Nostradamus' Chilling 2025 Predictions

Oh yes, it's that time again. We don't mean turkey carving at Thanksgiving, arguments between belligerent relatives at the dinner table, rushed holiday present buying, or hastily scrawled New Year's resolutions that you'll never remember, let alone obey. It's time to consult the latest round of apocalyptic visions of a 16th-century French doctor-turned-soothsayer who peered into herbal water to harness his supposed psychic abilities and pen some decently poetic death metal lyrics in 1555's "The Prophecies."   

So what is it this year, Michel de Nostredame, aka, Nostradamus? More fire, blood, and steel? Plagues, zombies, plague zombies, zombie plagues, etc.? Looking to Nostadamus' last couple rounds of prophecies: Maybe King Charles III will abdicate the throne (like he didn't in 2024), or a new pope will be crowned (like he wasn't in 2024). Maybe there'll be a nuclear war, like what didn't happen in 2023, or disaster will hit Mars — like it didn't in 2023. There's always the standard fallback prophecies that'll never miss the mark: war, death, really bad weather, and societal ruination of the general type. If Nostradamus wanted to bat a thousand, he should have just refreshed these apocalyptic go-tos year after year. Then again, he kind of did.

On that note, what's on the slate for 2025? As such reputable sources as Sky History have written, we've got some whoppers: a potentially cataclysmic shift in the Ukraine-Russia war (war, see?), more war and plagues (war and plagues, see?), volcanoes and floods (fire and bad weather, see?), and, uh ... soccer controversy? Only if you're a Crystal Palace fan, apparently. Whoever they are.     

Before continuing, bear in mind that Nostradamus wrote quatrains — four-line poems — along the lines of, "The rock holds in its depths white clay / Which will come out milk-white from a cleft / Needlessly troubled people will not dare touch it, / Unaware of the foundation of the earth that is clay." Uh huh. In other words, there's no need to bust out the bunker gear quite yet, no matter what dire visions we describe in this article. Simply go about your business, and if a warhead goes off right next to you, you won't know, anyway.

That's prophecy No. 1 for 2025: War, particularly of the European variety as it intersects with the Ukraine-Russia war. From Century VII, Quatrain 25 of "The Prophecies," we get: "Through long war all the army exhausted / So that they do not find money for the soldiers; / Instead of gold or silver, they will come to coin leather, / Gallic brass, and the crescent sign of the moon." As Sky News says, some take this as pointing to a shift in the Ukraine-Russia war, either for better or for worse, because like all of Nostradamus' "prophecies," there's no way to know until after the fact. 

"Gallic" is an old term meaning "French." When combined with the crescent moon, maybe meaning the Turkish flag, some interpretations suggest potential involvement in the Ukraine-Russia conflict from these countries. Some sites like Marca have even pumped up the drama by implying that this quatrain indicates a potential World War III.

The next item on the 2025 prophecy list isn't too different from the last, but we're going to mention it, anyway. Sky News cites a Nostradamus quatrain that tosses out some vague terms like "ancient plague[s]," "lands of Europe," "cruel wars," and other such things that could be true any month of any year throughout human history. Sites like The Economic Times and Business Today do the same. In full, the quatrain in question reads: "When those from the lands of Europe / See England set up her throne behind / Her flanks, there will be cruel wars. / The ancient plague will be worse than enemies."

When we digitally crack open "The Prophecies," this quatrain is nowhere to be found. So what's going on here? Did Sky News just make up the quatrain and The Economic Times and Business Today copy-paste parts of it without digging further? Not quite: It looks like the quatrain came from 1998's "Nostradamus: The Lost Manuscript," which covers the text discovered in 1994 by members of the Italian National Library in Rome. This quatrain isn't too different from the previously mentioned Ukraine-Russia war stanza, though it seems to specifically suggest U.K. involvement.

The next 2025 prophetic quatrain relates to some classic Nostradamus go-tos: floods and flames. In "The Prophecies," the quatrain reads, "Garden of the world near the new city, / In the path of the hollow mountains: / It will be seized and plunged into the Tub, / Forced to drink waters poisoned by sulphur." Coming from Century X, Quatrain 49, this prophecy is ultra-vague and not clearly related to 2025. After all, the "centuries" in "The Prophecies" don't actually connect to specific centuries, as Discover Magazine explains. It's all just a big grab bag jumble.

But if we engage in some dubious speculation, the quatrain in question sounds potentially linked to the Amazon basin and Andes mountains. The "new" city is a bit misleading, as we don't know if this means new to Nostradamus in the mid-1500s or new to us in the early 21st century. Sky News says that "'Garden of the world' is surely the Amazon rainforest," which is a bit of a leap. But if we take the "Tub" to mean the Amazon basin and the "mountains" to be the Andes, then the "sulphur" bit might imply a volcanic eruption, especially in tandem with the "hollow" part of "hollow mountains." In this interpretation, active volcanoes in the Andes like Parinacota and Pomerape blow up, and parts of them slough off into the basin or something. Or you know, Nostradamus was just making stuff up to keep in the good graces of his patron, Queen Consort Catherine de' Medici.

Next up: cocks. Roosters, that is. Nostradamus mentions cocks a full 16 times across "The Prophecies" in classic lines like "strength will be born to the cock," "no one will see the great cock in his shroud," and "cock, dogs, and cats will be satiated with blood." Yeah, never mind that last one. So what makes the apparently 2025-related cock prophecy different from the others? We're not quite sure, but Sky News seems to think it has something to do with football (soccer to the Americans in the audience.)

The lines in question come from Century I, Quatrain 52: "In Campania there will be a very long rain, / In Apulia very great drought. / The Cock will see the Eagle, its wing poorly finished, / By the lion will it be put into extremity." Campania is a region in southwestern Italy that encompasses the famous Mt. Vesuvius-ruined city of Pompeii. Apulia is opposite to it on the eastern coast of Italy that includes the heel of the country's "boot." That's it for them.

And the "Cock" and "Eagle"? Nostradamus might have had something specific in mind — emblems on a flag or a coat of arms, maybe. But Sky News suggests that these animals refer to the English Premier League soccer teams Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace, with the league itself being the lion. In this case, the prophecy relates to Crystal Palace having financial or personnel troubles. Regardless, it's fun to imagine Nostradamus cheering on a phantom soccer team while high on rose water visions. 

Lastly, The Economic Times says that Nostradamus' 2025 prophecies include mention of an "Aquatic Empire." This empire is somehow connected to floods and that old conspiratorial mainstay mentioned by George Bush in a 1991 speech: the "new world order." Said prophecy is also apparently connected to "shadow cults" and "dark rituals" that "exploit anxieties" related to prior world events. Basically, it sounds exactly like a 2025 headline meant to grab attention and get clicks.

Looking to "The Prophecies" itself, there's no mention anywhere of an "Aquatic Empire." The word "empire" gets mentioned a bunch of times, usually connected to decay and ruin, but never related to the ocean. The word "aquatic" appears in Century I, Quatrain 21 when discussing "... a horrible fish / With face human and its end aquatic, / Which will be taken without the hook." The word "ritual" never appears, and the only time the word "cult" crops up is in Century I, Quatrain 8, the last line of which reads, "Chasing, though not entirely, the cult of saints." 

So what does all this mean? No clue. How does any of this relate to a "new world order"? No clue. But if we're going to engage in the speculation game regarding Nostradamus and his prophecies, then anything goes, anyway. Close your eyes and pluck a random verse. You just might come across war, floods, flames, plagues, and all the usual things we've got to look forward to in 2025 or any other year.