseph advised the pharaoh that grain  be stored during the prosperous years   to provide enough to last  through the lean years to come   putting his faith in joseph pharaoh placed  him in charge of the national granaries   through joseph's foresight the land  of egypt was spared a terrible famine but did joseph possess the  ability to see into the future   the bible only hints at the  answer to this ancient mystery   suggesting that joseph may have inherited his  extraordinary powers from his father jacob joseph is someone who understands people's  visions and people's dreams why exactly that   plays out i don't know except i will say that it's  a family tradition jacob after all also had dreams despite the biblical account most scholars  dismissed the interpretation that joseph   could see the future what has come down to us has  been filtered through chroniclers and writers and   translators so it's essentially at this point  i think impossible to know whether those were   valid prophecies or not i suspect very  strongly of course that they weren't the controversy over joseph's powers as  described in the bible may never be resolved whatever his prophetic ability the bible leaves no   doubt that joseph helped the  nation avert certain disaster another prophet of ancient times however delivered  a much more ominous prediction for all mankind this prophecy of doom appears in the biblical  book of revelation there followed hail and fire   mixed with blood which fell on the earth  and a third of the earth was burnt up   and a third of the trees were burnt up and  all green grass was burnt up revelation 8 7.   so the book of revelation actually talks  about the stars falling comets hitting   the sun being blackened the moon looking like  blood the earth shaking everything is affected is the book of revelation a prophecy of our future was its author divinely inspired  to see the cataclysm to come   on the tranquil greek island of patmos the  apocalypse could hardly seem more distant yet it was here two thousand years  ago that the author of revelation   known to us only as john of patmos  became convinced that the end was near blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the  prophecy and who keeps what is written therein   for the time is near revelation 1 3 the identity  of the author remains a perplexing mystery and   yet his words are so powerful in their conviction  that millions have believed his ominous prediction to this day the question continues to haunt us   when did this prophet of doom  believe the apocalypse would come as the first millennium drew to a close  countless europeans were convinced that   the end of the world was at hand although the  dreaded cataclysm did not occur in the year 1000   profits in the centuries that followed  continued to issue dire predictions   perhaps the most influential doomsday prophet  of modern times was a new york farmer named   william miller who derived his predictions  from the biblical book of revelation his   prophecy that the world would end in 1844 sparked  hysteria among hundreds of thousands of americans even when miller's prediction proved wrong his   followers continued to believe  that the apocalypse was imminent the book of revelation foretell our own  precarious age on the brink of armageddon disasters happen every year somewhere in  the world so it's very easy to look at   the san francisco earthquake and say  oh that was the earthquake that was   foretold in the book of revelations therefore  the world will end in 1995 but it didn't exactly when john the author  of the book of revelation   expected the apocalypse to  occur may never be known but in 1555 nearly 1500 years after john's  death many believe another renowned seer   pinpointed the most tumultuous events in  world history with astonishing precision his name nostradamus nostradamus he is believed to have prophesied  the bloody terror of the french revolution   and the rise to power of both napoleon and hitler but is nostradamus fame for accurate predictions   deserved did he truly possess the  ability to see into the future nostradamus was born in france in 1503 a physician  he earned his reputation treating victims of the   dreaded black plague an epidemic which wiped  out a third of the population of europe and yet nostradamus gained worldwide renown  not from his medical achievements but from   what some assert was an extraordinary  ability to see into the future he recorded more than a thousand prophecies   written in enigmatic four  line verses called quatrains believers in the validity  of nostradamus predictions   insist he accurately foretold the most  turbulent events in the history of france they maintained that he predicted the  bloody terror of the french revolution   which climaxed with execution  of the french royal family nostradamus's uncanny perception of future events  of the french revolution doesn't end with the   death of louis xvi he also gives us details about  how his queen marie antoinette would meet her end of all nostradamus predictions  the most famous and controversial   are those concerning the rise of  napoleon bonaparte and adolf hitler some researchers believe nostradamus  foresaw napoleon's entire career from   his meteoric rise to power to his  final defeat at waterloo in 1815 applying nostradamus  prophecies of the 20th century   believers insist he predicted  the rise of the third rife the occupation of france and the battle of britain   some researchers even maintained that nostradamus  identified the evil tyrant adolf hitler by name the name thinly veiled in his prophecy as histor beasts ferocious with hunger  will swim across the rivers the greater part of the battlefield will be  against histor nostradamus century 2 bartram 24. ironically the nazis themselves seized  on nostradamus words as a weapon of war the wife of joseph goebbels the  nazi's infamous minister of propaganda   first brought nostradamus  to her husband's attention   she went hey honey look at this book look at  all these references to a histor and a captain   of greater germany isn't this interesting  do you think he's talking about our adolph goebbels immediately saw the ancient  prophecy's immense propaganda potential   he employed a celebrated  astrologer named carl craft   to write interpretations of nostradamus  that would be favorable to the nazis but as nazi fortune flied hitler  turned against his soothsayers   in 1941 the gestapo arrested kraft as part  of a ruthless nazi sweep of astrologers kraft would die a broken man in 1945 in  the nazi death camp known as buchembaugh ironically a victim of the  dictator he had helped to glorify