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

ARCHIVAL UPDATES: THE DEVIL'S SEA

The psychic survey of The Devil's Sea by Elizabeth Nichols is now available to read and download at archive dot org. Featuring the ESPer visions of Otto Binder, Irene Hughes, Ted "PK Man Owens," and others, alongside classic Triangle terror tales ...

Courtesy Award Books, 1975.

PREDICTIONS FOR 1974 compiled and edited by Warren Smith

Here's a real load of midcentury occult meatloaf that must have been waiting to spring off the grocery store spinner rack, as working writer Warren Smith assembles 33 psychics of varying pedigree for predictions on the upcoming year of 1974! We get some big names like "PK Man" and all around self promoter Ted Owens, the Countess Amaya (last seen in The Strange Ones by Smith, from 1972), Malva Dee and Beaverton's own Tenny Hale, as well as also-rans and unknowns like "Aquarius" the anonymous college student, the "Black Psychic" Dr. Ernesto Montgomery (who seems ill-served by this reductive label), fake fakir Komar, and a host of others who are lost to the ages, with nary a wikipedia page or archived news article to commemorate them. Regardless of their purported status, we get the expected spread of generic, oddball, infuriating, and just plain wrong predictions about what to expect in '74 ...

Cancer will be cured, as will schizophrenia. Nixon will resign, be impeached, or be totally vindicated. Stuff will get more expensive. Young people will either accept their lot, or raise hell! China, the USSR, or some terrorist group will start a nuclear war ... or bring about world peace! Liza Minelli will divorce, get remarried, and divorce again. On and on it goes, a numbing litany of "predictions" that soon blend together between psychics, to the point where it would be hard to remember who to credit with any actual hits. Regardless, Smith and Award Books are sure to place a disclaimer front and center that NONE of the predictions within are to serve as the basis for any financial decisions!

One of the standout chapters features Leo Martello, a legendary gay rights and wiccan activist and author of an excellent witchcraft primer featured on the blog back in 2020. Martello's predictions seem less ethereally inspired than simply savvy, with a mix of accuracy. Near misses include predicting impeachment for Nixon post-Watergate and farm strikes which were still a decade off in actuality. Dead on predictions include the the implication of the CIA in SE Asian drug trafficking. Silly stuff from Martello includes massacres by psychotic Vietnam vets and "a dubious witch killed in a car crash," (now who exactly was he throwing shade at?) along with the usual celebrity divorces everybody else comments on throughout this volume. Martello is the rare left-wing celebrity psychic, and even predicts that reactionary race baiter Jeane Dixon will face public backlash for her stances.

Martello looking tres sinistre ...

... and a little more approachable!

In line with Martello, Tenny Hale ("looking chic like a model instead of a psychic") predicts that fundamentalists will take over Christianity in America. Again, this is less of an astral vision and more straight observation, though it's better than the piffle some of these other psychics dredge up to fill pages. India/Pakistan and Palestine/Israel are two big geopolitical topics that crop up again and again, with varying pessimism and perspectives. Another hot topic of the time is the status of the American Indian: some psychics are bullish on America's first people gaining full rights and reparations, while others feel the issue will fade from the headlines.

Tenny Hale

Our final chapter is from Ruth Zimmerman, the Illinois housewife who tunes in. True to the era and focus of this volume, she says Jack Paar may suffer a head injury and that Dean Martin should be careful of his nose! The back page ads are solid gold, with Brad Steiger, Brinsley le Poer Trench, and some titans of SF represented.

Predictions For 1974 is available to read and download at archive dot org.

This book was owned by Earle L. Blanton, Jr.

Award Books, 1973

THE STRANGE ONES by Warren Smith

P'raps the strange ones in the dome

Can lend us a book

We can read up alone

With over 61+ chapters of Fortean freakshows in 190 pages, author Warren Smith brings us a real drive-in Saturday with THE STRANGE ONES! It's another free-for-all with monsters, ghosts, ESP, UFOs, "wacky" news items and trivia, and whatever else Smith could cram in to reach his quota of strangeness. Arthur Godfrey saw a UFO! The poet Virgil built a tomb for his pet housefly! It's wild out there!

Some of his chapters are truly trivial, with barely a paragraph describing potential mummy powered motors or someone who laughed themselves to death. It happens, honestly, and it's horrible! His hollow earth chapter is weak sauce as well, considering how Smith managed to fill whole books on the subject elsewhere. His final thought on the subject here: "It is one of the wildest theories in history." Don't hold back, Warren!

That back cover critter in the Black Museum looks a cousin to the Glamis Beast from Brad Steiger's The Unknown, but I'm not sure what tale he's supposed to feature in here. The closest match is the Museum of the Souls of Purgatory in Rome, but there's no horrible monsters skulking about, just some real bad vibes, man.

Smith mixes and matches chapters from his own back catalogue and swipes from Frank Edwards' Stranger Than Science for the tale of John Keely's mystery motor among others. Edwards launched the careers of many copycat writers such as Smith, who also recycles the Ourang Medan ghostship which at this point was instant filler for any Fortean text. Smith drops in ol' Officer Herbert Schirmer and his UFO encounter from his own Gods Demons and UFO's, and would reuse Herb's distressing story in future work. Other frequent flyers on the Forteana circuit include "PK Man" Ted Owens, the Boggy Creek Monster of Fouke, Arkansas, psychics Olof Jonsson and Countess Amaya, and the fearsome Yeti of Fremont, Wisconsin, this last bogey also featured by Brad Steiger this same year of 1972, in his Strange Encounters With Ghosts! C'mon guys, try a little harder! Tombstone funnies and silly folk medicine are two more easy entries that barely merit inclusion.

I can't stay too mad at Warren though, not when he finally kicks it up a notch and brings in werewolves and the wolfgirls of Godamuri to spice up the strange. Too bad those feral gals never really existed, according to a French surgeon/historian anyway, but we're used to that with Smith. The party's over, the big names have split, but Warren's mixed some jungle juice from the backwash and damn if it won't do in a pinch. Time to get strange ...

Popular Library, 1972