One year during the late 1960s, I was playing on PGA Tour in the Oklahoma City Open. I read in the newspaper that Jeane Dixon was making a rare public appearance and that it would be there in Oklahoma City that weekend. She had a syndicated newspaper column about astrology and was becoming one of America’s foremost astrologers and psychics in the twentieth century. She had even advised U.S. presidents, including FDR and, later, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
Jeane Dixon was scheduled to speak Saturday night at the large, downtown Coliseum. I wanted to attend it. So, I rounded up some of my PGA Tour buddies and we drove downtown that night to see and hear this famous woman. Our gregarious gang consisted of me, Babe Hiskey, Jim Hiskey, Dave Ragan, and Rocky Thompson.
My interest in Jeane Dixon (1904-1997) started about two or three years earlier. It began one afternoon in Las Vegas, where I was competing on the PGA Tour in the Las Vegas Invitational. My wife, Marilyn, and I were sitting by the swimming pool of our hotel talking with fellow Touring pro Dale Douglass and his wife, Joyce. Dale and Joyce Douglass are some of the nicest folks you could ever meet. They always made it a priority to be thoughtful of others and make people feel comfortable.
Well, Joyce started telling us about this unusual woman named Jeane Dixon who lived in Washington, D.C. Marilyn and I had never heard of her. Joyce said Mrs. Dixon had made several uncanny predictions that had come true, so that she was being hailed as a great prophetess. At times, Jeane Dixon had even been a private advisor to some of the world’s most famous people. I was suspicious, but intrigued, about her. Anyone who claimed to have the gift of prophecy, and got some results, that got my attention.
After that discussion, I purchased and read some of Jeane Dixon’s books she authored. And I read books about other people similar to her, such as the most famous clairvoyant of the twentieth century—Edgar Cayce. In fact, during that time in my life I read everything I could get my hands on about modern-day prophets, clairvoyants, seance mediums, hypnotists, exorcists, demon possession, and anything that had to do with the occult. At the same time, I searched the Bible to see what it had to say about these topics.
Jeane Dixon was born to German immigrants who lived in Wisconsin, Missouri, and then California. She often told reporters that she was born in 1918. But a National Observer investigative journalist talked to her relatives, examined official records, and concluded she was born in 1904. (It seems she lied about her age to cover up a failed marriage.) Dixon claimed that when she was eight years old a gypsy fortuneteller read her palm, predicted she would become a seer who would advise famous people, and gave her a crystal ball.
Jeane Dixon’s primary claim to fame was that she predicted several tragedies that involved celebrities and other famous people. It had been amply documented in the news media that in 1963 Jean Dixon indirectly tried to warn President John F. Kennedy not to go to Dallas, Texas, shortly before his fatal assassination there. She predicted the exact day he was assassinated and identified part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s last name as the killer. This prediction goes back to 1952, when Dixon says she was standing before a statue of the Virgin Mary the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C. She says a bright image of the White House appeared to her with the number “1960” above it. She said a dark cloud formed around this number and dropped down unto the building below, like “chocalote frosting on a cake.” A blue-eyed, young man stood there with thick brown hair. She perceived he was a Democrat politician, that he would become the U.S. president in 1960, and die a violent death while in office. In 1956, Parade Magazine interviewed Jeane Dixon about this and published an article about it. As time proceeded, Dixon gained further revelation about it that was often reported in the media. In January, 1963, she predicted JFK would be dead before the end of the year. In April, 1963, she predicted he would be shot. On November 13, she predicted he would be “assassinated if he traveled down South.” On November 22, the day Kennedy was assassinated, she announced before it occurred, “this is the day it will happen.” All of this and much more about Jeane Dixon and media sources that reported her predictions before they occurred are contained in an online article at http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1520/psychic_in_the_white_house.html.
For anyone who gets interested in this sort of stuff, I think it’s important to know what the Bible says about it. That great prophet-leader Moses warned his Hebrew people, who believed in Yahweh (LORD) their God, against false prophets. He defined a false prophet as anyone who predicts something that does not come to pass or could not yet come to pass. In other words, the true prophet of the God of Israel had to be 100% correct all the time about his prognostications. Why? The Hebrew prophets claimed they spoke the word of Yahweh their God. Either their God spoke to the prophet or he didn’t, and their God does not lie. Yahweh gave the following instruction about prophets through Moses, who said, “When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:22).
So, Moses revealed that it was possible for a Hebrew man who professed faith in Yahweh to be a false and deceiving prophet. That is, just because a man professed faith in God didn’t mean he had genuine faith and good works. Through Moses, God condemned such prophets by saying, “But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak,… that prophet shall die” (Deuteronomy 18:20). So, if any of the Hebrew prophets were wrong in their predictions, Yahweh their God commanded the Hebrew people to put them to death.
Moses also warned that many signs and wonders predicted by a false prophet may come to pass, or at least appear to do so. For, Moses also wrote in the Torah, “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your god with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 13.1-3). So, God would be permitting such deceptions to “test” Israel.
The Prophet Isaiah later explained concerning this admonition of Moses, “To the law [of Moses] and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn,” that is, no truth (Isaiah 8.20 niv).
Well, back to my experience in Oklahoma City, we arrived at the downtown Coliseum to discover that an overflowing crowd had turned out to hear Jeane Dixon. So, we quickly scampered about, scouting all around until we located some seats together at the back of the upper balcony.
I must say that when I later got a close look at Mrs. Dixon, I was impressed with her appearance. She was a lovely-looking woman for her age, poised, petite, having a captive smile, exhibiting a seemingly peaceful serenity, and she was very smartly dressed in a white suit with every hair in place. For most of her life, Jeane Dixon was married to James Dixon, who owned a realty company in Washington, D.C. And she was a devout Roman Catholic who often attended mass. While living most of her life in Washing D.C., she reportedly began every day by standing in front of her bedroom window facing east while reciting the 23rd psalm in the Bible. Jeane Dixon claimed to be God’s messenger.
