Regina's Rants

Tradition dictates that it’s time for newspaper people to dig up their doom and gloom predictions for 2026 and beyond.  Reports on psychics abound.  Journalists think their mortal readers are gasping to learn the latest chaotic predictions about intensifying wars, pandemics, famine.  Ah, what miseries have Destiny and Fate wrapped up in golden silks and pompoms for you and for me!  But psychics and journalists, anxious to print their urgent words and fatten their wallets, never tell readers the most practical things:  Where are my keys?  Why did I come into this room?   Who will win the FIFA World Cup?  How to get rid of that pesky thing known in edifying circles as Anus tangerinus? 

So, here goes my review of the current three big names in divination.

Nostradamus’  Prediction Salads

Michel de Nostredame lived and died in 16^th century France, and someone will always resuscitate him and his writings at every year-end.  He’s the big name every psychic aspires to be.  Nostradamus was the original extra-sensorial workaholic:  physician, apothecary, translator, writer, poet, astrological consultant to queen  Catherine de Medici and other titled and moneyed people.    

To this day, creatives, meddlers, fortune tellers, rabid believers, journalists, plus a scholar or two, are still dissecting his Les Prophéties published in 1555, and believe his 942 quatrains are still relevant.  The guy did have a great poetic inclination, but he didn’t make himself very clear then, and even less now.  He was afraid of religious persecution, so he wrote his obscure prediction-poems in a mix of old French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Provençal.   Through the centuries, Nostradamus’  vague quatrains have been  interpreted and reinterpreted by politicians, translators, printers, historians, popes, and kings from different countries, and slanted toward their past, present, and future needs.

Add to that the 1582 change in calendar for the Catholic world, from Julian to Gregorian.  In Great Britain and its dominions, it changed only in 1752, when people went to sleep on September 2, and woke up the next morning on September 14;  the beginning of the year, which was March 25, became January 1.   This calendar change has had a long-term effect on humankind, and to this day people are  still asking, “What day is today?”

Nostradamus’ cryptic prophecies never foresaw blue skies or plentiful harvests.  He thrilled readers with attacks from darkened skies here or there, the win of a prince against a sore loser of sorts, a bottom-up rebellion against a king who didn’t deserve to live, swarms of insects and plagues, and the horrible and the murderous of the human race pouncing without shame on the weak and powerless of the human race.  

Nostradamus built his centuries-old reputation as a seer (or it was built for him) as he seemed to have predicted the death of Henry II of France in 1559;  the great fire of London in 1666;  the French revolution in 1789;  the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945;  the assassination of president John F. Kennedy in 1963;  the COVID epidemic of 2020.   The man was not only an overachiever, but he seemed to have serious psychotic tendencies.  And so did his interpreters. 

Now I read that Nostradamus, as if he were alive today, has made a prediction for 2026:  human blood will sprinkle.  Well, if you count the Ukrainian, Gazan, and African wars, we haven’t been exactly short of fresh human blood spillages lately.  Or ever.  So, it seems there’s another war coming. 

It’s heartening that Nostradamus has made predictions until the year 3797.  Will humanity be alive then? Whatever the calendar they have in use by then, I’d like to see what happens.  And find my keys before that date.

Baba Vanga and her Spokespeople

I had never heard of Baba Vanga (1911-1996), the blind mystic and healer, until I read about her in a disreputable newspaper (Disclosure:  that’s not  all I read).   And then Baba Vanga kept popping up every December, a sibyl in our festive midst.  Unlike Nostradamus the poet, she never wrote any of her predictions.  This was done after her death by her niece and other acolytes who heard her prophecies and became her mouthpieces.  In the end, it appears nobody really knows who said what, really.   

Baba Vanga was born in Strumica in 1911, a town that belonged to the Ottoman Empire and subsequently changed hands to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.  Today, it’s part of North Macedonia.   Her fame as a clairvoyant grew during World War II, when desolate people consulted her in search of family members who had disappeared.  Apparently, Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria also visited her.  Later, she received members of the Bulgarian and Russian Politburos, including Leonid Brezhnev.