today few researchers believe that  nostradamus foresaw the rise of adolf hitler people say wow the history that's  just one letter away from hitler   in fact if you look at the history histor was  the name of a river the lord danube nothing   more a lot of debunkers will say well history  is is just the old name for the river danube   that's right got it right again but there was also  a boy named adolf hitler and most of his demonical   ideas for world conquest came in his childhood  when he was playing on the banks of the danube whether nostradamus really foresaw the rise of  adolf hitler remains a source of controversy   and yet experts are intrigued by  an even more perplexing mystery   nostradamus vision of the future itself for instead of a predetermined  destiny he envisioned a malleable   fate forged by the free will of humankind nasdamas didn't write prophecies that were  written in stone there are many potentials   coming out of these prophecies our free  will in fact he uses the word i predict   things and then we see how the future inclines  itself towards these events or these events according to skeptical experts these dual  predictions mean nostradamus was hedging his bets   they dismiss him as a charmaton from my reading  over the years i don't see very much at all   that is specific enough to be considered prophetic  i see a lot of generalizations that you can apply   to a lot of different eras in history and yet  some researchers believe that nostradamus was   perceptive enough to foresee that he would  be criticized for obscuring his prophecies the reason why nostradamus used this obscurity  is mystical one of nostradamus's mystical   devices for future generations is to use his  prophecies as a sounding board as a controversy   that keeps us continually generation after  generation thinking about how we affect tomorrow   that is actually a device far more important to  his work than getting it right about tomorrow's   events in the 19th century 400 years  after nostradamus enigmatic predictions   another psychic would rise to fame using  one of the most ancient forms of divination   interpreting the lines on  the palm of the human hand in the ancient world such  renowned thinkers as aristotle   hippocrates and plato were said to have  practiced the arcane form of prophecy palmistry the art of reading the  lines in the palm of the human hand   and yet perhaps the most  talented palmist in history   was a now forgotten englishman from  the 19th century known simply as cairo cairo's clients included many of the  most celebrated figures of his day from english playwright oscar wilde  to american president grover cleveland   even the skeptical mark twain went  so far as to submit to a hand imprint but who was cairo how did he gain his reputation   and was he really endowed with  the ability to see the future born in 1866 in county wicklow ireland cairo  acquired the polish and extravagant tastes   of a refined gentleman cairo's striking  good looks and magnetic personality served   him well in his notorious pursuit of  europe's most beguiling socialites his romantic liaisons were said  to include the alluring german spy matahari some even contended that  he engaged in espionage himself despite his fabled exploits  cairo was best known for his   reputed ability to foretell  the future using palmistry but how did he utilize this ancient art to  make his prophecies the striking features   about your hands are first and foremost  according to palmistry there is profound   meaning in three aspects of the hand its size  and shape the characteristics of the fingers   and the lines that crisscross the palm five major lines head heart health  fate and life course across the palm   their length depth and relation to  each other dictate their significance employing these ancient principles cairo  was credited with astonishing prophecies he warned zar nicholas ii  the last monarch of russia   that he and the entire royal  family would meet a violent death it was a prophecy which the bolshevik revolution  of 1917 suddenly turned into a bloody reality   cairo also predicted that edward  viii would be forced to abdicate   the throne of england for the woman he loved the king did indeed surrender his crown in 1936   because of his devotion to an american  divorcee named wallace simpson in 1911 cairo cautioned an  english newspaper man named wt   stead that travel by water would imperil  his life particularly in april of 1912. but still ignored cairo's admonition and  booked passage on an ocean liner that sailed   april 10 1912 the name of the ship the titanic perhaps cairo's most impressive prediction  involved in ancient pharaoh's curse in 1922 lord carnavan a renowned egyptologist  discovered the fabled tomb of king tutankhamun cairo warned lord carnavan not to enter the  newly discovered tomb lest it cost him his life   lord carnavan ignored the warning five months  later he died of a mysterious blood disease despite the accuracy of  some of cairo's predictions   scholars dismiss the belief that the  lines on our palms contain our fate we don't know how many other predictions cairo  had made he probably made in the course of his   professional career thousands and thousands  of such predictions just by chance some of   them are going to come true nevertheless  scientific research has provided surprising   evidence for a connection between the  palms and the central nervous system modern anatomists have demonstrated that  the sensory input from the brain to the hand   is greater than to any other part of the  body pediatricians have found that lines   in the palms of infants are valuable  predictors of congenital disease but is the future really  imprinted on our hands at birth experts argue that forecasting disease is a  very different matter from divining the future i suspect very strongly that as long as  they're going to be human beings on the   planet people will believe that dreams  or hunches or tea leaves or entrails or   crystal balls or the pattern of license numbers  on cars on the parkway are going to be a way for   telling the future and inevitably some skeptic  will come along and you know do the study and   find that they don't and people will move on to  some other invalid way of predicting the future where the lines on the palm might actually  hold the secret to an individual's destiny   continues to be fervently debated and yet some  proclaim that the ability to foretell the future   is not confined to a handful  of extraordinary clairvoyance since ancient times humanity has suffered  a terrible series of catastrophes   which had only one thing in common they were