Friday, 06 January, 2006

1. By PoohPoohBear. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @07:56am:

   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."
   
   Maybe she was talking about the lone survivor. . .
2. By . Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @08:26am:

   "Fake Psychic"
   
   Is there any other kind?
3. By . Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @08:33am:

   Wouldn't it be great if just once, one of these "Psychics" decided to fess up and say it was all a fraud to make money and get fame?
4. By Sheldon. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @08:34am:

   I don't get it. According to the story, she only said they would be found, she didn't say whether or not they were alive.
5. By . Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @08:34am:

   As Mordecai Jones once said "Greed and fourteen carat ignorance, they never let you down"
   
   She even had a book on The new York Times best seller list. I'd say she a very greedy witch.
6. By Richard. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @08:39am:

   I know she's a fake! I went to her once and she took my check for payment. That alone proves to me that she can't see the future! Can you say BOUNCE!!
7. By Daniel. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @09:00am:

   Here is an article saying that there is evidence for physic ability:
   http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html#5.3
   
   Here is the best criticism I can find against it:
   http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/claims.html
   
   And the reply to the criticism:
   http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/response.html
   
   Add this to the pile:
   http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/
   
   And the fact that scientists regularly meet with the Dalai Lama, who also claims that psychic abilities happen after mind training:
   http://www.mindandlife.org/encounter.html
   
   (scroll down to the conventional truth part)
   http://www.kagyu.org/buddhism/cul/cul03.html
   
   And in my opinion, there is evidence pointing to the existence of these abilities.
   
   However, I do admit that it is a shame that they are cashed-in upon so often.
8. By Eenie Meenie. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @09:23am:

   If you think about it, we're all psychics.
9. By Hosehead. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @10:25am:

   I had the show on in the background while I was working on my computer. The second the story on the miners shifted 180 degrees, I thought Noory should start digging into her. He waited until she hung up.
   Not that I need proof that she is a fraud, but the key was in what Noory said and the tone of it. Before the story changed, he was asking if "they all might have died" to which she responded "No, I knew they would be found". Even though she did not say "alive", it is pretty obvious from the context that that is what was meant.
   The best part of that show was all the people calling up asking for their spiritual guide, and she would blurt out some random name like Bernadette or Aggamemnon and each person was thankful. That's high comedy.
10. By . Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @10:45am:

    Her predictions for 2006 on C2C were so abysmally incompetent that I was laughing in bed listening to her, what a total fraud. ( Usually I'm the one that get's laughed at in bed.)
    My take on 'psickics' is that they are all frauds, and the closer they get to LaLaLand the bigger fraud they are. Like all entertainers they work the audience and feed off responses, applause, intonation of voice and such, we can all do it.
11. By . Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @10:48am:

    It would be a leap forward for humanity if we could just give up the arrogance of presuming to know Everything about Everything...My New Year wish to the world is that anyone with a closed mind will live an inexplicable experience that will personally illustrate that there is MORE than their minds can grasp...
12. By . Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @10:56am:

    How many of you anti-psychics believe in Jesus or that you are one of the chosen people or in Islam? Is there much difference?
13. By William Tell. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @11:15am:

    I saw her on Larry King the other day, someone called in and Sylvia "channeled" that persons grandmother (Actually, asked a lot of questions, until something stuck). The message from the deceised? "I like your new furniture!". What a load of crock. Why would someone reach out from the dead to tell you the furniture is nice?
14. By pigfoot. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @11:44am:

    Daniel:
    
    There is evidence pointing to the fact that I'm the King of France.
    
    As for the fact that scientists regularly meet with the Dalai Lama, who claims that psychic abilities happen after mind training. What do you call that, proof by association? Ronald Reagan and his wife believed in psychics. That didn't make it an official policy of the US government.
    
    Anyone with genuine psychic abilities can collect an easy million dollars at http://www.randi.org. So far it's still unclaimed. They have a clock there that's counting the weeks since Sylvia Browne said she would take their test. It's up to 222 now.
15. By Daniel. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @12:03pm:

    pigfoot - did you bother to read the other sites? It's rather difficult to dupicate many trails over many years in one place for a prize. It would be like trying to prove that asprin has an affect on heart attacks by assembling 22,000 people in the labortory for a few years until they had heart attacks to get the proof needed. Quite hard, eh? Yet, asprin HAS been shown to help reduce heart attacks sufficiently that it's accepted as science.
    
