StopSylvia email: "oh no"

[RSLancastr]

Received the following email at StopSylvia.com, with the subject "oh no":

well, id like to start by saying that of course, u have my permission to publish this if ur still doing that because OBVIOUSLY ur doing a public service. for ppls own good. and we want to know, as im sure u know. i was a dyed in the wool, hardcore believer just 24 short hours ago.......ive believed her FOR YEARS........because ive never had the money to even entertain a private reading or tickets and airfare to a 'show'. apparently, as long as u have no direct contact with her, its easy to choose to believe......but of course EVERYONE wants that one thing she obviously cant give...her personal psychic attention, because she HAS NONE. i started reading your site, like others im sure, who were true blue fans of hers, with no reason to doubt, (of course she cant be right all the time, but im sorely disappointed in myself that i SO READILY overlooked the 9/11 'oversight' and the missing child she said had passed.); idont like to change my notions once ive got them pretty decently arranged. or so i thought....apparently, THOUGHT never really entered my mind, i was just hoping and desperate for SOMEONE to give me SOMETHING to believe in. raised by fundamentalist christians, i had long ago rejected all things christian, and was desperately searching for a spiritual framework i could base my beliefs in and begin to teach my children. O U C H !!!!! this **** hurts dude!!!!! it really does, yet i DO feel rather sheepish, because damnit, ONCE AGAIN, its all a big hocus pocus bs story , designed for greedy profit and nothing else. OF COURSE IT IS!, D U H !!!!, i feel so stupid, but i realize conning ppl is how she makes her living and i dont feel that badly about myself. after all, im not the ******* here, im the person who got taken and that makes her the taker-THE *******, as far as im concerned.;, but it does SUCK to be rooked , and not even very well-rooked...just plain old chose to be burned! refusal to acknowledge the obvious..........i really love how after every time my shakey 'beliefs' start to become something i think i can finally hold on to, relax , and BELIEVE IN, BAM, the rug gets pulled right out from under me and all my stupid little notions go spilling and breaking on the floor, irreparably damaged and i have to start over with nothing. im not complaining, quite the opposite, i CERTAINLY do not want to blindly hold onto something wrong, just because i once believed, or was told it was real! and i dont think im a wishy washy person prone to believing what just ever im reading, or who has the best website,. there is just NO WAY to read all the evidence you have compiled, without asking a single person to believe a single thing of it, if they dont wish too, and continue on blindly. i WAS blind because i had only the montel show, which is perfect for keeping us fooled. its the live act she cant maintain because there is NOTHING to maintain. i never liked the fact that francine was aztec and named 'francine'. but, thats just me, i have a hard time with 'channelers' who 'channel' 'info' from 'entities' named george and ralph and frank, or francine in this case. idk, it just never sat well with me. but i chose to overlook that, and now i have to say THANK YOU to you. you showed me EXACTLY what i was searching for...THE TRUTH. no i didnt like it, it was bitter and hurt to swallow, but BY GOD, thats what i WANT and my hats off to you for taking me there! please dont EVER believe youre not doing good. YOU ARE, because i had no way of gageing her truthfullness, nothing to compare, and no known ppls stories of experiences with her...fortunately, or unfortunately(it feels), i had to throw out all my notions of psychics, spirits, ghosts, and 'over there' this year when my friend died of suicide and SOMETHING got me researching certain subjects on the web that caused me to no longer be able to buy any of it. i have no doubt that some ppl truly believe they are psychic, and are truly receiving messages from entities who SEEM to be from the other side. however, ive had to drop my belief in what they are actually experiencing.....now i no longer believe ANYONE is in touch with the other side;, there are a few channelers i wholeheartedly believe, but theyre not exactly speaking directly to me! lol.... anyway, thank you again, you are the one person who did what all my books and all my webinars, and my thousands of hours logged on since 1995 when i first started researching couldnt do. you gave me that which i sought above all else, the truth about a little bit of reality, and thats good enough for me.


love,
[name]

Nice!

Edited by LashL: 

Edited to properly mask profanity in quote above. Please see Rule 10 re: the auto-censor.

 

[Ed Baehr]

Bravo Robert!
It's great to show someone truth through careful and even handed investigation. It's even nicer to see someone who appreciates your hard work enough to write to tell you so.
I've been a fan of yours since a certain Sunday paper a few years back when Kaz was your focus. "Don't mess with my Mom" still rings in my head.
Feel satisfied and proud.
Ed Baehr

 

[ExMinister]

Nice work RSL! And I am so happy for her. That is such a hard thing to experience, though.

