How effective is/was "Stop Sylvia Browne"?

[John Jones]

FWIW, I can't recall hearing about SB until I read about Mr Lancaster's efforts to expose her.

Now that I have read them, I consider myself alerted. Well done, Mr. Lancaster!

 

[Nay_Sayer]

I wish there was a stop caputo. The site is a great read.

 

[RSLancastr]

Bummer. Sorry. Full disclosure: I have never watched that show.

Braggart!

Actually, Montel many times would state that Sylvia Browne was the only psychic he'd ever had on the show, intimating that this demonstrated his confidence in her "abilities".

 

[angrysoba]

I think it depends on how you measure success.

If you have managed to change anyone's mind so that they no longer give their money to a fraud then you have been effective. In my own small scale attempts to dissuade people from believing in foolish things I have been largely unsuccessful. However, it seems to me that you have testimonials to prove that you exposed Sylvia Browne's lies, at least to some of her marks. So you definitely deserve pats on the back.

I also seem to remember that when the Amanda Berry story happened your website suddenly received a massive boost in interest, perhaps because some of the newspapers discovered your website, which to me suggests that a lot of people who either did not know of Sylvia Browne, or knew about her and thought she was kosher, now know her as a lying exploiter of people's grief.

As far as being able to ultimately stop her ever conning anyone else ever again, I think it is too much to expect that. Con artists no matter how discredited will always be able to find new victims and some of those will not make it to your site. But to define success only in terms of her never being able to con a single person ever again would be an unreasonably high bar.

 

[Seismosaurus]

I'm not asking this to get high fives and pats on the back. I would really appreciate hearing all opinions, and any reasoning behind them.

Thanks,

-RSL

The first thing that entered my mind was to think about two factors.

First... do you have a hit counter on the site? Or visitor statistics from the host? Such a thing would let you gauge how many people the site is reaching.

And second... what's the balance of positive versus negative email feedback that you get?

If you get a large number of hits, and most of your feedback is of the "wow I never realised she's a fake!" then you've got a reasonable indication that you've made an impact.

Of course that's no guarantee of anything, but it could at least give you an idea.

 

[smartcooky]

She tried to have your site taken down, and she hired a PI to "dig up dirt on you", because you had the temerity to create a site that criticised her.

Well, this means she felt threatened by you and your site, so right there, you had an impact on her!

 

[Reno]

As I was reading through this thread, I was considering what my post would be. I think Wardenclyffe said nicely what I would have said, as did aggle-rithm.

Although most criticism of a fairly high profile psychic such as Browne, who has an established history, good connections, respected supporters and masses of wealth, will be mere insect bites to her, and in all probability would not 'stop' her, I feel it's important for as many different people/groups to keep exposing her shammery, as this may well have a cumulative effect on her profile. Even though the old saying is that no publicity is bad publicity, I don't adhere to that. Sure, Geller is still doing his schtick and Popoff is having a resurgence, but if people stand up and shout to the crowd that the King is in the altogether, then over time, more and more people will see the truth of the matter and then the scammers won't be quite as powerful as they are if left to get on with their business without being questioned.

So, did StopSylvia.com play in Browne's apparent decline in popularity in the past few years? Probably not enough to make any noticeable difference in her wealth and stature if the site was the only source of opposition to Browne’s propaganda. But Robert’s site has inspired a few people to take a different, more skeptical view on Browne, and perhaps they have influenced other people to have a look at the whole psychic world with more skepticism.

To make any real and lasting difference to Browne and her ilk, it will take an accumulation of people’s efforts over a long period of time. In reality however, I am sorry to say that I believe we are losing the battle, as I see more and more ‘psychic nights’ happening in my local communities that are always fully booked and sold out with people begging for tickets. We’re fighting, but there are more new believers attending psychic events than there are skeptics protesting against them. I personally fight the fight, but I am in the minority and most people see my own skeptical voice of reason as being close-minded and not normal.

I’ll continue to fight the fight. Without Robert’s steadfast work and his StopSylvia site, I am not sure that I wouldn’t have given up by now.

 

[Brattus]

If one person stumbled on the site while looking into Sylvia while dealing with the grief of a lost loved one, and your site spared one person from having their grief exploited and capitalized on, then it's a success. And I have little doubt it has achieved this.

