Nostradamus' frightening prophecies and predictions have baffled critics and followers alike for centuries – but did Nostradamus have any prophetic dreams for the year 2019? One psychic expert believes Nostradamus tried to warn the US, the UK and the rest of the world of tragedy.
Michel de Nostredame is believed by many to be a prophet, seer and powerful clairvoyant. Known simply as Nostradamus, the 16th-century apothecary and author is widely considered the world’s most famous prophesier. Nostradamus’ fervent believers claim the supposed-mystic correctly predicted many world events and many that are yet to come in the year 2019. Craig Hamilton-Parker, a British psychic and medium who runs Psychics.co.uk, has now revealed Nostradamus predicted a particularly violent year ahead for US President Donald Trump.
According to the psychic expert, Nostradamus warned of an assassination attempt on Mr Trump, armed conflict in the Middle East and renewed relations with his Russian counterpart between 2019 and 2020.
Mr Hamilton-Parker told Express.co.uk: "I feel Trump will have a second term but Nostradamus's predicted an assassination attempt will be in the second term.
“Nostradamus also predicted a war in the Middle East.
“I feel that we will get the first rumbles of this in 2019 but it will not be full out war."
The psychic then said Mr Trump will work out some sort of deal or treaty with President Vladimir Putin.
This deal will supposedly mirror President Trump’s pact with North Korea, signed at the June 2018 North Korea–United States summit.
One thing Nostradamus did not predict, however, is the result or the effects of the Brexit vote.
Mr Hamilton-Parker himself foresaw a no-deal hard Brexit in the pipeline which is why he said he was surprised to see Brexit omitted from Nostradamus’s prophecies.
“We will also see the advent of a new party as I predicted in the Daily Express before. But could I be wrong?
“Why did the western world's greatest visionary miss this out?
“Maybe Nostradamus did not mention this monumental event for Britain, France and Europe because it will never happen?”
Nostradamus’ detractors, however, are unconvinced by his supposed mystic powers and question whether the French apothecary could genuinely predict the future.
His followers believe Nostradamus correctly predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the rise of Adolf Hitler to power.
But critics claim Nostradamus’ published prophecies are too vague to be considered genuine and require a strong dose of hindsight to draw conclusions.
Brian Dunning, the author of the Skeptoid podcast, said: “Some Nostradamus believers insist that he wrote in code or that he used word substitutions.
“Obviously this gives them license to make just about any claim they want about what he was trying to communicate.
“Some allege that fear of prosecution for heresy compelled Nostradamus to write only vaguely, but there is no historical evidence for this.
“Some books and websites even go so far as to allege the presence of meaningful anagrams found in modern English translations, or even more strangely, English anagrams found within French translations.”
The sceptic went on to say: “Nostradamus' writings are exploited in a number of fallacious ways.
“Ambiguous and wrong translations, ‘creative’ interpretations, hoax writings, fictional accounts, and the breaking of non-existent codes within his quatrains all contribute to a vast body of work, all of it wrong, and many times the size of everything Nostradamus ever actually wrote.”
What did Nostradamus predict for the year 2020?
Accordion to Peter Lorie, author of Nostradamus 2003-2025: A History of the Future, 2020 might be the year of big financial revolutions..
The author explained in his book how the nature of money will change in the coming years through coronet enterprise and new currencies.
He wrote: “Here is ‘the urn of gold’ that is ‘found and then restored’.
“Note the way the sentence is put together – it is not that the urn is merely discovered, like some treasure on a remote island, but that it is found and then restored.
“Put another way, the method to make wealth available is found, then restored to its original place.”
What were Nostradamus’ correct predictions?
One of Nostradamus’ most shocking predictions is that of the death of King Henry II of France.
The French monarch died on July 10, 1559, just four years after Nostradamus prophecies his death in his 1555 magnum opus Les Propheties.
Nostradamus is also believed to have correctly predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666 when he wrote of London “burning up in the fire of ’66”.
The French mystic is also said to have foretold the 1789 French revolution when he wrote: "Songs, chants, and demands will come from the enslaved.
“Held captive by the nobility in their prisons. At a later date, brainless idiots will take these as divine utterances.”
Some conspiracists also claim Nostradamus predicted the horrors of Adolf
Hitler’s reign over Europe.
Nostradamus wrote: “From the depths of the West of Europe, A young child will be born of poor people,
“He who by his tongue will seduce a great troop; His fame will increase towards the realm of the East."
