I agree with Guin. So I believe will just have to part points of view here then Cemetery Savior. As I said, in my life, I’ve seen several times that people attempt to transcend the loss of a loved one, by rational thought and any other means at their disposal, only to have their very core shaken and the ability to discern something like the practice of these charlatans, dashed. They feel they so need something in the waken of what’s happened to comfort them even one iota, that factuality (IE: that psychics are obvious frauds) alludes them. Regardless, it’s still good to see another perspective. Thanks for the explanation.
And although I like what little I know of Montel, since I don’t watch his show, I do hold him somewhat culpable in these kinds of affairs as well. Just because you need a shill to sell your airtime space as warranted, doesn’t mean you should ever do so at the expense of those less fortunate.
What’s up with Montel having the old whore on his show every week when she’s as full of shit as the New York City sewer system and Michael Moore after All You Can Eat Chili Dog Night combined? My favorite moment was at the beginning of 2006 in the Schrödinger’s Miners Incident where she happily informed everybody she’d been predicting all along that the miners were alive just as the media informed, then when the news was broken on the show that media was wrong, the miners was dead, well, that’s what she’d said all along (you read that right, it just didn’t make sense).
I see no analogy twixt this old bitch and a priest. No priest I’ve known charges people thousands of dollars for a one-on-one counselling or spiritual guidance session and no reputable priest claims to have supernatural powers beyond the transubstantiation bit (and even that comes from God). And she does most definitely do harm. Hell, the old cow gives medical advice- how she hasn’t been arrested for this I’ve no idea, but on LARRY KING she told a woman “your problems are all in your kidneys” when the problem was a blood pressure and migraine headache condition. Another time she said “I can see that your husband died of a blood clot… in the heart or in the brain” and the caller said “That’s right! He died of an aneurysm in his brain!” and even Larry King was impressed (not hard of course, especially on days when there’s no new development in Anna Nicole Smith’s son’s autopsy), not one of the three genii (King, Browne or widow) seemed to realize that an aneurysm is the exact opposite of a blood clot.
To some extent I say caveat emptor on psychic services. (I went to a psychic-New Age convention in downtown Montgomery once in the 1990s where two dozen self proclaimed psychic guides were unable to leave the convention center and attendance was dismal because none of them had foreseen that Montgomery was going to have a freak blizzard; two of the psychics commented on the young lady I was going to meet at work and how we would go on travels and have children within a very short time. However, I went there with the notion “these people are carnies”, willing to be disabused if one of them hit something on the head [and there were a couple of dead-on hits, but I honestly think I could have done better just by cold reading and I think I would have at least considered the whole “unmarried at 30 and just made a King & I reference- I’m somehow skeptical the love of his life is gonna have breasts*” thingy. There were people there in tears, however, who had braved the ice and frozen roads to come and get assurance their beloved was trying to communicate with them, and these bastards took their money and of course got a collect call right away, the news always being good for apparently there is no hell to these folk- just once I wanted to hear John Edward say “Yes, your wife is in the room… and man is she ever a cold and bitter bitch… she keeps saying she still hates you for that night in Cleveland and by the way your youngest son belongs to your friend Larry”.
Sorry, point is Sylvia bad. And this is the 271st week of her not honoring her promise to Randi (which I saw her make when it first aired- there was no out of context agreement).
I think (and always have thought) Sylvia Brown (and her fellow bottom-feeders) is a sack of shit and phony as a, phony as a . . . well, you fill in the blank.
What I’d really like to comment on is Montel Williams. Out of the many talk show hosts I’ve seen over the years and who ply their trade well or badly in order to get ratings (and remain on the air), I’ve always thought he was fairly moderate as they come, somewhat classier than most and at least middlin’ intelligent enough – at least to stay on the air.
What I’ve never been able to understand is how he could ever believe anything Sylvia Brown said or thought she was even enough of a ratings-draw to have her on his show once, let alone as many times a season as he does.
As bad as Ms. Hucksterberry Finn is, shame, shame on you Montel.
