Nostradamus’ Predictions For 2022 And The Ways They’re Being Interpreted

It makes intuitive sense to look back at the previous year as a barometer of how accurate these interpretations are likely to be. Did Nostradamus get anything right? Well, he did appear to predict that there would be a massive earthquake in November 2021. And sure enough, 12 people lost their lives in the natural disaster that hit northern Peru that month.

Many believe that Nostradamus also warned about the fallout from Brexit. They’ve interpreted that from the lines,

“Throughout his realm the fleur-de-lis deserted

Bodies dead by water, land one will bring there

Vainly awaiting the good fortune to be buried there.”

And it’s fair to say that the United Kingdom, particularly its economy, has suffered from its European Union exit.

Again as per the Daily Express, there was also some truth in the interpretation of,

“Condom and Auch and around Mirande,

I see fire from the sky which encompasses them.

Sun and Mars conjoined in Leo, then at Marmande,

Lightning, great hail, a wall falls into the Garonne.”

Luckily, the solar material that struck Earth in October 2021 wasn’t of the world-ending variety. Scientists judged that the disturbance it caused to the planet’s magnetic field was only a moderate one.

And then there was the interpretation, courtesy of website Yearly Horoscope, about military technology from the prophecy,

“The newly made one will lead the army

Almost cut off up to near the bank

Help from the Milanais elite straining

The Duke deprived of his eyes in Milan in an iron cage.”

After all, barely a week went by in 2021 without news of a country’s army being supplied with some form of new robot.

Nostradamus also appeared to warn us all of an asteroid with the passage that included,

“In the heavens fire seen, a long spark running.”

Thankfully, we didn’t end up living a real-life Deep Impact or Armageddon scenario. But website National World reminded us that NASA said a meteor roughly the size of the Eiffel Tower very nearly struck the planet at the end of 2021.

Of course, there were also some interpretations that definitely proved to be well wide of the mark. For example, take the prophecy which reads,

“Twice put up and twice cast down,

The East will also weaken the West.

Its adversary after several battles chased by sea,

Will fail at time of need.”

The Daily Express reckoned that many believed this presaged World War Three; that conflict certainly didn’t start in 2021. Thank goodness.

Yearly Horoscope also interpreted another Nostradamus quote as a sign of a zombie apocalypse. The website predicted that a virus created by a Russian mastermind would make Earth look like an episode of The Walking Dead. But as far as we know there hasn’t been a mass outbreak of the undead.

And there are some prophecies whose accuracy will only be determined in the decades ahead. According to Yearly Horoscope, Nostradamus predicted that 2021 would be a vital year for the Muslim faith. For this is apparently the period he believed would see it start to overtake Christianity as the world’s most dominant religion. 

So how did Nostradamus acquire his reputation as an all-seeing eye? Well, website History.com details how his prophetic journey began with an alleged psychic awakening he experienced while traveling across several countries in the Mediterranean. After one particular meeting in Italy, Nostradamus predicted the rise of Felice Peretti from Franciscan monk to Pope Sixtus V.

Soon after, Nostradamus began to distance himself from his medical profession: he’d previously dedicated his career to tending to victims of the plague. The physician would reportedly spend his evenings trying to induce visions via meditation. And in 1550 he published what he saw in an astrological almanac that became popular in his native France.

Nostradamus certainly wasn’t limited in his scope, either. In 1554 he revealed plans to write an all-consuming tome featuring no fewer than 100 predictions that would cover two entire millennia. A year later his most notable were compiled in a collection titled Les Prophéties. But you often had to be fluent in several languages to understand them.

As per History.com, afraid of being persecuted for his beliefs, Nostradamus would write his predictions in everything from Latin to southern French dialects. Just to make things still more enigmatic, his four-lined prophecies would also be rhymed in a style known as quatrains. These tactics worked, though, and Nostradamus established himself as one of the most important figures of his day. 