Randi never "stopped" Geller despite showing him to clearly be a fraud on national television. It's buckets against a sea. But if a few people are saved from becoming victims, a few people become better critical thinkers and they spread that around, bit by bit there will be less room for this kind of nonsense.

No doubt RSLs site is very well written and indeed the perfect model for any future sites like it.

The bad news however is that base human nature supersedes reason every time.
In other words if you try to use reason and logic to comfort a grieving person over the loss of a loved one no matter how well presented it will fall on deaf ears.

Grieving people are at best a very small percentage of Sylvia Brownes business they are only the ones most talked about. The vast majority are people who are too lazy and too stupid to do the leg work to solve their own life problems.
They are willing to pay anything for someone else to make decisions for them.

The sociopathic shark that is Sylvia Browne feeds on that laziness and stupidity.
All the emails you get from the tragically stupid are always after the fact.
Logic and reason can not touch laziness or stupidity either.
I personally wish it could. But it can't

So long story short. SSB had no impact other than irritation to Sylvia Browne.
Actually discussing what impact SSB had on the Montel show is the exact thing I was writing about in the other thread.

Come on Robert you are falling for your own hype on here. You are better than that.
Take a step back. Take a deep breath. Give yourself a pat on the back.
You did what you could. It wasn't much, but far more than I could or would ever do.

It is time to move on to other subjects brother.
You don't have to create a site or listen to the yeses of your faithful followers.
Just read and add your valued insight to whatever thread you are in.

I hope you and your family have a great upcoming holiday season!

 

[Bikewer]

Unfortunately, believers tend to pay attention to believer-stuff, and to ignore contrary information.
This has been noted time again.... Right-wing folks only getting their news rom Fox, for instance.
Years ago, Procter & Gamble became the focus of right-wing Christian anger as the company's "Moon & Stars" logo was felt to be Satanic.
This was apparently hurting sales in various bible-belt areas. P&G spent millions on advertising to dispel the silly rumors.... To little if any effect.
Analysts noted that all the information to the contrary was ignored by the believers, who tended to only listen to their preachers and to community letters and bible tracts. They didn't pay any attention to normal media outlets at all.... Which is where the ads appeared.

 

[joesixpack]

Unfortunately, believers tend to pay attention to believer-stuff, and to ignore contrary information.
This has been noted time again.... Right-wing folks only getting their news rom Fox, for instance.
Years ago, Procter & Gamble became the focus of right-wing Christian anger as the company's "Moon & Stars" logo was felt to be Satanic.
This was apparently hurting sales in various bible-belt areas. P&G spent millions on advertising to dispel the silly rumors.... To little if any effect.
Analysts noted that all the information to the contrary was ignored by the believers, who tended to only listen to their preachers and to community letters and bible tracts. They didn't pay any attention to normal media outlets at all.... Which is where the ads appeared.

I agree that some believers are entrenched and invested in a belief, and it's almost impossible to ever reach them, but many people are fence sitters, people who may tend to believe in magic and psychics, but have some doubts. Sites like RSLancaster's are VERY likely to be read by them. Though it lacks some polish, the manner in which it lays out evidence and fact make it very simple for someone to come to the right conclusion. There are a LOT more people on the fence than you realize.

 

[scarlettinlondon]

i think it has had other effects too. probably also unmeasurable. I used to be a 'what's the harm' type of skeptic and used a live and let live approach.

Stop Sylvia led me to change my tack to a more active anti psychics approach and i now write letters, talk more openly to people about evidence, challenge psychic events and have definitely changed the views of some fence sitters - so they tell me, and their behaviour shows me that its true.

I hear my partner talking along the same lines to others now, and he was definitely pro psychics and quite religious. I would now define him as vehemently anti psychics and probably atheist, although it's difficult for Irish Catholics to openly give up on their religion. He's a bright chap and just needed someone to point out what was out there, he wouldn't have gone looking for it.

It's possible then, Robert, that there are a whole host of people like me, generally internet lurkers, who actively research these issues now and try to spread information that you don't even know about. For example, I have read every post you have written here in the past five years or so, you probably don't even recognise my user name, but you have had a profound impact on my thinking, and that started from the ss site. (The JREF influenced me even more, but it started with the SS site)

 

[Minarvia]

No doubt RSLs site is very well written and indeed the perfect model for any future sites like it.

