PREDICTIONS FOR 1976 compiled and edited by Warren Smith

San Antonio: a huge tornado, fires and Mexican Americans and blacks taking over!

Australia and New Zealand will have a problem!

Watch Glenn Ford do it again!

The next President will be George Wallace!

Warren Smith returns with a roster of psychics, minus a few names here and there from last year. The biggest loss is gay witch Leo Martello, no longer here to make canny "predictions" about the CIA. Instead we have psychic sleuth Beverly C. Jaegers predicting that "the CIA will be blamed for everything from food shortages and coffee prices to small takeovers in Southern Hemisphere countries, with no basis in fact." She's the one with the big, bold idea that Australia and New Zealand will have "a problem," too, so nothing gets past her!

Dr. Gil E. Gilly also returns with another beefy chapter full of cheerful nonsense, and you gotta hand it to him for putting it all out there with "predictions" like these:

The mammoth economic growth we’ve witnessed by Japan is going to be surpassed by a physical growth, not in number but in size and stature. This will be shown to be caused by the atomic pollution of the waters and food they eat.  

I believe Gerald Ford is going to run for President with Rockefeller as his running mate. I don’t see him winning, but if he should he'll step down afterwards and Rockefeller will run the country. You know who I see winning? Wallace. Not that I want him to, but that’s who I see winning.

Gilly also says 1976 will be the year for aloe vera, "a Hawaiian plant that's a sure cure for baldness," and also goes into detail about a "Telecheck system" that will monitor seniors for their own safety. It seems like a third of the predictions in this book are technowonders like this, another third are safe "gimme" predictions like "trouble in the Middle East" and Glenn Ford becoming even more popular due to his massive talent and charisma, and the final third are nuclear war, race riots, plague, death, and so on. Gilly doesn't disappoint here with runaway plague and fungus, and a campaign in Zaire to "can and sell human meat!" On the plus side, "Dinah Shore will have her recipes manufactured and distributed on the frozen foods market," hopefully sans long pork!

Glenn Ford (1916-2006) in the epic Midway, 1976

Our pal Doc Anderson does his thing too and also says that he sees "George Wallace is destined to be the President of the United States" ... and that Doris Day will be offered several TV specials! Allene Cunningham says that George Wallace will present us an "amazing and sincere" program for how to clean up America ... I'm starting to have some questions about these psychics!

Allene Cunningham (1921-2016) on the job. I've got my eye on her!

There's a lot of talk of "earth changes" a la Edgar Cayce, and of Atlantis rising. Jackie O's marital status is debated, as is John Wayne's health and Dick Cavett's image as a family man - though Sharon Naccarato beileves that this won't have an effect on his standing. To think we missed out on Dick Cavett's blue era ...

Smith's Predictions series has always been a mix of big B-names in the psychic scene like Irene Hughes and Tenny Hale, and relative nobodies like the anonymous Aquarius, a doctor in the Midwest who wants to keep his ESP under wraps. Maybe the biggest name Smith scored for this year is "the PK Man" himself, Ted Owens, who, despite Smith's usual disclaimer against using these volumes for financial advice, tell us to sell all our stocks and bonds and basically keep cash in hand! 

Ted Owens (1920-1987)

Ted sees bad news all over, with UFOs "kicking the slats" off of Texas and Nevada, with Florida, California, and Illinois also facing some dark future. If only Nixon had listened to Ted:

Years ago I wrote fo President Nixon (excuse the expression) and offered to organize all the great psychics in the land. I’d get Geller, Dixon, Doc Anderson, Gypsy Markoff (Countess Amaya), Hurkos, and others in the psychic field together as one superpsychic team. We'd help guide the United States through times ahead. The government would put up salaries for these top psychics so they would not want. They could devote their energies and time to helping the United States. This superpsychic team would be invaluable to the United States! Now, each psychic is helping an individual here or there with psychic powers. But the total picture would be much better if the psychics banded together to become a powerful psychic force.

