The Coronavirus pandemic will, without a doubt, have a place in the history books, tiktakers.
Nobody expected a tragedy of this magnitude… although it is said that a particular clairvoyant
left some written clues about it almost 500 years ago.
We are talking about the famous Nostradamus, the man who many people believe predicted
the World Wars, Hitler's rise to power, the assassination of president Kennedy, and the
Twin Towers attack in New York. Another one of his alleged predictions is that a comet
will fall on Earth in the year 2027… but is it true that he predicted the Coronavirus
pandemic, as some claim?
First we need to learn more about his life. He was born at the beginning of the 16th century
in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, at the south-east of France. His parents were Jacques, a notary,
and Reyniere, and he had at least eight siblings. He started his studies at the Avignon University,
until it had to close down in 1520 due to the bubonic plague.
He worked as a pharmacist for many years, until he could restart his education in medicine
at the Montpellier University. They never gave him a title though, because at the time
it was very frowned upon to work as a pharmacist. Despite this, he traveled through all of France,
assisting victims of the plague, and meeting alchemists and mystics who introduced him
to occultism and astrology.
Society was in a very turbulent state because of the plague, which prematurely took his
first wife and two of his children. In the middle of all this, in 1550 he started to
write almanacs where he would make predictions about the future, and he became so popular
as a clairvoyant that he even got important customers such as Catherine de' Medici, wife
of King Henry II.
However, he had to sign his work under the pen name "Nostradamus" to avoid persecution
from the Catholic church, which categorized clairvoyance as witchcraft and a crime. In
1555 he published his masterpiece, "The Prophecies", a collection of 1 000 verses that compiled
all of his predictions. He died when he was 62 due to a pulmonary edema, and his tombstone
says: "Here lie the bones of the illustrious Michel Nostradamus, alone of all mortals judged
worthy to record events of the entire world with his almost divine pen, under the influence
of the stars.”
However, if you actually sit down to read Nostradamus' prophecies, you will find they're
practically a huge tongue-twister almost impossible to decipher. Besides being written in ancient
French, he made up a method of hindering the understandability of his texts so he couldn't
be prosecuted by the Inquisition. He used metaphors, word games, and even words in Greek,
Latin, Italian, Hebrew, and Arabic. Some of his texts are so confusing that they are open
to many different interpretations.
That's why those who criticize Nostradamus' prophecies say that they just say whatever
their followers want to see. For instance, there is this verse: "At forty-five degrees
the sky will burn, and the fire will approach the great new city. In an instant, a great
and disperse flame will jump, when it is needed that the Normans are tested." Many believe
that this verse is a prediction of the Twin Towers attack. The "new city" inhabited by
"Normans" located at a latitude of "forty-five" would be New York.
Recently, an alleged fragment of his work became viral, which many believe is a prediction
of today's pandemic. It says: "There will be a twin year from which will arise a queen
who will come from the east and who will spread a plague in the darkness of night, on a country
with 7 hills and will transform the twilight of men into dust, to destroy and ruin the
world"." They also say the verse was accompanied with a symbol that looked similar to a virus.
The truth is that social media played a trick on us again, since it's been verified that
the alleged text doesn't appear in any of Nostradamus' writings. However, his believers
rushed to declare that he did predict the pandemic with this other fragment that does
exist in his body of work: "The great plague from the marine city will not stop until the
death of the just blood is avenged, condemned for a price without crime, from the great
dame outraged by the simulation".
In that case, what would be the "marine city"? The city of Wuhan, where the pandemic originated,
is not a coastal city, although a river does cross through it. Who could be the great dame?
The verses are just too ambiguous, and are open to many interpretations. Maybe you have
your own interpretations, tiktakers? If so, enlighten us with your theories in the comments!
And that's not all: It seems Nostradamus also wrote other predictions for 2020: That the
United Kingdom will be ruled by an absolute monarchy, that there will be many fires in
Europe, that a huge earthquake will devastate America during the summer, and that a huge
conflict between two great powers from the West and the East will change the course of
history. If he's right… I don't look forward to the rest of the year, tiktakers.