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January 26, 2007
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Table of Contents:
Thanks to all the speakers, paper presenters, volunteers, and attendees who helped make this Amazing Meeting live up to its name. This was the largest meeting of its type ever held with the largest percentage of women and young people in our history. Stay tuned for info on our upcoming events, including the Alaska Cruise, TAM 5.5 in Fort Lauderdale, TAM 6 in Las Vegas, and our ambitious voyage to the Galapagos. |
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This is a distinct departure for SWIFT. It's a result of the recent very heavy attention paid by the media to the egregious activities of Sylvia Browne. She is one of the major villains that the JREF – as previously announced – will be selecting as targets for the million-dollar challenge. I believe that the following will give readers of SWIFT a taste of how we will go about applying the challenge from now on.
We give you here the accurate transcript of an entire $700 "psychic" reading by Sylvia which was done in October of 2002. I urge readers to suffer through a reading of this transcript so they will understand just how inane, superficial, and useless a Sylvia Browne reading is. Also, I will refer you to the site of Michael Peacock, where you will find a discussion of the "predictions" made by Browne for the year 2006; as you might suspect, she didn't do very well there, either.
Before I begin, I must say a few words about the huge success we enjoyed with TAM5. Our attendance was well over 800 – certainly a record. The e-mail response I've received has been most gratifying. And, rather than making this SWIFT longer than necessary, I will simply refer you to a review of the conference published on the Scientific American page by John Rennie, editor of the magazine and one of our featured speakers. The review is available at http://blog.sciam.com. John rather set what I hope will be a precedent for other speakers; he not only donated his talents to TAM, but he also handed me a personal donation to JREF which I received with gratitude. (Just kidding, just kidding – about establishing a precedent, that is!)
I was inspired to compile this one-theme SWIFT by a note from a reader – Monica Daniels – that outlines her personal impression of Browne.
They say persistence pays off and I am so glad that Sylvia Browne is finally being exposed for the fraud she is. I had a session with her where I was allowed to ask her one question for $50, but due to my income situation I was allowed to ask for free. The answer she gave me to my question shattered me and threw me into a bout of depression that lasted for several months.
You have pursued this scam artist for so long and I have read the many articles that you post about her on your website but I was so worried that with the repeated exposure Montel gives this woman every Wednesday, she would be able to continue to scam the world, but your persistence in exposing her for who she really is has paid off because the world is beginning to see who she really is. My mother was a strong believer in Sylvia Browne, and in her eyes Sylvia could do no wrong. I showed her your website
and let her read for herself the truth about Sylvia and I can see now that her faith in Sylvia has changed a bit. Thank you for having the guts to take this woman on, and for bringing us the truth about her.
Thank you, Mr. Randi.
No, I thank you, Ms. Daniels. It is letters such as yours that encourage me to continue fighting this battle.
Following the recent fiasco by Browne was a fumbling response she made on her own website trying to defend herself against my commentary on her. Here it is, point by point, with my comments on each:
The very nature of [Randi’s] work is negative; i.e. one that tries to disprove the very nature of spirituality.
This is typical of the sort of canard that people like Sylvia delight in circulating. First, I don't attempt to "disprove" anything; I challenged the claimants to prove their cases. I have no idea what Sylvia means by "spirituality," and in fact I'm sure she doesn't either. That's a generalized expression, a fuzzy notion from which Sylvia can spin – Charlotte-wise – an obscuring veil. Sylvia, just to put your fevered brow at rest, I'm not after spirituality. I'm after you. You ask:
Can God be "proven" by scientific methods?
Let me count the ways – after I have your definition of God, your definition of proof, and your notion of what a "scientific method" might be. Of course, since I'll never get these definitions from you, that brings this discussion to an end. However, for my readers I'll simply say that such matters can be investigated in a scientific manner, if the definitions allow. If – as we suspect – those definitions are fuzzy enough, a protocol would be impossible to construct, much to the delight of folks like Sylvia. She continues:
If the brilliant scientists throughout history had a James Randi negating every aspect of their work, I doubt we would have progressed very far in medicine or in any technology.
