dose anyone think Sylvia Brown is a fruad

[Beowulf810]

The facts are in that Sylvia Brown is a fruad and you should all reply to this post

[kurtykurt42]

To be honest I never read any of her books before or seen any of her TV interviews / shows or whatever. In any event it doesn't surprise me, if that's what you mean.

[catmeow]

Which facts do you refer to? I thought she had been caught out quite a few times, like when she declared categorically that some poor girl's boyfriend couldn't be found because his body was "in water" and then the girl, who was in tears, looked confused and said he died in 911. Embarrassing to watch and broke this girl's heart. No brainer to me. But I would be interested to hear what the latest news on her is. 

[caterpillarwoman]

The facts are in that Sylvia Brown is a fruad and you should all reply to this post

Okay. And this affects me.... how? I should care about her or about you and your opinions because..... why?

[Xanth]

The facts are in that Sylvia Brown is a fruad and you should all reply to this post

Did Sylvia Brown wrong you personally somehow?
If not, I'd probably just keep my distance from her and allow people to believe whatever they want. 

[Kirkland]

I don't like her, I don't believe her but I think that if people want to believe her let them.

[Stookie]

I'm more of a Ms Cleo kind a guy, but whatever floats your boat...

[gracehoper]

Hehe, Stookie...   

[cpt. picard]

Yes, she is a fraud, but some people believe in her for some reason.

[Timandra]

Even if she is not a fruad, I still wouldn't go to her for a reading. A psychic who tells parents in a live show, that their son is dead, is a reallly bad psychic... 
Even if she is right.

[personalreality]

People should understand a few things about psychics. 

I work at a metaphysical bookshop where we offer psychic readings and our store is even owned by a psychic detective (he's even on tv.....which I will comment about in a few minutes...).  Point being, we have 5 psychics on staff that I work with daily and I've learned a little bit about how it all works when a psychic gives professional readings. 

1) Psychics aren't always "right".  This doesn't mean they're a fraud, it means that like any job sometimes they have good days and sometimes they have bad days.  As much as we'd like to think our doctors are always perfect, its a known "fact" that they aren't, thus we have malpractice lawsuits (granted, sometimes people are just taking advantage of a doctor when the doctor did nothing wrong).  Psychics are no different, sometimes they make mistakes or can't "see" you clearly.

2) As an expansion of point 1, there are many reasons why a psychic may have difficulty giving you an accurate reading.  A lot of times it has little to do with the reader and a lot to do with the expectations the customer.  Generally speaking, psychics don't predict the future!  Let me be clear, they can predict probable futures, but it's difficult to be certain about the future (in the physical) because it is subject to change.  Our actions effect our futures, bottom line.  This is different from an astrologer, a divinatory reader, a medium etc., making a "profile" of your person-type based on things like your Natal Chart (the alignment of heavenly bodies at the moment of your birth), your energy, your numerological information, palm, etc.  In these cases they may give you a glimpse of your probable life path, but again, everyone is different and infinitely unique and all of the traditional interpretations of your numbers or cards or sign, may not exactly apply to you.

So, then the question is, "But astrologers and tarot readers aren't psychics, anyone can learn those skills", and it's true that anyone can learn to read cards or a natal chart.  However, many psychics use these items as tools to help them connect with the archetypal energy that you carry.  BUT, they also use them as a visual representation for the customer.  A lot of psychics are 'intuitives', which means their information comes to them as thoughts, images, feelings, perceptions, etc. and needs to be interpreted into "human language" so the customer can understand.  Things like the cards help a lot with this.

Like I said, sometimes psychics have off days and sometimes there can be a lot of influencing factors that can interfere.  Just like you sometimes have "one of those days", so do psychics, but unfortunately people still expect them to be perfect.  It takes years of development and training to perfect psychic abilities and even then, it is a delicate balance between the mundane and the metaphsyical, which can be a difficult line to walk sometimes.  There are also outside influences.  Say you come to get a reading and you want your best friend to come with you and the psychic allows it.  You ask a question and the psychic gives you an answer that you think is way off the mark.  What may have happened is that your best friend's energy was more powerful/intense and that's what the psychic picked up.  Or in another situation you may think that this psychic stuff is a bunch of bull and so you go see one for fun, not expecting anything out of it.  And guess what, that's exactly what happens, nothing.  When you shut down to the possibility it can be difficult for the reader to connect with your energy, because even if you think the idea of spiritual energy is just silly, you are still shutting yourself down energetically and putting up a "psychic block".

In truth, there are so many conflicting factors when it comes to psychics, I'm surprised any of them can work professionally at all.  The perception people have about what psychics are and what they do is often a very distorted picture.  Everyone is a psychic, its just a matter of developing your skills, and many psychics are just like you only they have worked hard to cultivate their gift.  Believe it or not, a lot of psychics weren't just born with this magnificent gift that needed no training.  Consider an example by author Christopher Penczak. I wasn't born with natural talent for basketball.  I could learn to play, and may even be pretty good, but I will never be a Michael Jordan.  However, even Michael Jordan, who was born with obvious natural talent, still needed to learn some fundamentals and skills and he had to practice.  The talent may be there at birth, but the ability to use it isn't a given.  It's important to keep in mind that a psychic is a person with a developed skill and sometimes they're just having a bad day, so don't always expect perfection.

