What is the first name of Nostradamus? If you know that, you’re more of a history (or sensation) buff than me. The 16th century physician with his quatrains of silver poetry has influenced more prophets and seers around the globe than any other force combined. So what makes him prettier than the rest of them? I don’t know and perhaps he really did see the future, but I’ll point deliberations on that to this answer: Chance. But that’s not what this is about.

Predictions and astrology, the mythical and the metaphysical are as much a part of the human drive to explain everything as anything else. It has spread its roots into every century that man has lived in. It has as much followers now (perhaps more) as it did in the 16th century. There have even been attempts (in fiction, of course) to wrap it around science, attempts that I find very interesting. But over and above all that, it seems we need to know what will happen in the future. Science doesn’t have an answer to that need: it is an ocean of doubt in which people will endlessly wallow; scientists are never absolutely certain of anything. For certainty, we have to look beyond it.

I think this is because of the human need to search for reference points. A young child looks to his mother and his house; older, he looks to his school and when he goes to college, he compares the college to the ‘still point’ in his life then – his school. We jump from one stable stable to another like pack horses that can’t graze together. I really wish people could be happy while in doubt. But I doubt they can. That’s why they look to other people.