Very true. But any truly scientific work would be totally immune to reversal or negation, by definition. This appears to be an effort by Sylvia to take a seat beside "brilliant scientists" – and I suggest that she – or they – move to another table. You, Sylvia, have done absolutely zero to move ahead any knowledge of the real world; you have tried to keep the public back in the Middle Ages. Sylvia again:
As I have stated on Montel, on my radio show, in my books and in each of my lectures, I cannot possibly be 100% correct in each and every one of my predictions. I have never claimed to be.
Oh, how true! A simple referral to my previous SWIFT entries will establish that fact beyond question. Occasionally, Sylvia Browne speaks sooth.
Those who choose to believe in our philosophy will continue to do so because of their own convictions.
Well, not everyone, Sylvia. My e-mail is jammed with such people as Monica Daniels, who have learned just how badly invested their money was when they fell for your scam. If those believers will just listen to what we have to say, if they will look at their "convictions" carefully and rationally, if they will summon up the courage to face the real world, they will choose to get off your "feel-good train" and leave you to spin off into the wilderness.
Those who negate it after one human error never truly embraced our philosophy anyway and that's okay.
Sylvia shows her generous side, but rather underestimates the number of errors she's made. That matter will be handled up ahead by correspondent Michael Peacock. One more bit of Browne’s wisdom in this non-rebuttal remains:
My constant mantra is to "take with you what you want and leave the rest."
Yes, Sylvia, that is your constant, dreary, mealy-mouthed "mantra." Webster's explains the word “mantra” as, "a formula repeated as an incantation or a stock phrase.” Note that neither the words "truth" nor "fact" are used here. And, I must point out to readers that the entire philosophy of the "cold reading" procedure is summed up quite well by Sylvia. The victims of her scam are expected to select through all of the garbage that she recites to them and select out and accept everything that is attractive and/or true – ignoring the rest. That's what the experienced "cold reader" hopes for and usually gets from the suckers. Thank you, Sylvia, for explaining your art so well for us.
This was made in October, 2002:
BROWNE: Listen, dear, you know that I’m taping this for us.
CLIENT: Yes.
BROWNE: And the only thing I want you to do is when I’m describing something to you – and I will be very specific – tell me whether it’s already happened or not.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: It doesn’t mean that I can’t go back in the past, but I’d so much like to get the present and future.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: And if I talk too fast, tell me to stop.
CLIENT: Alright.
BROWNE: And I’ll tell you everything, bad, good, warn you, advise you, but I won’t control your life.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: Because that’s between you and God, anyway.
CLIENT: Right.
Randi comments: What follows is a medical diagnosis and a number of recommendations for medications made by Sylvia Browne. By law, she may not do this, but she does. It’s only a small example of the kind of thing we strenuously object to. Browne should be pursued by the law for doing this, and we intend to see that the attention of law enforcement agencies is brought to bear on such procedures.
BROWNE: Umm, [client name deleted] this is very strange to start out with, but how are you doing with your depression lately?
CLIENT: Umm, it’s under control.
BROWNE: Sort of, it is.
CLIENT: I – it’s real hard.
BROWNE: I know it is. Are you on Zoloft?
CLIENT: No, I was on, uh, Paxil.
BROWNE: Oh, Paxil is awful.
CLIENT: I know, it made me worse.
BROWNE: Well, it makes you like a zombie.
CLIENT: It did. Umm, actually I’m on herbs right now. I’m taking, uh, St. John’s Wort.
BROWNE: Oh, honey, honestly. Please go on Zoloft for three months. St. John’s Wort’s going to tear up your stomach.
CLIENT: It’ll what?
BROWNE: It’ll tear up your stomach.
CLIENT: Really?
BROWNE: Absolutely. Look, I am not a pharmaceutical person; I am much more holistic. But I also know God made doctors. Please don’t go on St. John’s Wort.
CLIENT: Well, that’s good. I’ve been on it for awhile.
BROWNE: I know, but go on Zoloft. You can go on Zoloft for three months and take care of what it would take four years for St. John’s Wort to accomplish and then you’d have to go in and figure out what’s wrong with your stomach.
CLIENT: Oh. Maybe that explains why I’ve been having bloating, and…
BROWNE: Absolutely.
CLIENT: ...and all this stuff.
BROWNE: Everyone that I’ve ever dealt with on St. John’s Wort has had gastritis.