That said, I don't want to dumb down what psychics do.  They are often very talented, very accomplished professionals who can provide you with invaluable guidance.  However, the reader is usually receiving information from your guidance (something that you could learn to do on your own by the way) and sometimes your guidance doesn't feel that you are "ready" or "able" to accept the wisdom you seek. 

3) Let's talk about "TV Psychics".  My next statement is largely my opinion, but I think there is some "truth" here as well.  TV psychics give honest, hardworking psychics a bad image.  Allow me to explain why.  First of all, it's TV.  TV is edited for more drama and entertainment, quite often at the expense of the psychic.  In our modern society, the place of God has been filled by science.  For all the skeptics that insist on using science to validate their experience, keep in mind that the science practiced by our modern culture is a religion.  Almighty objectivity bows to no one.  Its kind of ironic, people put their "faith" in the scientific method, and the scientific method effectively destroys the concept of having faith in anything.  Personally, I don't "believe" in objectivity [in the sense that there is a reality that exists independently of me], mainly because it seems to be wasteful.  If every one has their own infinitely unique perception that is entirely subjective, then what is the point of an objective reality existing?  If the universe is anything, its not wasteful.  That's a lot of unnecessary energy being used to maintain an "objective" reality when we're just making a new one up anyway.  Sorry for the digression, but the point is that TV entertainment is molded by the cultural perception of reality.  For us in the west, that means that anything that can't be "objectively" measured by sacred science is superstition and that's the face that is put on psychics.  [Note: There are people who utilize science as a tool, not as a religious crutch.  Science can be flexible, but in the end I believe is can only be used for "subjective" validation.] 

So psychics already get a bad wrap when they go on TV.  They are put in ridiculous situations and set up to look like charlatans often times when you see them on sitcoms.  Then you have the talk show psychics like Sylvia Brown.  Again, they're treated with skepticism, but they also feed off of the energy to inflate their egos.  You just never know what is really going on here.  Is it all staged?  Is it real?  Is it just a TV audience making fun of a psychic?  Finally you have this new breed of TV psychics, the reality show psychics.  These are the real pieces of work, these are the ones who really ham it up and feed their egos.  Again, its just entertainment, and that's obvious.  But these psychics eat it up, they love the limelight. 

The problem here is that we just don't know if they really are psychics, if they're just actors, if they're psychics who are exaggerating their abilities, etc.  Like I said earlier, my boss is one of these reality show psychics.  I work with him regularly and know him pretty well.  He is a real psychic.  However, he's also the epitome of what you would expect a sell-out actor to be like.  He's famous and he knows it.  He totally plays the part and hams it up big time.  I don't have any proof, but I suspect that he exaggerates his skill. 

The point is, TV psychics aren't the best examples of the psychic experience and you shouldn't base your opinion of psychics on sylvia brown.  They may have some skill, but they are exploiting and embellishing their abilities for material gain.  They could help the people that they help without being on TV.  My boss was a very successful psychic detective for 20 years before going on TV.  He helped a lot of people.  He actually probably helped more people before TV, now he's always so busy running around to photo shoots and show tapings that he can only help a few people.  He barely ever does readings any more.

It's really distressing for me to hear people bash psychics because of readers like Sylvia Brown [I know the original poster didn't bash all psychics, s/he was just commenting on Brown].  Sylvia Brown knows how to manipulate her ability for maximum gain.  The bookshop I work in sells a lot of her books and the overall theme isn't one of spiritual enlightenment, but rather of all the hot-button psychic topics that sell books (dead people, ghosts, "the other side", prediction, secret societies, etc. etc.).  I like to keep in mind something that I once heard a "channeled being" say, "Just because someone has metaphysical abilities, doesn't mean they are spiritual people".  Personally I feel that using psychic abilities without developing a spiritual practice (which doesn't have to have a name, a spiritual practice is simply a quest to understand and experience the mystery of existence and your relationship to it) is detrimental to one's life.  You don't do anything but hurt yourself and your experience of reality that way because its to easy to fall victim to the traps of the ego.  You just block yourself from growth.

Sorry that was long winded.  And I didn't mean to offend anyone.  I've just had a lot of experience with psychics and the common understanding of what they do is very mislead.  Also, while seeing a psychic for occasional guidance when you feel blocked and unfocused is great (getting a second opinion can be a great idea), its very important that you understand that you have all of these abilities and the best reading you can ever get is from yourself.  Learn how to hear your own wisdom and guidance, it will be the best thing you ever do with your life.

[lonecrow66]

Charlatan would be a better word than fraud. 

[thirdeye26]

I have nothing against Sylvia. I have never seen her, never spent any money for a reading, and I have read only one of her books, "The Other Side." I still don't know whether I ought to believe most of what is written in that book. I have done a bit of Googling though, and I came across this interesting site. I guess anybody with the slightest interest in Sylvia ought to have a look at it.

http://stopsylvia.com/