A Browne Fan Speaks Up

RSLancastr said:
I thinkI said that, while I think that Randi is snarky/curmudgeonly at times, I found that easier to understand after just a small taste of the negative emails he has been reading for decades. Randi has been a hero of mine for 30 years, but I still cringe sometimes at his words in his commentary, and in his TV appearances.

When my Susan met him in person, she was astounded at how kind and sweet he is. After having seen him on TV, that was not what she expected.

Now, she loves him to pieces!
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Oh yeah, Randi can resemble someone's cranky grandpa having a hissy fit after a neighbor steps on his lawn. On TV and in his commentaries, when someone says something that Randi thinks is stupid or weird, wow, can he pounce on it. He lets it fly- both to sympathetic skeptics and woos. Gives it to them with both barrels.

It's funny how nice and caring he can be on one hand and how snide and sarcastic he can be on the other.

Kinda like someone else I know. :D

In his defense, it's very understandable to lose patience with these people. You so thoroughly debunk it and it's so obvious to you what the truth is- and they keep coming back with the same stale and tired arguments in favor of it. Over and over and over again, the exact same thing. You find yourself repeating the same thing to 50 different people. Of course you have times when you just want to shake them and tell them to open their eyes. You have patience and understanding and take the time to explain things to the first person, second, third, fourth, fifth- but after some time, you just have very little energy to spare.

I'm not usually a very sarcastic person and even I would want to mock the OP's letter. The idea that it can't be a lie because Sylvia would never put it into a book if she didn't believe in it...:covereyes. It can't be false because it's in a book? She can't lie because she can't lie? I don't even understand this argument.

I'd have half a mind to fire back "So you believe in hobbits, Willy Wonka and Luke Skywalker, do you? They are in books! Do you know what 'lying' is!? Have you ever heard of that concept? Are you aware that every human being on Earth can do it, including Sylvia Browne?"

headscratcher4 said:
Well done you, as the Brits say. What impresses me, however, is that she was willing to look at evidence. Sure, she started out firmly in Browne's court and sure she's not over believing in psychic bull pucky yet, but she looked at the evidence about Browne that you provided and that which speaks for itself (the videos) and came to a sane, rational and, hopefully, predictable conclusion: Browne's claims don't stand up under the most superficial scrutiny little less any sort of hard look. Now, your writer doesn't believe that Browne is a psychic.

Bravo you. Bravo her. Bravo for the small bit of hope it encourages me to have in humanbeings in general.
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Seconded! :D

RSLancastr said:
I replied to the email in the OP, and received a reply to it today. I don't have the correspondent's permission to publish it, but here is the gist of it:

She talks about how she read one of Browne's books when she was at a very depressed time in her life, and it spoke to her. (Of course, Browne's con is designed to appeal to just such a person.) The correspondent went on to say that she had examined the evidence on SSB, YouTube, and other sites, and had come to the sad conclusion that Browne was not what she clailmed. She said that she was shocked by Browne's behavior on the video clips, and found it hard to believe that the woman in the clips was the same woman who had written that wonderful book (I told her that whether Browne actually writes those books is a matter of debate). She went on to say that she still believes in psychic abilities, but not that Browne has them. If she gives me permission to publish this most recent email, I will place it, and my reply to her first email, on SSB, and here in this thread.
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Wow, exactly what that other foreign woman said. And what that college instructor who fell for her said. And actually what a lot of your other correspondents have said.

Isn't amazing how it's always the same story over and over again?

It rarely happens that an otherwise stable and emotionally well person takes an interest in Browne.

Sure, can happen and does happen- but rarely.
 
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I constantly tell everyone that I have brobdingnagian genitals, but nobody believes me. Now I know that I must write a book and credibility shall be mine!
 
Thank you silver birch. I'm reading it, very interesting from their point of view. Living here in the skeptical universe as long as I have, I forget that there are people out there that don't know the same things I do about these people.
 
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