CLIENT: Yeah, that’s me.
BROWNE: No, I don’t want you to do that.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: Zoloft, you can take fifty milligrams before you go to bed at night, three months, it’s not habit-forming, it’s done. You know, like I tell my people: yes, I believe in grape seed extract, yes I believe in Noni [juice], yes I believe in all of it, I know all of it. I start back in the days of Gaylord Hauser, which you don’t even remember, you’re too young, but… and Adelle Davis, but I also know God made doctors. [pause] That’d be like me telling you to take grape seed extract when you have diabetes. Do you see what I’m saying?
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: It’s stupid.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: And even Sam-E [Randi: S-adenosyl-l-methionine] doesn’t help. That came out as an anti-depressant, you see what I’m saying?
CLIENT: Yeah.
BROWNE: It’s useless, and I don’t want you to be blowing up with gastritis.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: And doctors will give you Zoloft. Just take fifty[milligrams]. If they come in a hundred, crack it in two.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: Yes, if there was a natural way to go, trust me I would, but there isn’t. And who’s to say that somebody on the other side didn’t infuse this knowledge for somebody… you don’t think that Salk vaccine wasn’t infused from God? Of course it was.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: [pause] No, the trade-off of you having gastritis is not a good sign.
CLIENT: No, it’s not. And it’s just been bothering me.
BROWNE: I know it has. Plus, I’m not too thrilled about you eating dairy either.
CLIENT: [Laughs]
BROWNE: [Laughs]
CLIENT: Some things it’s a little hard to get away from.
BROWNE: I know. Well, it’s like me. I’m really, really allergic to shrimp, and guess what? I love it. You know, it’s always something we love.
CLIENT: Yeah.
BROWNE: But stay off of dairy for awhile.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: No chocolate, no ice cream, no cheese, no yogurt, no nothing.
CLIENT: Ick.
BROWNE: I know.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: But, honey, if the trade-off’s not great. I don’t want getting you high over an ulcer, I don’t want you getting an ulcer. I don’t want that.
CLIENT: I know.
BROWNE: That’s not a good trade-off.
CLIENT: No.
BROWNE: And then you’re taking St. John’s Wort, which causes… it’s got some kind of caustic ingredient in it. I’m not a pharmacist, so I don’t know, but every client who’s taken it until I just went wild with it. I think they should take the damn thing off the market.
CLIENT: Mmhmm. Okay.
BROWNE: And you’ll notice right away. Oh, Paxil, oh, that’s something they ought to take off the market.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: I’ve never found anybody with Paxil who’s said, “Yeah, I feel better.” They’re always like, “Yeah.” You know, like they’re a zombie.
CLIENT: Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt.
BROWNE: Mmhmm, yeah, you don’t have depression, you just don’t have anything. You’re just like a, a lump.
CLIENT: I know, I had no taste for food, no smell.
BROWNE: No. No enthusiasm, no anything.
CLIENT: No.
BROWNE: You feel like a vegetable with a head on it.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: That’s no good. [pause] No, but yours is situational, and it is a little bit biochemical, but it is situational, too, that’s why Zoloft would work in three months. See, that’s not something you have to be on your whole life. All I want to do is kick your serotonin level up.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: That’s like if you said to me, “I have a horrible pneumonia.” I’d put you on Zithromax for ten days, and you’re over it, do you see what I mean? It’s not forever.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: It’d be like saying, “yeah, you’re going to have pneumonia forever.” No, once you’re cured, that’s it.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
Randi comments: refer to the client's comment number one, up ahead.
BROWNE: [pause] Now, who is Robert? Or Bob?
CLIENT: Robert? Bob?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: Uhh… I don’t think I know a Robert or a Bob.
BROWNE: This person is passed over. This is not your guide, no. Your guide is a female. Umm, but this Robert or Bob comes around you a lot. Looks like he comes from your mother’s side.
CLIENT: I don’t know.
BROWNE: Died some time ago, so ask in the family.
Randi comments: if this woman can't find someone in the family – anywhere – named Bob, she's really failing Sylvia, don't you think?
