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Sylvia Brown)
Sylvia Browne (born Sylvia Celeste Shoemaker on October 19, 1936 in Kansas City, Missouri) is a well-known claimed psychic medium and author of numerous books on spirituality. She began her psychic readings in 1973 and has attracted a relatively large following. She has performed thousands of one-on-one readings and assignments with a wide variety of groups and individuals. It has been claimed that these include the FBI and former U.S. presidents however little evidence exists to support these claims. Sylvia Browne has appeared on many television programs. Browne claims as well to have worked with the police on criminal investigations and missing person cases (see psychic detective), but skeptic James Randi disputes this. An examination by Brill's Content of 35 cases discussed by her on ten episodes of The Montel Williams Show found that "In 21, the details were too vague to be verified. Of the remaining 14, law-enforcement officials or family members involved in the investigations say that Browne had played no useful role." [1]
Browne considers herself to be a gnostic Christian, that is, a seeker of knowledge under the Christian faith. Her beliefs include the notion of spirit guides , discarnate spirits who have previously lived mortal lives and now watch over currently living mortals. Communication from these guides might manifest, for example, as the "little voice in the head" telling a person to go another way home from work to avoid danger or waking up a person in the middle of the night with news that someone has died. Browne professes the ability to speak with her spirit guides, and has given details of fifty-four of her own former lives as divined by them.
Browne has made many predictions concerning the future. However, her predictions have not touched upon some of the major events of the last few years such as the September 11, 2001 attacks or the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. (though Mrs. Browne has stated she was not given the 9/11 information "beforehand", other than having rather disturbing dreams involving a lot of fire). Her past predictions no longer appear on her website, but can be found on Internet archives such as the Wayback Machine.
Skeptics assert that during her crowd readings Browne uses a well known trick called cold reading to fish for information rather than displaying actual psychic abilities. They also assert that during her televised performances she may be chatting with the audience during commercial breaks and using the information gleaned then when the cameras roll again, as has been claimed by Randi for certain other television mediums. On September 3 2001 Browne stated on Larry King Live that she would take up Randi's $1,000,000 challenge to demonstrate supernatural abilities in a controlled scientific test. Randi has tried to contact her several times, but to date she has not responded.
Browne has written a number of books that include both serious and humorous stories detailing her adventures. She is the head of the Sylvia Brown Corporation, and the founder of a church in Campbell, California known as the Society of Novus Spiritus. She acquired the surname Brown during the third of her four marriages, and enhanced it with a final e for her stage name.
In 1992 Sylvia Browne was convicted for selling securities in a gold mining venture under false pretences.[2]
Some example predictions made by Browne include:
- "Osama Bin Laden is dead. His kidneys failed him and his body has been hidden." (disproven by tapes of his voice verfied by the CIA to be authentic surfaced mentioning recent events after this prediction/statement was made by Browne)
- "Within the year Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would both be found hiding in caves. Furthermore, they would each be surrounded by many of their followers and neither would be taken alive" (proven false when Hussein was captured by US Soldiers)
- "Aliens will begin to show themselves in the year 2010, they will not harm us, they simply want to see what we are doing to this planet. They will teach us how to use anti-gravity devices again, such as they did for the pyramids."
However, it is important to note that some of her predictions indeed have come true. For instance, the one listed currently on Sylvia Browne's website (listed below.)
- "On the December 29th Montel Williams Show (which was taped December 8th, 2004) Sylvia predicted that Robert Blake would be found not guilty. On March 16th, jurors in the murder trial came back with a verdict of Not Guilty.", admittedly anyone has a 50% chance of being right in this case.
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