The world is on the brink of massive change, and The Economist has surprised some key points of this massive transition in their special forecast cover – The World in 2019.

In case you are unaware of The Economist, it is one of the largest and reputed publication focusing on the status quo. They share insightful information through mostly all communication means available.

Before the start of each year, in December, the editorial team publishes a special graphic cover that foretells events that should unfold in the near future.

So far, they have been extremely precise with their predictions, which has led many into believing that those in charge of the publication are the ones pulling the strings on a global scale, or at least receiving insight from them.

In fact, it’s no secret that The Economist has high ties with world’s elites, with the Rothschild family being the one who partially owns the magazine.

Plus, the editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait, is known for frequently attending the Bilderberg Conference, so it’s no secret where all this information is coming from.

To make an idea of their prophetic abilities, the 1988 cover of The Economist highlights a phoenix holding a currency that overtakes all other fiat money.

The year 2018 is also inscribed, and the coin’s appearance resembles Bitcoin to a great extent. Could this be a mere coincidence? I think not.

The year 2019 marks the 33^rd edition of their forecast, which is the most prevalent number in Freemasonry. And there’s a plethora of esoteric and symbolic meanings on this cover, far more than on previous editions.

Today we will analyse what The Economist envisions for the future of our society, and will try to break down every point as thorough as possible.

You will see that although some images are self-explanatory, others bear cryptic elite symbols and meanings.

To make a first impression, let’s see what Daniel Franklin, the editor of The World in 2019, said about what’s waiting for us in 2019.

“You will find a feast of forecasts in these pages. On the political front, the Trump Show moves into Series Two, now facing a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives; beyond America, countries with more than a third of the world’s population will hold nation-wide elections in 2019 – among them India, Nigeria and the whole of the European Union.”

The economy will also look restless according to Mr. Franklin, who foretells that “by mid-year America will be in its longest-ever expansion, but a trade war, rising interest rates and waning stimulus from tax cuts could spell trouble ahead,” warning that “the world in 2019 looks wobbly.”

In other words, there’s so much underway this year. Let’s touch some of the most important aspects and see how this can (and will) affect our everyday lives.

First of all, the cover brings into the spotlight imposing historic figures due to their centenary anniversaries.

The Vitruvian Man and Leonardo da Vinci

The Vitruvian Man is used as the central theme this year to pay homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-year death memorial.

As a short reminder, this is da Vinci’s famous sketch of a man entrapped in a circle and square, and it is said to symbolise the “perfect man” as it perfectly alludes to the golden ratio.

At its core, da Vinci’s sketch has the works of Vitruvius – a Roman architect viewed as the “First Grand Master” of Freemasonry.

On a symbolic level, the squared circle bears a deep esoteric meaning. The square symbolizes the physical body, while the circle stands for the soul; or the square represents the material world and the circle the spiritual plane.

For the freemasons, this is exactly one of their goals – to unify the body and soul to create the “perfect man.”

This unification is perfectly evoked by the Freemasonry logo that merges a square and compass, which are common tools in architecture used for drawing squares and circles.

But there is something special regarding this modern-day Vitruvian Man that has leaped 500 years into the future.

First of all, it has something over his eyes.

 It is unclear if he is blindfolded, wears a pair of night-vision goggles, a VR headset or maybe a pair of augmented reality glasses. Does he have an enhanced vision? Or is he rather being blinded?

Whatever the case, the items he’s diligently holding evoke meaningful things that will pick up speed this year.

On one hand he has the cannabis leaf, and you all know that legislation worldwide is changing in favour of this plant.

He also holds a baseball, which is strictly connected to technological breakthroughs that we’ll dissect in the next part.

The smartphone with QR code on the other hand is also related to the spread of certain technologies.

In his last hand, the Vitruvian Man carries a scale, which is a classic symbol of justice. However, there is a clear bounce on one side where five people are standing instead of four on the other side.

Could this allude to the U.S. Supreme Court’s newest controversial judge? Or maybe it’s just how justice will weigh this year?

And what about the other (three) aforementioned symbols?

Are they meant to distract us from the bigger picture? Or could they hold some deeper meaning? We’re going to find out about them in the second part of this material.

Furthermore, the symbols on this remastered da Vinci sketch don’t stop here.

There are two tattoos the Vitruvian Man has been inked with.

The first one is a double helix that forms the DNA.

You know all too well of the ever-increasing number in DNA manipulation experiment since the C.R.I.S.P.R. technology has made this field so much more accessible to both the public and private sectors.

