Finally, self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne has offered some strong evidence concerning her supposed powers. Unfortunately for her, the evidence she offered pretty convincingly shows that she is full of shit. Two Percent Friend Skeptico pointed us to the most recent JREF Weekly Newsletter, which recounted Sylvia's recent appearance on Coast to Coast, and the Fox News partial transcript of her appearance:

[Browne] was in the middle of making predictions when [Coast to Coast host George] Noory brought up the mining disaster.

Browne, who had just announced that John McCain would run against John Kerry in the next presidential campaign, was relieved to hear from Noory that all but one of the miners was alive.

Noory: "Had you been on the program today, would [you] have felt if — because they heard no sound — that this was a very gloomy moment — and that they might have all died?"

Browne: "No. I knew they were going to be found. I hate people that say something after the fact."

Sylvia's answer is clear — Noory asks her if she had been asked earlier (which she wasn't), would she have felt that the miners had all died. Sylvia replies: "No. I knew they were going to be found." She then has the balls to denounce psychics who "say something after the fact." The hypocrisy here is so deep that we can't even offer a suitable insulting joke — we'll let it stand on its own.

This would have been the typical psychic fare, except that the story wasn't done developing. As many of you are no doubt aware, the initial report was flawed, and the correction took place while Sylvia was still on the program. Let's see how that transpired:

Noory soon announced that there were new reports that all but one of the miners was dead.

Browne — who was still in the studio taking questions from listeners — had to say something. Now she was just riffing: "I don't think there's anybody alive, maybe one. How crazy for them to report that they were alive when they weren't!" Then she added: "I just don't think they are alive." She cleared her throat, and there was a deafening pause.

Noory went to a commercial.

Oh! Maybe one is alive, huh? Wherever did you get that from, Sylvia? You know, no bullshit has quite the same pungent odor as psychic bullshit. Pathetic. But wait, there's more:

Returning from news and commercials for their last segment together, Noory tried to dig Browne out of her hole with a softball question. He asked: "With your accuracy rate so high ...."

...

[Browne]: "I didn't believe that they were alive."

Noory: "What's that, the miners?"

Browne: "Yeah, I didn't think — and see, I've been on the show with you, but I don't think there's any that are going to make it."

Noory: "They say there are 12 gone. I think we threw you a curveball, we were telling you after the fact."

Browne: "Yeah, no, I did believe that they were gone."

So there's the transcript. Sylvia hears that all of the miners were found alive, so she claims that she always knew that would be the outcome. Then she hears that all but one are dead, so she does a complete about-face and pretends that her earlier comments never even happened. During her about-face, she then goes on to incorrectly parrot the information that she just received from Noory by saying that she always knew that all thirteen would die even though it had just been reported that one had not died (and is still alive today). Not only is she a fucking liar, she's not even very good at it. If this is what constitutes psychic powers, then we should sign up for the JREF Challenge — hell, we can do this! The sad thing is that hordes of people will still buy her line of obvious bullshit, and they will still pay hundreds of dollars for her laughable "readings."

Oh, and while we're on the subject of self-delusional morons, if there's anyone who has read all of this and still believes that Sylvia is the "real thing," please leave our site — now. Seriously. You are not intelligent enough to interact with us, and we don't want to catch a raging case of "stupid."

I can't work out which is worse; psychics taking advantage of crudulous idiots, or the professional liars (aka tv show hosts) who give them the air time in order to promote them. Fortunately this particular individual seems to have shot herself in the foot (probably where she keeps her one brain cell) , but what cretin thought she deserved the air time in the first place? And, being a psychic, you would have thought she might have had a warning from one of her friends in "dead man's land" that a catastrophe was about to befall her!

We're with you, pvandck. This particular "psychic" is a regular on both Coast to Coast and Larry King. The sad part is that she's made plenty of mistakes with her wondrous powers, and people still keep buying into her crap. It's true that this one was pretty public, so maybe it'll have a greater impact, but we aren't holding our breaths.

