c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ His supporters say he predicted the rise of Napoleon and Hitler with uncanny accuracy and foresaw events, including the space shuttle disaster and math-processing problems with the Pentium computer chip.

His detractors say he was a mediocre 16th century astrologer with no special gifts, whose vague writings have been wildly overinterpreted by prophecy enthusiasts.

History will render the final verdict on Michel Nostradamus, a physician and astrologer, very shortly. More than 430 years after his death, the July 1999 deadline is at hand for one of Nostradamus’ most widely discussed predictions, generating wild speculation among some enthusiasts.

In a passage known as Quatrain X:72, Nostradamus wrote:”The Year 1999 seven months

From the sky will come the great King of Terror

To resuscitate the great king of the Mongols

Before and after Mars reigns by good luck.” The approaching target date has generated excitement on the more than 40,000 Web pages devoted to Nostradamus, which perceive potential import in everything from a new comet to the Cassini space probe.

Some predict July 4 will mark the beginning of a world war in which Russia will attack Europe with nuclear weapons. Some believe the newly discovered Comet Lee will strike the Earth, an event astronomers say is impossible. In Japan, the “King of the Mongols” reference has some worrying about an invasion by China.

The July 1999 prediction has meant a busy time for James Randi, a former magician and Nostradamus expert whose James Randi Educational Foundation seeks to debunk suspect claims of the supernatural.

Randi said his 1990 book, “The Mask of Nostradamus,” is being reprinted in Japan in a bid to dampen millennial speculation.

“July 1999 is the only prophecy Nostradamus made which mentions an exact date,” said Randi. “All the conspiracy vendors and doomsday vendors out there are having a wonderful time. This has caused quite a bit of excitement in Japan. They are apparently building shelters and reacting with great excitement.”

Randi says they should calm down.

“Nostradamus has a record of being very, very wrong,” said Randi. “Most of his predictions are easily explained in matters of his own day.

“He made 104 verifiable predictions, in which he actually named a place or a person or a time,” Randi added. “He’s been wrong on 103 of the 104. … We’ll have to wait to see if he has a perfect record.”

Those who give Nostradamus more credibility, including some scholars, agree that whatever happens _ or doesn’t _ will guide Nostradamus’ legacy.

“July 1999 will be a defining moment for Nostradamus, and the prophecies of Nostradamus will likely have a very different value in people’s minds afterwards,” writes Goro Adachi, who maintains a popular Web site devoted to Nostradamus.

“What is perhaps most mysterious about Nostradamus is how people regard him as one of the greatest prophets of history without knowing even one of his fulfilled prophecies, or any of his prophecies for that matter,” Adachi said.

“The reality is that there are very few of his prophecies that can be considered to be clearly fulfilled,” Adachi added. “This is mainly due to the vague and enigmatic wording of his prophecies, which allows for numerous interpretations. This causes some people to dismiss the prophecies as clever trickery, and some people to think virtually every event in the world has been predicted by Nostradamus.”

The writings of Nostradamus mention the names Pasteur and Franco and describe three “antichrists,” two of them in passages that loosely fit the careers of Napoleon and Hitler. The rise of the third antichrist is widely associated with the July 1999 prediction.

Interpretations of Nostradamus often incorporate prophetic thought from a variety of traditions and belief systems, as well as current events.

An example is the interest in Cassini, a space probe launched in 1997 that has already photographed Venus and will eventually visit Jupiter and Saturn. To accomplish this, NASA first sent Cassini into orbit around the sun. On Aug. 18, it will do a “fly-by” that brings it within 729 miles of the Earth, using Earth’s gravity to slingshot the spacecraft toward the outer planets.

Cassini carries 72 pounds of plutonium, which has sparked fears that a miscalculation or meteoroid could cause the spacecraft to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and cause a nuclear accident. NASA says the odds of this happening are less than one in 1 million.

But that’s enough room for Nostradamus buffs, who have extended the window of opportunity for prophetic fulfillment into August and even September to accommodate Cassini and other variables.

Randi says such expectations are common in prophecy and astrology, and are a part of human nature.

“People are hungry for this kind of thing,” he said. “They would like to have knowledge of the future. If you knew the future, you could know what stocks to buy, for example.

“Knowledge of the future represents power, and people are looking for power, so they pay money to astrologers and 1-900 numbers, not realizing that if the astrologers and operators of the 1-900 service really had all this power they’d use it for themselves and not have to do all this marketing to others.”

DEA END MILLER