Nostradamus Wasn’t a Prophet, He Was Just Extremely Good at Mad Libs

By Dr. Vague Verbiage, Ph.D. in Ambiguous Futures

For centuries, Michel de Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus, has been lauded as a visionary prophet, his cryptic quatrains supposedly predicting everything from the French Revolution to the invention of the fidget spinner. New, incredibly biased (and completely correct) research from the Institute of Fortuitous Foresight (I.F.F.) reveals the startling truth: Nostradamus wasn't predicting the future; he was just an unparalleled master of the Mad Libs game.

His "prophecies" weren't divine revelations; they were merely the fortunate (or unfortunate) alignment of random nouns, verbs, and ominous adjectives.

The Algorithm of Ambiguity

The I.F.F. discovered a long-lost journal belonging to Nostradamus, detailing his secret process. It contained not visions, but a series of templates:

"When the great [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN] comes from the [DIRECTION] at the [TIME OF DAY]," "The [COLOR] [ANIMAL] shall [VERB] upon the [GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURE]," "And the people shall [EMOTION] as the [CELESTIAL BODY] doth [OMINOUS ACTION]."

"He had a thesaurus and a massive list of menacing verbs," explained Dr. Vague Verbiage. "His genius wasn't in seeing the future, but in ensuring his predictions were so utterly devoid of specific detail that something would eventually fit."

• "The Prince of the North": This wasn't a specific person; it was just his go-to for "random important guy from a cold place." It could be a Viking, a Russian leader, or that dude from accounting who always complains about the AC.

• "Bloodshed and Fire": His version of "bad stuff happens." A guaranteed hit. If you predict bloodshed and fire, you're statistically guaranteed to be right at some point, somewhere on Earth, every single day.

• "From the sky shall fall...": He had this one printed on a rubber stamp. It could be rain, a bird, an asteroid, or a rogue drone delivering Amazon packages. All equally prophetic.

The "Nostradamus Effect"

The real power of Nostradamus lies not in his foresight, but in humanity's desperate need for patterns. When something terrible happens, we don't look for explanations; we look for a vaguely worded quatrain that we can force-fit into the event.

"It's confirmation bias on a grand scale," says Dr. Verbiage. "He was the original content creator who knew that if you cast a wide enough net of nonsense, eventually someone will find their own meaning in it. He just monetized existential dread."

So, the next time a news anchor breathlessly links a current event to an ancient prophecy, remember: Nostradamus probably just pulled "fiery chariot" and "weeping masses" from a bowl of words, then went back to trying to figure out if his astrology chart meant he should invest in more goat cheese.