But what does this mean for the Vitruvian Man? Was his DNA modified? Is he now part of a new breed of human beings?

The second tattoo, this time displayed over his heart, reads the recently-made-famous #MeToo hashtag.

If you remember the recent unveiling of Hollywood people with unhealthy affinities you will know what this stands for.

This vocative hashtag has encouraged a wave of people who have been abused to stand up and accuse their aggressors and expose them in public   

In a nutshell, the Vitruvian Man of 2019 appears to symbolise the man of the (near) future who is genetically modified, distracted from the bigger picture, and with an inborn acceptance of the mark of the beast.

Now, in terms of technology forecasts is where things get worrisome.

The all-seeing eye is upon us.

Editors of The Economist acknowledge that “there’s no escape from technology anymore,” so the best thing to do is embrace it and hope for solid pro-privacy regulations.

The most recent technological breakthroughs have enabled the tracking and accurate identification of a person from imagery or videos.

Today’s facial recognition software is much more accurate than the older versions.

Tech giants in Silicon Valley are already feeding artificial intelligence huge chunks of people’s data using supercomputers in order to perfect this software even further, and will sell these tools to security companies and to our caretakers, the government.

The pace will likely increase in 2019, and web-tracking and physical biometrics will keep an eye on you regardless of the corner of the earth where you’re at, leaving humans with little to no privacy.

And I am not even talking about military-grade, satellite quantum technology, but rather the extremely advanced tools perfected by private companies.

To make a clearer picture, go on and zoom on this 195-gigapixel image taken from atop the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai, China.

As Tom Standage, deputy editor at The World in 2019, has pointed out, “as A.I. is applied in a growing number of areas, there are legitimate concerns about possible unintended consequences. The immediate concern is that the scramble to amass the data needed to train A.I. systems is infringing on people’s privacy.”

Although data sharing may become more malleable, allowing people to opt out from these data-gathering systems (like it happened in the EU with the GDPR), people will become increasingly accustomed to these data grabs.

To make a better idea, the baseball held by the Vitruvian Man refers to the novel system that will go live in the U.S. this year, where baseball fans will be granted access to their favourite Major League games using facial recognition, rather than validating a paper ticket.

In Singapore, the latest trend in megamalls will track everyone stepping inside in order to deliver them more accurate product and service suggestions.

And Japan will have a brand-new facial recognition system spread out across Tokyo in anticipation of the 2020 Olympics. For now, they will use the system to enhance security during the games.

As Tom Standage has pointed out, we might not need an entirely new regulatory framework to cope with A.I. development, but rather adapt what is already in use today.

“Given how widely applicable A.I. is – like electricity or the internet, it can be applied in almost any field – the answer is not to create a specific set of laws for it, or a dedicated regulatory body akin to America’s Food and Drug Administration. Rather, existing rules on privacy, discrimination, vehicle safety and so on must be adapted to take A.I. into account,” he said in one of his articles.

However, even if this could pan out in favour of the individual living in Western countries, what will happen in China remains widely uncertain.

You all know by now of the “social score” system that China will implement as soon as next year.

Well, they’re not stopping there. The Chinese aim to make a new and convenient payment system, based on QR codes, popular not only in their country, but also across the entire world.

According to a report, already one third of Alipay’s user are living abroad. In 2018 alone, the Chinese payment system saw almost triple increase (2.6) in foreign transactions than in previous year.

The Chinese hope to overtake the other forms of payment and replace them with QR-pay.

Besides the imposing nature of their economy, that’s ever-expanding, the system is also incredibly easy to use, and that could attract huge waves of new customers.

Even if you don’t agree to use QR-pay, the rapid expanse of China UnionPay might just turn this into a new trend.

Their cards have already been accepted by over 41 million merchants and more than 2m ATMs worldwide. In 2019, they are planning an even bigger expanse.

To end this on a brighter note, it appears that The Economist envisions a bright future for electric cars starting this year.

But even if we’ll make a better climate impact in our autonomous electric vehicles, it will still come at the expense of our privacy and user data, which will be taken for free and sold for big money.

After all, data is the new gold in this age of information.

As far as technology goes, it seems that it’s really no escape from it, so we might just have to become accustomed to this idea.

On the other hand, predictions are packed with esoteric symbols and meanings when it comes to Trump and Putin, as well as our newborns.

Immersing ourselves into virtual and augmented worlds is the first step towards merging with the very technology we have created.

