Why do you assume that "being psychic" would mean "always right"? If that was an established fact you might have a point. I see no reason to doubt that you could be psychic and still get things wrong.
We have to go with what Sylvia says. Always go with the claim.
At the time she is delivering a psychic message, there is no doubt. She is right
at the time.
You keep missing this point: There is a huge difference between saying "I may be wrong, but it looks to me as if Shawn Hornbeck is dead" and "Shawn Hornbeck is dead" (but after which she admits that she was wrong).
All I have to know is that reception of the messages is of a psychic nature. I don't have to know if the content of the communications is accurate or erroneous.
How do you tell if a message is of psychic nature, if it is erroneous?
Again, where does it say that whatever a psychic message is, it would have to be 100% reliable?
And no, Sylvia Browne's demeanour at the time of passing on a message isn't a good enough reason to make that assumption.
It isn't her demeanour at the time of passing on a message. It's her assuredness at the time of passing on a message.
At the time of her passing on a message, does she give any indication that she is fallible? No, she does not.
It is only after the fact that she admits that she is not always correct. But she doesn't say
when she is doing it if she is wrong or not.
A far better explanation is that she isn't rationally responding to the fact that she's not always right.
Why? We know she is a calculating crook, so why would we assume she is not rational?
So maybe she is not in doubt? But that doesn't prove anything other than her overconfidence. But to say that we don't need to even bother asking if she is psychic - we just have to contrast her confidence with her self-admitted error levels.
She isn't in doubt - when she says it.
If you say that you are right most of the time, speak as thought you are right all of the time, but there's no way to distinguish whether you are right or not until it's too late, what good are you?
Precisely. She certainly can't claim to be any worth as a psychic.
What do you mean "too late"?
You never know if something was right or wrong until after the fact!
That is why you don't get it: You don't understand that it makes a huge difference
when psychics like Sylvia admit they are wrong. They only do it after they are shown to be wrong.
So, I would still be pretty good if my actual success rate was better than chance (let alone 80%).
I could be even better/more useful if I was less full of myself and told my clients to simply assume what I said would be true. But those are different questions to the one asking if i was, indeed, psychic.
But that is one of the attractions of psychics like Sylvia Browne and John Edward: Their confidence that they are right. No wishy-washy insecurity - these psychics
know that they are right (until proven wrong, of course). They ooze confidence in their own abilities - and that is highly convincing to their fans.
Let me give you an example of how convincing Sylvia is to her fans: After the show, when we were standing outside the venue, there were a couple of young women walking by us. I caught what they said about Robert: "What a nasty man!"
They clearly had no intentions of going to StopSylviaBrowne.com and check for themselves. They just gobbled up Sylvia's opinion of Robert and made it their own. They did it, because they are so used to Sylvia being right that they have stopped questioning anything she says. Sylvia can say anything, and fans like that will believe it.