The bad news however is that base human nature supersedes reason every time.
In other words if you try to use reason and logic to comfort a grieving person over the loss of a loved one no matter how well presented it will fall on deaf ears.

Grieving people are at best a very small percentage of Sylvia Brownes business they are only the ones most talked about. The vast majority are people who are too lazy and too stupid to do the leg work to solve their own life problems.
They are willing to pay anything for someone else to make decisions for them.

The sociopathic shark that is Sylvia Browne feeds on that laziness and stupidity.
All the emails you get from the tragically stupid are always after the fact.
Logic and reason can not touch laziness or stupidity either.
I personally wish it could. But it can't

So long story short. SSB had no impact other than irritation to Sylvia Browne.
Actually discussing what impact SSB had on the Montel show is the exact thing I was writing about in the other thread.

Come on Robert you are falling for your own hype on here. You are better than that.
Take a step back. Take a deep breath. Give yourself a pat on the back.
You did what you could. It wasn't much, but far more than I could or would ever do.

It is time to move on to other subjects brother.
You don't have to create a site or listen to the yeses of your faithful followers.
Just read and add your valued insight to whatever thread you are in.

I hope you and your family have a great upcoming holiday season!

This all sounds bizarre. You make a LOT of wild suppositions here that you are typing as if they are fact, not to mention that you are now a counselor and telling Robert what he should be doing? In YOUR opinion?

I've just returned after a time away and your posts suddenly seem very different than before. You had solid opinions and whether or not I agreed with them is beside the point. You suddenly sound as if you have infallible inside knowledge.

Seriously, are you all right? You don't sound quite like the same Brattus I used to read. I'm genuinely concerned here. You sound sort of like yourself but not quite. I've never seen you reach way out there and present your opinions so much as 'fact' before. At least I don't recall such.

 

[alfaniner]

I would think a #3 ranking in Google Search is pretty damned impressive.

 

[rjh01]

You definitely were bad news for Sylvia.
- You gave heaps of publicity to one of her false claims.
- She was removed from Montel after your site appeared. Was this connected? It probably helped.
- You have e-mails about people changing their minds about her. This is probably the tip of the iceberg. Many more people would read the site and decide not to buy her products.
- She reacted to your site. So her opinion to the question is yes. Like the Forums she created. They failed. They in themselves may have changed the minds of a few of the core followers.

 

[Minarvia]

I remember Sylvia, while on Montel, mentioning a "nasty blogger" and Montel assuring her that he would continue to have her on his show.

The fact that she also knew who you were in Vegas also shows that she took you very seriously, Robert.

I really think the Site did more than just a little bit. Even Anderson Cooper thought it was newsworthy. You probably have so many more people who did not write you that rethought their previous ideas.

I don't know that your site brought her down, but I feel pretty positive that it really slowed her down. Your name, as I recall Ex-Min saying (if it was her) that your name was almost used as a curse word in Sylvia's office, also speaks volumes.

 

[RSLancastr]

No doubt RSLs site is very well written and indeed the perfect model for any future sites like it.

Thanks, Brattus - you're very kind.

The bad news however is that base human nature supersedes reason every time.

"every time"? I'll grant you that "base human nature" has the advantage in such a confrontation. It might even win in the majority of such cases. But not "all the time". Although Reason is at quite a disadvantage, it can - and DOES win at times. I have seen it win.

In other words if you try to use reason and logic to comfort a grieving person over the loss of a loved one no matter how well presented it will fall on deaf ears.

More often than not, yes. But not always, Brattus. Not always.

Grieving people are at best a very small percentage of Sylvia Brownes business they are only the ones most talked about.

And exactly what orifice did you pull this assertion out of?

Whatever percentage of her business they are (and I'm not even certain how that pertains to the topic anyway), it has been my observation that a large percentage of the people who get hooked on psychics were initially drawn to the psychic because they were grieving over the death of a loved one.

The vast majority are people who are too lazy and too stupid to do the leg work to solve their own life problems.
They are willing to pay anything for someone else to make decisions for them.

