Psychic Sylvia Browne, Las Vegas Sun, July 13, 2001

Psychic Browne sees through the skeptics Lisa Ferguson Friday, July 13, 2001 | 9:21 a.m. Bring on the skeptics! Sylvia Browne isn't bothered by them. In fact the "psychic and spiritual teacher," who is a familiar face on the TV talk-show circuit, welcomes them -- and their raised eyebrows. "I think you've got to be skeptical about everything," says Browne, who hosts a pair of shows (her first ever in Las Vegas) tonight and Saturday at Santa Fe Station. The latter will be aired as it happens for a pay-per-view cable broadcast -- her fourth show of the kind. During the show she will take questions and psychically read viewers via the telephone, the Internet and from audience members. A regular guest on "The Montel Williams Show" for more than a decade, the 65-year-old Browne has also appeared on "Leeza," "Larry King Live" and "Unsolved Mysteries," among others. A lecturer and author of several best-selling books ("Adventures of a Psychic," "The Other Side and Back: A Psychic's Guide to Our World and Beyond"), Browne figures she's psychically read "millions" of people since going pro 48 years ago. Besides being able to see into the future, Browne also lectures about such issues as life after death, reincarnation, angels and "spirit guides," ghosts, hauntings and other unworldly matters. "If you don't have a natural skepticism, I think you're a dud then," Browne, in a recent phone call from Los Angeles, says. "I say to people, 'Don't just listen to what I say. You can take with you what you want and leave the rest.' " Browne understands the eyes rolled at her profession, especially given the proliferation of scam artists posing as psychics. "It's so awful trying to swim upstream with all of the goofy things that are going on anymore," she says, likening it to the early days of medicine when quack doctors "just came in and bled somebody" and claimed to have cured them of their ills. "It just makes you feel so bad because you just try to legitimize something that really is legitimate. You've got all these goofs running around." Browne does not endorse any psychic hotlines or similar products and has previously sparred legally with a tabloid magazine that boasted a psychic on its staff who shared her name. "They're very cagey. They spell it Silvia Brown and (said), 'You've seen me everywhere on television. Please call 900 ...' But people are smart enough to know that's not me. You just can't stop them. I've had lawyers on it. Montel (Williams) tried to stop it, but you can't." That's not to say Browne doesn't make money from her own business ventures. Besides lecturing and making appearances, on her website (sylvia.org) she advertises private psychic readings, via the telephone and in person, starting at $700 per session. That money, she says, helps fund Novus Spiritus, the organization she founded in 1986. She trains ministers of its churches to help spread her philosophies. Browne, who is ardent about her spirituality, was raised Catholic. According to her website, Novus Spirtius is her "monument to God, a forum to express the joy and love that is God -- with no fear, no guilt, no sin, no hell and no Satan." "You've got to realize I support three churches and 22 people on staff, plus about 50 ministers," she says. "Instead of having my church support me, I support my churches." Browne says she also does a great deal of pro-bono work for charities, the poor and the elderly. "I've always been a Robin Hood (type of) person," she says, "and I tell my ministers the same thing. We make money over here so we can go over here and be free ... You have to make money somewhere to put it elsewhere." Browne also works free of charge on unsolved missing persons and murders cases. She says she has about 250 such cases sitting on her desk waiting for her attention. She claims to have information about a case currently making headlines, that of missing Washington, D.C., intern Chandra Levy. The woman has been missing since April, and it was recently reported that she had a relationship with California Rep. Gary Condit, who has been questioned by authorities about her disappearance. But Browne is not telling (at least not publicly) what she says she knows about the case, explaining only that she has been "asked" about it. "I will just tell you this much, they'd better look very closely at (Condit)," she says. Mostly, though, the questions Browne says she's usually asked are about affairs of the heart. "The No. 1 question is always, 'Who's Mr. Right or Ms. Right?' The world could be blizting, falling apart and it's still" the one she's most often posed, she says. And there is no question Browne won't answer, including the exact date a person is likely to die. On Williams' talk show, she says, the host often warns audiences that if they don't really want to know such an answer, they shouldn't ask Browne the question. So what, then, does Browne predict for the remainder of the year? "I don't care if they say whether we're in a recession or not, we're not," she contends. "I do see a recovery of the stock market, and I think we're going to see better times ahead because everybody is bracing for inflation or recession or whatever it is, and it's not so."