Sadly, there are far too many media personalities who put these bullshit artists on the air — we just ranted about both Rita Cosby and Joe Scarborough giving similar airtime to Allison DuBois. It speaks volumes of these journalists' opinions of their viewers' intellect when ridiculous claims like DuBois' or Browne's are taken as a given.

You know, if I was in her position, I think I could've played that off better. She just made it obvious she was trying to cover her ass.

Sylvia Browne at sunset with and eight year old:

SB - The sky is bluish but will turn reddish...

8YO - It looks pink.

SB - Yeah, that's what I said. Pink, turning to bluey-red.

8YO - The clouds look almost orange.

SB - Exactly as I predicted. Orange with pink and bluey red.

8YO - What makes the colors?

SB - Jesus and dead people. They tell me the colors.

8YO - It's getting dark.

SB - Just what I said would happen. Dark again tonight. The people on the "other side" are telling me...

8YO - I have to go home now. You're weird.

These psychics are on those shows to boost the ratings of said show, plain and simple. The hosts are also inquiring minds and want to see for themselves what all the fuss is about.

They also have the "power" to get the psychic in front of them today for their show tonight. Most people have to get at the end of line the waiting line of up to 3 or more years.

I love to watch Sylvia on Montel William's show just for the entertainment factor. She is so gosh darn sure and completely forges ahead without stopping. It's so much fun seeing the shocked and awed looks on the audience members' faces.Psychics like John Edwards um and stutter a lot. That is boring having to wait for them to put their thoughts into coherent words. Who has time for that? I also love to see what new jewels and fancy clothes Sylvia will show up wearing. See? If you think of it in the same way as watching a good magician in Las Vegas you too can have fun.

"Sylvia Browne reveals she's a hypocrite as well as a fraud." from Stupid Evil Bastard

Sylvia "I Talk To Dead People" Browne has accidentally revealed the secret to her "psychic" abilities and showed she's a hypocrite in the process. Seems she was on George Noory’s Coast to Coast radio show back on Janua...

[More]

Hello: My name is Darius. I am a psychic hater. Thats right...I did not studder....I think such vermin should be removed from the media.

I am continually amazed at the mysterious popularity of psychic nonsense. I shreek when I see the tears and reactions of the gullible herds on Montel and Larry King. I admit I am profoundly offended that these con artists are making far more money than legitamate scholars in productive carreers. It is insulting that such parasites are not serving time instead of parading all over the globe infecting even more people.

All psychics I have observed are wrong most of the time, yet when they make what seems to be a hit, the subjects just delight in the amazing gifted one. It is as though the very questionable hit somehow magically erased all memory of the great swarth of misses that preceeded. The hits seem to come after a great deluge of gold digging from the reader, which also seems to elude the subjects objective radar.

I have also read reports of people who have been guests on the shows, along side the readers. They claim that what gets aired to the public is often very different from what happened in the studio. Psychic bloopers are often edited out of the tape so that the home audience never knows they occured. However, that is to be expected. Any talkshow host willing to soil their stage and risk their credibility with such vermin to boost ratings, would certainly go the extra step and clean up the product for best results.

I am no psychic, nor do I believe there are real psychics. However I think I can make a hit from mere observation. When a reputable talkshow host, who is already well established bends to the whims and nonsense of a psychic, it can only mean one of two things. Either they are far more gullible than their reputations would have us believe, or it is all about the money. I would go with the latter.

I PAID $700 FOR A HOUR HOUR READING WITH SYLVIA AND NOT ONE THING SHE SAID CAME TRUE. I RETURNED HER ACCURACY FORM STATING SO AND RECEIVED A VERY NASTY LETTER FROM HER COMPANY AND THEY WANTED THE TAPE BACK, SO THEY CAN'T PROVE WHAT A FAKE SHE IS.. MONTEL WILLIAMS SHOULD JUST JOIN FORCES WITH JERRY SPRINGER, HE HAS LOST ALL CREDIBILITY BY GIVING HER AIR TIME AND BELIEVING HER. IF SHE COULD PREDICT ANYTHING, WE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO AVOID 9/11... SHE'S A JOKE

Today on "Montel" there was a woman who asked Sylvia Browne why her dead fiance's body has never been found.She said "because he's in water,just like the girl missing in Aruba".She said that it's difficult to find bodies if they are in water. Then the woman said that her fiance had been killed in the Twin Towers on 9/11. He was a fireman who responded to the disaster and they never found any trace of him.Sylvia tried to cover her error by saying something about,well, a fireman would be using water to put out the fire...I see him drowning....Nice try Sylvia.

