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StopSylvia Email: "Confused"

RSLancastr

www.StopSylvia.com
RSLancastr
Joined
Sep 7, 2001
Messages
17,135
Location
Salem, Oregon
Got an email at SSB this morning with the subject "Confused".

Haven't gotten one like this in a while:

I just flicked onto your webpage and now I’m just confused and depressed. Why would you waste your time, energy and life in trying to bring down someone who is just trying to help and makes millions of people feel better, sleep better and wake up with hope.

How can you do this? Why don’t you just stop it and try to live your life as fully as you can. You’re not hurting Syliva Browne, or anybody else, only yourself by having this weird obsession with her.

I hope you can stop soon.
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I really need to put together that "Worst of Sylvia" section I've been meaning to create for so long now...
 
tell them to go see mama lisa phillips instead as she doesnt hurt anyone like sylvia does.

lxxx
 
S_Pepys, life is too short to spend more time on your posts. Welcome to my Ignore List. I use it rarely, but you've earned it.
 
Confused has a really strange idea of what "trying to help" consists of. Maybe s/he thought "trying to help herself to other people's money".
 
Madalch said:
Confused has a really strange idea of what "trying to help" consists of. Maybe s/he thought "trying to help herself to other people's money".
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Confused indeed. I replied, sending her a list of articles I suggest she read to better understand my position.
 
Perhaps you're not hurting Sylvia, but you do prevent some from being sucked in and spat out with a lighter wallet. To me, that's a good thing.
 
Welsh Dean- S_pepys criticized Robert's personal friendship with a psychic named Mama Lisa in another thread. He (or she) wondered why Robert was so critical of Sylvia Browne but not of another psychic who might be argued to be doing the same thing as Browne. Robert, if I am recalling correctly, argued that Mama Lisa didn't do the sorts of readings Browne does, such as readings for the families of missing people and murder victims.

And in this thread, S_pepys made another snide remark about Robert's friendship with Mama Lisa, after which Robert had enough.

Hope that clears it up.

As for "Confused", you can tell her that I once personally saw Browne tell a woman with nearly life long mental illness that she would be cured within two years (or perhaps Browne said one year- I don't remember exactly). The poor woman burst into tears of joy, which was just heartbreaking.

It doesn't take much insight or intelligence to see how that is incredibly harmful and just the opposite of "helping".

If she gives hope, it is false hope.
 
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RSLancastr said:
Got an email at SSB this morning with the subject "Confused".

Haven't gotten one like this in a while:



I really need to put together that "Worst of Sylvia" section I've been meaning to create for so long now...
Click to expand...

When i see an email like this, devoid of any fact, and spewing a lot of " Why" i always wonder why these people cannot make their case.

I mean if someone was trying to say james randi was doing something similar, i wouldn't e-mail them about how great a guy he is and how he loves puppies and kittens. I would e-mail them refutations of the claims made.

It seems to me once you get to the point where your just saying " Come on stop being a jerk." you should look into if you really have evidence for your claim that the person is a jerk. They may very well be, but if that is the case, you can both call them a jerk and show them that they are wrong.
 
sinclairmcevoy said:
Perhaps you're not hurting Sylvia, but you do prevent some from being sucked in and spat out with a lighter wallet. To me, that's a good thing.
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If I'm not hurting her, or if she is not at least worried that I might, why has she sicced an attorney and a Private Investigator on me?
 
Why would you waste your time, energy and life in trying to bring down someone who is just trying to help and makes millions of people feel better, sleep better and wake up with hope.
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There. That's what I thought he or she was going to say at first! :)

sadhatter said:
When i see an email like this, devoid of any fact, and spewing a lot of " Why" i always wonder why these people cannot make their case.

I mean if someone was trying to say james randi was doing something similar, i wouldn't e-mail them about how great a guy he is and how he loves puppies and kittens. I would e-mail them refutations of the claims made.