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: This reminds me of the other day when I told a woman about Helen. She said, “I don’t know anybody.” Went back to her mother, and she said, “You dummy, that’s your great aunt.” But, see, she wouldn’t have known that. [Laughs].
Randi comments: Yes, and it could be a cousin – or a second or third cousin – or the wife of the local grocer, or perhaps an ancestor somewhere in Bulgaria, right?
CLIENT: Okay. What’s my spirit guide’s name?
BROWNE: Erica.
CLIENT: Erica?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: You actually have two of them, but the main thing is you have six angels, which is a whole lot of angels. Usually we have two to four. You’ve got six.
Randi comments: No, Sylvia, you very often assign six angels to those who pay $700 for your advice. Hey, you might as well say eight or ten – same price.
CLIENT: Boy, I need them.
BROWNE: Hey, I say to God, “Look, if no one’s busy, get them in here.”
CLIENT: [Laughs]
BROWNE: I’ve even gotten so desperate I say, “I don’t care if they are busy, get them in here anyway.”
CLIENT: [Laughs] Seems like mine are on vacation all the time.
BROWNE: I know, but do you know, let me tell you this for sure: you have no idea how bad life would be if they weren’t there. We just think it’s awful, but it’d be – I can’t even imagine if they weren’t there. [pause] God knows what would happen to us. [pause] So, even what we think is bad could be a lot worse if they weren’t there.
Randi comments: These pauses are inserted by Sylvia either to take another puff on her cigarette, or to allow the client the opportunity to butt in and provide further information – which often happens.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: That’s like wearing a bullet cover and you get shot and you say, “God, that hurt.” And I say, “Yeah, but if you didn’t have a shield, can you imagine? You’d be dead by now.”
CLIENT: Mmm.
BROWNE: Oh, I’ve even thought at times, not to be mean, that God was in the Bahamas and wasn’t listening, you know. [Reference to a recent hurricane in the Bahamas.]
CLIENT: [Laughs]
BROWNE: [Laughs]
BROWNE: I’ve even said to God, “I know you’re on vacation, but could you come back?”
CLIENT: I know. Sometimes I’m thinking I’m not talking loud enough because God can’t hear me.
BROWNE: Well, God answers prayers, like I say, so many times. It’s just, a lot of times God says, “No.”
CLIENT: Yeah.
BROWNE: And we think there’s no answer. It is. “No” is an answer. You chose it, you gotta do it, I love you, but you wrote it, and you’re gonna do it. Which also, I’ve always said, makes us up for suspect that we’re not insane on the other side, that we pick some of this crap.
Read the comments: Note that this makes no sense whatsoever, but this is what Sylvia supplies, and the client has to accept it. You're reading a very careful transcript .
CLIENT: Well, I must be doing something, whatever, like that.
BROWNE: I said, I even asked him one time – and I don’t take drugs or alcohol – “Did somebody drug me and just say, ‘Sign your name?’”
CLIENT: That’s how I feel.
BROWNE: But, you see, this is your last life, so… I don’t know what it is, [client's name deleted], about our last life, we take on the damndest things, you know, I mean, we, it’s sort of like, it’s the hardest thing to figure out, a last life or even their themes because we take on rejection and isolation and loner and humanitarian. I mean, we just take them all on. It’s like everything we haven’t finished, we try to finish.
CLIENT: Yeah, I think I’ve just about taken on everything.
Randi comments: Sylvia is about to start the "poor thing" approach, in which the client is encouraged to believe that she is being attacked and unappreciated by everyone but Sylvia.
BROWNE: Mmhmm. Me, too.
CLIENT: I mean, I don’t get along with anybody in my family. I don’t –
BROWNE: Well, who’d want to get along with them? They’re miserable.
CLIENT: Yeah, and I don’t have any friends I can trust. I, I can’t get along in a relationship. I can’t even hold on to a job!
BROWNE: Well, but the last six, seven years it’s just been a desert period for you. And, see, the problem is you’re stuck in a place where you don’t have the same type of people that have the same spiritual thrust as you have. So, you do feel like an alien in alien land.
CLIENT: That’s exactly how I feel.
BROWNE: I know you do. And it doesn’t help because I do understand that you do have the loner theme. And so do I, and I know what that’s about. And I know you know that I know what that’s about. Because it’s a very weird theme because we can be with a lot of people, and we still feel alone.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
Randi comments: See clients comments #2 & #3, ahead.