I do not believe people are spirit mediums and what not. (I believe when you die, you are dead- that is what the bible says, the wages of sin is death; and when you die you are not conscience of nothing at all.) I do however believe that each individual dreams about every day of their lives, and its up to them to pay attention. And their dreams usually only involve them and those close to them.

The reason I am responding is only to point out that technaclly (i cant spell) Sylvia Brown said (according to your transcript - i did not see the show) "they would be found" she did not say dead or alive. So she can say she didn't want to say dead because she didnt want to put that out there until it was over. (for the families sakes).

Also, I read your article on Allison Dubois, and followed your link to her web site, you took liberties with some of your quoted passages, that did not say exactly what you wrote, for instance, you said she said that some of the other mediums that were researched were being investigated for bad practices (not your words, but wht yousaid. And it may have been there on her site once, but its not there now. You might want to update.)

Thanks for your time. Shawna T.

I just wanted to paste what it says now.

from Allison Dubois web site

I work very hard to be a compassionate, detail specific medium. I cannot endorse, much less vouch for many of the other mediums out there, and never could. This doesn't mean there aren't other great mediums out there, there are I just couldn't possibly know them all. Even in the lab, I understand that some of the mediums were either not tested scientifically or achieved far less significant results than others. So I'm leary of sending clients to mediums that I'm unaware of their accuracy and compassion. If you hear by word of mouth a mediums great by all means that's a good indicator you're in good hands. I stick to the ones I've been WOWED by and always have my ear open to hearing from others about wonderful mediums they've encountered. What I do is not a carnival sideshow attraction, nor a morning tea leaf reading. I take what I do very seriously because people that come to me need to leave a reading with me in better condition than they arrived or I haven't done my job.

So please don?t confuse other people?s attempts to profit from the gifts of mediums like myself, Laurie Campbell, Sally Owen, George Dalzell and Janet Mayer as having our endorsement. Endorsements should be well earned and hard to come by.

Thats it
Thanks, Shawna T.

Shawna,

Regarding Sylvia Browne's comments on the miners, your read of Sylvia's "prediction" fails to incorporate one very important aspect of her statements: context. We suggest that you re-read the quote in question in the context of the conversation taking place. There is simply no doubt what Sylvia was saying — she was saying that she knew that the miners were alive, when in fact they were dead. Your approach is just the kind of weasel-wording that the psychics and scam artists themselves use all the time to validate their own work.

Regarding Allison's website, yes, she changes it from time to time, and we certainly can't expect that the quotes we used over a year ago would still be intact today. Please note that we did not take any "liberties" with our quotes as you suggest — we copied them verbatim. They are accurate quotes from Allison's site (circa March 2005), and we have no intention of changing our Rant to match whatever Allison's site says now. You are welcome to believe the quotes as we reported them, or to research them yourself via one of the web archives available. Personally, we're fans of the Wayback Machine.

As an example, we reported that Allison's site said the following:

...I don't like seeing people go to half-baked "psychics" or frauds.

To see that exact quote, just go to Allison's site as it existed in March of 2005. You can find our other quotes using this method as well.

As we say to many of our infrequent visitors, before you accuse us of something, either do your homework, or just ask us about it.

Too bad Syl and the rest of her fraud friends will be in business forever.

Like I've always said -

As long as their are idiots spouting bullshit, there will be bigger idiots believing it.

I have watched Sylvia Brown and her "special powers" and thought that she was not only fake but a nasty person. She reminds me of the aunt you have that smokes and drinks too much. She has made a living from other people's misery and those misfortunate souls believing in her. What these people are looking for is answers and she exploits that. I have ALWAYS thought that she was a disgusting phoney.

