I use psychics all the time – here’s why I’m taking Nostradamus’s predictions even more seriously this year

The 16th-century mystic said 2026 would be hit by a ‘great swarm of bees’, a summer of ‘unbearable heat’, and witness the rise of a ‘man of light’ – but chillingly, says Charlotte Cripps, his grim prediction about Switzerland already appears to have come to pass…

As someone who regularly consults psychics for advice and to guide my life decisions, I feel qualified to ask: what does Nostradamus say 2026 has in store for us?

The 16th-century French mystic’s predictions for the year ahead – made from the safe distance of several hundred years ago, but which have a habit of turning out to be spookily prescient – involve a “great swarm of bees”, a long summer “of unbearable heat”, and, more optimistically, the rise of a new or unexpected leader, described as the “man of light”.

What could it all mean? Might this bright hope be Zohran Mamdani, just sworn in as New York City’s first Muslim mayor, whose progressive agenda has ignited fresh hope among democratic socialists? Should we perhaps be braced for the Second Coming and the return of Jesus Christ himself?

Or does the fortune teller predict the return of George Osborne, the former chancellor who has just landed yet another job, with OpenAI, to help the world adopt and deploy AI technology responsibly? He’s already expecting a landmark year, having been instrumental in securing the Bayeux Tapestry’s return to the UK more than 900 years after its creation, for a blockbuster exhibition at the British Museum this autumn…

Before you scoff, bear in mind that one of Nostradamus’s grimmest predictions appears already to have come to pass: in Les Prophéties, his 1555 collection of poetic quatrains in French and Latin, he suggests that an idyllic spot in Switzerland will be “overflowing with blood”. He pointed to Ticino, the southernmost Swiss canton, rather than Crans-Montana, the upmarket ski resort in the southwest where 47 people perished in a fire on New Year’s Day. But, then, he also predicted the rise of Adolf “Hister”, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And, given the tragedy, shouldn’t we all at least listen? This year, the soothsayer held that the world will be in for “seven months [of] great war”, alongside a major battle between East and West (“three fires rise from the eastern sides, while the West loses its light in silence”) – a passage some have interpreted as the West losing its influence to Eastern powers, possibly China.

Nostradamus must be doing something right, though, if we’re still glued to his prophecies in 2026. After he predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666 (“The blood of the just will be lacking in London/ Burnt up in the fire of ’66”), he is said to have foreseen world-shaping events including the rise of Nazism, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, JFK’s assassination, the Apollo moon landings, 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, even the Covid pandemic.

Yet Nostradamus’s wildly ambiguous language lends itself to confirmation bias, allowing believers to retrofit his predictions to almost any modern crisis. He also gets plenty wrong. In 2024, for example, some claimed the abdication of Charles III was imminent and that Prince Harry was poised to take over as king, based on a quatrain suggesting that a “King of the Isles” would be “driven out by force” and “replaced by one who will have no mark of a king”.

Nostradamus never linked specific dates to his predictions, but followers believe the 26th quatrains of his text relate to the year ahead. From what I can gather, the outlook is a horror show.

In one passage, marked I:26, he writes: “The great swarm of bees will arise… by night the ambush…” – thought to be less about calling in Rentokil and more about global power struggles. Some have even connected it to Trump’s deal in Gaza and a potential victory over Ukraine for Putin. If Nostradamus is right, then 2026 looks set to be another conflict-filled year.

Yet there is a glimmer of hope. “Shadows will fall, but the man of light will rise,” he writes, adding: “And the stars will guide those who look within.”

I’m as on edge about who this “man of light” might be as I am about the new man in my own life that both of my psychics insist will arrive in 2026.

Nostradamus’s predictions about world events are still going strong, even though he died in 1566 (Hulton Archive/Getty)

One of them was as cryptic as Nostradamus himself when she texted: “He is what humans would call a bit of a walking breakdown; functioning but under high stress… but if Charlotte were to understand that skipping ahead the quantum field time, she would be not thinking of it.”

Just as I thought I had deciphered that, the other psychic threw in a curveball: “I had a dream about you last night. You have a choice between two men – one of them on the horizon is a TV or film producer.”

Predictions from Nostradamus – or clairvoyants in Notting Hill – have a way of spinning me out. Last summer, the same psychic who warned me about a big decision in 2026 said: “You are going to meet a man – it’s very exciting.” Two weeks later, I did. She also warned me to stay away from horses, just as we were about to go pony trekking in Wales. I ignored her – and had a lovely ride.

Often, their timing is off. (I’m still waiting for a windfall of cash that I was assured would “come out of leftfield” in September.)

Nostradamus may yet be right or wrong about 2026, but I’m braced for whatever the new year brings. Man of light, man of my dreams… whoever, I’m ready for him.

And, if the great swarms of bees do materialise, I’m stocking up on antihistamines, just in case.