 THE
SORCERER'S STONE!
APPENDIX
1
DANGERS IN PSYCHIC
PREDICTIONS
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 year’s 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.
“ ‘And when they shall say unto
you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and
that mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? [instead of] for the
living to [seek guidance of] the dead? To the law and to the testimony; if they
speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them’ (Isaiah
8:19-20).”
APPENDIX 3
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