I've never been sure of what to make of Sylvia Browne. I know that what appears on-air can be edited; so we never know what really happened live. What is broadcast makes it look like she doesn't pump people for information (the cold read tactic), and then take a guess and pass it off as psychic. The only almost direct evidence I have of her 'abilities' comes from a friend who went to a Sylvia Browne event (paying $1000). Sylvia did tell my friend something she would have no way of knowing, and was even contrary to what would have been a good guess. I asked my friend if Browne had asked her questions before telling her this, and my friend said no. My skepticism wasn't satisfied; so I asked whether she had filled out info cards or the like before hand. My friend said no again. I don't know what to make of this.

Browne claimed on Montel Williams that she does 20 readings a day. That must not be EVERY day since she travels so much and does other things (cruises, etc, $$$$$). But, even if it is half that she is pulling in almost $2MM/year on readings alone. All things considered his woman must be nipping at Oprah's skirts in the money category.

I have been tempted to get a reading myself; not from her, but her son Christopher. I want to check it out for myself. But, he charges $450 for a reading, and I can't bring myself to pay that just for my own barely scientific investigation.

BTW, on her Coast to Coast AM appearance during the mine disaster she has, or gave herself, an out. She didn't explicitly say they were dead or alive; only that she 'knew they would be found'. I was listening that night. If she is a fake she has years of experience of weaseling out of apparent gaffs. She also had said that the missing boys recently found in MO were dead. She had said that directly to the parents.

All in all I admit I am not sure just what is going one with her. She is highly skilled whatever it is.

I think I'll become a 'psychic'. I would love the $$$$$!

You know, I always gave this woman the benefit of the doubt. Because she was so evil looking I actually didn;t judge her - we all know looks are deceiving. BUT MY LORD, now, nothing will convince me that she is not evil. I will only forgive her if she comes out clean and admits all her wrong doing for all the years she has conned people in their moments of despair.

I really think she should pay for all the evil deeds she has done. She really should go to jail for all the BS she has been telling people all these years and the money she has conned out of people.

We should do all we can to put her off the air (Montel Williams) and warn people of her woman's lies - just put her out of business so she can not harm anymore people.

MY SISTER HAD A READING FROM HER,AND NOTHING SHE SAID WOULD HAPPEN.SHES A BIG FAKE.SHE LAUGHTED ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK WITH MY SISTERS MONEY.

I absolutely agree! Sylvia Browne is the worst liar I have ever seen. You can tell she's lying and dumb ass Montel probably knows it too. They're probably in this together. They should put her under the polygraph, she would fail like the miserable lying *** ***** she is!

Love,
Madeline

Love the sentiment, Madeline, but unfortunately the polygraph only has about a 40% accuracy rate under controlled conditions.

The problem is that it doesn't detect lies: It detects stress, and pathological liars (a group which Sylvia more than likely belongs to) are usually quite calm and comfortable telling lies.

Remember reading that a lot of police agencies don't even bother looking at the results: They just use it as an interrogation prop.

What boggles me is how there are those who believe her ********. I would like to come on her show and throw a curve ball of my own. I wish they had a real lie detector where you could actually hear the persons thoughts. She would be saying..."oh ****, I ****** **!!, what new lie can I think of now?"

Love,
Madeline

I'd certainly love to hook Sylvia up to an authentic mind-reading machine. That would settle the eternal question of liar or big fat idiot.

We'll just have to be patient while they invent one.

You all MUST go to StopSylviaBrowne.com and read her ex-husband's interview..very, very interesting! If anyone should know if she has a "gift" its her ex. He is as disgusted with her as we all are, and has decided to finally come forward. He has something to say about his "psycic" son too! First and foremost, she was never psycic when he was married to her! Hmmmm. Secondly, the masters she says she got is a lie too! No masters degree, no degree in anything! Please, it's worth the read, I hope all her little followers get a chance to read this! 3-15-07

[The original Stop Sylvia Browne site URL was stolen by fuckhole vulture Boris Kreiman from Robert Lancaster. Please use www.stopsylvia.com from now on. — The Management.]