Psychic Mark Vito predicts women giving birth to starseeds in 1976, though he avoids that exact term. His brief entry is mostly focused on UFOs and starseeds, which makes sense given he was a contactee:

“My second contact occurred on March 19, 1975,” reported Mark. “I received the following message, which was given to me by mental projection: ‘United States founded by Higher Beings, extraterrestrials. Study the Great Seal of the United States on reverse side of dollar bill. Our messengers responsible for its design. We are the Flying Eagle. Thirteen of us responsible, as shown by the thirteen stars above Eagle. Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, a few of our coworkers. Divine Plan in operation. We bring you sweet tidings of great joy. This is the beginning of remarkable golden goodness. You have no idea of the magnitude of our work. The Great Seal of United States appears on our ships.'"

There's gotta be over a thousand predictions in this volume, although again many are safe bets and generic guesses. But for the out-there observations, of nuclear war and super-pills, of celebrity love and death, of President George Wallace and mass UFO disclosure, we'd have to wait for 1976 to pass us by to see ...

Predictions For 1976 is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Award Books, 1975

PREDICTIONS FOR 1975 compiled and edited by Warren Smith

Only 50 years too late, here comes a batch of psychic PREDICTIONS FOR 1975, compiled and edited by our man Warren Smith and featuring 36+ midcentury seers giving us the best and worst to come! We last saw some of these ESPers in Warren's volume for 1974, and it's a solid B-list including frequent Smith fliers like Doc Anderson and the Countess Amaya, big shots like Ted "PK Man" Owens and Dorothy Spence Lauer, and two guys often featured by Brad Steiger, Olof Jonsson and Komar. There's plenty of obscure and unheard of psychics too, and Smith gives us a rundown of every entrant at the beginning of their respective chapters.

As for the predictions?

Ted Kennedy will either retire from politics or become president, as will Ronald Reagan. George Wallace is on everyone's mind too, with Doc Anderson predicting he'll be president! Richard Burton and Liz Taylor are splitting for good or getting back together. Marlo Thomas and Cybil Shepherd are going to hit it big! Patty Hearst is either dead, alive, or on the run with the SLA.

There's new foods, new medicine, new clothes, new cars on the way ... X-rated movies will be shown on TV! That last one was just a few years out with pay-per-view cable, so a couple psychics could feel pretty happy with themselves even if their guesses were a little premature. The majority of psychics here agree that the UFO mystery will probably be revealed in 1975 with official disclosure from the American government and a landing of a craft, though a couple psychics feel that nothing much will happen with UFOs next year. 

Some of Doc's predictions with emphasis from a former reader

Old religions will either roar back in popularity or wither against the New Age, and ESP will, across the board, be more and more accepted. One seer predicts a less "fanatical" ESP that will develop scientifically ... always in the midcentury, the reveal of unknown powers was just around the corner.

 

One Dr. Gil E. Gilly rambles on for the second longest chapter with a grab bag of inventions, trends, and celebrity whatsit. Dig that alfalfa drink! Too, Sonny and Cher will reunite for a "really funny" comedy special! The website for the history of performing magic in Phoenix features a gallery of Gilly promotionals.

Leo Martello's chapter follows suit with his 1974 entry, featuring some canny political analysis mixed with a little bit of psychic fluff. He predicts that Rhodesia will soon fall as a White state and be renamed Zimbabwe, which points more to his powers of international attention than any psychic aura.

Gay warlock and firebrand Leo Martello

Many of the more likely "predictions" from the psychics are, indeed, simple educated guesses. And let's not even talk about middling crap like "four entertainment figures will die" or "I foresee more war in the Middle East!" Some of the wackier stuff like nuclear war or major earth changes can at least be granted points for chutzpah, like "black psychic" Dr. Ernesto Montgomery's prediction of a "surprise atomic attack" by the USSR on America. Two psychics predict Charles attaining the throne in 1975, which makes for a chuckle in 2025, as does a prediction of Castro's fall in '75.

As always, Smith makes sure to note that predictions are NOT to be taken as investment advice! So hold off on that alfalfa stock ...

