Sylvia Browne on Montel Williams

[Mikemike2]

Damn! I keep hitting submit instead of preview. These buttons have to be moved further apart (or I have to be more careful)!

Also, lezlers, if you know a medium who could develop specific knowledge about someone they had not previously met, they would win $1,000,000 from the Randi organization. I have trouble understanding why any true medium would not collect this money. Even if they did not want it for themselves, think of the good they could do in the world.

** Spiritus Mundi **seems to be making a legitimate offer. Please let me know if you take him up on it.

[sturmhauke]

John Edward isn’t even a good con artist. He often fast-talks his victims with such things as, “So you had a relative named something like John, Joe, Josh, Jeremy, Jake, am I right? And you were close to this person?” Even with this verbal scattershot approach, he’s still wrong about significant details a good portion of the time. And I’ve only seen about 15 minutes of his show.

P. T. Barnum overestimated the time interval between births of cognitally challenged individuals by several orders of magnitude.

[Measure_for_Measure]

My favorite cold reading story involves Spurina (aka Kari Coleman) who played a psychic for a day for Penn and Teller’s Sin City Spectacular.

After doing a little reading, this actress managed to fool the public on her first day:

I was rolling the rest of the night. The standard stuff would hook them and then I would start making guesses based on my observations and their feedback. One person wrote up on a comment card that I was a terrific addition and amazing, and two people summoned the manager to tell him how I knew stuff I couldn’t possibly have known.

Home

[lezlers]

Spiritust and Mike,

I’d just like to say, you guys are very cool. Most people just post something nasty and then run away and don’t bother coming back, you guys are obviously open to actual discussion and I appreciate that.

Just to warn you, I’m going to be out of the country for a couple of weeks, so if I don’t respond promptly, that’s why.

Spiritus: I live across the country from you (Napa Valley, CA) so I don’t think any of the mediums I know personally would be able to meet with you face to face. For your first time, I wouldn’t advocate getting a reading over the phone, it’s just better to do it in person. I will definatly research through the church and find a good, quality medium in your area (Florida, right?) and connect you. I’m all over that!

Mike: I was not aware of that 1,000,000 thing, neither was anyone in my family, I don’t know why no one has stepped up to the challenge, but this I’m planning to find out as well.

If I don’t make it back on the boards, talk to you in a couple of weeks, feel free to email!

[Monty]

*Originally posted by lezlers *
[…] (i.e. Christians and Mormons) […]

Darn nice of you to make that distinction. Pray tell, what other incorrect prejudices do you hold which you state as fact?

[occ]

John Edward, eh?

I have three words to add to this discussion:

“Two first names.”

[Fingolfin]

James Randi mentioned Sylvia Fucking Browne in his recent weekly column:

*The ever-complaining Sylvia Browne — now into 200+ days of ignoring the JREF challenge — has chosen to use a direct lie (that’s fabricate, deceive, misrepresent, and prevaricate, to make it quite clear) when asked, on the MSN Live Chat site by a woman: “What ever happened to you and Randi, Sylvia?” She replied by saying, “I was ready for what he had to show me and he never contacted me!” Folks, this is a lie. As readers will know, I have been making every attempt to reach Sylvia Browne, here on the web page, by postal mail, by e-mail, by telephone. And I assure you that she has made no attempt whatsoever to reach me, or this Foundation. We are easily reachable, we always respond, and Sylvia knows this full well.

Ah, but now I learn that she’s opted to offer this most compelling reason for not being willing to fulfill her internationally-witnessed, live, on-air, promise to be tested by the JREF for the million-dollar prize. She says, “I don’t like people who don’t believe in God.” So she doesn’t like me? Hold on! Where have I heard that before? It was Uri Geller, who, when asked why he didn’t snap up the million bucks, told the interviewer that he, too, doesn’t “like” me.

Let’s get real here. If these folks don’t like me, what better blow to me would there be, than carrying off the JREF prize? Think about that…*

God that women makes me sick! She’s nothing but a second rate cold reader who prays on rubes to make a boat load of money! She lies, she cheats, she swindles, she makes up stories about peoples dead loved ones. Someone needs to lock her up and throw away the key!

:mad:

[D_Odds]

*Originally posted by Fingolfin *
God that women makes me sick! She’s nothing but a second rate cold reader who prays on rubes to make a boat load of money! She lies, she cheats, she swindles, she makes up stories about peoples dead loved ones. Someone needs to lock her up and throw away the key!

While I don’t like these people, I did take issue with Skepdic’s tearing into entertainer David Copperfield as he stood behind his shtick with a trick (David Copperfield can now add ‘liar’ to his list of credentials)

According to the Berlin bureau of Reuters, the American illusionist claims he predicted on February 17, 2001, what the winning numbers in the German national lottery would be on October 13, 2001. One of the oldest tricks in the mentalist’s bag is the sealed envelope reading trick. Yet, Copperfield must think the world is full of ignorant dupes, because he describes his psychic prediction in exactly the terms one would expect a mentalist to use in describing his trick…The lie? He said, “It wasn’t a trick.”

This guy makes his living as a magical entertainer. Yet Skepdic is upset that he’s playing the part. Unlike Browne, Edward, and others, he doesn’t prey on bereaved people; he plays Vegas and Atlantic City and TV specials. Don’t get upset when he doesn’t reveal his tricks.