Sylvia Celeste Browne was an American author who claimed to be a medium with psychic abilities.
26 Facts About Sylvia Browne
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Sylvia Browne appeared regularly on television and radio, including on The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live, and hosted an hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio.
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Sylvia Browne grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, the daughter of William Lee and Celeste Shoemaker.
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Sylvia Browne's father held several different jobs, working at times in mail delivery, jewelry sales, and as a vice president of a major freight line.
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Sylvia Browne was raised mostly as a Catholic, and was said to have an Episcopalian mother, a Lutheran maternal grandmother, Jewish father, and relatives from all these faiths.
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Sylvia Browne claimed she started seeing visions at the age of five, and that her grandmother, who she claimed was a psychic medium, helped her understand what they meant.
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Sylvia Browne claimed her great-uncle was a psychic medium and was "rabid about UFOs".
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Sylvia Browne professed the ability to speak with a spirit guide named "Francine", and to perceive a wide range of "vibrational frequencies".
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Sylvia Browne authored some 40 books on paranormal topics, some of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.
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Sylvia Browne hosted her own hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio, where she performed readings and discussed paranormal issues.
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Sylvia Browne appeared in a 1991 episode of Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories.
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Sylvia Browne appeared as herself on the CBS television soap opera The Young and the Restless in December 2006.
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Sylvia Browne made many public pronouncements which were subsequently proven false.
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In 21 cases, the information predicted by Sylvia Browne was too vague to be verified.
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The study concluded that the media outlets that repeatedly promoted Sylvia Browne's work had no visible concern about whether she was untrustworthy or harmed people.
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Sylvia Browne attracted media attention seven years after her death, when social media users claimed that a prediction in her books referred to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Fox News noted that she was "often criticized for her predictions"; Sylvia Browne garnered disapproval from others who claim to be psychics.
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On September 3,2001, Sylvia Browne stated on Larry King Live that she would prove her legitimacy by accepting the James Randi Educational Foundation's One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge to demonstrate supernatural abilities in a controlled scientific test.
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On May 16,2003, in another appearance on King's show, Sylvia Browne said she had not taken the test because Randi refused to place the prize money in escrow.
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Randi responded by mailing a notarized copy of the prize account status showing a balance in excess of one million dollars; Sylvia Browne refused to accept the letter.
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In late 2003, despite challenge rules that money could not be placed in escrow, Randi announced that he was willing to do so for Sylvia Browne; she did not accept or acknowledge this offer.
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In 2005, Sylvia Browne posted a message online that she had never received confirmation of the prize money's existence, despite Randi's claim that he had a certified mail receipt showing Sylvia Browne's refusal of the package.
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Sylvia Browne pleaded no contest to securities fraud and was indicted on grand larceny in Santa Clara County on May 26,1992.
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Sylvia Browne took the surname Brown upon her third marriage, and later changed it to Browne.
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In March 2011, the Society of Novus Spiritus, the Gnostic Christian Church founded by Sylvia Browne, announced that she had suffered a heart attack on March 21 in Hawaii, requesting donations on her behalf.
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Sylvia Browne died on November 20,2013, aged 77, at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, California.