Very interesting interview! Thanks for the tip. While there, I also read the open letter to Montel from a retired military man named Lt. Colonel Bidlack to which I would love to see Montel reply.

truthseeker psycic is spelled Psychic

you guys are really assholes, to be honest. i have talked to sylvia..... before my mother got really "sick". she told me it was a fatal illness....no known cure and the "name" of the disease, when the doctors had no idea..... she since, has been diagnosed with ALS @ 38 yrs. old (as sylvia said at the very beginning) so, she has been proven wrong many times......what about the times she has been right?????? "Psychic" or not....what about all of these fucked up DOCTORS that misdiagnose people everyday???

you guys are really assholes, to be honest. i have talked to sylvia..... before my mother got really "sick". she told me it was a fatal illness....no known cure and the "name" of the disease, when the doctors had no idea..... she since, has been diagnosed with ALS @ 38 yrs. old (as sylvia said at the very beginning) so, she has been proven wrong many times......what about the times she has been right?????? "Psychic" or not....what about all of these fucked up DOCTORS that misdiagnose people everyday???

Well, there you go, guys, you are assholes. I guess she told you.....twice!!

1. The times Sylvia's right, there's rarely any reason to believe it's significant: You'd be surprised how easy it is to pump information out of a person. The reason she fails in missing person cases and the Sago mine is because no one involved has information she can infer: She couldn't determine the miners' safety until the news reports came out. It reminds me of a time John Edward (I think) was caught referring to an inaccurate obituary for one of the people he was reading, rather than the spirits.

2. Malpractice is an entirely different thing: An individual's mistakes do not invalidate the entire profession. The techniques doctors use have been validated by good scientific measurements. Psychics, however, haven't come anywhere close to that, and most actively deride the idea of testing in meaningful ways.

Jesus Hopping Christ, what's with these fucking people and the tendency to fill every inter-sentence space with at least four periods? I've been seeing this everywhere lately. Skeptico, here, and I believe even over at my place.

Do these people think it makes them look smart or interesting to misuse some sort of super-ellipsis? What is the deal? It's beginning to drive me batty.

Yeah. It's getting freaky to see all of those extended ellipses.

Only instance I know of using 4-period ellipses properly: When you're using a direct quote and snipping across sentences.

Not always an honest practice, that. Recall an instance where the Discovery Institute snipped across 2 or 3 chapters of something in their quote mines.

nana:

you guys are really assholes, to be honest.

And you are a presumptuous cunt who encourages a vulture to prey on the unfortunate.

i have talked to sylvia..... before my mother got really "sick". she told me it was a fatal illness....no known cure and the "name" of the disease, when the doctors had no idea.....

Yes, and I'm sure you have evidence (such as a tape recording) of Sylvia specifically naming the disease with no help from you. If not, then you're worthless; piss off.

so, she has been proven wrong many times......what about the times she has been right??????

Evidence? You'll forgive us if we're not dumbfucks like yourself and just accept anything anyone says as true.

what about all of these fucked up DOCTORS that misdiagnose people everyday???

Totally different. Medicine is a proven science even though the data can be misinterpreted. Can you provide one fucking instance a psychic was correct, with evidence? If not, you are completely useless to your cause. Go back to the 40 year-old 300+ poud divorced womens group and bitch about us next to your power crystals.

Thanks to everyone who nailed nana's banal idiocy for us. We had already reached our idiot quota for the day (we've set it to one this week) by responding to jaaykke on another post, so were happy to see that we had nothing to add here.

We only wish that these utter morons would actually bother to read the previous comments before they decide to drop their steaming piles of manure here. Hell, we don't expect them to understand what's been said already, but they could at least take the time to see that their pathetic "challenges" have already been answered, couldn't they?

My sister in law spent thousands on plane flight and hotels trying to contact SB she was treated like crap by montel Williams staff and Sylvia lied, she is a user and she uses that forum to benifet her son and herself

My sister in law spent thousands on plane flight and hotels trying to contact SB she was treated like crap by montel Williams staff and Sylvia lied, she is a user and she uses that forum to benifet her son and herself

2 predictions - the sun will rise tomorrow. It will be cloudy. Question for S.Why do we need the sun since we already have the bright light of day ???.