    Here's another link:
    
    http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/scepticism/drasin.html
16. By Daniel. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @12:09pm:

    Ps, I do admit that this Sylvia person is not helping anyone - skeptics or believers - with her claims, and should probably keep quiet until she can be more accurate.
17. By pigfoot. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @12:41pm:

    Daniel, are you saying there are studies of "psychic" phenomenon that are as rigorous (in terms of experimental design and statistical power) as the ones that showed aspirin to be beneficial in the treatment of cardiovascular disease? Such studies would be worth much more than a million dollars, I think. Please, direct me to the refereed journals where these were published. I must have missed them!
18. By Daniel. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @02:11pm:

    Pigfoot: well, this was the summary of psychic research results, which I already posted:
    
    http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html#5.3
    
    And this site stated that results from their own research were small but definate and so they were moving to investigate the specifics instead of 'does it exist'
    
    http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/future.html
    
    These are the summary pages. If you want the actual data from the experiments, I can try to find it.
    
    In addition, this was the strongest worded criticism I could find about the results from the first link, and below it, the responses to the criticism . . if you're really interested, read it and see what you think.
    
    http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/claims.html
    http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/response.html
19. By Daniel. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @02:51pm:

    Pigfoot: what journals would be acceptable to you?
    
    I conceed the point, in that there seem to be no studies in major journals.
    
    However, by using Google scholar search with 'telepathy', I did find these:
    
    http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Telepathy/Nolan.pdf
    
    (this is a repeat of articals previously posted)
    http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v10n1a1.php
20. By Daniel. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @03:24pm:

    Sorry to be clogging up the comments section, I promise this will be my last post on this subject in a row:
    
    I don't know what this proves exactly, but it is pretty funny:
    
    The effects of drug use on telepathy, done in, of course, the Netherlands.
    
    http://m0134.fmg.uva.nl/publications/2000/psychotropic_GF.pdf
21. By . Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @07:07pm:

    Thank you Daniel for bringing this deadly serious bafflegab to a crashing halt. Now let's get back to dissing Sylvia.
22. By Daniel. Comment posted 06-Jan-2006 @07:27pm:

    Thanks for your input! That lets me post this link, wondering why no one bothered to conduct their own experiments to prove all of this nonsense wrong once and for all, and how one of the leading skeptics was not so leading:
    
    http://skepticalinvestigations.org/anomalistics/skeptic_research.htm
23. By Original Me. Comment posted 07-Jan-2006 @03:44pm:

    As said a few times above, she never said that they would be found ALIVE. And if any of you would have even looked into other predictions that she has made you would see that she has been right on the money with every one. Do you think that almost every book of her's would be a number one best seller if she was a fraud. People had to have kept buying them for SOME reason!
24. By George. Comment posted 08-Jan-2006 @09:49am:

    It would be a leap forward for humanity if we could just give up the stupidity of presuming that there's a supernatural realm to explain what can't be explained. My New Year wish to the world is that anyone with a foolish mind will be financially exploited by psychic frauds like Browne which will personally illustrate that there is MORE than their minds can grasp.
25. By . Comment posted 08-Jan-2006 @02:19pm:

    Afraid of the unknown George? I have a "feeling" you and your ilk may be in for a painfully bumpy ride in the near future. Good luck with that limited reality thing you got goin' on...
26. By James. Comment posted 09-Jan-2006 @11:37pm:

    Lorraine, it seems like your mind is closed. Of course there are unknowns in our understanding - that's why it's good to keep on reading and learning, etc. The point is not that skeptics don't think that there is an "unkown", only that we need sufficient evidence before accepting certain things. By the way if it's unknown, then why do many people claim that they "know" about it (like ghosts and the afterlife exist)? Isn't is supposed to be "unknown"? lol For supernatural claims, extraordinary evidence requires extraordinary evidence, especially where magic is concerned.
    And hopefully your threat against George isn't of the tired "believe or you're going to hell" variety.
27. By . Comment posted 10-Jan-2006 @12:20am:

    "your 'THREAT' against George"??????
    
    Give me a break.
    
    Talk about a closed mind. I have the feeling there are more things "unknown" to you, James, than to most.
    
    Methinks your background peeks through with your use of the word "magic" - a word frequently associated with fear of the supernatural (which is a word used to cover anything you can't see and touch).
    
