A 16th-century apothecary in a candlelit study stares into a bowl of water. A jackal-headed god weighs a heart against a feather. Both claim to see what others cannot. Nostradamus and Anubis represent two fundamentally different prophetic traditions: one textual and astrological, the other ritual and chthonic. One reads the future in quatrains and planetary positions; the other guards the passage between the living and the dead, where knowledge of what comes after is obtained through contact with the underworld.
What Are These Two Prophetic Traditions?
Nostradamus refers to the body of prophecies written by Michel de Nostredame (1503–1566), a French physician and astrologer. His Les Prophéties (1555) contains 942 quatrains organized into centuries, written in a mix of French, Latin, and Greek. He claimed to derive his visions through astrological calculations and scrying, using a brass tripod and a bowl of water.
Anubis (Greek form of Egyptian Anpu, Inpw) is the ancient Egyptian god of embalming, funerary rites, and the guardian of the scales in the Hall of Two Truths. He is not a prophet in the sense of predicting future events. His prophetic role lies in guiding souls through the underworld and, through necromantic ritual, granting the living access to hidden knowledge from the dead.
The comparison is not between two prophets but between two prophetic methods: one that interprets celestial and textual signs, and one that invokes a deity of the threshold to reveal what lies beyond death.
Where Do These Traditions Come From?
Nostradamus published his first almanac in 1550, but his major work appeared in 1555, dedicated to his infant son César and later to King Henry II of France. He drew on classical sources: the Sibylline Oracles, the Oracles of Leo the Wise, and the astrological techniques of Ptolemy and Arabic scholars. His method combined judicial astrology (casting horary charts for specific questions) with scrying, which he described in the first quatrain: “Sitting alone at night in my study, I rest upon the brass tripod.”
Anubis appears much earlier. The Pyramid Texts (c. 2400 BCE) already invoke him as “the one who is upon his mountain,” a guardian of the necropolis. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2000 BCE), he is the embalmer who performed the first mummification on Osiris. His cult center was Cynopolis (Greek for “Dog City”), modern Qais in Middle Egypt. Priests of Anubis conducted the “Opening of the Mouth” ritual, which restored the senses to the deceased so they could speak in the afterlife. That speaking was the foundation of necromantic prophecy: the dead could reveal the future because they already stood outside time.
The human consequence: a family seeking news of a missing traveler might visit an Anubis priest to invoke the god and contact the dead. Nostradamus’s clients, including Queen Catherine de Medici, came to him for horoscopes and predictions about court intrigues and royal heirs.
What Does Each Tradition Symbolize?
Nostradamus’s quatrains are deliberately obscure. He wrote in riddles, mixing anagrams, mythological references, and place names. The symbolism is textual and layered: a quatrain about “the young lion overcoming the old” is read as the death of Henry II in a joust (1559). The quatrains function as mirrors: readers project their own meanings onto them. This is a prophetic tradition built on interpretation, not direct revelation.
Anubis is symbolized by the black jackal or dog. Black is the color of fertile Nile silt and of the flesh of the dead after embalming. The jackal was seen scavenging at the edges of the desert, where the dead were buried. Anubis stands at the threshold: between the living and the dead, between the body and the soul, between the heart and the feather. His prophetic power comes from that liminal position. He does not speak in riddles. He weighs. The outcome is binary: true of voice or devoured by Ammit.
Where Nostradamus offers ambiguity, Anubis offers judgment. One tradition invites endless reinterpretation; the other demands a single truth.
How Were These Traditions Practiced?
Nostradamus described his scrying method in the first quatrain: “The magic wand in hand, I wet the hem of my robe and the brass tripod.” He would sit alone at night, gaze into a bowl of water placed on a tripod, and enter a trance state. He then wrote down the visions in quatrains, often after casting astrological charts to fix the timing. He used the Almagest of Ptolemy and the Centiloquium attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. His practice was solitary, intellectual, and secretive.