For about forty-five minutes, Jeane Dixon gave a very moving presentation. She predicted the future into the 21st century. It was quite an experience listening to her, but I had my doubts about her. When she finished delivering her speech, microphones were placed throughout the auditorium. Members of the audience were invited to go to the nearest microphone and ask Mrs. Dixon a question. In a flash, I sprinted to the nearest microphone and arrived there first. When my time came, I posed this question to the famous Jean Dixon, “What must a person do to live with God forever?” Notice I didn’t ask her about “going to heaven when we die,” which I learned years later is not a biblical concept.
It seemed Jeane Dixon really liked that question. Compared to the other questions asked of her, she took by far the longest time to answer mine. Briefly, her answer was that a person must search and work hard to achieve piety. Do your best. That’s it. Wow! I thought her answer was the clearest good works, save-yourself message I had ever heard. There was no salvation–no Jesus and his death on the cross for our sins–in her answer. When I returned to my seat, new Christian convert Dave Ragan blurted out to us in a frantic, hushed tone, “Let’s get out of here. This place must be full of demons.” We laughed merrily, but Rocky Thompson bellowed. I think his raucous, rip-snorting roar could have been heard all over the Coliseum. We soon calmed Dave down and stayed to the end of the performance.
When the program was finished, Jim Hiskey and I went down front and, along with several other members of the audience, talked briefly with Mrs. Dixon. Later, I tried to order a tape of her speech, but it was never sent, even after my continuing efforts.
Jeane Dixon and her second husband, multi-millionaire James Dixon, moved from California to Washington, D.C. during WWII. There, James established a successful realty named the James L. Dixon Company. Jeane worked for James, but she mostly became somewhat of a socialite, carrying that crystal ball with her to parties and giving palm readings, including one or more for President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). Later, she was a close confidant to First Lady Nancy Reagan, advising her regularly about the President’s schedule until Nancy turned to astrologer Joan Quigley in San Francisco for advice. President Reagan’s Chief-of-Staff Donald Regen complained in his book about “the woman” who constantly gave Nancy astrological guidance affecting the President. Jeane Dixon claimed that she received many of her visions while gazing at her crystal ball.
Living in the nation’s capitol, Jeane Dixon made many well documented predictions that came true. Sometimes, she gave precise details about them. For example, on May 14, 1953, she said in an NBC telecast, “A silver ball will emerge from Russia to travel in space.” In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a polished, metal sphere into orbit around the earth. Called “Sputnik,” it was 23 inches in diameter and had four radio antennas that beamed radio signals back to earth. That started the space race between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
Besides JFK, Mrs, Dixon also predicted the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. She predicted the plane crash and death of UN Secretary Dag Hammarskold. This list goes on and on. She could have been labeled “the prophetess of death.” In that regard, here’s a sobering thought. The Bible says according to God’s plan, one reason Jesus had to die was that “He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2.14).
During especially the 1960s and 1970s, Jeane Dixon was often interviewed on television and radio. Eventually, various tabloids published her new predictions every new year, often on their front page. She was becoming one of America’s most famous women.
But Jeane Dixon also made many predictions that did not come true, and some of them were very important to her. For example, in her biography—A Gift of Prophecy: The Phenomenal Jeane Dixon written by Ruth Montgomery, published in 1965, and it eventually sold 3 million copies—Dixon relates that she had a vision which was the most important revelation about the future she had ever received. It was about a male child born at the time of this vision, in 1962, somewhere in the Middle East. She saw a cross above this man which grew larger until it covered the whole earth. She deduced from this vision that this man would revolutionize the world, forever ridding it of wars by the end of the twentieth century. He also would create a one world religion as a transformed Christianity. Jeane Dixon made many other false predictions, including this one, “I have seen a comet strike our Earth around the middle of the 1980s,” causing earthquakes and tidal waves.
Also in this book, Jeane Dixon relates that in 1952 she had an extraordinary vision in which a large snake crawled up onto her bed and wrapped itself around her. Its eyes of wisdom looked back and forth between her and her bedroom window, which faced east. She felt that this snake was all-knowing, a bringer of peace to the world, and that it was telling her to expect wisdom from the East. For a Bible believer, this is pretty creepy stuff if you ask me, especially when you think of Satan somehow using a snake to deceive Eve in the Garden of Eden and the same serpent/dragon image representing Satan in the book of Revelation’s chapter 12.
Like many psychics, Mrs. Dixon was wrong about most of her predictions, and many of these also were documented in news reports. She even admitted in her books that some of her predictions had indeed failed. But she claimed that the revelations that came to her, usually in the forms of visions and dreams, were not wrong, explaining that she merely misinterpreted them. But it seems that oftentimes that doesn’t compute, e.g., when she predicted that a dispute over ownership of some islands offshore from China would start WWIII in the year 1958, or that the Russians would be the first to put a man on the moon.
Hal Lindsey—who was from my church in Houston, Texas, and in 1970 authored the blockbuster, bestselling book about Bible prophecy entitled The Late Great Planet Earth—had a private interview with Mrs. Dixon. He relates that he asked her some penetrating, spiritual questions. Afterwards, Lindsey published his assessment of Jeane Dixon. He believed she was a charming lady who did not have salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and his atoning work on the cross. Furthermore, Lindsey regarded Jeane Dixon as a false prophetess.
One Saturday night in Oklahoma City, that’s what I concluded about Jeane Dixon. And I’ve stuck with this conclusion ever since.
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