Sylvia Browne Died

[splork]

This link quotes her on Larry King Live predicting the age of her death as 88:

patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/20/psychic-sylvia-browne-is-dead/

[Stephanie66]

This link quotes her on Larry King Live predicting the age of her death as 88:

patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/20/psychic-sylvia-browne-is-dead/

Well, she got two of the same numbers right, since she was 77.

She smoked like a fiend. Kinda surprised she lived so long.

[bucherwurm]

I used to watch her on Montel Wednesdays in the summer. I always thought it was cool. I also have a couple of her books.

Keep in mind I was kid. After Montel was over I didn't follow her too much more. Maybe I just like to believe the impossible.

[lilwriter85]

I knew a few people who became fans of Sylvia via the Montel Williams show. When I was a teenager (early 2000s), the local NBC affiliate aired Montel at 4 pm. Back then talk shows like Montel, Jerry Springer, and Maury were quite a popular with some of my friends. A few became Sylvia fans and were buying her books.

I have listened to Coast to Coast AM off and on over the years and I do remember when George Noory stopped having her on the show. George Noory and other people who believe in UFOs, ghosts, psychics will say that there are frauds and hoaxes. Christopher O'Brien and Gene Steinberg who are hosts of The Paracast podcast which focuses mostly on UFOs and alien abductions have said they met some frauds over the years and both believe that the alleged Aztec UFO crash never happened. There is a male psychic in my state that has a growing following. I found a review site for psychics and one of review said that the said male psychic" was the real deal and not a fraud".

[Chasingthedog]

I often wonder if she, and people like her, actually believe they have gifts and take their cold reading skills as "signs" or if they know flat out what they're doing is fraud.

[Curious]

I often wonder if she, and people like her, actually believe they have gifts and take their cold reading skills as "signs" or if they know flat out what they're doing is fraud.

I suspect you have people in both camps.

I don't discount that there are people who really have gifts. I just question if those people are the ones that are on the SyFy network hawking their wares, as it were ;)

[JesusFightClub]

I think they might start off thinking "it's a fake and a bit of a laugh" and start believing in themselves.

I don't discount that there might be genuine psychics. "There are more things in heaven and in earth..." and some people seem to have something which can't be accounted for. However, SIL went to a psychic a week before she died who signally failed to inform her what was on the horizon (and approaching fast...) instead telling her she'd live to a great old age and have grandchildren. That one was definitely a fake.

[lilwriter85]

A bit off topic, but I have done some searching on Theresa Caputo and there was a Long Island message board in which several posters said that Theresa gave them accurate readings years ago before she got a show. For me, it's hard to tell if Theresa is a fraud, she doesn't give off that bad vibe like Sylvia Browne did.

[Peas n carrots]

If you are curious what she was up to after Montel's talk show went off the air...

Montel went on to shill for various products on infomercials, my favorite of which was the Healthmaster blender. It's basically a Vitamix type machine. Strangely, Montel brought on Sylvia to discuss the benefits of drinking smoothies and also forced a pudgy child to drink one in front of the audience. It's a goldmine of ridiculousness only rivaled by the Flobee IMHO.

http://www.infomercial-hell.com/blog/2013/11/20/sylvia-browne-dies/ (not breaking b/c IH won't care)

[alysee]

I went to a psychic party for fun my first year of university and was way to accurate.

He mentioned that my uncle would get sick but that he would pull through. True. We found out he was in kidney failure and 6 months later got a kidney transplant.

He mentioned that a good friend would be in a bad car crash and die. A month later, one of my best friends died in a horrific car crash.

He mentioned that I would have a falling out with one of my friends.

It was terrifyingly accurate that when asked to go back to him two years later, I declined. It was way too accurate.

[Curious]

In regard to gifts, I've never been to a psychic, but years ago a friend and I took several dogs to an animal communicator. My dog was not very chatty (a rescue, was particularly shy which was the reason I wanted to take him), so I was pretty skeptical about the communicator's abilities.

It turns out my friend's dogs were both just little chatter boxes, though. Since the communicator was from Texas and we are from VA and the readings were "cold" there is no way she could have known things that she did through research or some other way. It was really amazing and I was kind of cursing my unwilling to talk dog because she found out some really helpful things for a dog she was having some issues with that helped in the long term.

We had several other friends go to the communicator (it was at a National dog show) and they had equally good results with their talkative dogs.

The woman specifically told you not to tell her anything other than the dog's name, so she wasn't getting hints from things you said and then feeling around until she got a reaction from you that told her she was headed in the right direction.

[Stephanie66]

Penn Jillette does an awesome cold reading in his magic show. You would swear he was psychic.

[roddma]

I never heard of her. Anyway, there is a difernece in making phsyic readings and having a feeling about the immediate future.

[Peas n carrots]

I never heard of her. Anyway, there is a difernece in making phsyic readings and having a feeling about the immediate future.

I don't know if you are in the US but she was a frequent guest on a chat show called "The Montel Williams Show." She was known for basically never getting anything right, despite being a world renown psychic.

[Stephanie66]

Not only not right, but damaging. Shawn Hornbeck was one of the ones that did her in...she told his parents, on the show, that he was dead. He was alive and being sexually abused by his kidnapper. It was similar to the Steven Staynor case--when he kidnapped a second, younger boy, both were discovered.

[JesusFightClub]

Jon Ronson's article on her showed how vindictive she could be to anyone who didn't toe the line - it's in his book Lost at Sea and also here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/o ... .jonronson

Not breaking the link, it's the Grauniad and they don't care.

[fundiefun]

She told Amanda Berry 's mom that she was dead, same with that boy who the pedophile was holding for years. She told some people their kids were alive and then the bodies were discovered. Not nice.

The boy you're referring to is Shawn Hornbeck from MO. Freakish enough before he was found while missing I was having vivid dreams that he would be found with another boy being help against their will and sure enough it came true. It was freakish it's like I was seeing through his eyes like taking a walk in his foot steps. That wasn't the first time something like that would happen and I have been in touch with family members of those who I have been able to contact on the other side to speak. I don't know if you believe in that stuff or not and I was skeptical myself until the loss of my unborn child is when it really took off. I'm not declaring myself psychic and what tapping in I have done I have reached out to their family I wouldn't dare dream of charging a penny.