Quack Prophet

The prophecies of Nostradamus were cryptic and garbled — but they also let us see what we wanted to see

“Solar Eclipse from Mount Santa Lucia” by Carleton Watkins, 1889, via Getty Center/Wikimedia Commons

By Colin Dickey

Soothsayers have been around as long as recorded history, probably longer — after all, knowing what’s to come has always been accorded more value than knowing what’s already happened. Whether Isaiah shouting from the…