Nostradamus - The Complete Prophecies for The Future

Nostradamus (published 2006), by Mario Reading, is a volume regarding the prophecies of Nostradamus concerning the future. Using what we are told to be "a revolutionary new analysis of the secret dating of Nostradamus's prophecies", can we get a glimpse of what the future will be like?

Given the events that are spelt out, it is unlikely that we would want to. The first 20 or so years do not seem so bad - in 2017 there will be scandals in the Catholic Church; in 2022 King Charles III will abdicate the British throne in favour of Prince Harry (to become King Henry IX). There comes a period from 2050 onwards, where the world is predicted to become a much worse place to live. There will be antagonism between East and West, with an Islamic state doing much to worsen the relations. The Catholic Church will face it's biggest ever crisis. A worldwide epidemic will happen. England (not Britain) will secede from the EU. And finally there shall be a global nuclear war in 2070, which will kill millions, and lead to famines and the cruel after-effects of nature, and ultimately, the end of democracy.

But how likely is this? First we should address the revolutionary analysis. The main difference between this book and previous works on Nostradamus is that, according to the author, previous works attempt a literal translation and look at each quatrain (a quatrain being a verse in the 10 'Centuries' that Nostradamus authored) written as a separate prediction. Instead, Reading has looked at the interrelation between quatrains and sought to adhere to Nostradamus's index dates, in order to "throw an extraordinary collective light onto the meanings of individual, often opaque, prophecies".

How then do the predictions for the time period since publishing hold up? The book was first published in 2006 - the first prediction past this point was 'Death of a leader in Rome'. The only two 'leaders' that I can find who died in 2006 were Gerard Ford and Saddam Hussein, but perhaps I am being too literal. The next prediction was also for 2006, and was 'Crisis in the Protestant Church'. This did come to pass, as there was a large brouhaha relating to homosexuals. Now the next two related predictions have as yet not occurred, although they have until the end of 2008. The first was 'Assassination of a world leader', dated 2006 onwards, and is followed up by 'Assassination aftermath' in 2008, where the brother of the victim reacts excessively and alienates traditional allies. As of yet, this is still to pass.

There is an interesting prediction for 2007, interpreted as 'North Korean Conflict'. The summary of this was that 'North Korea will refuse to accede to the West's demands over clarification of its nuclear capacity. A crisis will be triggered which may lead to war'. There was a small murmur of discontent with North Korea during this time, but nothing as serious as the summary purports. Switch Iran with North Korea though, and you have one of the more serious issues of the last year. This makes perfect sense with the benefit of hindsight, but illustrates one of the pitfalls of this book: some interpretations (mainly those that state a name or country) are made on the interpreter's assumptions and leave little room for error. In the climate that the book was written, it most likely made the most sense that North Korea would be the country in question; history however took a different course.

There was one other example of interpretation being mingled with assumption that I noticed. In 2015, Nostradamus wrote:

The masculine woman will exert herself to the north
She will annoy nearly all of Europe and the rest of the world
Two failures will put her in such an imbalance
That both life and death will strengthen eastern Europe

The summary for this states that Hilary Clinton will be the first female President in this period, and will lead America to alienate large parts of Europe. This assumption is reached partly via the meaning of 'masculine woman', to quote Reading, "Nostradamus's image of the 'masculine woman' obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with the appearance or hormone count, but should be taken as implying a woman who takes on a job usually done by a man". At the time of writing, the prediction was for Hilary Clinton to run for President in 2008. Obviously since then a lot has changed, we have Barrack Obama and it may be now that it falls to some other woman at a later date to be the first female President. But this again illustrates the fallacy of giving a specific name, although it is obvious that Nostradamus himself did not state it would be Clinton. Instead, I think that the quatrain refers to the United States of America as a whole. After all, what is one of the most famous images of the USA? The Statue of Liberty, which happens to be female and is overtly large (masculine). Regardless, these assumptions may cause problems in the eyes of some.

My only other critique of this book is that in two instances, facts which are not difficult to check have not been checked. This is something that always grates, as these are not secrets privy to only a select few. The first error is when it is stated that "Hitler once believed that Churchill would not declare war on Germany". Mentioning Churchill here is about as relevant as saying George Washington, as Churchill was nowhere near a position of power in 1939 owing to his constant calling of several years for rearmament to combat Nazi Germany. A simple check would have shown that Churchill was not Prime Minister until 1940, and it is unfortunate that this has not been done so. The second error concerns the death of Pliny the Elder. Reading states that "...the monstrous waves also killed his uncle, the elder Pliny," however the letter from Pliny the Younger concerning his uncle's death makes no mention of tidal waves, instead stating that "He raised himself up with the assistance of two of his servants, and instantly fell down dead; suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious vapour."

Two incorrect facts aside, this is an interesting read, despite painting a very bleak outlook for humanity. One must wish, after reading, that the author is wrong after all. The consequences if he is correct do not bear thinking about.

Additional note

I wrote to the publishers outlining the two incorrect facts, and the author himself got back to me almost immediately to say that he will amend these in a future edition to be released next year, which struck me as very decent of him. So if you wait until next year, all will be well!