BROWNE: But you won’t feel like that after February. It’s just been – actually, since ’88 it hasn’t been too great, but the last six, seven years have just been miserable.
CLIENT: Yeah. That’s an understatement.
BROWNE: And you really do find a great relationship in March. In fact, around St. Patrick’s Day, which is kind of nice.
CLIENT: Really?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: What about a job?
BROWNE: You’re going to get a job in some kind of a medical back - backdrop. You’re not going to be doing shots in bedpans, but it’s something in, uh, backdrop of a medical office.
CLIENT: Really, that’s hard to believe because I don’t even like the medical field.
Randi comments: See clients comment #4, ahead.
BROWNE: That’s okay, it pays good. I’d take anything at this point 'til something comes along ‘cause this comes along the first of the year, but after you meet this guy – well, you’re always going to want to do something – but you’re not going to have to work if you don’t want to.
CLIENT: Yeah.
BROWNE: Which will be quite a shock.
CLIENT: [Laughs]. Yeah.
BROWNE: Mmhmm. You won’t know what to do with yourself. Because whatever you ever had to do –see, that loner and the responsibility theme – you always had to do yourself.
CLIENT: Yes, it’s loco.
BROWNE: I know. That survival thing. And that’s not your theme, but it’s part of it, you know.
Randi comments: See clients comment #5, ahead.
CLIENT: Will I ever own my own house?
BROWNE: Yes, in about two years. A really beautiful house. It looks, umm, Tudorish. It’s not an old, dilapidated, but it’s sort of a Tudor looking.
CLIENT: Is it in the same area that I’m in now?
BROWNE: Mmm, fairly close. I’d say within a radius of seven miles.
Randi comments: See clients comment #6, ahead.
CLIENT: Mmhmm. [pause] You know, I have a question to ask. [pause] When my daughter was, like, seven or eight years old, and I took her to daycare, something very weird happened that day, and I don’t, I can’t even explain it. There was nobody there, the place was totally empty, but there was cars in the lot. And I had to take her into work with me because I couldn’t leave her there alone.
BROWNE: Right.
CLIENT: What was that all about?
BROWNE: I don’t know. There was some kind of investigation, and I think they had taken these people somewhere.
CLIENT: Because I called the school administration building, and I said, “You know, I just took my daughter to daycare and there was nobody there.” And they called there, and they said, “They were there.” And I said, “No, they weren’t.” They were trying to tell me they were there!
BROWNE: Oh, no they weren’t. You weren’t hallucinating. No, they weren’t. And you were in the right place, too.
CLIENT: I walked through the entire building.
BROWNE: Well, you knew where you were going. [pause] Now, I could tell you something very strange, that you got into a time-warp, but no. That, uh, although I’ve seen people get into a kinda like a little mini, um, Bermuda triangle thing, you know.
CLIENT: That’s what I thought it was.
BROWNE: No. They were somewhere. I don’t know whether there was an investigation or some kind of assembly somewhere or whatever, but no, they were in another part. But that’s nuts. That’s like going to a dance with all the cars parked, and nobody’s dancing.
CLIENT: That’s what is was. It was really spooky.
BROWNE: Yeah. Well, your daughter must remember it, too.
CLIENT: Umm, she vaguely remembers it.
BROWNE: Uh-huh.
CLIENT: Now, why is it that I can’t get along with my daughter?
BROWNE: Because she’s so stubborn, honey.
CLIENT: What?
BROWNE: She’s so stubborn.
CLIENT: She’s young still, though.
BROWNE: Well, it’s her way or no way.
CLIENT: Exactly. She’s the total opposite of me.
BROWNE: I know.
CLIENT: And I don’t know what to do, ‘cause I’m…
BROWNE: You can’t, you can’t, honey. You keep trying to make an inroad. And, you know, it’s never that we’re going to give our children up, but it’s like our Lord said, "sometimes we just have to shake the dust off our feet and walk away."
Read the comments: See clients comment up ahead, #7.
CLIENT: Is she ever going to leave home?
BROWNE: I’m sorry?
CLIENT: When will she leave home?
