What do you think of Sylvia Brown?

Question

The kid that was abducted for 4 years that was found along with the other boy---his parents were on the Montel Williams show in 2003 with Sylvia Brown. I just saw a clip of this last night. They ask her about him and she told them that he had been abducted by a dark skinned person with dreadlocks in his hair and that he was not alive and that his body would be found by two large boulders. So, in 2007 he's found alive. Where could she have gone wrong? Is she for real or did her spirits lie to her or was she just having a bad day? Montel Williams had no comment for the news organization doing the story. Your opinion?

Answer 1

The thing about Sylvia is that when she does come through it's because some seducing demonic spirit is using her to lure people into occultic practices and away from the living God of Heaven. So, as to where she could have gone wrong, it has to do with the fact that she was predicting the future and only God knows the future. When she sits in front of the audience and tells some distraught person that their late husband or wife or mother or father is in a better place with God and then she relates to them some facts about past incidents in their lives, she is operating in the realm where her "spirit-guide" has some actual knowledge. It's no big deal for an invisible evil spirit to gather facts about what has already happened to people either on it's own or from one of the other members of Satan's horde. I would also hazzard to guess that maybe God had a hand in causing this particular prediction to fail because He will only let people continue in their rebellion for so long before taking action.

Ezekiel 13:3 Thus says the Lord GOD, Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!

Answer 2

You weren't supposed to notice that.

Sylvia Browne is simply a liar, making a living on people's gullibility.

I have a newspaper clipping here from July 18, 2000, when the police here interviewed her about a missing college student (Amber Wilde). She told them where to look for the body. Still missing, of course, and I'll bet that Sylvia never talks about this case, or hundreds of others.

What Red Queen describes can be easily done by anyone, without any psychic powers. It's called "guessing" and "making up facts after the case", and then "ignoring your errors and publicizing your correct guesses". No psychic abilities are needed for this kind of thing.

When the psychic can do it reliably, each and every time she tries, then there's something there to be explained. Otherwise what you've got is just the usual "taking advantage of others' gullibility".

JonJon's answer is pretty good, but I don't think that you have to be extraordinarily perceptive to pull a scam like this. Since these scams pull in the people - psychic believers - who are at the bottom end of the scale with respect to awareness of the world around them, a psychic fraud can be pretty remarkably inept and still get away with it. Add to that the fact that like Jonathan Edwards, she does most of this on television (can you say "editing"?), and there's no real talent - supernatural or otherwise - needed for this. Just a complete lack of decency.

Answer 3

She is doing business. She does not see the damage she is doing by faking her psychic abilities, she only sees the money she is making. She knows she is fake, and the fact that she accepted and set up a test with james randi and then refused to take it proves she knows she is faking it. However, she still has a cult following of people who will believe anything they see on TV if they are told to. The same reason John Edwards can get away with classic cold reading on national television. Everyone tries to analyze how he does it, does he have hidden mics listening in, does he tape for 2 hours and edit down the misses? Maybe, but really all he is doing is classic conman style cold reading which has been done for centuries.

Answer 4

Gee, so you mean she might not really be "psychic"?

I think Sylvia Brown, just like that other guy who used to have the "Crossing Over" show, basically uses some standard tricks to read people's behavior and reactions to her suggestions, and constructs her "readings" from that - consciously or unconsciously or a combination of both. She's not exactly a total fraud, but when she launches into one of her yarns on "angels" or what-not, it's just typical New Agey soothing-syrup nonsense.

She apparently took a gamble on the missing kid, and she botched it. Another time she may have been startlingly correct. I think above all with these people, it's important not to get carried away with their "successes" and leap to conclusions about the nature of their "powers." They're probably just extraordinarily perceptive people - and their audience is usually NOT.

Answer 5

She's a fraud.

I used to watch Montel's "Sylvia Wednesday's". One time there was a young female to stand up and ask her a question about her boyfriend. She wanted to know if he's ok. Before she could finish explaining, Sylvia interjected saying this:

"He died in water. You'll find him face down in water."

The girl simply said, "He died in the World Trade Center."

Sylvia responds, obviously trying to cover her grave mistake, "Well, they have water coolers right? I'm telling you he drowned."

The girl sits down speechless and rolls her eyes.

Also, check out how she tried to cover herself over the West Virginia miners at this link,

http://www.ufowatchdog.com/sylviabrowne.html

She was also debunked by this organization, and failed this test

http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

She's a fraud, and a clever one too. I've never seen her "dead-on" about anything. She simply plays with people's emotions. She found the loopholes Miss Cleo could not as well, by claiming her practice as "religion."

But, the world is never short on stupid genes. A lot will still be unfortunately scrambling to buy her 32nd book and spending a 1000 dollars for a spa session with her. You know what they say about fools and money...

Answer 6

I think that, for the most part, Sylvia Brown and others like her are frauds. However, there was a case a few years back involving a local man, John B. who disappeared near the Butler Mall. It was assumed that he was dead because another local man was caught on a convenience store's camera wearing John's shirt, and using John's credit card. Also, witnesses reported hearing three gunshots in the area that night.

Fast forward a few days, and the suspect, who happened to be a friend of my niece's and was in her wedding, kills himself after the police catch up to him in Arizona. John's family is crushed. They haven't a clue where his body is, and the only person who did know is now dead.

A few weeks later, John's mother Judy B. is a guest on the Montel William's show. She speaks with Sylvia, who tells her that John is dead after having been shot 3 times in the back. His body is lying in a culvert, in a small amount of water, and will be found before Thanksgiving, which was only 2 days away when this episode aired.

The very next day, PennDOT workers found John's body in a culvert near my cousin Krys' house, in a small pool of water. He had been shot in the back 3 times. Everything Sylvia predicted would happen did. Maybe she occasionally gets lucky, I don't know. But in the case of John B, she nailed it dead on.

***Why the thumbs down? This case is well documented, you can research it through the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Answer 7

She's a fraud, but there will never be a lack of people who will rationalize away this incident and believe that she has psychic powers. Witness Red Queen's response.

Red Queen: Why not give us a cite instead of claiming everything is documented in a newspaper? All you give is the man's first name and last initial. Hardly enough to do any fact checking.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that this is a case of postdiction, not prediction.

All psychics are frauds. One cannot see the future or view events remotely as these charlatans claim.

Answer 8

This is only one in a long list of things she got wrong...

Sylvia is a fraud. If she ever had psychic abilities, she has lost sight of them and is being led only by the thought of more money.

Answer 9

She's just making it up, all of it. She's a big fraud who has never helped anyone. Plus, she refuses to answer for her lies - she wouldn't go on CNN for their piece on it, and she won't take Randi's challenge even after agreeing to it on Larry King three years ago.

www.stopsylviabrowne.com

Answer 10

i believe in psychics. i believe in biblical prophets so i believe in psychics. Everything they predict are not 100% which so many people believe. The main events surrounding the prediction are always somewhat the same but maybe done in a different manner in which the psychic foretold. for example, she may tell u that u will marry a brown skinned man with curly hair in the spring, but in reality it is a white man with curly hair that u will marry in the spring. just giving my opinion. I happen to like Sylvia Browne and she has been right most of the time. she's human like the rest of us and make mistakes. your own weathermen seem to predict the future but are always wrong most of the time.