Psychic Predictions

  DATE OF PUBLICATION: SEPTEMBER 2002  

 Psychics have Prophetic Accuracy Quotients. These are the percentages when their hunches turn out right. Jeane Dixon, Daniel Logan, David Bubar, and the others try to score high. But it is quite rare that they guess any future event correctly.

The predictions of prophets in the Bible were quite different. They were given with certainty, the certainty of God backing them. Every prediction given by a prophet always came true unless, because men repented of their sins and returned to God or because they decided to leave Him, the predicted outcome must be changed. If men will sincerely repent, God will give them another opportunity. But, with this one exception, the predictions of the prophet will always come to pass.

It is in the Bible that we find the predictions of the prophets. Their messages originate with God. In contrast, we find the predictions of the psychics and astrologers in the newspaper tabloids. Their messages come from spiritualism.

Prophets reproved  sin and exalted the power of God; their writings lead men to Christ and warn them of coming crises.

The psychics derive their information from the dark world. They tell us that their powers to predict come from crystal balls and spirits of dead men who visit them.

And what of their predictions?

Every year there seems to be more psychics than the year before. And they are predicting all kinds of events, engagements of movie starlets, political results, TV star contracts, the births of new messiahs, next years clothing fashions, spiritualistic phenomena, and airplane crashes.

We need information. But sources are important. We dare not go to the wrong ones. Are the psychics and their fellow travelers (the astrologers, clairvoyants, mediums, and satanists) safe? Are they reliable? There are ways we can know.

Whereas the prophets of God received visions from heaven, warning men to repent of their sins and return to God; the psychics obtain their information from contacts that are far different.

They tell us that their powers to predict come from crystal balls, light bulbs, electronic boxes,  and spirits of dead men who visit them; Ouija boards and séances are other means of information. And, as we shall find, guesswork is yet another helpful source.

Oddly enough, the events themselves seem generally to be focused on celebrities: movie stars, singers, politicians, and so forth. More often than not, the occurrence predicted will just be a marriage or some such affair.

But not so with the ancient prophets sent to men with messages from Heaven. They received their directions directly from God through visions and dreams. And they warned men everywhere to flee from sin and return to the Lord while there was still time. And they predicted judgments upon the land.

They clearly declared that these judgments would come because of disobedience to the laws of God. And unlike the psychics of our day, their predictions could be counted on to come true unless men repented of those sins.

Edgar Cayce was one of the leading psychics in the middle of the 20th century. He gained prominence because of his astounding prophecies, not one of which came true. Cayce predicted that the lands of Japan, America, and the Arctic would be totally devastated sometime between 1958 and 1998. Within a single generation after 1941 (25 years), He predicted that Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City would be blotted out of existence. He said that, by 1969, the mythical continent of Atlantis would rise up out of the ocean. He also declared that a pole shift would cause devastation throughout the entire world in the year 2001.

At the beginning of 1978, Ralph Blodgett decided it was time to settle this matter of psychics.

So he did what other people had generally only thought of doing. He went from one magazine vending counter to another, buying up the first-of-the-year sensational and gossip tabloids. Then he took his loot home and carefully compiled a list of 250 definite predictions for the year 1978.

As the year passed, he kept close tab on the news stories as they broke in the newspapers, as well as the major news, science, gossip and sports magazines and kept watching for fulfillments of those 250 predictions.

Then he sat down at the end of the year and put it all together. Out of 250 specific prognostications, by the thirty leading psychics of the world, less than 3 percent (i.e., 6 out of 250) could be listed as reasonably fulfilled. Ninety-seven percent missed the mark entirely. (The six correct ones had been stated in such general terms that it was not difficult to find someone or someplace that could fulfill them.)

What kind of predictions are we talking about? Here are a few for 1978 that flopped: U.S. space shuttle disaster sets program back 10 years; another major power failure to hit New York City in early 1978; a fire ravages the White House; the price of gas to reach $1.50 a gallon in U.S.; Quebec to split from rest of Canada; Carter to impose mandatory nationwide four-day work week in January; Cuba to apply to become fifty-first state; nationwide postal strike to halt all Christmas mail; Carter to reintroduce the draft in September; discovery of a cancer cure; Red China and the Soviet Union to go to war; CIA and FBI merge into a super spy agency; and remains of Atlantis discovered in Mediterranean off Turkey. Ralph Blodgett, Supermarket Psychics Spin the Roulette Wheel Again, These Times, March, 1979.

Not only predictions of major news events were included, but also many that were little better than ridiculous: Five different psychics predicted that Charlie's Angels TV show would be canceled. It was predicted that Burt Reynolds would marry Sally Field; Lindsay Wagner would become a TV superstar rage, replacing Farrah Fawcett-Majors; Big-foot would be captured. (None of which came true.) Such are not the messages of God to our world today.

In order to test the validity of horoscopes, an advertisement was placed in a Paris newspaper (Ici Paris) in 1979. A free, personal horoscope was offered to anyone who would report back on how accurate it had been.

Of the first 150 people who replied, 94 percent declared that it exactly fit their circumstances, their personalities, and the events of their lives. In addition, 90 percent of their friends and family agreed with this assessment.

Later, those who placed the ad revealed that everyone had been sent, not a personalized horoscope, but the same one. And it was disclosed that it was one prepared for a mass murderer.

In 1982, an organization known as the Australian Skeptics compared horoscopes found in 13 different newspapers for the same week. It was discovered that they gave a wide range of differing predictions for the same astrological sign. Checking them over carefully, they found that about half predicted good fortune for the week while the other half predicted disaster.

Seven years later, in response to a $100,000 TV show challenge, a well-known astrologer cast the charts of 12 people after being given their birth information. After this, the psychic spoke at length on the show with each of the twelve; and it was found that his charts did not match what happened in each of their lives for the time periods horoscoped.

In 1994, the Melbourne Sunday Age newspaper challenged six astrologers to predict the winner of the forthcoming Melbourne Cup, a famous yacht race. Every one of the six totally failed to predict the outcome.

The well-known psychic, Gordon-Michael Scallion claims that his predictions average nearly 90 percent accuracy. That sounds good, as long as you do not check his track record. Out of 66 predictions made for 1995, only a few came to pass; and all those were merely the continuation of an obvious trend or worded so vaguely they could hardly fail (herbal sales will increase, the number of witches will increase, there will be more UFO sightings).

The Bible says, Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven (Jeremiah 10:2).

The only reliable source of information is the Lord.

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