Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World: The Ultimate A–Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 255

A modern-day psychic who claimed to be able to predict the future. Information came to her in the form of dramatic visions. According to her supporters Dixon accurately foretold the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. She also predicted the launch of Sputnik and the sinking of the submarines USS Thresher and USS Scorpion, as well as the unexpected presidential defeat of Thomas Dewey by Harry Truman, the landslide election of Dwight Eisenhower, the demise of Nikita Khrushchev, and the plane crash that killed UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.

Jeanne Dixon, who was told by a gypsy when she was eight years old that she would become a great psychic, also made hundreds of trivial predictions about celebrities and insignificant events and earned the dubious nickname of ‘gossip prophet’. As she explained it, ‘When a psychic vision is not fulfilled as expected, it is not because what has been shown is not correct; it is because I have not interpreted it correctly’

Like Nostradamus (C. 1:60) and St John (in the Book of Revelation 8: 10-12), she prophesized that Earth will be struck by a comet. Her timing, however, was premature:

I have seen a comet strike our Earth around the middle of the 1980s. Earthquakes and tidal waves will befall us as a result of the tremendous impact of this heavenly body in one of our great oceans.

And like several other prophets, Dixon also has foreseen the advent of the Antichrist and the False Prophet:

Satan is now coming into the open to seduce the world and we should be prepared for the inevitable events that are to follow. I have seen that the United States is to play a major role in this development.

Ms Dixon believed her powers were a gift from God. She made little financial profit from them, making it a policy not to charge fees and to donate income to a children’s charity. Sceptics argue that her predictions were vague, wide open to interpretation and often completely inaccurate or wrong. They also believe that the media played a part in the cult surrounding her.

The term ‘Jeanne Dixon effect’ is used to refer to a common ploy used by ‘psychics’ to make dozens of predictions knowing that the more that are made, the better the odds that one will prove accurate. When one comes true, the psychic counts on people conveniently forgetting the 99 per cent that were wrong. The term also refers to the tendency of the mass media to hype or exaggerate a few correct predictions by a psychic, guaranteeing that they will be remembered, while ignoring the much more numerous incorrect predictions.