Psychic (?) Sylvia Browne

An aspect of supernatural TV that has yet to be really discussed in class is the Television psychic. Miss Cleo, John Edwards, and Sylvia Bwne are a few memorable TV psychics. While I don’t have much personal experience watching Miss Cleo’s infomercials or John Edwards’s daytime show, I have seen Psychic Sylvia Browne on Montel.

For those of you who haven’t seen her, or don’t know who I’m talking about, Sylvia Browne is a self-proclaimed psychic with dyed blonde hair and distractingly long fingernails. Her voice is coarse and gives the impression of years of cigarette abuse. She’s always very blunt and doesn’t cater to the qualms of the audience with insincere reassurances.

Montel is in its last season, and therefore Sylvia is soon to be off the air. Fortunately for Browne, her popularity far outshines Montel’s hour-long talk show. She has published thirty-eight books (which are all available on her website, here) and has been a New York Times #1 best-selling author. Interestingly enough, Browne has a master’s degree in English (but from where, I’m not sure).

Browne also has her own hypnosis-training center and her own church, called Novus Spiritus, where "The way of all peace is to scale the mountain of Self. Loving others makes the climb down easier. We see all things darkly until love lights the lamp of the Soul." (If I’m scaling the mountain of Self, when/why am I coming back down?)

It never worried me that Browne could be a fraud, mostly because I’ve never seen her claim anything too serious on Montel’s show, as well as the fact that she seems so harmlessly prolific (books, church, lectures, etc.) that she must be doing something right. However, looking back on it, it seems like these two aspects are big “DUH’s.” Montel? Credible talk show? (If there is such a thing) Also, if you’re out to make money, you’re going to do simply that, make money (38 books, ahem).

Regardless of Browne’s validity, she’s still a pill and a ton of fun to watch. I stumbled across this list of Sylvia’s predictions for 2000-2100, and it also gave me the idea for this blog post: . My favorite prediction is the last one.

In the sociological/cultural context of the American TV psychic phenomena, one of the main questions I have is: Why is America turning to psychics to solve its problems? My assumption is that with faith in religion (as opposed to faith in God) declining (cynicism abounds, especially in the wake of such things as the Catholic priest scandals), people are looking elsewhere for answers. If a person appears to be able to successfully communicate with the dead and to see the future, then she must have access to great knowledge and can therefore provide great hope and easy solutions.

That’s the other thing, easy solutions. In America’s fast-food culture, we don’t like to wait. We want to know and we want to know NOW! Sylvia and her ilk provide us with these quick fixes. For good or for bad? At least it’s entertaining.


Here is a link to a Sylvia Browne/Anderson Cooper YouTube Video.

Here’s one with an opposite tone...watch...