It seems to me once you get to the point where your just saying " Come on stop being a jerk." you should look into if you really have evidence for your claim that the person is a jerk. They may very well be, but if that is the case, you can both call them a jerk and show them that they are wrong.
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You are right. But many people just aren't used to thinking in those terms.

For example, how can the emailer possibly know that she is "just trying to help?" And does the fact that she might help millions of people sleep better and give them hope guarantee that her philosophy has any truth to it? Of course not. And if there is no supernatural source to it, is that something you want to know? Or do you not care, just as long as it makes you feel better?

I cared. But people don't automatically look at it that way. And seriously, how many of us had any real training in skepticism and critical thinking before college? OK, well, maybe a lot of you guys did, but I didn't. And I was a liberal arts major and made it through 3 years of college without any training in this kind of thinking! I got my first real exposure to it here. Sad but true.
 
ExMinister said:
There. That's what I thought he or she was going to say at first! :)



You are right. But many people just aren't used to thinking in those terms.

For example, how can the emailer possibly know that she is "just trying to help?" And does the fact that she might help millions of people sleep better and give them hope guarantee that her philosophy has any truth to it? Of course not. And if there is no supernatural source to it, is that something you want to know? Or do you not care, just as long as it makes you feel better?

I cared. But people don't automatically look at it that way. And seriously, how many of us had any real training in skepticism and critical thinking before college? OK, well, maybe a lot of you guys did, but I didn't. And I was a liberal arts major and made it through 3 years of college without any training in this kind of thinking! I got my first real exposure to it here. Sad but true.
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I have a similar experience.

I state this first bit from time to time, but up until about 6 years or so ago i was hip deep in woo.

Now i must make a statement before the next bit.

I am a very open guy, my name, where i live, my sexual views, etc. Very few things embarrass me. That being said....

What i don't say as much, is i used to be a huge sylvia fan.

And it wasn't for good reason, she just seemed like the nice vaguely christian older woman, that many of my friends " Cool" mom's were ( when i was a teenager of course, lol.). I liked psychics, she seemed cool so it fit.

But i was never of a ...defending her type. Not because i don't like defending what i believe in, as a matter of fact it is one of my favorite hobbies, but because i just legitimately didn't run into any criticisms of her. The net was fairly new when i was in high school, and any of my friends either thought the same way, or just smiled and nodded.

On a suggestion in regards to NWO stuff ( " Have you ever looked at the other side of the argument?" ) , i ended up coming here. And it was quite the mind **** to see sound logical refutations of almost everything i have ever believed in.

I had always been a logic kinda guy ( one of my old favorite ghost books, remains one of my favorite books to this day...if i could find it or its title , lol. It had a selection of ghost stories from canada, and at the end of each one a promise that they would get to the findings at the end. Each story was stated in a way that would indicate it was real, to get the reader to believe. Once you got to the end though, it went through exactly how each hoax was perpetrated. ) , i just never really had access to that many logical materials. I could go into any library or store and buy a 2 dollar book of "real" psychic experiences from the discount bin, but it took the net to take off , and luck to kick in for me to be able to even know where to start looking to find the other side of the argument.
 
Here was my quick reply:

Ms. [name]:

Thanks so much for taking the time to write.

I think that if you take the time to read much of the site, you will understand why I believe that Browne should be stopped. She is making millions of dollars from lying to people, pretending to be psychic. Reading my site should show that there are far more reasons to doubt her claim to be psychic than there are to believe it.

If you'd rather I show you links to a handful of articles which best illustrate why I believe she should be stopped, just let me know.

For starters, go to the site's Articles page, and scroll down almost to the bottom, where you will find an article about "Opal Jo Jennings".

Please read that article, watch the video linked within it, and perhaps you will better understand my "weird obsession".

Robert S. Lancaster
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After coming here and starting this thread, I went back and sent her a lengthier reply with links to some pertinent articles.
 
Here was my second reply:

Ms. [name]:
Here is a (hopefully) more well-thought-out reply to your email.