BROWNE: In about a year.
CLIENT: Really?
BROWNE: Well, you’ve made it too easy, honey.
CLIENT: I know.
BROWNE: But I can’t fault you on that; we’re mothers.
CLIENT: Well, I was trying to be a mother and a father.
BROWNE: I know, I do the same thing. You know, I don’t think we expect anything, but how about a little appreciation, you know? I mean how about a little “atta girl” once in awhile?
CLIENT: "I just want to thank you," you know.
BROWNE: Yeah, how about a smile?
CLIENT: Oh, that would be nice.
BROWNE: How about a little peck on the cheek or something?
CLIENT: [Laughs]. That’s never gonna happen.
BROWNE: Mmm. She’s too much like her father.
CLIENT: Yeah, she is. Do you know the career field that she’s going to get into?
BROWNE: I think eventually she’s going to get into some sort of media work.
CLIENT: Media?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: Hmm. Okay.
BROWNE: Honestly, she’s smart enough to do anything she wants to do. She just can’t get her tail in gear.
CLIENT: What about my mom?
BROWNE: What about her?
CLIENT: How long is she going to live?
BROWNE: Mmm. Too long.
CLIENT: [Laughs]
BROWNE: [Laughs]
CLIENT: Will I ever see my inheritance money?
BROWNE: Yeah, you will. She will. My mother lived to be ninety-two. I said, “I know why she lived so long: God didn’t want her either.”
CLIENT: [Laughs]
BROWNE: [Laughs]
CLIENT: Sometimes I wonder, you know, if I was put up for adoption.
BROWNE: I used to say, “Did they find me in the snow somewhere and just bring me home?”
CLIENT: That’s, that’s awful.
BROWNE: I used to say, I’d walk around and say, “What am I doing in this bunch?”
CLIENT: I felt like I was, just, like…
BROWNE: I really looked through my baptismal records and everything to see if I was adopted. You know, my birth records and everything. I said, “I must be adopted.”
CLIENT: That’s how I feel…
BROWNE: No, you weren’t. But, you know, light comes through dark, honey. They really do…
(NOTE: Side 1 of tape ends. Begin Side 2.)
BROWNE: …were 1988 or seven years ago, I would have said, “Oh, boy. Are you in for a mess.” But not now.
CLIENT: Mmm.
BROWNE: [pause] ‘Cause you don’t have any negative thing about you that should push people away from you, you really don’t. Oh, listen to me. I’ve talked to people that I can’t wait to get off the phone with, they’re so miserable. You’re not miserable and mean and hateful and nasty and…
CLIENT: No, I’m always trying to do the right thing…
BROWNE: I know.
CLIENT: …and get knocked down…
BROWNE: And you’re fun, and you have a sense of humor, and you’re intelligent, and you’re just in a bunch of redneck idiots.
CLIENT: Well, how do I get out of it?
BROWNE: You will, in February. Remember what I said to you earlier? You’re just not in a group that’s spiritually advanced enough for you.
Randi comments: See #8.
CLIENT: [pause] Well, as far as my health, am I ever going to get my shoulder to heal?
BROWNE: I’m sorry?
CLIENT: My shoulder, is it ever going to heal?
BROWNE: Yeah, somewhat, but I’m not going to lie to you. It’s never going to be total. No.
CLIENT: And do I have to get surgery on it?
BROWNE: I would, if I were you. I’d just get it over with.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: [pause] Cause it’s too painful. You know, that’s something you use all the time.
CLIENT: Mmhmm.
BROWNE: [pause] Anything with feet, hands, outer appendages are a mess. That’s where all your nerve endings are.
CLIENT: Yeah, it’s been like this a very long time.
BROWNE: [pause] And I don’t think you ever get used to it.
CLIENT: No, because it was hands and my feet.
BROWNE: Yeah.
CLIENT: You know, last month I was having the worst headaches for weeks. What was that?
Randi comments: See #9.
BROWNE: Sinus.
CLIENT: Sinus?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: I never had sinus problems.
BROWNE: Doesn’t make any difference. I didn’t either until I went to Arizona and then all of a sudden I felt like my head was going to split open.
CLIENT: Hmm.
