Preparation 500, Magnet Man, and Comet Nostradamus

We’ve just heard of one of the more bizarre “biodynamic practices” known as “Preparation 500,” not to be confused with “Preparation H.” This consists of burying cow horns stuffed with manure in the earth at the Fall Equinox on “ley lines” where “astral influences” cross. This scheme is designed to aid the growth of grape vines for the wine trade, which can be very mystical even without such props. The horns are to be dug up at the Spring Equinox, at which time their contents are to be diluted with rainwater. This preparation must be “dynamized”—stirred in alternate directions for an hour—before being spread on the vines. The system is advertised as transferring the “life giving” forces of the Earth to the vines, making them healthier. Right.

Many of the top wine estates in France have subscribed to this practice, which was an off-shoot of principles developed by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), the Austrian philosopher who founded Anthroposophy and the Waldorf schools. Steiner couched his theories in scientific jargon, but there are no scientific studies behind his conjectures. The present leader of the biodynamic movement is Nicolas Joly, who says, as only he can: 

Herbicides destroy the microbial life of the soil. Without this, the vine cannot feed itself. If my hands are tied behind my back, I cannot eat … Vine diseases come from not respecting life forces. In biodynamics, we are using the energetical world and reconnecting that to the vine. You have a lot of invisible forces. Disease is just a lack of life forces. 

Biodynamics also specifies times for official wine-tasting. The biodynamic growers want their wines tasted only on “fruit” or “flower” days, but naturally not on “leaf” or “root” days. The determination of which category any given day falls into is yet another mystical, anthroposophical process, equally boring and nonsensical. 

Magnet Man 

Liew Thow Lin, a 70-year-old retired contractor in Malaysia, is back in the news for pulling a car twenty meters along a level surface by means of an iron chain hooked to an iron plate on his midriff. He says that he discovered he had the amazing ability to make objects stick “magnetically” to his skin, and now he’s added car-pulling to his repertoire. After reading an article about a family in Taiwan who possessed such power, he says he took several iron objects and put them on his abdomen and, to his surprise, all the objects, including a flat iron, stuck on his skin and didn’t fall. Since this “gift” is also present in three of his sons and two grandchildren, he figures it’s hereditary. 

In Indonesia, farmer Tan Kok Thai has also found instant fame with a body that can attract handphones, calculators, plastic and glass bottles, books, biscuits, planks, bananas, flashlights, remote controls, electric irons, knives, canned food, tubes of toothpaste, rocks, metal, plastic and rubber items, pieces of wood, plus bananas and even an air conditioner. The 66-year-old Tan has even demonstrated the ability to lift two bicycles tied to a cleaver “magnetically attached” to his body. He says he first realized that he could attract metal last year when a coin dropped out of a shirt pocket while he was taking off the garment and it stuck to his chest. He gave little thought to it until he saw a Chinese documentary showing a man in Taiwan sticking coins to his body—the same person Liew had heard of. Tan said he can now keep a piece of rock weighing 38.5kg (85 lbs.) stuck to his chest. 

Now, I tend to doubt this, since I’ve tested people all over the world for this same claim, the last being in Korea, but “real scientists” have validated these powers! Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) lecturer Nasrul Humaimi Mahmood said this ability was probably associated with “suction properties in his skin.” Professor Dr. Mohamed Amin Alias, from UTM’s electrical engineering faculty in Johor, agreed. After seeing Liew perform, the professor did research on the matter, and decided, “His skin has a special suction effect that can help metal stick to it.” “These powers are not an illusion,” he said, “That is why his two sons and two grandchildren also have the magnetic-like ability. They have his genes.” Dr. Atsusi Kono, former chief physician at Tokyo’s Djo Si Idai Hospital was so impressed with a Russian he saw doing this stunt, that he commented: “There is absolutely no doubt that the objects stick as if their bodies were magnetic.” Dr. Friedbert Karger of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, in January 1997, investigated another “magnetic man” named Miroslaw Magola who was born in Poland in the 1960s, and was able to demonstrate the ability “to pick up a cup from the floor without touching it, and to control its suspension in mid-air.” 