1. I firmly believe (and the evidence pretty clearly shows) that Sylvia Browne is not psychic at all. (If you believe you have evidence that she IS psychic, I would be very interested in seeing it.) If I am correct in this, then she is a fraud, making MILLIONS of dollars from lying to people.

2. You say that she gives millions of people hope. She also takes hope away from people, in a cruel and heartless way, and hurts many. Here are a handful of articles on my site which show this very clearly:

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/montel_amandaberry.shtml

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/email_whatsylviatoldmygrandma.shtml

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/email_hewilllivealonglife.shtml

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/email_notagoodwoman.shtml

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/scorecard_missingmurdered.shtml

3. You say that the site will not hurt her. The truth is, her popularity and media presence have sharply declined since my site went up. how much (if any) of that is due to my site? Hard to say. She evidently wanted it taken down, and sicced an attorney on me:

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/browne_attempttosilence.shtml

My attorney replied:

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/response_attempttosilence.shtml

I never heard from the attorney again.

She also hired a Private Investigator to "dig up dirt" on me, hoping, it seems, to discredit me:

http://www.stopsylvia.com/articles/browneandthepi.shtml

So, whether the site has hurt her or not (and I have been told, by some in her office, that it has), she seems to want it shut down.

I have also been told by some in her office that when I nearly died of a stroke in 2008, she bragged that it was a result of her praying to her Goddess Azna. How...spiritual.

There is much, much more. Browse around the site and you will see.

Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. If you have any more questions or comments, please let me know.

Best Regards,

Robert S. Lancaster
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You know, i always wonder what would happen if your responded in kind ( using the emotional argument).

" Dear confused:

Why would i attack Sylvia for no reason? I have a busy life, not to mention a rather serious medical condition, if i did not think, for very valid reasons that she was harming the world, i would not waste time doing it. "

As an example.

As much as i know arguments of this nature are full of it, i can't help but wonder what the reaction would be if you answered the question in the content free way it was written. More than likely accused of being a jerk, or tossing out a canned response would be my guess, oh the irony.
 
sadhatter said:
What i don't say as much, is i used to be a huge sylvia fan.

And it wasn't for good reason, she just seemed like the nice vaguely christian older woman, that many of my friends " Cool" mom's were ( when i was a teenager of course, lol.). I liked psychics, she seemed cool so it fit.

But i was never of a ...defending her type. Not because i don't like defending what i believe in, as a matter of fact it is one of my favorite hobbies, but because i just legitimately didn't run into any criticisms of her. The net was fairly new when i was in high school, and any of my friends either thought the same way, or just smiled and nodded.

On a suggestion in regards to NWO stuff ( " Have you ever looked at the other side of the argument?" ) , i ended up coming here. And it was quite the mind **** to see sound logical refutations of almost everything i have ever believed in.
Click to expand...

I don't think I knew all this about you, 'hatter! Thanks for "coming clean" as it were. I'm trying to imagine your inner dialog when you stumbled upon the Stop Sylvia threads.

I had always been a logic kinda guy ( one of my old favorite ghost books, remains one of my favorite books to this day...if i could find it or its title , lol. It had a selection of ghost stories from canada, and at the end of each one a promise that they would get to the findings at the end. Each story was stated in a way that would indicate it was real, to get the reader to believe. Once you got to the end though, it went through exactly how each hoax was perpetrated. ) , i just never really had access to that many logical materials. I could go into any library or store and buy a 2 dollar book of "real" psychic experiences from the discount bin, but it took the net to take off , and luck to kick in for me to be able to even know where to start looking to find the other side of the argument.
Click to expand...

If you recall the name of the book, I'd like to hear what it was.
 
sadhatter said:
You know, i always wonder what would happen if your responded in kind ( using the emotional argument).

" Dear confused:

Why would i attack Sylvia for no reason? I have a busy life, not to mention a rather serious medical condition, if i did not think, for very valid reasons that she was harming the world, i would not waste time doing it. "

As an example.
Click to expand...

We'll never know, I guess.

I'll admit, there are times I'm tempted to snap back, but I don't think I've ever given in to that temptation.
 
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