Is the orifice somewhere in your lower torso? I'm getting a letter "A" here. does that mean anything to you?

All the emails you get from the tragically stupid are always after the fact.
Logic and reason can not touch laziness or stupidity either.
I personally wish it could. But it can't

Brattus, you and I have gone many rounds over your insistance on calling these people "stupid".

So long story short. SSB had no impact other than irritation to Sylvia Browne.

So, all of the people who sent me emails saying that they had been about to book a phone reading with Browne, but after stumbling upon SSB, had decided to NOT send hundreds of dollars her way, were.. what? Liars? Fictions I invented?

When people at her headquarters (reportedly) blamed SSB for a reduction in calls for phone readings (a reduction so severe, they thought the offices were going to be shut down), they were liars? Wrong?

Browne hired an attorney and a PI to gi after me simply because she was "annoyed"?

Actually discussing what impact SSB had on the Montel show is the exact thing I was writing about in the other thread.

Wondering if the site in any way contributed to the demise of that show is bad how, again?

Come on Robert you are falling for your own hype on here. You are better than that.
Take a step back. Take a deep breath. Give yourself a pat on the back.
You did what you could. It wasn't much, but far more than I could or would ever do.

Why does that not inspire me to pat myself on the back?

It is time to move on to other subjects brother.

...like learning to walk again, for starters.

You don't have to create a site or listen to the yeses of your faithful followers.
Just read and add your valued insight to whatever thread you are in.

I hope you and your family have a great upcoming holiday season!

Thanks, Brattus. I hope the same for you and yours.

-RSL

 

[RSLancastr]

I remember Sylvia, while on Montel, mentioning a "nasty blogger" and Montel assuring her that he would continue to have her on his show.

Really? I don't recall that.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of the time where she referred to me as "a nasty man, with a nasty blog" during her show at the Excalibur?

 

[Minarvia]

No, I'm not 100% positive, but I'm pretty darned sure. I may be wrong, of course, but I am almost certain that at the end of one of Montel's shows he addressed all the viewers regarding emails and phone calls and letters about Sylvia, and he assured everyone he would have her on anyway. I am also pretty certain that during Montel's talk she added in "nasty bloggers", too, and Montel said that it didn't matter, that he knew her and he would continue to have her on so people may as well stop questioning him.

I do hope that is on YouTube somewhere.

I do recall her calling your site a "blog" at the Excalibur, but I think she considered it a blog before that, maybe not knowing the difference.

I will try to find that Montel segment. If I'm wrong - sorry! But I think I may be right this time.

Edit - or not. I cannot find a clip. All I can find is posts and videos with people ranting. I will continue to look, however.

 

[lylfyl]

I can't say I ever saw links to your site outside the context of JREF.

Your site is probably most effective on the fence sitters. People who truly believe in her powers aren't going to be swayed by your arguments, if nothing else, just to save themselves the embarrassment of admitting that they've wasted money. Perhaps your thorn in her side was enough to throw off her game, so that she wasn't getting more new superfans.

I remember spending several days reading through your Stop Kaz site, I practically cheered when she left the country. I had no idea who Kaz was, but you had pointed out the blatant lies and impossiblilities in her story in such a way that I couldn't imagine people giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Sylvia already had such a large fan base that it was difficult to judge what impact you had. But then you posted several letters you've received of people who WERE convinced by your site.

IIRC You had grand plans of tackling other psychics as well - have you reached a point to take on the next name on your list?

 

[RSLancastr]

I can't say I ever saw links to your site outside the context of JREF.

Any place where Browne's "abilities" are discussed/debated online, you're likely to find at least one link to the site.

Your site is probably most effective on the fence sitters. People who truly believe in her powers aren't going to be swayed by your arguments, if nothing else, just to save themselves the embarrassment of admitting that they've wasted money. Perhaps your thorn in her side was enough to throw off her game, so that she wasn't getting more new superfans.

If many of my correspondents are to be believed, the highlighted bit is not true. I have received many emails at the site from people stating that they had been die-hard fans of Sylvia until they read my site.

IIRC You had grand plans of tackling other psychics as well - have you reached a point to take on the next name on your list?

Overcoming my health issues is currently my top priority, and likely to be so for some time, so nope.