Nostradamus’s Prophecies: An Ancient Hoax That Refuses To Rest

Michel de Nostredame refuses to be past. Come New Year, the astrologer and clairvoyant from the 16th century France barges into public consciousness with such force that it is hard to believe he is too distant from the present. His prophecies for the year occupy significant media space. Going by the analyses that follow, it’s obvious that these are taken seriously by certain sections. Is it a hoax that keeps repeating itself every year or is there something more?

For 2025, Nostradamus drew a rather bleak picture. He predicted continuation of a big war across continents and the conclusion of a long ongoing conflict. He foresaw bad times for England in war and the outbreak of an ancient plague. The plague would be devastating in its impact, even worse the war, he prophesied. A giant asteroid would either collide with Earth or come very close. The impact could be catastrophic to the world. Brazil would face natural calamities such as volcanic activity and floods, he wrote.

Like all prophecies, those of Nostradamus elicit scepticism and blind trust in equal measure. How could a physician and astrologer of the middle ages see so far into the future, given the political, social and cultural realities have undergone such massive shifts through centuries? Argue sceptics. He was right on the rise of Napoleon, the French revolution, the September 11 attacks and outbreak of Covid and many such huge events, wasn’t he? Counter believers.

Nostradamus shifted to astrology and divination from medicine and astrology in the 1540s. Les Prophéties (The Prophecies), a collection of 942 quatrains (a stanza with four lines making a verse), was published in 1555. These were written in a mix of French, Latin, and Greek, and full of metaphorical and ambiguous references. He claimed to derive his predictions through a combination of biblical texts, astrological alignments, and meditative visions, a Google search on him reveals.

Clever, isn’t it? Like all fortune-tellers he kept everything vague, open to several interpretations. In India, we have too many of such characters posing as babas. Of course, they have great followership. The criticism of Nostradamus’s prophecies can apply to them too. Let’s have a look at them – the information is culled from various sources.

Nostradamus’s quatrains are often so open-ended that they can be interpreted to fit any event of past, present and future. For example, critics argue that his prediction of ‘Hister’ is not a reference to Adolf Hitler but rather to the Latin name for the Danube River. They are often mistranslated and deliberately misinterpreted by translators to prove him right. The interpretations often follow the biases of the latter. Of course, his methods derived from biblical knowledge and astrology are open to questions.

Clever poetry with no predictive powers. There is nothing visionary transcending time in it. The quatrains reflect the fear and superstitions of the age he belonged, critics say. Observe how our homemade soothsayers operate, you understand why Nostradamus’s critics are justified.

(By arrangement with Perspective Bytes)