Nostradamus is also credited with correctly predicting the assassination of US President John F Kennedy in 1963.
Nostradamus wrote: “The ancient task will be completed, From on high, evil will fall on the great man.
“A dead innocent will be accused of the deed, The guilty on will remain in the mist."
President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, when he was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Another cryptic passage attributed to Nostradamus is said to have forewarned of the devastating US nuclear attack on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1954.
The quatrain in question reads: “Near the gates and within two cities, there will be scourges like of which was never seen.
“Famine within plague, people put out by steel, crying to the great immortal God for relief.
Should you believe Nostradamus’ predictions?
Peter Lemesurier, a linguist and author of 10 books on Nostradamus, has argued Nostradamus’ quatrains were not mystic in origin.
Instead, the Nostradamus expert argued the French apothecary believed history constantly repeats itself and future vents would mirror those of the past.
In his book Nostradamus, Bibliomancer: The Man, The Myth, The Truth, he wrote: “No quatrain, as far as I am aware, has ever been used in advance to predict in terms any event that was not probably in the offing anyway.”
And according to Brian Dunning, science writer and head of the Skeptoid podcast, people who interpret messages from Nostradamus’ quatrains do the writer a great disservice.
Mr Dunning said on episode 66 of his science podcast there is no evidence to support the claim the 15th century apothecary had any mystic powers.
Instead, he said there is more evidence to suggest it takes a great deal of hindsight to connect Nostradamus’ prophecies to actual world events.
He said: “Michel de Nostredame was truly one of the brilliant lights of his day, but to subscribe to false stories and urban legends is to disrespect who the man actually was.
“Appreciate his contributions to medicine and Renaissance literature, and don't trivialise his good works in favour of a pretended history of paranormal magical powers.”
Does the Bible prove Nostradamus was right?
According to Evangelical preacher and doomsday prophet Paul Begley from West Lafayette in Indiana, US, Nostradamus was not a real prophet.
The preacher argued real prophecy can only come from the word of God himself, which includes the texts and scriptures of the Bible.
Pastor Begley said: “Nostradamus’ prophecies are open to interpretation because he wrote in four stanza riddles.
“You know, look, he predicted the London Fire, he predicted the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust, he predicted the JFK assassination, he predicted World War Two – man, I could of the top of my head a bunch of them.
“But he also missed a bunch. His accuracy is around 70 percent, so no, I do not call them prophecies.”
What do Nostradamus’ supporters have to say?
According to Rahn Heart, author of Nostradamus Sees the End Times, the French mystic’s cryptic passages foretold global catastrophes and destruction, much like the Christian Bible.
He wrote: “He was a master of the ancient forms of numerology and astrology.
“He had an excessive knowledge of the historical conflicts around the Mediterranean Sea as well as the roles of the ancient Gods of Greece and Rome.
“He used all of these references in his writings.
“A tremendous amount of information is contained in the four lines of each quatrain.
“They have to be analysed word by word, line by line and then in the context of the complex verse.
"Volumes of books would be required to explain detail contained in Centuries.”
And in the preface to the 2001 book The Prophecies of Nostradamus by RK Murthi, the publishers praised the supposed seer.
They wrote: “He has foreseen the rise and fall of Communism as much as the rise and fall of historical figures like Napoleon and Hitler.
“He had seen, much in advance, technical and scientific progress not conceivable during his times.
“He had foretold events which looked like fantasies to his contemporaries.”
Author Lee McCann praised Nostradamus in the book Nostradamus, The Man Who Saw Through Time.
The author wrote: “The rich, actively fulfilled life of the French prophet, Michel de Nostradame, is the story of genius no only in its rarest but its most modest form.
“His ability foreshadowed a hope, now gaining a first hearing in this our day, that science may, in some not too remote tomorrow, discover principles of mental forces which will permit every man to realise within himself a reflection of the powers of Nostradamus.”
Quick facts about Nostradamus:
1. The supposed prophet studied medicine at the University of Avignon but was forced to leave due to an outbreak of the plague.
2. Nostradamus’ family was of Jewish heritage but converted to Catholicism before he was born.
3. Nostradamus was born on either December 14 or December 21, 1503.
4. Nostradamus believed history repeats itself and his predictions are based on events from the past.
5. The French mystic died on July 1 or July 2, 1566.