ARCHIVAL UPDATES: JEANE DIXON: PROPHET OR FRAUD?

Mary Bringle's critical volume, Jeane Dixon: Prophet or Fraud? is now available to read and download at archive dot org! This is a scan of the odd, trapezoidal miscut copy.

Here's Bringle's analysis of Dixon's attitude toward MLK and civil rights:

Courtesy Tower Books, 1970.

JEANE DIXON: PROPHET OR FRAUD? by Mary Bringle

And the verdict: FRAUD! Big time fraud! These kinds of "_____ or _____?" books fall into three categories: 

1. Hagiography disguised as neutral reporting (think of the many books on Edgar Cayce or Uri Gellar)
2. Recitation of "just the facts" on the level of 4th grade book reports (the oeuvres of Brad Steiger and Warren Smith)
3. Actual analysis and investigation (much rarer)

Not only does author Mary Bringle deliver on the third category with gusto, tackling the many bizarre and scattershot predictions of celebrity psychic Jeane Dixon, she cuts deep with some incisive writing on Dixon's reactionary race-baiting. Dixon made frequent predictions as to African Americans' fitness for equality, in some cases saying that they simply weren't ready for the burden of equal rights and also fear mongering over the "communist plot" behind the civil rights movement:

Bringle nails Dixon as the quintessential white moderate that MLK described in his 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail," someone who may believe themselves free of personal prejudice yet:

"Is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Bringle also connects Dixon's bloodthirsty attitude in her predictions of MLK's assassination to a wider ghoulishness in the celebrity psychic field, especially in regards to assassination predictions which were flying fast and free during the 60s and 70s. Everyone who was anyone in politics was seemingly doomed to die by a gunman's bullet, be they a Kennedy or a King, of any stripe in any nation. This balm of doomsaying is a peculiar function of the celebrity psychic that's cropped up before.

A final detail: the bizarre shape of this book! It seems that Tower Books didn't mind shipping out this slightly mangled text, which has been die cut into a trapezoid. A trashy publisher for an excellent work, dismantling the rotten heart of a shining icon.

Tower Books, 1970