Why Nostradamus Didn't Predict Anything

Michel de Nostradame, a French apothecary who died in 1566, wrote a book of mostly gibberish which has been celebrated, hundreds of years after his death, as the prescient work of the world's greatest "seer." In fact, not a single one of Nostradamus's predictions, to the extent they're even comprehensible, has ever come true. The story of how Nostradamus came to be a thing in popular culture is a fascinating story of New Age, counterculture and end times millenarianism gone horribly wrong.
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[MarioSpeedwaggen]

Nostradamus was very good at predicting things that already happened.

[zeehero]

Nostradamus used the classic vague prophecy trick. if you write in riddles and allegory, it can always be interpreted as whatever peoples imaginations make up.

Say I wrote, "And the fires of wrath shall burn across the land" people could see this as predicting the "Summer of Love" riots, or any riot where fires are started, or merely any outbreak of fires in a nation.

[gaylebaker]

Unlike Nostradamus, Don Rosa's Nostrildamus' special medallion gave Scrooge McDuck dangerously accurate predictions. For example, the prediction of a run on wool stocks was immediately followed by a stampede of sheep, who flattened Donald Duck. There were worse things to come before Scrooge managed to return the medallion to the tomb.

[Raiden-the-Goat]

I remember when the history channel use to push this guy to no end and I bought into it when I was much younger.

[onceamusician]

you are entirely right!!!

he did write vaguely worded gibberish that people could project their own fantasies on

[SaltyChip]

When you realize history repeats itself, it’s not hard to predict generalities.

[Hdtjdjbszh]

As a child, I remember crying my eyes out and being scared for my life because of "Nostradamus Day" in 1999, my parents were going on aboutit, it was on TV, and I didn't know it was just nonesense. The people who popularised this in the media genuinely convinced me I was going to die, along with everyone else.

[magsteel]

Interpreting Nostradamus predictions is just like reading horoscopes. It means whatever you want it to mean.

[MatameVideos]

What I love about Nostradamus's believers is that his predictions keep getting recycled for any event as they please.

[CharlieNoodles]

The sad thing about the people who believe in his “predictions” is that they never question why it is that all his predictions come up AFTER the event.

[lindseysummers]

I was in 8th Grade in 1991 when the Nostradamus TV special aired. We also inexplicably watched feature length film as part of my school curriculum. As a kid not knowing any better (and without someone around me to pour a bucket of cold water on all that hype), I was mystified by all his predictions. It wasn't until much later I found out the truth that all his writings were just gibberish. Thanks for the reminder. Well done!!

[erikgriswold]

"Nostradamus" immediately brings memories of being a kid in the early 2000's and seeing promotions for some awful programs on The History Channel, attributing Nostradamus to predictions of 9/11, the Iraq War, and the word "hister" being lazily interpreted as a close-enough version of Hitler.

Edit: Oh shit! You mentioned the hister thing haha

[Sublette]

Psychic and astrologer Jeane Dixon suffered cardiac arrest and died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., on 25 January 1997. Before her death, she uttered the words "I knew this would happen."

[gegtyreeyuyeddffvyt]

I remember after 9/11 you couldn’t walk into a store without seeing a book about Nostradamus.

[imokin]

I grew up in the 90s in Russia. When the Soviet regime was fraying, people started turning to magic and new age (so much for "the greatest education system in the world"). And when the floodgates opened and American pop culture came in, Nostradamus became a big thing. Along with the Blind Bulgarian Seeress and spoon benders.

[arrow]

It's actually impressive that he didn't predict at least one.

[christianshute]

I can’t remember where I read this, but Nostradamus wasn’t predicting the future, but commenting on and critiquing the present. He did it in a way that would keep him from being punished by the government or the Church

[FrancisAdam-nfkj]

I have waited a long time for someone to come along and properly debunk the so called predictions of Nostradamus and you’ve laid it out better than I ever could have THANK YOU

[Pretermit_Sound]

It’s the whole “followed by a thousand years of peace” part, rather than WW3 breaking out that makes that particular prediction so implausible. At least in my opinion. No way humanity could make it even a fraction of that amount of time without trying to kill itself again.

[harrynac]

I had a roommate who was quite obsessed with Nostradamus and was trying to decipher his work. He lost interest after reading one perticular book which was, according to him, accurate. Most of Nostradamus' quatrains aren't talking about the future, but about the past, and in particular Genghis Khan.