Predictions For 1975 is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Award Books, 1974

HOW TO USE ESP: THE HIDDEN POWER OF YOUR MIND by Dorothy Spence Lauer with Brad Steiger

We're getting a late start this month and rolling out SELF HELP SEPTEMBER! Yes, all entries this month will be part and parcel of that slippery category of paranormal/occultic self help literature, and what better way to launch this theme than with one of Brad Steiger's patented promotional numbers, cowritten with a (semi)famous psychic celebrity? We're learning HOW TO USE ESP with Dorothy Spence Lauer!

Dorothy Spence Lauer (1909-1990)

Lauer was a midlist seer with a regular column in Ray Palmer's Mystic magazine (later renamed Search) where she dispensed the usual vague affirmations and warnings. Select issues of Mystic/Search featuring Lauer's column can be downloaded at the Luminist archives. Says Palmer at the start of a column:

Editor's Note: Dorothy Spence Lauer is a Psychometrist, specializing in precognition. Ordinarily she needs but an object belonging to, or handled by, the subject, or the presence of the subject, to become aware of the psychic influences from which she draws her information. However, for the sake of expediency in providing her with a sufficiently strong personal psychic impression, the editors of this magazine hit upon the playing card method. By laying out the cards, while concentrating, as described in the instructions given at the end of this article, and by writing them down on the chart, we hope that a sufficiently powerful psychic impression will be made to enable the medium to receive the information
she seeks. We have made this service available to our readers purely in an experimentative atmosphere, in an attempt, first, to determine whether or not this ability is of a nature both real and valuable; and second, to provide you with an interesting bit of entertainment. Naturally we cannot publish all the requests for readings we receive, but we will forward all charts to Mrs. Lauer, asking her to select several which give her the strongest and most interesting impression, for publication entirely free in this department of MYSTIC Magazine. We assume no further responsibility for the charts.

If you wish to correspond personally with Mrs. Lauer, we will be glad to forward your letters.

Steiger starts off his book with some flashier fish, quoting Palmer in a 1964 issue of Mystic on Lauer's incredible prediction of JFK's assassination! Between Lauer, Joseph Goodavage, and Jeane Dixon, it's a wonder Jack didn't just call off that trip to Dallas ... Lauer doesn't usually concern herself with big shot predictions like this though, seeming to prefer personal matters. Steiger assures us she's a warm, wonderful, humble, Godly lady who just wants the best for her clients. She's so humble and honest that she doesn't even have a spectacular psychic origin story like most of the famous seers, Steiger claims ... and then immediately tells us of Lauer's spectacular psychic origin story as a premature birth! Oh Brad, you cad.

One of Lauer's big ideas for ESP self improvement is the GOLDEN MAGIC CIRCLE, a protective area you should envision around yourself that hones your ESP powers while also protecting you from negative energy. She doesn't feel that ESP is "supernatural" per se, as it comes directly from God. Lauer quotes an article from the August 1961 issue of Exploring the Unknown by a Baptist minister named Vance L. Milligan that defends her from Christian criticism using a Biblical perspective, including St. Paul in 1st Corinthians 12: 4-11 and John 14:12. Milligan concludes that "God approves of people like Mrs. Lauer. She is a modern prophetess."

Her other tools for training your ESP are the usual mystic self help guff: positive thinking, the law of attraction, visualization, but Lauer is engaging enough, even when she's telling us that cancer comes from negative thought waves. These are either being directed at you by a foe or boomeranging back onto you from your own poor attitude towards someone. Lauer emphasizes that your burgeoning ESP powers should NOT be used to harm others, as the forces you send out can easily bounce back to you. On the other hand, if you wish others good fortune, those positive waves may just benefit you as well! If enough people start using ESP in a self-reinforcing cycle of good vibes, Lauer says the day may come soon when we tell each other, "Pardon me, your ESP is showing!"

True to midcentury aesthetics, Lauer also tells us to visualize a control panel (of "rich mahogany," even!) with red buttons, each labeled something like "money," "friends," "love," etc. If we can visualize strongly enough as we press one of these buttons, that thing will come to us! The same push button control can be used to heal a marriage where two people have grown apart, or reignite passion in the bedroom.

This title must have sold well, because Lancer reprinted it at an unknown date:

And it even got reprinted in 1998, with cover art updated in that era's cheesy New Age style:

Lancer Books, 1969