Everything about Sylvia Browne totally explained
Sylvia Browne (born
Sylvia Celeste Shoemaker October 19,
1936) is a best-selling
American author on the subject of
spirituality and is a celebrity
psychic and
medium.
She was a weekly guest on
The Montel Williams Show and hosts her own hour-long show on
Hay House Radio, discussing
paranormal issues and giving callers advice in her role as a would-be psychic.
Critics such as
James Randi have argued that Browne uses
mentalist techniques to produce the
illusion of
mind reading and
clairvoyance. Reports about her false predictions and claims have appeared in several newspapers.
Biography
Browne was born in
Kansas City, Missouri to Bill and Celeste Shoemaker; she's the eldest of two daughters. Her father was
Jewish and had many jobs including mail delivery and jewelry salesman, and was vice president of a major freight line. Her mother was
Episcopalian, and her maternal grandmother Ada Coil was a devout
Lutheran.
Browne says that visions started appearing when she was three years old and that her grandmother Ada Coil, who she said was a
psychic medium, helped her understand why she'd them. Browne also asserts that her great-uncle also says to be a psychic medium and was “rabid about
UFOs.”
Browne started to give claimed psychic readings in 1974 and has attracted followings of supporters and detractors. Browne claims to have provided information to police departments and the
FBI.
Marriage and children
She was married to Gary Dufresne from April 1959 until 1972, and is divorced from Kenzil Dalzell Brown. Sylvia acquired the surname
Brown during the third of her four marriages, and enhanced it with a final
e after she was indicted on Security Fraud charges. In September 2002 she and Larry Lee Beck ended their marriage.
Sylvia says her son Christopher is psychic, and attributes this to a genetic predisposition. Her website says "If Sylvia is the best psychic around - then Chris is the second best."
Paranormal claims
Browne says she knows what it's like in
heaven. In her book
Life on the Other Side, she says the temperature is a constant 78°
F (25.6°C), that there are no insects–-unless one wants there to be, that pets go to heaven, and that one can build one's house wherever one wants unless it obscures the view of a river or some trees, in which case one needs permission. She asserts that the "other side" exists approximately three feet above ground level and at a "higher vibrational level" and so is difficult for humans to perceive. However, like other psychics, she claims to have been born able to perceive a wider range of "vibrational frequencies".
Browne declares that she can see
angels and that they look similar to depictions in paintings, but have different traits depending on their
"phylum". She has also claimed that they don't speak. Her granddaughter, who is purportedly psychic, claims to have witnessed the angels that Browne states surround humans.
Browne professes the ability to speak with her
spirit guide, "Francine," and has given details of fifty-four of her own former lives as divined by her.
Browne identified herself as having abilities beyond communication with spirits. During a
Larry King Live discussion which included
James Randi on
3 September,
2001 she claimed to have "...helped child
[sic] with seizures, that I cured a child with seizures. That I worked with 350 doctors. I mean, you don't know anything about this."
Television and radio
Browne is a frequent guest on US television and radio programs. She has appeared numerous times on
Larry King Live as well as the
Montel Williams Show and
Coast to Coast AM. In 2005 Browne told
Newsweek that
Larry King, a believer in the paranormal, asked her to do private psychic readings. During these appearances she usually discusses her abilities with the host and then performs readings of audience members or callers.
On some occasions other guests at her appearances have included skeptics, with
James Randi being one of the more frequent. These shows often feature verbal
sparring between the two, with both trying to convince the audience that the other is wrong. In March 2004, their feud escalated on the popular
St. Louis radio program,
The Paul Harris Show, when Randi came out and called Browne a liar.
Browne has also appeared on the television
soap opera The Young and the Restless as herself in December 2006.
Books, business, and church
Browne is the head of the Sylvia Browne Corporation, Sylvia Browne Enterprises, and the founder of a church in 1986 in
Campbell, California, known as the Society of Novus Spiritus.
According to its website, the church employs forty ministers, though only a small number are actually paid employees, and those who are paid also work for Sylvia Browne Corporation and Sylvia Browne Enterprises, and are members of the Board of Directors of Novus Spiritus.
Novus Spiritus refers to itself as "
Gnostic Christian."
Novus Spiritus Study Groups and Churches are not allowed to teach anything other than what Sylvia Browne has written, thus excluding any other religious or spiritual texts.
The tenets of the church have expanded, as discussed in her 2006 book "Exploring the Levels of Creation", including the idea of a "Mother God" and "Father God". She further elaborated about this during a segment on the
Montel Williams show while promoting the book.
Though Sylvia Browne claims publicly to support her forty ministers and churches, neither she or Novus Spiritus has financially supported any of the satellite churches that were formed. These churches rely solely on their founding ministers for funding, and they're required to send money to Novus Spiritus headquarters in Campbell, California. These churches are also required to purchase all of their material (Study Group Books, Sylvia Browne Books, etc.) from Novus, and are only allowed to cover and teach Sylvia Browne's written work.
Legal issues and criminal conviction
In 1992, Browne and her estranged husband were indicted on several charges of investment fraud and grand theft. In at least one instance, they told a couple their $20,000 investment was to be used for immediate operating costs. Instead, the money was transferred to an account for their Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research.
Sylvia and her estranged husband Kenzil Dalzell Brown pleaded no contest to a
felony charge of "sale of security without permit," made
restitution, and received one year probation each. Her first husband, Gary Dufresne, said in a February 10, 2007 interview that he doesn't think Sylvia has any paranormal abilities, and that she admitted it, saying that the gullible deserve to be taken advantage of. Also supporting this conclusion are several incorrect predictions shown when the actual truth was revealed through other than psychic means, including those of Holly Krewson, Opal Jo Jennings, Ryan Katcher, and
Shawn Hornbeck.
Browne has often spoken of working with the police and
FBI as a
psychic detective, but according to The
Skeptics Dictionary, in 21 of Browne's 35 cases, the details she gave were too vague to be verified, and in the remaining 14 Browne played no useful role.
Bibliography
Browne has authored or co-authored dozens of books from 1990 and continues today.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Sylvia Browne'.
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