Baba Vanga predicted World War II;  the dissolution of the Soviet Union; Chernobyl disaster;  Princess Diana’s death;  September 11 attacks; and the election of an African-American (Barack Obama) as the 44th president of the United States. She sounds like a real rival to Nostradamus.

What she’s reported to have said, and did not happen, is the fact that the 44th American president would be their last.   She also predicted that a nuclear war between 2010 and 2016 would rupture Europe (thank goodness it did not happen). Baba Vanga predicted that in 2025 we’d have a non-hostile alien visit which would inspire us to move toward an intelligent, better life.  As if there were much intelligent life on this planet.     

Now Baba Vanga has predicted, according to her niece, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions for 2026.  I wonder how many years we’ve been through in which no earthquakes or eruptions occurred.   None? Oh, she, Baba Vanga/her niece, mentioned climate catastrophes, too.  These days, who wouldn’t?

But she mentions, on a hopeful note, that we’re tearing toward World War III.  As a result, after that there will be the rise of the Lord of the World, whoever he/she/it may be, and a new world order.  Ahem.

Baba Vanga concurs with Nostradamus about the big war.  Yes, she left me brimming with hope for humanity. And I still don’t know where my keys are.

Athos Salomé and his World Perception

This is a Brazilian born in 1986, who is a clairvoyant, a cabalist, AND a parapsychologist, all rolled into one.  He has been called the Living Nostradamus, although through his modesty, he says he’s not worthy of such honour.  He clarifies that he’s not Nostradamus’ reincarnation, either.  He receives spiritual guidance and visions from Put Satanakia, a spirit that arises from Egypt, while Exú Marabo is its equivalent in Afro-Brazilian religion.

A person close to my football heart, Athos divined that France and Argentina would be in the football World Cup final in 2022, but he did not say who’d win.   He also claims that he foresaw the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, and the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

His predictions for 2026 include wars in Africa (the Sahel region), with a high concentration of terrorists, and in the Arctic Circle, where Russia and NATO have been training their troops.   Besides, Athos has different divinations:   something will happen to a senior member of the British royal family;  the United States will release a software to monitor submarines in real time using quantum sensors  (whatever they are and whatever they do).  He also divined huge disruptions due to cosmic anomalies affecting power outages and producing solar storms (maybe this is related to Baba Vanga’s alien visit).

But our visionary Athos says, “Nothing concrete.”   So, no keys then.

Conclusion

All three mystics, or their representatives on this earth, agree that a huge war is coming.  None of the psychics has had an inkling on how we can avoid said big war. I’m not asking for much – a strange itch on the big left toe could mean run for the hills, or a constant twitch of the ass could mean stay put. Or vice-versa.  What good are half-baked predictions if they do not offer half-baked solutions?

The Big Cheese from  NATO, as well as the Big Mince Pie British Defense Secretary, have breathed sour warnings about war, and counseled us to be prepared.  But, like mages, they also did not mention how we should prepare for the dark days they think are racing toward us.  Perhaps we should collect some myrrh and frankincense?  Should we assemble heaps of tinned spaghetti and sardines?  I’m sure those government people have hidden stocks of pickled mackerel and baked beans, but they will never let us know.  However, we, as disreputable readers, just know that politicians, but not only them, are liars. 

We’ve never been far from the terror of World War III.  The question now is, who’ll be the first to shoot?

All that’s left for me to do is to take a leap of faith, where there was none. As befits actions by the end of the world, I’ll grab a book by a reputable author and stretch out on the roof terrace.  That foreseen swarm of insects bringing the plague could in fact be fireflies having sex, a meteor shower, or real drones.  None of them will get me today, for I’ve finally found the key into another dimension.

---

Music of the Rant

Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations – Op. 36: IX (Nimrod) interpreted by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, YouTube.