Nostradamus didn't guess anything, but some media still use him as bait

No even remotely serious media outlet should give credence to fortune tellers, palm readers, or astrologers, but many still do so today.

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It's become common for Nostradamus's name to continue appearing in the media and on social media whenever an important event occurs. Today, following the news of Pope Francis' death, Nostradamus has become a trending topic on Twitter, and some media outlets, such as the British newspaper Daily Mail, have claimed that the French apothecary predicted something similar. Sorry to be a spoilsport, but the reality is that Nostradamus guessed nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Some believe that Nostradamus predicted Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the atomic bomb, or the attacks of September 11, 2001, but 15 years ago I explained here that none of that is true. Some supposed predictions attributed to Nostradamus are false, based on Centuries that he did not write. Others appeal to distorted translations, and most are based on forced interpretations of his prophecies, which were very ambiguous.

In September 2007, Jamie Frater published a comprehensive article analyzing some of these prophecies and demonstrating that Nostradamus's alleged prophecies failed to predict certain events that some claim he did predict. In 2016 I already explained here the method that some media outlets follow with Nostradamus: those who attribute surprising predictions to him do nothing more than draw very bold and out-of-place conclusions about his writings, even attributing to him things that he does not say. But it must be said that Nostradamus himself bears a large part of the blame for this.

To understand the unreliability of his work, we must know a little about who Michel de Nôtre-Dame was, popularly known today as Nostradamus. His biography indicates that his life was a succession of misfortunes: a university career cut short in Avignon due to the plague, expulsion from the University of Montpellier when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary (that profession was prohibited by the university statutes), a first marriage that ended tragically with his wife and two children dead from the plague...

Finally, after his second marriage, Nostradamus found success in divination and astrology, gaining the favor of an influential Florentine noblewoman, Catherine de Medici. His work "Les Prophéties", published in 1555, was an attempt to make a name for himself in that profession, at a time when powerful people often sought the advice of fortune tellers. It is enough to cite the case of the astrologer and occultist John Dee (1527-1609), who gained the favor of Queen Elizabeth I of England, becoming her advisor.

One of the keys to Nostradamus's success is his ambiguity. His prophecies are deliberately vague. Multiple interpretations can be drawn from them, generally according to the reader's taste, especially when he speaks of disasters without specifying dates. For example, the prophecy published by the Daily Mail today, supposedly referring to the death of Pope Francis, says the following:

Through the death of a very old Pontiff
A Roman of good age will be elected
Of him it will be said that he weakens his seat
But long will he sit and in mordant activity.

The version published by the Daily Mail has been circulating online for years and may have originated from an English version of Nostradamus's prophecies published by sacred-texts.com, on whose website it appears as quatrain 56 of the V Century. The same website publishes this original version in French:

Par le trespas du tres vieillard pontife,
Sera esleu Romain de bon aage :
Qu'il sera dit que le Siege debiffe
Et long tiendra & de picquant ouurage.

To see a prediction of Pope Francis's death here is nonsense. The text does not include dates. It is an ambiguous and very vague text, in which, as is the case with many of this author's prophecies, everyone sees what they want to see. A minimally critical analysis cannot consider this to be a serious prediction, but some media continue to use these prophecies as bait to gain an audience, which is the reason why these hoaxes about Nostradamus have been spreading for years in various media outlets, even in some supposedly serious ones.

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Image: Portrait of Michel de Nôtre-Dame made by his son César in 1614.