Richard Nixon v JFK at the 1960 Presidential election—an astrologer’s prediction

In the December 1959 issue of the British magazine Prediction is a remarkable attempt by an astrologer named Katina Theodossiou to predict the political careers of the two contenders for the imminent 1960 Presidential election.

Kennedy

By temperament he will be a pacifist, not a war-monger; but he would not be inclined to veto armaments, nuclear or otherwise, because of this. He has a very realistic streak blended with his well-publicized religious principles. Mr Kennedy will believe that the best way to assure peace is to remain strong.

His capacity for compromise (a Libran trait) would lie in his responding, within limits, to any concessions made by the Communist bloc, but he would not go the whole hog, nor would he initiate concessions…For all his instinctive adaptability, Mr Kennedy’s shrewdness would come badly off if any sudden crisis were precipitated upon him.

The year 1975 in prophecy

If you ignore the boils, this could be a scene from any number of war zones around the world today. But it isn’t. It’s the vision of destruction that Mad Magazine cartoonist Max Wolverton has conjured up after having read the blistering anti-technology rant of American Radio evangelist Herbert W Armstrong entitled 1975 in Prophecy. 

This pamphlet of some 32 pages contains other examples of Wolverton’s artwork, including a rather chilling reminder of 9/11 in which bodies are shown falling from a cliff to their deaths. There are also photographs of the technological miracle that was post-war West Germany—all to show how the 'fantastic push button world' brought to us by scientists and technologists was likely to turn us into a 'western world of soft degenerates, irresponsible, immoral, sick of mind and diseased of body’  prey to a take-over by Communism, and even, more absurdly, Neonazism.

Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, argues that the Almighty  doesn’t really approve of all this progress nonsense and will take his retribution in 1975 (a handy borrowing by Armstrong of the number- switching method by which Orwell turned 1948 to 1984), bringing plagues, earthquakes, flooding, etc to a world that was too obsessed with bringing about a life of leisure to care much about worshipping the Creator.

If we think this hysteria was over the top consider the date 1956—it was the height of the Cold War, Stalin’s salt mines and death camps were still around, and then ramifications of McCarthysim were still rife in Hollywood. In the 1951 film The Day the World Stood Still, where a robot from another world arrives to warn of a threat to Mankind, the anti-Communist, anti-technology message is more nuanced, but powerful all the same.

Armstrong was playing on these fears, but it is impossible to say whether or not he truly believed his own dire prophecies. What we do know, however, is that his Radio Church of God grew rich on the donations sent in by not very bright listeners.

And though he was way out on most of his speculations on future technology -- private helicopters taking the place of cars for many, baths where ‘supersonic waves took the place of water, and air passengers travelling by rocket--Armstrong proved prescient on a few things. When he predicts that 'food is to be cooked by heat waves' he looks forward to microwave ovens; and the telephones that he claims will show an image of the person being called have existed for a number of years.

Wonders of the 1930s

Some amazing covers from Modern Wonder: the Pictorial Review.(Odhams, London 1937 - 1940)

An astonishing magazine of modern invention, science and future prediction (visions of the future) subjects include: photography (miniature), aviation & flying boats, trains, shipping, wireless, television, military machinery, car racing, world record speed attempts, deep-sea diving & submarines, power stations and manufacturing. Striking, colourful covers, mostly by Bryan de Grineau and Lashwell Wood. Most issues have stories, (thrillers and science fiction) by such writers as Clifford Cameron, Stanton Hope, W. J. Passingham, Peter Barr, and in the first issue, John Wyndham (writing as John Beynon) Issue 1 also includes the required supplementary booklet 'Marvels of Today'. Issue 105 sees the appearance of Alex Raymond's 'Flash Gordon' comic strip, for about 30 issues, mostly in colour.  From issue 134, as Britain moves into the war, it's name changes to Modern Wonders (War Pictures).

Wallis foreseen...

Of the then Prince of Wales, later to be Edward VIII (and shortly thereafter Duke of Windsor and married in 1937 to Wallis Simpson) Cheiro* wrote in 1928:

  "It is within the bounds of possibility... that he will in the end fall victim to a devastating love affair. If he does, I predict that the Prince will give up everything, even the chance of being crowned, rather than lose the object of his affection." 

*COUNT LOUIS HAMON (Cheiro) 1866-1936. Brilliant and charming bon vivant whose consultations were sought by the wealthy and famous, author of several best sellers.