WHAT'S IN STORE FOR '24?
Predictions include quakes, political turmoil and WWIII
The dawning of a new year always prompts a host of predictions about what might be coming in the months ahead, and 2024 has proved to be no exception. Minutes into the first of January, Japan was struck by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake that killed at least 62 people and devastated buildings in Ishikawa prefecture, leading to immediate claims that it fulfilled one of Nostradamus’ predictions for 2024. Given that Nostradamus was working in the 16th century and that both the meaning of his predictions and the dates when he believed they would come true are far from easy to discern. It requires a considerable amount of interpretation and suspension of disbelief to attach them to anything, and their alleged “accuracy” is often assigned retrospectively. However, for those who feel that this is possible, the Japanese New Year quake fulfilled one prophecy that Nostradamus fans had assigned to 2024. This was from his 1555 text Les Prophéties, in which he wrote, “The dry Earth will become more parched and there will be great floods,” following that up with a reference to “very great famine through pestiferous wave.” This could be taken to refer to the earthquake and the tsunami that could potentially follow it (although there was no actual tsunami with this quake) if you were to apply a very forgiving interpretation.
Other Nostradamus predictions allegedly referring to 2024 suggest a naval confrontation between the US and China, King Charles abdicating and being replaced by Prince Harry, Pope Francis dying, and potentially World War III starting; Nostradamus is interpreted as suggesting this
Pedictions suggest Pope Francis dying and World War III starting
will start 79 years after the end of WWII – giving a date of 2024.
The oracles do not suggest a good 2024 for Donald Trump. At the start of the year,
Jesse Watters, a prominent host on the right wing US TV channel Fox News, asked psychic Paula Roberts to draw Tarot cards for Trump and for President Biden on live TV. The card drawn for Biden, the Nine of Pentacles, suggested a positive year ahead and “lots of money”; for Trump, though, she drew the Five of Cups. This card, showing a darkrobed figure standing bowed in a barren landscape, was popularly interpreted as a “death” card, although Roberts explained it meant Trump “may be thinking more about what he’s lost and not taking full advantage of what he still has” and represented a “sense of loss”, which was not entirely welcomed by Watters, given the forthcoming presidential election in which Trump is likely to be the Republican candidate again. Meanwhile, in Bath, asparagus prophet Jemima Packington (FT351:20, 418:8, 424:5) also has some thoughts on 2024. Noted for her unique prophetic technique of throwing asparagus spears into the air and interpreting the way they fall, Packington says, “Seeing the patterns for me is instantaneous, possibly that is because I’ve had years of practice,” adding, “I am usually about 75 to 90 per cent accurate with my predictions. I go through my predictions each year and think: ‘Yep, that’s happened, yep, that’s happened’,” although she admits that “occasionally I get one slightly off, where I haven’t quite read it correctly, but I’m never far off.” For 2024, she claims that “the US will have their first female president” and “separations and divorces are due within the royal family,” as well as “an increase in female referees officiating male
team matches.” Wisely, she has come up with a good few fairly safe bets too, such as “Well paid TV personalities will lose their jobs”, “There will be world leaders who die” and “Team GB will not be successful at the 2024 Olympic Games”.
Rather more flamboyant in his prophecies is Athos Salomé, 37, from Brazil, a self-proclaimed psychic dubbed “The Living Nostradamus”. He claims that 2024 will be the year that humans finally make contact with aliens through “encrypted signals intercepted by a network of telescopes” and also that “an asteroid abundant with rich materials” is on a collision course with Earth, but will land safely this year. This is supposed to spark an international conflict between Russia, China and the US as they struggle to claim its resources, although World War III, now an “urgent reality”, will actually be triggered by an event in the South China Sea or a major cyber-attack. 2024 will see the “AI Awakening” with machines becoming self-aware, and Salomé predicts that they will be “equipped with selfimprovement capabilities and covert communication channels – it could lead machines and us down a very perilous path.” On safer ground, he predicts many natural disasters.
Also in South America, the annual prophetic gathering of Peruvian shamans met on a sacred hill in Lima to scatter coca leaves and flower petals over posters of world leaders to divine what the next 12 months hold. Fourteen of them prayed to the Pachamama Earth Mother goddess and
Tayta Inti Sun god, beat drums, chanted, blew smoke, and drank ayahuasca, then predicted a bad year for Argentina’s new President Milei (see p52-55), saying: “We saw that President Milei will have a very complicated time in government.” They also said that the Gaza conflict will be prolonged, and that the next Copa America winner will be either Argentina or Uruguay. Last year they predicted the end of the Russia-Ukraine war.
The death of blind Bulgarian seer Baba Vanga (FT93:8, 140:7, 351:20-21, 382:17) in 1996 does not seem to have been an impediment to her making major (and fairly apocalyptic) predictions for 2024, despite there being very few records of what she actually said while alive. According to her followers, 2024 will bring about a major change in Earth’s orbit, sowing chaos and disorder worldwide, a “big country” will carry out a bioweapon test or attack, and there will be terrorist incidents across Europe. They also say Russian President Vladimir Putin will be assassinated by “a fellow countryman”, and there will be major progress towards cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s, as well as technological breakthroughs in quantum computing. Looking further ahead, they claim Baba Vanga says world hunger will end by 2028, communism will return (presumably to Bulgaria) in 2076, and we’ll achieve time travel in 2304. However, given that her followers were certain she had predicted a major nuclear disaster in Asia and a catastrophic solar storm for 2023, we are not sure there is too much to worry about. ladbible.com, 29 Dec 2023; afp. com, 28 Dec 2023; theguardian. com, 3 Jan; dailymail.co.uk, 4 Jan 2024; history.co.uk/articles/babavangas-predictions-for-2024.