totally unexpected and liftoff liftoff of the 25th space  shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower with each disaster from  ancient times to the space age   the dream has persisted that somehow calamities  might be predicted before they struck surprisingly some believe we've always  possessed this extraordinary prophetic ability we have and i think this is very  important spontaneous cases that occur   every day with ordinary folks where they  get very convincing glimpses of the future   and this is outside of coincidence and  all these other things very dramatic cases most scientists believe however that  while all of us have frequent premonitions   only an insignificant few actually come true  it's very common to have premonitions of   great disasters and little disasters by chance  alone some of those are just going to come true   we tend to hear about the ones that  do come true and we don't hear about   thousands and thousands and thousands  of premonitions that don't come true in 1897 an obscure american writer named morgan  robertson was struck by a remarkable premonition   he expressed his vision in a fictional  account which bore an uncanny similarity   to the true story of the sinking of  the titanic 14 years before it happened the ship in robertson's story was  astonishingly similar to the titanic both vessels were called unsinkable both struck icebergs and took almost an  identical number of victims to their watery grade the name of the ship in robinson's  startling premonition the titan many skeptics however remain unimpressed  by the litany of striking similarities you wouldn't name your great  hulking passenger liner   the little mouse uh if you wanted a a  dramatic effect so i again i don't think   there's anything paranormal here i think  robertson was making some very good guesses in addition to robertson 18 other people  had premonitions of the titanic disaster the interesting thing about the titanic  itself is that not that it's the most   incredible prediction but it's one of the most  recorded predictions this great unsinkable ship   was widely publicized worldwide in the press and  many people thought it was a sign of arrogance man   claiming to have overcome  the natural forces in nature   and it roused some resentment so it's  more likely that there would have been   more premonitions of something going wrong maybe  almost in a perverse sort of way wishful thinking perhaps no disaster in modern times raises  the issue of premonition more intriguingly   than the catastrophe which struck a  tight-knit welsh mining community in 1966 the village of aberfan nestled in the shadow of a  600-foot mountain of coal slag from nearby mines on a chilly october morning  loosened by two days of rain   an avalanche of coal waste  thundered down towards the village thousands of tons of slag crushed trees   swept away scores of homes and  buried the town's school in debris some of the helpers tore up the rubble  with bare hands in their desperate efforts   to get at the children one teacher  said she heard a big rumbling sound   and shouted to the children  to get under their desks   another teacher said he had a tremendous  role after that he doesn't remember anything 144 people were killed most  of them young school children in the aftermath over 60 people across great  britain reported having had premonitions of   the disaster perhaps the most poignant  came from ten-year-old ariel may jones   in the doomed village of aberfan the day before the disaster she said to her mother  mommy let me tell you about my dream last night   mother answered generally darling i  have no time now tell me again later   and she replied no mommy you must  listen i dreamt i went to school   and there was no school there  something black had come down over it the next morning ariel mae jones  perished with her classmates   under the very avalanche she had foretold but are such dreams proof of  the existence of precognition skeptics point out that with perhaps a trillion  dreams dreamt around the world each night   it is no wonder that a few  seem to foretell the future out of a trillion possibilities some of those are  going to come impressively true simply by chance   and one will selectively remember the dreams that  come true and forget those that don't come true other experts however feel that proven cases of  precognition are far too common to be dismissed   as mere coincidences when you have them happening  to so many thousands of people all over the world   it's no longer unusual it's normal in  fact for people to have these experiences   what's unusual unfortunately is for people to  pay attention and to actually try to stop or   change what they predicted if it's a bad thing  or try to make it happen if it's a good thing even if premonitions do occur a deeper mystery  remains is the future changeable or is it fixed are our lives determined by  human free will or by destiny this profound question sharply divides researchers  and challenges our understanding of time itself for me to believe that  individuals or many of us   can foretell the future would require that  i believe that the future is preordained and   i simply can't believe that we don't know  a whole lot about time physicists at many   levels believe that time might go both  ways that you might be able to pick up   information from a future that's probable or  definite depending on how on what you believe after centuries of controversy about precognition   at last experts are attempting to replace  speculation with scientific research researchers themselves however  acknowledge that science has a   long way to go before the existence of  precognition can be conclusively proven the elusive dream of seeing into  the future continues to tantalize   researchers with its promise to even imagine  the prospect opens unlimited possibilities none of us want to be on the next titanic  or the next 747 to crash or at the scene of   the next earthquake and if we believe  that there's a way of foretelling the   future we at least have the illusion that  we can provide we can prevent that kind of   thing and save ourselves and our loved  ones and that's a very powerful motive is the future a secret which the  ancients had the key to unlock   a key which modern science has yet to discover with the advent of a new millennium many  seek a magical tool to probe the daunting   challenges that lie ahead so we will continue  the age-old quest to shatter the barriers of time so you

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Id: A-Ele3QHZRo

Length: 46min 13sec (2773 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021