Here's a paraphrased exchange I watched the other day between Sylvia Browne and a guest on the Montel Williams program.
Guest: I'd like to know what the future holds for my 22 year old son who is in law school.
SB: He's going to be a lawyer.
Amazing! How can anyone doubt her powers of prognostication?
When I get a chance I plan on writing a longer post about this despicable charlatan.
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9 comments:
I agree that Sylvia makes comments that are leading or kind of DUH sometimes but what about times when she is right such as her prediction of trains being a place that one should not be on. She even said it a couple episodes ago. Do you not believe in psychics in general? Not that I really even care.
"Despicable charlatan?"
Dude, she's the ABSOLUTE BEST AND TALENTED amongst us. The best.
Have you really watched her? She knows the names. Shes knows who called Uncle So-And-So, she knows WHY they killed him, she knows where his remains are at.
WHY got after Ms. Browne? Why?
As for her answer to the mother of the 22 year old. People in college are FAMOUS for changing their majors, every 5 seconds. She just confirmed for the mother that the son will finish college.
If she had she the son abandon college to become a leggy cabaret dancer, she would have said so.
Why just jump on the bandwagon to slam a woman, who is human and makes mistakes, sometimes - like we all do?
"what about times when she is right such as her prediction of trains being a place that one should not be on."
Don't travel on planes in the second half of next year ... it will be dangerous. If that happens to come true ... then I'm as psychic as Browne; if not, then my track record of prediction will still be as good as hers. When you make a bunch of guesses about what is going to happen its understandable if some of them turn out to be right. People remember the hits but forget the misses. If you look at Browne's record of predictions she isn't doing better than anyone making a guess would.
"Do you not believe in psychics in general? Not that I really even care."
No, I don't believe in psychics. I find the concept both philosophically incoherent and empirically bereft.
"Have you really watched her? She knows the names. Shes knows who called Uncle So-And-So, she knows WHY they killed him, she knows where his remains are at."
I have watched her. And the exchange I gave is not atypical. She in actuality rarely ever gives specific names of lost family members ... she will give specific names of supposed ghosts that are haunting people and give locations of past lives and what not, but anyone can make up stuff like that.
"WHY got after Ms. Browne? Why?"
Because she is a fraud who charges families like the Hornbecks 700 dollars an hour to hear her pretend to know the fate of their child.
"She just confirmed for the mother that the son will finish college."
1. The mother responded that whether or not her son would become a lawyer was not what she meant, so that's a miss for the psychic Browne.
2. She did not confirm that the son would become a lawyer. She said he would become a lawyer. Is doesn't take psychic abilities to guess that someone in lawschool is going to be a lawyer, and no one is going to look that woman up 3 or 4 years from now to see if her son is a practicing lawyer.
"Why just jump on the bandwagon to slam a woman, who is human and makes mistakes, sometimes - like we all do?"
"Mistakes" like what she told the Hornbecks are devastating. She gets rich off of lying to people ... pretending to know what she does not.
here is a link to an entry from the Skeptic's Dictionary explaining psychic detectives like Browne.
Wow, weird HG! Is there some tool in blogspot that alerts people about given subjects, or are they just doing a regular google search, and thus found your blog? Certainly these psychic believers are not regular readers of yours. But it is like they are like flies on shit when they smell something of interest!
I saw her on Larry King with James Randi back in 2001. Randi challenged her to put her powers to the test in his million dollar paranormal ability challenge. Browne accepted the challenge but to date, has yet to undergo the test. One may interpret that one will.
Not only that, but she has also been lying about the Randi challenge since then. A search at his forum with pull up several articles about it.
I hope to post a longer entry on Bronwe either Thursday or Friday.
Daily spirit, go look up cold reading, the forer effect, and confirmation bias.
Then go look up SB's track record.
This woman is more than a charlatan.
There are no damn psychics. What there are is fraudsters profiting off of the weak and grieving.
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