Since all this is uncharted territory, there’s no saying how things will pan out.

But as we’re climbing the technological ladder, world affairs are starting to shake the very foundation of our current evolution, and The World in 2019 cover is trying to send this message…in a very cryptic fashion.

In this third and final part of this special “prophetic” edition, we’ll dissect probably the most essential aspects present on the cover of this freemason-owned publication of The Economist.

If you haven’t noticed by now, strange writings accompany some of the sketches present on The World in 2019 cover.

You’ll probably need to zoom in or use a magnifying glass to read this cryptic text, and you might still not understand what is written.

This is because the text is written in reverse, a technique often encountered in Leonardo da Vinci’s works.

If they did this to honour his memory or simply because this cryptic writing manner is favoured by secret societies remains a matter of interpretation.

Now that we know how to read the text, let’s dive right into the details.

We’ve discussed in the latter part about the boundaries that technology will cross this year.

On the cover is highlighted the face of a man who’s being analysed, which is the exact replica of da Vinci’s sketch.

Above you can read, in reverse, “Facial recognition,” which is the main technology the world is playing with this year.

A similar grid is applied to Trump’s face, and if you look closely, it pretty much resembles an upside-down flag of the United States.

The ambiguous representation leaves lots of room for interpretation.

Are the editors at The Economist forecasting something important in our president’s life this year?

Can Trump’s future actions be predicted based on his specific face pattern? And is there something scheduled for this year?  I guess only time will provide a clearer answer.

The second noteworthy head is that of Vladimir Putin. This time, the illustration provides more answers.

The reverse text reads “Putin’s pipeline,” which is a direct reference to the Russian pipelines crossing disputed territories like Syria, action that seeks to undermine the American distribution of natural resources to Europe.

This year is the deadline for the NordStream 2 pipeline that will bridge Russia and Germany in a controversial effort to provide natural gas to this Western European country.

The move has been labelled by critics as an “act of betrayal” that could leave Europe at the hand of Russia when it comes to energy supplies.

However, probably the most grim and cryptic prediction is the one right below Putin.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are sitting on Northern Europe and are looking towards America.

According to The Book of Revelations, the four horsemen are harbingers of the end-days.

The White Horse is associated with conquest, pestilence and the arrival of the Anti-Christ, the Black Horse stands for Hunger, The Red Horse symbolises war, while The Pale Horse calls for death and destruction.

There is no saying why The Economist has chosen to add this symbolic Biblical quartet, but the way things look, they might be foreseeing a major catastrophe this year or the near future.

Could this be related to volcano displayed right under the moon?

From what we know, volcanic activity has drastically increased in recent months, and a major volcano eruption could send a considerable part of the world into the dark ages.

Another frightening prediction takes the form of the stork carrying a new born baby.

The sack, however, is inscribed with a barcode, which could mean several alarming things.

1. It could be a reference to the mark of the beast (666), since the stork is flying right below The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Book of Revelations describes how, after the rapture, the remaining inhabitants of the Earth will be pushed to accept the “mark of the Beast” to continue to trade goods between them. And what better tactic to apply this gruesome symbol than at birth?
2. Another interpretation is that of child trafficking, that’s viewing children as mere products, and thus the barcode could symbolise just that.
3. Third option, and equally as possible, is the “designer baby” hypothesis. This is a disputed practice relying on embryo manipulation, that should pick up speed in 2019.

According to Wikipedia, “a designer baby is a human embryo which has been genetically modified, usually following guidelines set by the parent or scientist, to produce desirable traits. This is done using various methods, such as germline engineering or preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This technology is the subject of ethical debate, bringing up the concept of genetically modified “superhumans” to interbreed with and eventually replace modern humans.”

Considering the current status quo, where the elites seek more obedient citizens and, of course, to depopulate the globe up to a few million individuals, this idea of the barcode stork makes much sense.

In case of a widespread pandemic, the new race of superhumans would be immune to the virus, and thus succeed in making it into the “new world” designed for more adequate subjects.

With this being said, you have now briefly glimpsed into the future of our planet and species.

For a prepper, and every conscious human out there, knowing what possibly awaits us is the best way in which we can prepare.

Remember these are all interpretations, although some of them are pretty obvious and self-explanatory.

Of course, the list doesn’t end here, but if you seek to learn more about the rest of the illustrations and symbols on The World in 2019, you can access this link and see the editor’s vision of what’s to be expected this year.