    "Magic" and "supernatural" are synonymous with "evil," are they not?
28. By . Comment posted 10-Jan-2006 @12:36am:

    TV Psychics are ALWAYS off the mark! What a great big surprise.
    
    A person with a small mind, or a fearful one, will throw everything in the cupboard away when he finds a weevil.
    
    Have you ever experienced deja vu? Have you ever just "known" the phone was going to ring and known who was on the other end? Did you ever go looking for your lost dog and, hours later, just suddenly, out of nowhere, you KNEW exactly where to find his body? Did you ever "just know" someone living at a distance from you was dead or in their last few minutes of life when you had no reason to believe that? Did you ever, just at the last minute, decide to take the low road home instead of the high road that you always take, only to learn of a terrible wreck on the high road that you missed only because of that oddball decision?
    
    If you've never experienced anything similar, you're an alien; and if you HAVE and you're just denying it because you can't see it or measure it, you're just being foolish.
29. By . Comment posted 10-Jan-2006 @09:17am:

    James, my mind is not closed. I have read, and continue to do so. Learning never stops, hopefully. I am not talking about magic, I am not talking about threats. I am referring to what many people experience on a regular basis. The precognition, the "still, small voice", the irrefutible personal proof that the skeptics do not acknowledge. There was no reference to hell, or punishment. Just the shock that will come when those who insist there is nothing begin to have their limited reality world shaken by their own personal experiences. As with many things in this life, the more you resist, the more painful it is.
    Of course there are charlatans, but you can't paint everyone with the same brush. It is just that the veil is a little thinner for some than for others. Carl Jung said when asked about this subject: "I don't believe, I know..."
30. By . Comment posted 12-Jan-2006 @12:38pm:

    I listened to that show...Sylvia said they would be found...she never said dead or alive...hell we could have all predicted that...
31. By . Comment posted 14-Jan-2006 @07:18pm:

    Sylvia Browne also said, that all 13 would be found died on Coast to Coast. If you do not believe me, ask for the text from that night. Maybe some of you did not hear that statement.
32. By . Comment posted 16-Jan-2006 @10:25pm:

    Hey folks; I've just got to 'jump in here, I believe that REAL psychics exist,There are some limited news and police docs out there that I've watched where, one psychic in particular, 'saw' the exact roadsign, could describe the building next to, the terrain and the location of the wound on the body of the victim, how the victim died, the landscape and actually identified the Killer...then police drove around until they found this exact site. Scary thing is, before this, the psychic could 'see' looking up from the shallow grave the body was in an described seeing light because the face of the victim was partially uncovered. WOW. That, to me, is real.This woman is NOT well know and seeks no fame.
    Unlike 'thieves' like Sylvia, James VanPrague and John Edwards who are USING people's most desparate inner needs and wants and turning it into fame and cash. These bloodsuckers are VERY VERY well practiced at reading people and know how to tell if they should back off on something.
33. By . Comment posted 16-Jan-2006 @10:37pm:

    It all starts very simple-almost elementary-" I'm seeing someone standing over your right shoulder, I'm thinking, a grandmother? Aunt?"
    "yes, thats right Sylvia, my Aunt! How did you know that?" "yes, spirit is telling me, its your Aunt! Is is Mmmm-mary? Martha? something..I'm seeing an M .." "uh, no," "Think hard, something has an M in it..." " Yes! Yes! could it be Tammy?" " yes, child, that's it, Tammy..I knew it had an M in it.." "Wow, Syliva, how did you know that?" "Yes, thankyou spirit..and she says she likes your Curtains? do you have curtains?" "Yes, Sylvia, I do! Wow you are amazing!" "how much do I owe you?" lol
34. By Darius. Comment posted 19-Jan-2006 @04:25pm:

    Sylvia Browne is the biggest joke in the psychic forum. She is an embarrasment to mankind, not just her colleagues. It is difficult to understand why Montel and Larry King allow her to soil their stages with her haphazzard mutterings.
    
    I have read documentaries written by people who have been guests on the shows with her. They claim that many of her blunders are edited out before the show is aired to public....so imagine what the studio audience gets to see. She backed out of Randi's challenge, (lucky for her). I have a feeling that would have been the death nell for her.
    
    Montel.....I used to like your show. Its not worth the mysterious ratings. You are intelligent. Dump the charlatan and move on to subjects with real meat.

Original content © 2010, John Walkenbach