BROWNE: I’m telling you something because of the dryness, honey, people are getting headaches and sinus they never had before. I never had a sinus problem in my life. I didn’t even know what it was. I mean, I know what it is with other people, but I’d never had one. I felt like somebody’d put an ax in my head.
CLIENT: Yeah, that’s what I felt.
BROWNE: A little bit of it is coming from your neck, so I would exercise your neck, but it was sinus. See, you don’t have to have a stuffed-up nose to have sinus. We have eight sinus cavities up there.
CLIENT: Uh-huh.
BROWNE: That’s why it always just kills me when people say, “I’ve had sinus surgery.” I want to say, “And which one? What’d they do, open your whole forehead up?”
CLIENT: Yeah.
BROWNE: That’s the most ridiculous thing that anybody ever does is sinus surgery.
CLIENT: Well, am I going to have any health problems in the near future?
BROWNE: No.
CLIENT: No?
BROWNE: I don’t call a little sinus and a little stomach and a little depression and a little stiff neck, I don’t call that a health problem, not that I want you to have anything or heal. But that’s not heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, do you see what I’m saying?
CLIENT: Mmhmm. What about these white spots that are on my body?
BROWNE: That’s a pigmentation thing, honey.
CLIENT: What causes it?
BROWNE: They used to call it liver spots, but it’s not, it’s hormonal. Try to – here, this is natural. My, my secretary gets those. Umm, start taking one Don Quai a day. D-O-N-Q-U-A-I.
Randi comments: No, Sylvia, it's “Dong Quai,” a useless herb.
CLIENT: Okay. I’ll remember. Okay
BROWNE: [pause] Okay, my dear. Anything else?
Randi comments: See #10.
CLIENT: Umm. Umm. [long pause] Ken, who was a friend of mine, years ago.
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: What happened to him when he crossed over?
BROWNE: He made it.
CLIENT: But he committed suicide…
BROWNE: No, but he was nuts, honey. I don’t mean in a mean way. He reminds me of Kevin Akwonza [Spelling?], a make-up artist, my friend. They just weren’t in there. I mean, he wasn’t himself.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: See, when you do it out of bi-polarism or great depression, it’s like saying that people that have cancer don’t go to heaven. How stupid is that? He didn’t do it out of spite, he did it out of pain.
CLIENT: Yeah, I know. He was in a lot pain. Uh, this last job that I got let go from…
BROWNE: Oh.
CLIENT: …Um, I reported them because they were doing some illegal…
BROWNE: Illegal stuff, yeah.
CLIENT: ...stuff. Umm, did I do the right thing?
BROWNE: Sure you did. I can’t stand that. I have an outside auditor come in every year. I can’t stand it. Not ‘cause I think I’m illegal; I just want to make sure I don’t do something stupid. I can’t stand that kind of thing.
CLIENT: Are they going to get in trouble for what they did?
BROWNE: Not for awhile. It, the, [sighs, or exhales smoke] like the Bible says, “The mills of God grind slow but exceedingly fine.” But they are. They’re skimming the top and everything else.
CLIENT: Do you know why they really got rid of me?
BROWNE: Because I think they thought you knew too much.
CLIENT: I know I did.
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: And the job I had before that…
BROWNE: Same thing.
CLIENT: They thought I knew too much?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: Huh. Well, I did.
BROWNE: I know.
CLIENT: Um, okay, another question…
BROWNE: See, why don’t people run their office that anybody could know anything?
CLIENT: Well, yes, she wanted me to know everything.
BROWNE: Yeah.
CLIENT: She wanted me to, you know, take over. And I turned her down.
BROWNE: Yeah, why should you be pulled up in front of somebody because of something?
CLIENT: Well, she wanted me to be a scapegoat.
BROWNE: Yeah, that’s what I mean.
CLIENT: Umm, this friend of mine, Frank, did we have a past life together?
BROWNE: Yeah, you were brother and sister in, uh, Barcelona.
CLIENT: Really?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: What, what about Josh?
BROWNE: No, just knew him on the other side.
CLIENT: He’s just like a friend of mine.
BROWNE: Yes.
CLIENT: What about Mark B.?
Randi comments: See #11.
BROWNE: A father. He was a father to you. Way back in Lebanon.
