SHE saw faces of people in her dreams who later died. At age five, Sylvia knew she had special powers, “but I prayed to God to take away this knowledge,” because she did not want to be the bearer of bad news.
Fifty years in-between, Sylvia Browne is America’s # 1 medium who hooks up the dead with the living. “People don’t die, they just cross over” she says. “We think heaven is above, no, it’s all around us!” Relatives of the dear departed come to Sylvia asking all sorts of questions.
One of them wants to know if there was foul play involved in her aunt’s death. Suddenly Sylvia’s saucer-like eyes take on a glassy stare and the next second she declares: “yes there was foul play involving an older, dark haired male with ruddy skin.” When asked how her aunt was killed, Sylvia says, “in the chest area and also the back of her head.” She even knows the killer, “But I can’t say his name, you should go to the police and talk about a man with the “R” initial.” She continues, “when you smell lavender or rose, you’ll know your aunt is coming to you.”
Wow! How does Sylvia know what’s going on around us? How does she know about our dead relatives? Are they really hovering all over us and wanting us to know that they are there?
“I hear them, I see them instantly,” she says about the dead, “and by the way, I don’t call them dead, they are living! They can tell us a lot we don’t know,” she says and it’s here that Sylvia as the medium conveys the messages of the dead to their living relatives. She tells a widow and mother of four, “your youngest sees your husband, ask her and talk about it.”
Have we all not been raised in a superstitious society where black magic, ghost busters, powerful pirs, devil worshippers, fortune-tellers, star-gazers and paranormal people claiming to possess extraordinary spiritual powers have touched our lives at one time or another? As kids we called spirits and got great kicks out of it. But I also know of some who took this very seriously and like Sylvia Browne claimed to be good mediums and in constant touch with the dead. Spooky stuff, wouldn’t you say?
Why go far? Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto had their special pirs who said they knew the unknown and wrought God’s blessings for their power-greedy clients wanting forever to cling to the prime-ministerial chair. Baba Multani was one. He lived in a small house in the periphery of palaces, villas and exclusive estates of Pakistan’s rich and the famous of Chak Shezad in Islamabad. BB would run to the Baba each time she got into a soup. While the Mian would make a dash for the hills where his saint lived each time he needed a booster shot. Littered across the American landscape are a string of peddlers with their supernatural powers spooking the daylights out of lonely people desperate for the unknown. Be it a city, town, resort or a hamlet, sure enough, you will come across a storefront with ‘Psychic’ bannered boldly atop offering to do a ‘reading’.
What in the world is a reading? It’s like meeting a long lost friend whom you loved deeply, making your soul glad to make contact again. This friend seems to know everything about you, accepts you for yourself, and knows what to do about anything that troubles you, explains Sylvia.
“When I am doing a reading, I psychically reach into your soul, pull out your Chart, and then recite back to you those things you have already planned for yourself. There is nothing mysterious about this; it is simply my gift from God, one that I have perfected to a very high degree.”
For a reading, a physical presence is not needed. She does most of her readings by phone, counseling people all over the world. A reading lasts about thirty minutes. Initially she will tell you what she sees about you and about the people around you. Then you may ask questions on any topic at all. Sylvia often answers your questions before you even ask them.
But hey, she doesn’t come cheap. Sylvia charges $700 per 30-minute reading. And should you have a question for Sylvia’s spiritual guide Francine, then you shell out another $100 per question. All I can say is that the question had better be good for the money you’re coughing up.
Sylvia’s philosophy of life is based upon research into past lives, via hypnosis and through the information obtained from thousands of hypnotic regressions, and hundreds of trance sessions, she establishes the fact of reincarnation as the key to understanding life. Yet this belief is never forced upon anyone who does not want to hear it. She says, “Take with you what you want and leave the rest behind.”
She believes strongly in God who has given her this special gift. “It does not matter if you believe in God, because God believes in you,” she tells the agnostic Americans.
Don’t we all struggle with the meaning of life, why are we here and why there is so much struggle to living. Sylvia’s spiritual guide Francine gives her some answers: “Life is designed to be a school for the soul, where each of us lives out the lessons we have planned for ourselves in order to become a better person; the world is a place where God can experience all knowledge firsthand. Each person makes a contract with God to experience certain facets of life, as though we are the reporters and God, the Editor.”
Many ask her “If life is for learning, why is it so hard at times?” Sylvia puts it simply: “ it is only through adversity that we can test the strength of our soul. In other words, the pain of life allows us to really know, by direct testing, what it means to be a good and spiritual person.”
Want to know Sylvia’s hairy predictions for the next 100 years? Here are some:
* People will be able to simply “walk out” of their bodies upon death
* Aliens will begin to show themselves in the year 2010, they will not harm us, they simply want to see what we are doing to this planet. They will teach us how to use anti-gravity devices again, such as they did for the pyramids
* Peace will last from 2050 until 2100, and then I see nothing beyond, which could mean “the end will come like a thief in the night.”
* Toward the end of things, the veil separating our world from The Other Side will thin, so much so that most people will see decease loved ones and speak with their Spirit Guides
It’s all in the family. Her grandmother, Ada, was an established counselor and healer. This familial psychic talent has also passed on to her son Christopher as well as his daughter Angelia. “There seems to be a genetic component necessary to create exceptional psychics. Anyone can learn to play the piano, but not everyone is a concert pianist,” says Sylvia.
SHE saw faces of people in her dreams who later died. At age five, Sylvia knew she had special powers, “but I prayed to God to take away this knowledge,” because she did not want to be the bearer of bad news.