Now, this man Magola wrote to the JREF as an applicant back in December of 1996. He claims not only to have the ability to attract metal, ceramic, and wooden objects to his body, but also that he could levitate. In 1996, he appeared on an English television program called Beyond Belief, but was unable to levitate on that occasion, although his other demos created strong public interest. We exchanged many notes about his application, which suddenly ceased when I suggested that I would dust his skin with talcum powder before such a test. Perhaps Magola is allergic to talcum powder … ? It seemed to inhibit the abilities of a chap from Taiwan and a Bulgarian woman who I tested in Korea last year, and the can is still half-full, if any of these new miracle-workers are willing to be tested … 

Folks, look at the illustration of this deluded man festooned with meat-cleavers. Anyone can do this! However, happily, not very many want to. Think of the scandal: “My dad stands around with meat cleavers stuck to him!” 

Comet Nostradamus to Hit Greece 

Several readers alerted me—and thus, you—about the following dire prediction. A man named R.W. Welch wrote a book in 2000 titled, Comet of Nostradamus. As I sit at my computer writing this, I wish to make a prophecy based on what Mr. Welch has written; more of that in a moment. In his book Welch predicted that a gigantic comet—which he says was predicted by Nostradamus—would hit Earth around August 19th, 2004, in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece. Quoting him: 

The comet of Nostradamus will enter our atmosphere at a low angle near 48 degrees north. Its coma, or perhaps falling fragments, will scorch southern France and central Italy before the nucleus of the comet explodes just off the Aegean coast of Greece. The size of this space missile is uncertain, but it will be bigger than the Tunguska comet that exploded over Siberia in 1908, flattening a thousand square kilometers of forest. The Tunguska comet did not alter the weather but, according to the quatrains, the comet of Nostradamus will, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. Dust and debris from the comet’s explosion will linger in the atmosphere for many months, filtering out sunlight and ruining many crops. But the impact of the comet does not end there. Its effects so weaken Greece that the country poses an easy target for Islamic radicals who, aided by Iran, seize control of Turkey. Aggression against Greece triggers a spreading war that ultimately engulfs most of the countries of the Mediterranean and beyond. 

The Nostradamus quatrain from which Welch got this nutty notion is Century III, #3. This is his translation and interpretation of the quatrain, also from an excerpt from his book: 

Future Quatrain III-3: An Arrow to 2004
Mars and Mercury, and the silver (moon) joined
Together, towards the midi (south France) extreme
Dryness. In the bed of Asia one will say the earth
Trembles; Corinth, and Ephesus then in perplexity.

Welch states that this quatrain means that a comet will fall in the Aegean Sea between Corinth (modern Kórinthos) and Ephesus—western Turkey. That would put it at about 100 kilometers east of Athens, which would have really disrupted the 28th Olympiad! The “drought,” he says, refers to the heat effect of the comet as it passes over southern France. The trembling of the earth, to Welch, predicts more than just the explosion of the comet. Its impact evidently triggers an earthquake, as well. The presumption, naivety, and ego of these “interpreters” of the doggerel of the Prophet of Salon, were never better demonstrated than by this amateur philosopher Welch. The lines below were taken from a very early edition of Nostradamus, first in French, then in English translation: 

Mars & Mercure, & Largent joint ensemble, Vers le Midy extreme sicci, Au Fond d’Asie on dira Terre tremble, Corinthe, Ephese, lors en perplexite. 

Mars and Mercury, and Silver joined together, Towards the South a great drought, In the bottom of Asia shall be an Earth-quake, Corinth and Ephesus shall then be in perplexity. 

Well, the translator of this 1672 (Garencières) edition—in our library—disagrees with most other fumblers who have attempted to bring meaning to this series of four-line hoaxes. He divines that the first two lines of this quatrain define an alchemical formula for gold(?), while the last two are simply a prediction of an Asian earthquake. In my opinion, this is just another of many such references to a planetary configuration—of Mars, Mercury, and the Moon, in this case—this one to a time of drought in the south of some country or other, and an earthquake somewhere in south Asia. This almost-correct arrangement of the planets and the Sun will happen from time to time, so this particular date is not specified, at all. 

True, Mars, Mercury and the Sun were all together in the constellation Leo on this date, though the Moon has moved on. At least Welch got that partly right. 

Here, as promised, was my own personal prediction made before the fateful date (and posted on my web page, www.randi.org): “My vast experience in examining this sort of prediction tells me that there will be no earthquake in the Aegean on that date, that a comet will not fall on the Earth at that time, and that Mr. Welch—along with all the other Nostradamians—will be dead wrong—again.” Since the deadly date has come and gone without event, it appears I am a better prognosticator than Welch or Nostradamus.