Anubis’s prophetic tradition was communal and ritualized. In the Greek Magical Papyri (2nd–5th centuries CE), spells invoke Anubis for dream incubation, necromancy, and direct revelation. One spell (PGM IV. 154–285) instructs the practitioner to draw an image of Anubis on a linen cloth, place it in a shrine, and recite the names of power while offering milk and honey. The practitioner then lies down to sleep, expecting Anubis to appear in a dream and answer questions. Another spell uses a skull or a vessel filled with water from a place where a corpse has been washed. The dead are summoned through Anubis, who opens the way.
The difference in practice is stark. Nostradamus worked alone with books and a bowl. Anubis’s priests worked with bodies, tombs, and the living community of mourners. One tradition is a desk practice; the other is a deathbed practice.
How Do They Compare Directly?
| Aspect | Nostradamus | Anubis |
|---|---|---|
| Source of knowledge | Astrology + scrying | Necromancy + divine judgment |
| Medium | Quatrains (text) | Dreams, rituals, the dead |
| Practitioner | Individual scholar | Priest or magician |
| Certainty | Ambiguous, requires interpretation | Binary (true of voice or not) |
| Timeframe | Future events on Earth | Afterlife and hidden knowledge |
| Historical period | 16th century CE | c. 2400 BCE onward |
The two traditions share a core assumption: the future is not fixed but can be glimpsed through proper technique. Both require a state of altered consciousness: Nostradamus through trance and scrying, Anubis through dream incubation or possession. Both produce cryptic results: quatrains that need decoding, or dream images that need interpretation by a priest.
But the fundamental difference is the source. Nostradamus looked to the stars and his own visions. Anubis looked to the dead. One tradition trusts the cosmos; the other trusts the underworld.
What Do People Get Wrong About These Traditions?
The most common misconception is that Nostradamus predicted specific events like the French Revolution or 9/11. He did not. His quatrains are vague and have been retrofitted to fit historical events by later interpreters. He himself said his prophecies covered events up to the year 3797, but he never claimed to name names or dates. His tradition is one of postdiction, not prediction.
Anubis is often reduced to a “god of death” or an evil figure. He is neither. He is the embalmer, the guide, the weigher of hearts. He does not cause death; he manages its aftermath. His prophetic role is not about seeing the future of the living but about revealing the state of the dead and the path through the underworld. Confusing him with a death-bringer misses the point of his tradition entirely.
Another error: assuming Anubis was never used for divination by the living. The Greek Magical Papyri show he was invoked for practical questions: “Reveal to me concerning my livelihood, my magic, my life.” The living did consult him, but through the dead.
FAQ
Can Anubis predict the future like Nostradamus?
Not in the same way. Anubis reveals hidden knowledge through the dead, not through astrological calculations. His predictions concern the afterlife, the fate of the soul, and answers to specific questions asked in ritual.
Did Nostradamus use Egyptian methods?
He was aware of Hermetic texts attributed to the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, but his direct sources were Greek and Arabic astrology. There is no evidence he invoked Anubis or performed necromancy.
Which tradition is more accurate?
Accuracy is not a meaningful measure for either. Nostradamus’s quatrains are too vague to falsify. Anubis’s revelations are personal and ritual-dependent. Both traditions value insight over empirical prediction.
Can I practice either tradition today?
Yes. Nostradamus’s method of scrying with water and a tripod is accessible to anyone. Anubis’s necromantic rituals require knowledge of Egyptian and Graeco-Egyptian magic, and a willingness to work with the dead. We recommend starting with scrying before attempting any underworld contact.
Where to Go Next
The two traditions we have compared are only a small part of the broader field of divination. For a complete overview of methods from astrology to necromancy, see our divination tools guide. If Anubis interests you, the glossary of Egyptian gods provides deeper context on his role and iconography. For those drawn to Nostradamus’s textual approach, our guide to reading prophetic quatrains offers practical steps for interpretation.