Even royalty subscribed to Nostradamus’ way of thinking. King Henri II of France’s wife Catherine de Medici was a particular fan and asked the astrologer to provide her offspring with horoscopes. As per History.com, she later appointed him as Physician-in-Ordinary and an advisor to her husband’s court. Sadly, Nostradamus’ bleakest prediction about the royal family ended up coming true. 

That’s right: one prediction referred to an “older lion” whose eye would be pierced by a younger one in battle. Despite being warned of this prophecy, King Henri continued to partake in jousting contests. And in 1559 he died a slow, agonizing death after an opponent’s lance penetrated his helmet’s eye-guard and plunged into his skull.

As well as drawing upon his meditative visions, Nostradamus also based his prophecies on calculations involving Earth and the rest of the Solar System. This drew criticism from the period’s astrologers, who argued that the Frenchman was misusing such information. Some detractors also believed that Nostradamus had borrowed some of his more apocalyptic predictions from the Bible.

So why is Nostradamus still considered to be the ultimate prophet, you may ask? Well, there’s the fact that his multi-lingual and rhyming writings are often difficult to clearly decipher. This means that they’re open to numerous interpretations, at least one of which can usually be applied to a situation retrospectively.

As a result, Nostradamus has been credited with predicting everything from Napoleon’s rise to power to the creation of nuclear weapons in the several centuries since his death. Yes, it’s fair to say that the Frenchman wasn’t the biggest of optimists. Pretty much every single one of his prophecies revolved around disasters, diseases, or deaths.

Some believe that Nostradamus also prophesied the events that brought the entire world to a standstill in 2020. That’s due to the quatrain that reads,

“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.”

It’s little surprise, then, that the interpretations of Nostradamus’ 2022 predictions are very much of the deeply pessimistic variety. Yes, if you were hoping that this year would bring some much-needed relief from all the doom and gloom, prepare to be mightily disappointed. According to the Frenchman, things are only going to get worse!

As with every other year recently, Nostradamus predicted that 2022 would see an asteroid hit Earth. Anyway, this is a common interpretation of the passage,

“Fire do I see that from the sky shall fall.”

But as per History.com, a slightly more authoritative source — NASA — has calculated that we will have to wait at least another seven years for even a near-miss, let alone a direct strike.

We therefore don’t appear to be looking at the kind of world-ending scenario that has made Netflix’s Don’t Look Up such a talked-about movie. But could the fire that Nostradamus predicted be something of a much less interstellar nature? The Sky History website, for example, puts forward the theory that it could instead be a threat that’s entirely man-made.

Another recurring feature of Nostradamus’ prophecies for the last 50 years has been man’s over-reliance on technology. This was allegedly predicted by the quatrain,

“The Moon in the full of night over the high mountain

The new sage with a lone brain sees it

By his disciples invited to be immortal

Eyes to the south, hands in bosoms, bodies in the fire.”

Could 2022 be the year that the robots take over? With artificial intelligence a staple of everything from self-driving vehicles to smart speakers, you could argue that to some extent they already have. Nostradamus might not have been able to pinpoint these exact examples, but according to this interpretation he does appear to have been well ahead of the game on the general subject.

Nostradamus might have been wrong about World War III breaking out in 2021. But could he have been right about a possible invasion of France occurring in 2022? This particular theory is based on the passage that reads,

“Blue-head shall white-head

Harm in such degree

As France’s good to both shall e’er amount.”

The eastern threat to the west has often been spoken about in Nostradamus’ previous prophecies. But Sky History points out that the vagueness of the quatrain means that it could be applied just as easily to France’s progress in the World Cup as an impending war. If the reigning champions end up losing to a team playing in white in Qatar, then maybe we’ll have the answer.

Despite what some deniers would have you believe, climate change isn’t only a modern concern. Nostradamus was seemingly discussing the harmful impact of the sea’s rising temperatures back in 1555! See the verse,

“Like the Sun the head shall sear the shining sea

The Black Sea’s living fish shall all but boil

When Rhodes and Genoa/Half-starved shall be

The local folk to cut them up shall toil.”

