This is embarrassing

This afternoon I was over at www.stopsylvia.com reading about Sylvia Browne, psychic fraud. My mom used to love Sylvia, and thought she was the end-all-be-all psychic. This was back in the 1990s, after I had realized there were no gods, but before I'd given up completely on the paranormal. In fact, at the time, I was kind of into that John Edward show. He was (is?) better at it than she is, btw. At least he sounds sincere and doesn't come across as an asshole. So maybe I should just say that he's not mean like she is. But anyway.

So I was at that site, and I was reading all the accounts of e-mails, video transcripts, and failed predictions. And I decided that it would take me a lot less time to just go watch them on YouTube. You know what? I got to this one (yes, I also watched parts 1-3) and I couldn't watch any longer. This is just embarrassing to watch. It made me feel like I was watching a con man swindle an elderly person out of her/his life savings.

YouTube - Montel's final show with Sylvia Browne (Part 4)

I left as comment, which is awaiting moderation and in all likelihood will never be posted. But here it is:

That was embarrassing. I'm more psychic than she is. "Oh, yes. He's around you." "Yes, They're together." "Oh, it's terrible when we lose a child." Give me a break.

That pretty much sums up what Sylvia told this grieving mother. Her twelve year old son, Daniel, had been hit by a car. Daniel's mother asked if he was around her, if he was ok, and if he needed to tell her anything. Now seriously, what is Sylvia going to say to that? No, he's not?? Of course she's going to say he's ok, he's with God, blah, blah. Then Daniel's mother asked about her sister. Sylvia told her to be more specific. So she said that her sister had died, and that she had adored Daniel. Again, what else is Sylvia going to say? She agreed that, yes, her sister had loved Daniel, and that they were together. Oh, and we're all going to be together one day. But it takes so long my sweet Lord, right? She totally sounded like that George Harrison song. (No offense to George, who was completely awesome and underrated.) The rest of Sylvia's crap was her talking about how terrible it is to lose a child. Well no shit, Sherlock. And then Montel, who was at least trying to be helpful, gave her some talk-show-host pseudo therapy about how she needs to try and move on so she doesn't get sucked into depression (too late). And Sylvia started telling her how how grief is selfish, because the dead person is in happy lala god land, but we want them with us. FFS. What part of any of that is the least bit psychic?

But at least this woman seemed comforted. If you watch some of the other videos of her on YouTube, they're not so comforting. I really hurt for the woman whose boyfriend died and was never found. Old "psychic" Sylvia tells her, oh, he's in water. It's like that girl missing in Aruba. The guy was FDNY and died in the WTC on 9/11. Then there were the parents whose teenage daughter died. They wanted to know how she died. Sylvia said she was shot. No, the girl dropped dead in her bedroom, but the autopsy didn't find any cause. Or the girl who was abducted from hr front yard. Sylvia said she had been, I kid you not, sold into white slavery in Japan. They found the girl's body eventually. She was already dead when Sylvia gave her prediction, and she had never left Texas. That was a disgusting one. She also told Shawn Hornbeck's parents that he was dead, and gave directions to his body. Well gee, that kid was finally rescued after years, and he is still alive. What if she said that to police in a missing persons case and they stopped looking?

Oh, and apparently if you speak out against Sylvia loudly enough, she'll try to dig up dirt on you. So yeah. Whatever. Try it, honey. Maybe I should really piss her off and milk the publicity so I can afford a car. LOL.