Don’t you hate it when you take your kids camping in a National Park, but the lake is
missing and it’s an early warning sign of an impending apocalypse that the Mayans predicted
thousands of years ago?
Your day just goes downhill from there.
But in all seriousness, you may have recently received a chain email or seen posts on a
forum discussing how the coronavirus is the fulfillment of a prophecy and the end of the
world is near.
Granted that email came from your freaky great aunt, the one who believes that actors are
sending her coded messages through TV shows, so you‘re rather skeptical.
But are the doomsayers right, is it true that coronavirus was prophesied?
Are there any other ancient predictions that have come true?
Yes, although it clearly depends on how much belief a person put into the teachings of
a particular soothsayer or religion.
Some people have pointed to a passage in the Bible, second Chronicles chapter 7, verse
13.
God appears to King Solomon and tells him: “When I shut up the heavens so that there
is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people.”
This year we have had wildfires in Australia which raged for weeks before it rained.
Currently parts of the Middle East and East Africa are struggling with huge locust swarms
and the Covid-18 pandemic is affecting people worldwide.
The next verse calls for people to seek God and turn from their wicked ways for God to
heal their land.
Other people point to Luke chapter 21, verses 9-11 which suggest the beginning of the end
times: “ 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened.
These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful
events and great signs from heaven.”
Too non specific?
Perhaps.
Some Christians find people pushing these theories problematic and fear mongering.
They point to the book of Matthew chapter 24 verse 36 which says that only God himself
knows the end time.
While it’s not exactly an ancient prophecy, in 2008, medium Sylvia Browne wrote a book
called ‘End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World’.
Though Browne died in 2013, recently her book has been very popular; ‘rare’ hardcover
versions of it now sell for hundreds of dollars.
Some celebrities have tweeted a screenshot of a passage from the book:
"In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe attacking
the lungs and the bronchial tubes and all known treatments," Browne wrote.
"Almost more baffling than the illness will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as
quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later and then vanish completely."
Eerie, however although there’s no vaccine yet, medical professionals do know how to
treat coronavirus.
Also we’d like to point out that Sylvia Brown had a long history of being wrong about
many predictions she made, some of her predictions about missing children ended up causing needless
further grief for their families.
She even wrongly predicted her own death--she said she’d die at age 88, but was, well,
a little off.
She was actually 77 when she died.
Other than Covid-19 there are many other historical predictions made regarding world events which
are said to have come true.
There are the predictions of French writer Michel de Nostredame.
You may have heard of him under Nostradamus, his more commonly known name.
Nostradamus lived in the 16th century and in addition to being a writer, was a physician,
an astrologer, and allegedly a seer.
His book Les Prophéties which was first published in 1555, is a collection of 942 poetic quatrains,
those are four-line rhyming verses, that are divided into chapters called centuries and
are said to foretell future events.
Email chains and memes referencing Nostradamus have been floating around the internet for
some time.
Often enhanced and bad translations as well as faked poems of Nostradamus’ original
writing make his musing seem far more specific and accurate than they actually are.
Most famously, Nostradamus was said to have predicted September 11, but most of the quatrains
being passed around aren’t his original writing.
We turned to Les Prophéties for the truth.
In century I quatrain 87 Nostradamus wrote:
“Earthshaking fire from the center of the Earth
will cause tremors around the New City.
Two great rocks will war for a long time, Then Arethusa will redden a new river.
Some people take that to mean that 9/11 was either an inside job or the US is the center
of the earth, aka the most powerful nation.
Two great rocks perhaps the US and Islamic terrorists will fight long term.
It’s unclear how Arethusa, who was a Greek nymph fits in, but redden a new
river may be a river of blood.
People often mention a second verse which also may predict 9/11 century 6, quatrain
97 says: At forty-five degrees the sky will burn,
Fire to approach the great new city: In an instant a great scattered flame will
leap up, When one will want to demand proof of the
Normans.
New York lies at 40 degrees North Latitude and unfortunately a devastating fire was part
of the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack.
‘Proof of the Normans’ is puzzling though.
Nostradamus is said to have predicted several other world events such as the Great Fire
of London.
In century 2, quatrain 51 he wrote:
The blood of the just will commit a fault at London,
Burnt through lightning of twenty threes the six:
The ancient lady will fall from her high place, Several of the same sect will be killed.
The ‘fault’ or accident was possibly a fire that started at a bakery owned by Thomas
Farriner in September of 1666.
The fire soon spread and became a raging inferno which engulfed the whole city.
It’s estimated 70,000 inhabitants of London lost their homes.
Three times 20 equals 60 and plus the 6 gets you 66, the year it happened.
London could be described as an ‘ancient lady’.
Then as well as now, London was a bustling commercial metropolis with the busiest market
and port in Britain.
The fire devastated the city and it ended up being almost completely rebuilt.
While only 6 people officially died in the fire, some historians argue that the deaths
of lower class residents weren’t recorded and probably several thousand died.
Also the intense heat of the fire may have cremated many victims, leaving little recognisable
evidence between.
On the other hand, ‘same sect’ may not refer to citizens or a social class, but the
fact that some Londoners blamed the conflagration on Catholics and the Dutch.
Mobs attacked and lynched members of these ‘sects’ while the city still smoldered.
Another event Nostradamus is said to have predicted is the French Revolution.
