Apocalypticists

A 500-year-old copy of a letter in which Christopher Columbus describes his voyage to the Americas has been returned to Spain after U.S. authorities tracked down the document, which had been stolen and replaced with a forgery years ago.

Shorn of the usual political news cycle, and thrown back on royals attending church services at Christmas to supply "news", some media in the UK have given top billing over the festive season to a long dead-Bulgarian blind mystic's predictions for the coming year.

Renowned American director Quentin Tarantino will release his ninth film on August 9, 2018, when is the 50th anniversary of the murder of actress Sharon Tate, the DPA reported.

On that date, half a century ago, Roman Polanski's wife, who was in an advanced pregnancy, was barbaric slaughtered by the followers of Charles Manson's sect.

Charles Manson, one of the most notorious serial killers in U.S. history, died late Sunday at the age of 83, after four and a half decades in prison.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Manson died of natural causes at a hospital in Kern County.

Nostradamus has got nothing on this. 

22-years ago Greg Wilkinson probably didn’t consider himself to be one of the great seers of our lifetime, but he can certainly call himself that now.

Back in 1995, he wrote a letter, speculating on what might happen in the near future and buried it in a wall of a house in Sydney, Australia.

In a cavernous warehouse where Israel stores its archaeological treasures, an ancient burial box is inscribed with the name of Jesus. Not that Jesus. Archaeologists in Israel say Jesus was a common name in the Holy Land 2,000 years ago, and that they have found about 30 ancient burial boxes inscribed with it.

BELGRADE - An illiterate peasant, Mitar Tarabic, who lived in Serbia in the 19th century is believed to have predicted major historic events, like WWI and the rise of Nazis.

According to conspiracy theories that have been circulating among social media since the conclusion of the US presidential elections, and as reported by the British press, Nostradamus, the 16th century French apothecary and reputed seer, predicted both ‘audacious’ Trump’s victory from 4 centuries ago, how it ties in with Greece’s current woes, and the end of the world.

Although they developed after one of the biggest messianic movements in history, the Dönme crypto-religious community remains shrouded in mystery and subject to conspiracy theories in Turkey and elsewhere.

'The Burden of Silence: Sabbatai Sevi and the Evolution of Ottoman-Turkish Dönmes' by Cengiz ?i?man (Oxford University Press, 344 pages, £47)