It must be a chilly evening in hell, because Sylvia Browne — notorious woo-slinger, famed “psychic,” and noted baritone — has become a skeptic.
In her new book, The Truth About Psychics, Browne not only finds common cause with Harry Houdini: She traces the whole history of spiritualism back to its origins, and gives you, the reader, the skills necessary to spot a phony fortune-teller and put the world’s seers “out of business.” Wow! Good going, Sylvia! We knew you had it in you.
Well, that’s a lie.
Actually, we never thought she had “it” in her, and we still don’t. Browne — who I gather doesn’t have many friends in her own field, which makes me wonder who she spends time with besides sycophants and fellow-traveling predators — is only out to discredit psychics other than Sylvia Browne.
Check out this vid, in which Sylvia Browne stumps for her latest tome (which, you’ll note, she barely seems to have read):
The best line of that speech is surely the one that begins, somewhat muzzily, with: “And even Athur Cannon Doyle, that wrote about Sherlock Holmes — I tell you about all of em, even going back to the cave man times, when they used to throw ruins.” What’s wonderful about the line, partially, is the way we can actually hear her capitalizing “Cave Man Times,” filling that meaningless little phrase with far more portent than it can hold. Mostly, though, I love how neatly she avoids making a really asinine statement by saying “ruins” rather than “runes.” “Runes,” as any newbie Wiccan can tell you, are only about 2,000 years old, at most.
It’s fun to hear Sylvia Browne butcher history. Hearing her butcher her own profession, however, is more disturbing. Early in the vid, Browne briefly mentions a series she did with Montel Williams, “breaking up these storefront psychics” — presumably, she means she and Montel Williams went around, exposing “storefront psychics” as frauds. Maybe that’s true. If so, then we must conclude that Browne is no mere fraud. It means she is also the worst kind of robber baron — intolerant of even the most wretched competition, and marching to market dominance on a road of bones. So much for honor among thieves.