Humans have always been able to see the present and look into the past, but the future has
remained obscure.
That hasn’t stopped people from trying to gain insight into what could come next, however.
And, in ancient times, seers and prophets would try their utmost to convince the world
of their predictions for future events.
When we look back now, though, some of those predictions are stranger than others.
This is Unveiled, and today we’re exploring four of the most bizarre predictions from
ancient texts.
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Many civilizations throughout history have tried making predictions about the future.
In ancient times, prophets were renowned as speakers of the gods, and were regarded in
high esteem as a result.
The famous Oracle at Delphi in Greece, for example, was believed to be the speaker for
the god Apollo for more than twelve centuries.
The role was filled by different generations of people, always women, and referred to as
the Pythia.
The Oracle was usually described as someone who could go into a trance-like state, through
which they could foretell future events.
And the Greeks certainly trusted their predictions.
Interestingly, the Greeks themselves claimed that the Oracle’s powers came from vapors
in the ground, and to some degree some modern researchers have backed that up… suggesting
that there are cracks below the temple at Delphi where gasses may have risen, and that
those gasses may have acted something like a mind-altering, hallucinatory drug on the
Oracle inhaling them.
Along with the more recent Nostradamus, of the sixteenth century, the Oracle at Delphi
is perhaps one of history’s most famous future tellers.
But there have been many more bizarre (although perhaps less prominent) examples of past predictions,
too, laid out in ancient texts all over the world.
First, there’s the foretelling of doom as per Zoroastrianism, a movement founded by
the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, who’s birth date is continually debated by scholars - with
it generally said that he was alive sometime between 1,700 and 600 BCE.
Irrespective of the precise date, however, Zoroastrianism ranks as one of the oldest
religions on the planet, and it very likely had a major influence on other religions to
come.
Almost all of what’s known about Zoroaster himself is collected in an ancient text known
as the Avesta.
For the purposes of today’s video, though, it’s said in particular that Zoroaster predicted
that doomsday would come when a meteor known as Gochihr crashes into Earth, at some unknown
time in the future.
This in itself perhaps isn’t too crazy, as cometary collisions certainly do have the
potential to wipe out humanity ala the dinosaurs, at potentially any moment.
What sets Zoroaster’s comet apart, however, is that it’s told that it will crash with
such heat that it’ll melt all the metal on Earth, creating a massive flood of boiling
liquid metal that will wash over everything.
It’s said that literally everyone will be inescapably engulfed by this molten metal
maelstrom… but whether you’re harmed or not depends on how good a person you are.
It’s said that wicked people will feel all the pain of being drowned in boiling metal,
while good people will feel nothing more than something akin to warm milk washing over their
skin.
Afterwards, it’s said that the divine savior known as Saoshyant will create a substance
from the fat of an Ox, and this substance will give all surviving humans the gift of
immortality.
While there may be some comparisons to be drawn here between this and the various religious
myths of a great flood, the bizarre waves of boiling metal conjure up a truly unique
mental image.
This is by no means the only ancient prediction to have foretold the end of the world, though.
One of the most well-known doomsday predictions, in general, is the Norse belief in Ragnarok,
an ultimate battle which, according to the legend, will extinguish most of life on Earth.
Most of the details for Ragnarok were collected in an ancient text known as the Poetic Edda,
authored sometime around the 1100s - but containing information from older sources, too.
What’s perhaps a little less well known, though, is just how bizarre the events of
Ragnarok are.
First, there’s a fairly unsurprising period of war on Earth, but it’s said that that
will be followed by a series of raging blizzards.
While versions of the legend can vary, it usually follows that the world will then descend
into complete chaos, characterised by brutal bloodshed and sexual depravity.
When the god Loki enters the fray, he descends to Earth in a ship of the dead, called Naglfar,
made up of - amongst other things - human fingernails.
The sun and the moon disappear, as they’re both eaten by wolves, and natural disasters
- including earthquakes and huge waves - gradually destroy the planet.
The stars in the sky vanish completely, and all whilst a sort of zombie apocalypse unfolds
on the ground, as the undead are risen to wreak havoc.
While parts of the legend may be deemed more allegorical than anything else, there are
few apocalypse stories to match this one.
And few doomsday predictions with quite as many unexpected details.
Not all predictions foretell the end, however.
Next, we’re heading to the Roman Empire, the most enduring empire in history, standing
as it did for more than 1,500 years.
However, the Romans didn’t only have confidence that their rule would last a long time…
they sincerely thought that it would last forever, into infinity.
Much of what we know about the Roman mindset comes from the epic poem “The Aeneid”,
written by the poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BCE.
And, while there isn’t enough evidence to claim that literally all Romans fully believed
in what the Aeneid laid out, it’s generally said that they were convinced it outlined
the general truth of the founding of Rome.
And they truly did believe in the gods it depicted.
In the text, Jupiter, king of the gods, tells of his plans for Rome’s greatness, declaring
“Imperium sine fine”, which translates to mean “an empire without end”.
Moreover, and to what makes this prediction particularly bizarre, Jupiter also said that
Rome would be unbound by restrictions in both time and space - essentially granting it unlimited
rule, forever.
And perhaps even rule beyond physical possibilities.
The Romans, then, thought that they would never fade, with some claims that they genuinely
believed a leader could rule for far longer than a human lifetime.
On the one hand, these can be seen as but misplaced and ambitious beliefs… but, on
the other, imagine how different Earth might’ve been today had Rome never fallen.
Imagine how different it might’ve become one thousand, one hundred thousand, or even
a million years from now, if the Roman Empire never disappeared.
But finally, and despite that overriding feeling of apparently unchecked optimism in Rome,
there was at least one prediction of imminent peril around at the time.
In fact, the Roman prophet known as the Tiburtine Sibyl is said to have concocted such a terrible
and visceral doomsday prediction, that it supposedly scared the Roman public for centuries.
The earliest versions of the texts describing the Tiburtine Sibyl’s potentially prophetic
tale date back to around the fourth century BCE.
And the story itself begins with one hundred men, who all experience the same vision, revolving
around nine suns appearing in the sky, each more unruly and ominous than the last…
The Tiburtine Sibyl determines that the nine suns represent nine generations of humankind,
leading ultimately to a dark and merciless judgment day.
Among the suns that the men saw, there’s one that’s completely black, one that’s
made of smoke, another that’s seemingly formed of blood, and the last sun… which
is described as being the most intense and terrible of all.
The Tiburtine Sibyl pitched the series as to foretell the coming of the antichrist,
who it was said would one day in the future use his powers to create unparalleled chaos
and evil.
When that final sun rises, judgment day comes… and, at that moment, according to the prediction,
the antichrist will slay two witnesses but will subsequently be slain himself, at the
hands of an archangel.
Again, there are perhaps similarities to be drawn between this and other, outwardly religious,
judgment day stories, but The Tiburtine Sibyl’s variation remains shocking and bizarre.
If it really did terrify the Romans at the time, it’s perhaps little wonder.
Of course, it’s not as though strange predictions and ominous prophecies are only a fascination
of ancient times.
There have been countless others made much more recently, even within just the last few
decades.
Some relate to events supposedly soon to unfold… but those are for another video.
For now, those are four of the most bizarre predictions taken from ancient texts.
What do you think?
Is there anything we missed?
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