Famed seer's predictions gain unprecedented attention

As seers and prophets go, Nicolaas van Rensburg, a white South African who lived a century ago, has what is considered a fairly accurate track record, and residents of this embattled nation now are looking to his predictions as the key to their future.

"The prophet spoken of in hushed tones by the ANC, but with admiration by white South Africans, is none other than Seer van Rensburg," says South African scholar and historian Adriaan Snyman, likely the man who best understands van Rensburg's work and its implications for South Africa. Snyman's story and his dedicated quest to understand van Rensburg's work is a long and captivating account. He was born in Lichtenburg, situated in the old West Transvaal, South Africa, close to Ottosdal, where Seer Nicolaas van Rensburg resided on his farm. On completion of his schooling, he went to work for the Department of Education in Pretoria and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. Shortly thereafter, he became a journalist and worked for two Afrikaans newspapers, the Hoofstad in Pretoria and the Burger in Cape Town.

In an interview with WorldNetDaily, Snyman related how his interest in van Rensburg began.

"Years ago, at about 5 o'clock one autumn morning, I was sitting in my cane chair reading 1 Samuel, chapter 9. Saul and his servant were looking for his father's asses that had been lost. They found nothing, and when Saul wanted to go back, his servant advised him that they should consult a man of God."

Snyman described this verse as God saying the following to Saul: "Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man, all that he saith cometh surely to pass; now let us go thither; peradventure he can show us our way that we should go."

"Something happened to me at that moment; A shudder went through me, a light flashed through my head, and as I stood up I spoke aloud to myself: 'Have we not had our man of God and seer?' Vague memories came to mind, and for a fleeting moment I saw myself in the countryside at Lichtenburg where my father was busy telling my brothers, sister and me about Seer van Rensburg, who always went to a hill behind his house during the day to read his Bible and pray. 'And there God spoke to him,' I heard my father say," Snyman said. "This was what I could remember."

Snyman said it was then that he "started searching, but just like Saul's asses, Seer van Rensburg was lost to me. Then one morning at a place called Eloffsdal, Pretoria, he appeared before me in the form of old Mr. Paul Prinsloo, an 82-year-old 'disciple' and a person who knew all about Seer van Rensburg – a man who, even at that age, had bright and clear eyes. And for the first time since my childhood, I heard the following words: 'Seer van Rensburg said …' And from that time on, I met various other people who knew about the Boer Prophet and what he had said. Then information began coming to me like a flood. Today, I know without doubt – we had our own seer!"

Since its publication in 1995, the book "Boodskapper van God" about van Rensburg has become a national best seller in Afrikaans, running through eight editions with nearly 50,000 copies sold, and it is still on the local best-sellers list. Snyman's own work, the English translation "Voice of a Prophet," is now in its second printing. The SABC made a documentary about the Seer in 1999, and it was televised no less than three times within as many weeks.

Says Snyman, "Van Rensburg's visions are so well-known by his people that they are regularly discussed in Parliament, and some years back a prominent MP flew off the handle and [the scene] ended in a brawl with a member of the opposition."

Snyman told WorldNetDaily that during a parliamentary discussion in January 1991, a Conservative MP mentioned a vision of Seer van Rensburg regarding a diamond the size of a sheep's head that still lay undiscovered in the Western Transvaal diamond fields. Since then, diamond prospectors have been searching for this hidden sheep's head-size diamond and constantly inquire as to when and where the diamond will be found.

Asked how ANC and South African Communist Party supporters feel about van Rensburg's prophecies, Snyman was resolute.

"I don't think they like what he said, because he not only predicted that thousands of blacks in Africa would die of hunger or a terrible sickness – perhaps, sadly, AIDS or Ebola – but also that one day the Afrikaner will take back his land and freedom," he said.

Snyman said that he has been threatened by unknown parties about his work concerning van Rensburg.

"Since my wife, Annelize, and I started publishing the old seer's visions in 1991, we have been intimidated in many ways. Someone will phone us at 2 o'clock in the morning and say, 'The first person leaving your house tomorrow morning will be shot!' Then he'll hang up," he said.

"Last year, I went on a nation-wide tour to inform my people about the seer's predictions for the near future and warn them of a blood-bath that will follow the death of a prominent black man. Some party or parties tried to stop me by phoning my wife and telling her she would receive me back with a bullet in the head. Nevertheless, I finished my tour, visiting 64 towns and cities and speaking to about 30,000 people. At some of these meetings there were more English-speaking people than Afrikaners."

Asked what the seer might say about South Africa if he were alive today, Snyman said, "Like ex-President P.W. Botha, he would have refused to appear before Bishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

"I say this because shortly before his death in 1926, van Rensburg himself said, 'Our nation will become free; I see them trekking inland where they congregate in a large mass; I see some going west, where they will fight and revolution breaking out among them, but everything will happen without any blood being shed. On the past of our nation, and on the present, there is no stigma; hope in the future and aim for the best you can achieve.'"

Concerning van Rensburg's alleged unfinished manuscripts, Snyman told WorldNetDaily, "There are no unfinished manuscripts, only the two books containing his visions, as written down by Anna, his daughter, and they were nowhere to be found when I started my research in 1990. Even his surviving family did not know where they were."

Snyman says that according to an article in the Sunday newspaper Rapport in 1981, these books disappeared after the death of his daughter and could not be found.

"Therefore, I believe it was an act of divine providence that I finally traced the books in the archives of the Lichtenburg Museum in 1991," he said.

"When reading these visions, one realizes that the symbols and metaphors may contain the keys to things we do not yet understand in our times. In about 700 visions, the history of Nicolaas van Rensburg's people, the Afrikaner, is sketched over a period of 100 years, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle."

As for what the future holds for South Africa, Snyman said, "only Seer van Rensburg holds the key."

Khosa October, a black ANC activist in Cape Town, told WorldNetDaily: "I don't know if the prophecies of van Rensburg are true, but they sure give me the creeps. Apartheid was wrong, yes. The ANC has become so corrupt and the world has changed so much since Mandela was released from jail. Perhaps it is not beyond imagination, when one considers AIDS, that the whites will rule South Africa again."

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