In century 1, quatrain 24, he wrote:
From the enslaved populace, songs, chants and demands,
while Princes and Lords are held captive in prisons.
These will in the future by headless idiots be received as divine prayers
This one seems a little more specific.
The French Revolution saw the overthrow of the monarchy and a new republic created.
The lower class common people of France known as the Third Estate, were poverty stricken
and downtrodden by the First Estate, the clergy and the Second Estate French nobility and
elites.
The Third Estate rose up and marched through the streets in several towns chanting their
demands.
In Paris, they ended up storming the Bastille.
The mobs arrested and imprisoned many of the aristocracy, including the king and introduced
them to Madame Guillotine.
Nostradamus also predicted the rise of Adolf Hitler.
In century 3 quatrain 35 he wrote:
From the very depths of the West of Europe, A young child will be born of poor people,
He who by his tongue will seduce a great troop: His fame will increase towards the realm of
the East.
Believers often couple that quatrain with century 2 quatrain 24:
Beasts ferocious from hunger will swim across rivers:
The greater part of the region will be against the Hister,
The great one will cause it to be dragged in an iron cage,
When the German child will observe nothing.
Hitler experienced poverty while young and was even homeless for a while.
He had a way with words, he was a great orator who was definitely able to seduce a great
troop.
He quickly rose to power and became fascist chancellor, uniting most of Germany behind
him.
The beasts crossing rivers are often considered to be Germany invading France and other countries
in Europe.
Hister could be Hitler, although it’s thought Nostradamus was using the Latin name for the
Danube River.
The last two verses could be referring to the censorship and blame of Germany by other
countries after Hitler commited suicide.
The rise of Hitler wasn’t the only World War II event that Nostradamus seemingly predicted.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing were allegedly described in century 2, quatrain 6:
Near the gates and within two cities There will be two scourges the like of which
was never seen, Famine within plague, people put out by steel,
Crying to the great immortal God for relief.
The dropping of the atomic bombs on these two cities was a scourge which had never been
seen before.
The bombing caused widespread devastation including food shortages and radiation poisoning
for the citizens in the affected areas, some of them definitely cried out to God for relief.
In century 1, quatrain 26, Nostradmus may have predicted the death of President John
Kennedy and also the death of his brother presidential candidate Robert Kennedy:
The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt.
An evil deed, foretold by the bearer of a petition.
According to the prediction another falls at night time.
Conflict at Reims, London, and pestilence in Tuscany.
JFK, a well respected president was struck down by gunshot on November 22, 1963, and
it had a thunderbolt effect on society, if not the whole world.
Prior to his assasination, he received many death threats--petitions.
RFK was a presidential front runner and many felt that he was the heir to his brother’s
position.
He was assassinated just after midnight at 12:15 am on June 5, 1968.
As for conflict in Reims and the other countries, the assassinations of the Kennedys caused
a societal shift in America and also affected citizens in other countries.
Last but not least, there are emails currently circulating that claim Nostradamus predicted
the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Some point to century 2, quatrain 6--yes, the same verses that may have predicted the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That would be extremely upsetting because it means coronavirus is only the first of
two scourges.
Others point to century 2, quatrain 53:
The great plague of the maritime city Will not cease until there be avenged the
death Of the just blood, condemned for a price without
crime, Of the great lady unwronged by pretense.
Wuhan isn’t a maritime city, it’s actually quite far inland and is landlocked, however
the origins of Covid-19 were traced to a seafood market.
It’s a stretch though.
We’ll report back to you if any other event happens that fulfills the rest of the verses.
We began this video by joking about a Mayan prediction as interpreted by a Hollywood blockbuster.
Actually, the Mayans never predicted the end of the world as December 21, 2012.
Some researchers, psychics and pop culture took a few facts of what the modern world
has interpreted from ancient Mayan culture and ran with it.
According to interpretations of some glyphs [https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mayan-pictograph-tikal-ruins-guatemala-234810364],
the Mayan Long Count Calendar started with “creation” on August 11, 3114 BCE [Before
Current Era in the Gregorian calendar], and ran a total of 13 b’aktuns or a cycle of
144,000 days that lasted a total of 5,125 years.
The glyphs also indicated that some sort of event would happen at the end of the 13th
cycle which was 12-21-12.
There’s a suggestion that a god or a collective totality of gods called Bolon Yookte’ will
descend....
Unfortunately, the rest of the sentence is missing due to the glyph having deteriorated
over time.
Not much else has been found in the records regarding this prediction, so it’s impossible
to know what the ancient Mayans intended.
Ultimately, what we’re suggesting is that you shouldn’t read too much into or worry
about any particular predictions.
People have made educated and uneducated guesses about the future.
They have been inspired by religious ceremonies, societal problems, fueled by sickness, drugs
and liquor, allegedly communed with the dead, followed the whims of animals and just about
any other way you can think of to offer up a prediction of what tomorrow will bring.
Don’t let their guesses keep you awake at night.
Take a deep breath and seek to enjoy your life now, living as best you can.
And now that you've reached the end of our video, why not keep the watch party going?!
Did you know that Sir Issac Newton once predicted the end of the world?
Find out about his prediction here Does the possibility of zombies running rampant
keep you up at night?
Check out our tips for surviving a zombie horde here
Whichever video you click, hopefully we can provide some insight on how to cope with an
apocalypse.