CLIENT: Where do his parents live now?
BROWNE: Florida.
CLIENT: In Florida? Well, where does he live now?
BROWNE: [Deep, long sigh] Some place in the south. Louisiana, Tennessee, somewhere like that.
CLIENT: No, this is the Mark that I just broke up with.
BROWNE: I don’t know, but if he isn’t, he’s gonna be down there.
CLIENT: Really?
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: Okay. Who re-incarnated as my brother’s son?
BROWNE: I don’t know; it wasn’t anybody you knew.
CLIENT: Oh. It wasn’t?
BROWNE: Uh-uh.
CLIENT: I was thinking it was my father.
BROWNE: No, it wasn’t. He’s – your father’s still over there.
CLIENT: Oh.
BROWNE: He can’t be both places.
CLIENT: I didn’t think so. He couldn’t have came back that fast.
BROWNE: No, honey, they don’t.
CLIENT: I did not get along with him at all.
BROWNE: No.
Randi comments: See #12.
CLIENT: Um, when I was, I was at this last job I had a library book that I forgot called The Nine-to-Five Guide to [Something].
BROWNE: Mmhmm.
CLIENT: It was stolen. Do you know who took it?
BROWNE: I don’t know, but it was a male. A dark-haired male took it.
Randi comments: See #13.
CLIENT: Umm. Also, my daughter has some savings bonds, and we could never find them. What happened to them?
BROWNE: They’re in a book somewhere. In a red binding of a book. I mean, a red-bound book. They’re stuck in a book.
CLIENT: Really?
BROWNE: Mmmhmm.
CLIENT: In her room?
BROWNE: Could be. It’s definitely a bound book, red.
CLIENT: Okay. Also, I know this is really toward the end. I had a star-shaped necklace that Dad gave me. Did he take it back, or…
BROWNE: Yes, he did.
CLIENT: He did?
BROWNE: Yeah, the creep.
CLIENT: That’s horrible. Okay.
BROWNE: Alright, my dear. I’ll send this tape out, but don’t feel bad because there’s nothing wrong with you. Just because everybody else is losing their mind doesn’t mean you are.
CLIENT: Well, when you live in a world of insane people…
BROWNE: Yeah, it’s hard, honey.
CLIENT: [mumbles.]
BROWNE: I know.
CLIENT: Okay.
BROWNE: Alright, sweetheart, I’ll send this out right away.
CLIENT: Thank you very much.
BROWNE: Bye-bye, darling.
[End of tape]
Here are the notes supplied by the client, describing just how bad this Sylvia Browne reading was:
I can't believe how stupid I was when I called Sylvia. After listening to the tape one last time, I got so angry I just wanted to knock her lights out permanently. Her answers, if you want to call them that, were so incredibly stupid. She played me like a fiddle and she knew it. And that raspy voice – yikes.
What amazed me the most was how the conversation first started. She stalled for as long as she could so she'd have less time to answer difficult questions. By her asking me about my depression totally gave her "fakeness" away. I don't have any depression anymore. I haven't had depression for over 8 years and I took Zoloft once and it didn't do any good whatsoever. However, I did switch over to St. John's Wort because Paxil wasn't working for me. Funny how she said the opposite, like she's some kind of doctor. Proves how ignorant she really is. And for her to take the side of doctors, claiming she's holistic, is hypocritical.
Some highlights of the tape are:
For Michael Peacock’s rundown of the Browne prophecies for 2006, go to www.smugbaldy.com/?p=48. That document stands without additional comment. Other years of Brown’s declarations are equally erroneous and fatuous. Also, note that – in common with every other “psychic” – she has missed the truly momentous and critical changes in history – almost as if this claimed power of prophecy doesn’t exist! How could that be…?
Last week, we inserted a notice that I’d again be on Anderson Cooper 360˚ – only to retract that insert when the show was suddenly postponed. I’m not too disturbed by that fact, since it gives CNN a chance to take extracts from some of the audio tapes we have of her boo-boos sent out to her naïve customers who were unhappy with her “readings.” We’ll keep you informed…
Please understand that TAM5 was a huge job, and it requires a certain amount of recovery time… Next week, we’ll be back to regular procedures… Thanks for your understanding.
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