Nearly five centuries on and the situation has inevitably got much worse. We now also have problems in the food chain and ever-rising world temperatures to deal with, too. Sure, we might not be at the point of seeing the sea boil fish alive yet. But few would be surprised if 2022 entered the environmental record books for all the wrong reasons.

Then there’s the quatrain,

“No abbots, monks, no novices to learn

Honey shall cost far more than candle-wax

So high the price of wheat that man is stirred

His fellow man to eat in his despair.”

According to Sky History’s interpretation, this refers to the high inflation rates and subsequent hunger of those ill-equipped to deal with them.

A global outbreak of disease, the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union, and general turmoil in world politics: these are just some of the factors that have contributed to a scary rise in inflation in recent times. Could 2022 be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and leads to an uprising?

Floods, droughts, and basically any natural disaster that could be described as biblical are also a mainstay of Nostradamus’ predictions. And those for 2022 are no exception. See the verse,

“For 40 years the rainbow will not be seen

For 40 years it will be seen every day

The dry earth will grow more parched

And there will be great floods when it is seen.”

Considering 2021 brought us severe droughts in both Chile and the United States this prophecy is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. And just to make matters even more depressing, the New York Post newspaper also refers to the recent developments in China’s nuclear strategy with its interpretation. Should the country launch a strike then — among many other things — the subsequent water shortages could be devastating.

Could Nostradamus have even predicted the phenomenon of cryptocurrency? Just take a look at the French-language passage translated by Yearly-Horoscope which reads,

“The copies of gold and silver inflated

Which after the theft were thrown into the lake

At the discovery that all is exhausted and dissipated by the debt

All scripts and bonds will be wiped out.”

The New York Post put forward an interesting theory about the gold in question above. Could it refer to the rise in price of the precious metal or the number of startups dealing in the world of bitcoins, or both? With 2022 looking set to be the year of the non-fungible token (NFT) then it may well have a point.

Of course, Nostradamus isn’t the only prophet that people look toward at the start of each year. There’s also the blind psychic Baba Vanga. Dubbed the “Nostradamus of the Balkans” she allegedly gained her mystical powers when a tornado whisked her up in her Macedonian homeland. And her strike rate is pretty impressive, too.

Yes, before she died in 1996 aged 75 Vanga allegedly predicted both the 9/11 terror attacks and Princess Diana’s death. She’d also reportedly prophesied about the tragedy of Chernobyl during her living years, too. Skeptics believe that the mystic’s powers have been greatly exaggerated since her passing. Yet there’s always a significant interest in her posthumous warnings each year. 

So what did Baba predict for 2022? Well, as per British tabloid The Sun, apparently “alien ships will attack Earth and they will bomb cities and take people captive.” Yes, the psychic firmly believed we’d come under attack from an extra-terrestrial invasion. Now, that sounds like the stuff of pure fiction. But remember: across the pond, a new law giving the go-ahead for an alien investigation team was recently passed by Congress…

Like Nostradamus, Baba also reportedly believed that the world would experience a serious famine in 2022. Apparently this will occur due to an African locust invasion which will destroy all cereal crops. As war over food breaks out, some of the population will have to resort to eating insects, mud, and foliage just to survive.

The climate-change situation isn’t going to get any better, either, according to Baba — and those living in India will suffer the most. As per The Sun, the mystic apparently claimed that this nation will experience temperatures of 50ºC in 2022. The rise in global warming will also cause another deadly virus, too.

That’s right: in 2022 we may all face another pandemic, and one that’s emerged from Russia’s glaciers. The Sun reported how Baba apparently predicted that these will be melted by warm temperatures, unleashing a virus that had previously been trapped for centuries. The mystic also claimed that millions of people will die as a result. Looks like after five centuries, Nostradamus finally has some competition for the title of “Prophet of Doom.”