Now maybe she just needs to read Demon-Haunted World like I did. It sounds like she already has a strong leaning toward finding "truth" regardless where it leads her, and that is how I was. Not sure what she means at the end about channelers or whether she does or doesn't believe some of them are genuine.

At any rate, it sounds like she has a healthy attitude.

 

[RSLancastr]

Bravo Robert!
It's great to show someone truth through careful and even handed investigation. It's even nicer to see someone who appreciates your hard work enough to write to tell you so.

Indeed. I appreciate every email like this I get. They tell me that my approach works - at least some of the time - and that is immensely gratifying.

I've been a fan of yours since a certain Sunday paper a few years back when Kaz was your focus. "Don't mess with my Mom" still rings in my head.

Ah, TAM 4! That would have been what, 2005 0r 2006.

It was my very first TAM, and I was presenting a paper!

Very intimidating.

I stayed up the entire night before the presentation, reworking the Word and PowerPoint parts of the presenation at a nearby FedEx/kinko's until about an hour before the presentation.

"Don't Mess With My Mom" was one of the two "morals" I drew from the Stop Kaz story. I was surprised at the reaction it got.


The other "moral" - demonstrated clearly by the above email, was

"One Skeptic CAN Make a Difference".

Feel satisfied and proud.
Ed Baehr

You're very kind, Ed. Thanks.

 

[not_so_new]

Well done.... And thanks for doing something I should be doing on my own.

I often feel I should put up a page to try and fight the stupidity I see all around us.

It's got to be very hard being a lone voice in the wilderness but if others like me would join in it wouldn't be a lone voice, I feel a little guilty about that.

Anyway, thank you very much for the work you do and you should take a little time to reflect on this one small victory.... and remember it's a huge change in one person's life so that really does count for something.

Oh and if you respond to her maybe invite her to this forum? It might help her to see some other viewpoints and it really sounds like she could find some company around here... if she can learn how to use paragraphs that is.



Congratulations again.

 

[Scopedog]

RSLancastr,

Your posts about the e-mails you get are my favorite thing on the randi.org forums. Don't ever stop.

 

[RSLancastr]

Well done.... And thanks for doing something I should be doing on my own.

I often feel I should put up a page to try and fight the stupidity I see all around us.

It's got to be very hard being a lone voice in the wilderness but if others like me would join in it wouldn't be a lone voice, I feel a little guilty about that.

Anyway, thank you very much for the work you do and you should take a little time to reflect on this one small victory.... and remember it's a huge change in one person's life so that really does count for something.

Oh and if you respond to her maybe invite her to this forum? It might help her to see some other viewpoints and it really sounds like she could find some company around here... if she can learn how to use paragraphs that is.



Congratulations again.

Thanks, n-s-n!

And yes, wouldn't it be a powerful thing if we each put together a web site examining the evidence about some topic/claim about which we feel strongly?

I say "go for it!!"

RSLancastr,

Your posts about the e-mails you get are my favorite thing on the randi.org forums. Don't ever stop.

Thanks, 'dog!

Sadly, there are others here who disagree with you on that - some of them vehemently so.

 

[RSLancastr]

Well done.... And thanks for doing something I should be doing on my own.

I often feel I should put up a page to try and fight the stupidity I see all around us.

It's got to be very hard being a lone voice in the wilderness but if others like me would join in it wouldn't be a lone voice, I feel a little guilty about that.

Anyway, thank you very much for the work you do and you should take a little time to reflect on this one small victory.... and remember it's a huge change in one person's life so that really does count for something.

Oh and if you respond to her maybe invite her to this forum? It might help her to see some other viewpoints and it really sounds like she could find some company around here... if she can learn how to use paragraphs that is.

One reason I seldom invite my correspondents to read my threads about their emails here - or even to visit the forum in general - is that I do not want them to read critiicisms of their email.

It would be all-too easy for them to read even somethng as tame as your "paragraphing" comment (or even your remark about "fighting stupidity") and come away with the misimpression that I had posted their email here in order to invite ridicule of it.

 

[Senex]

One reason I seldom invite my correspondents to read my threads about their emails here - or even to visit the forum in general - is that I do not want them to read critiicisms of their email.

It would be all-too easy for them to read even somethng as tame as your "paragraphing" comment (or even your remark about "fighting stupidity") and come away with the misimpression that I had posted their email here in order to invite ridicule.

One of your biggest problems, Robert, is you don't juice. When did you stop watching late night TV?

 

[RSLancastr]

Actually Senex, I have considered juicing (although i would buy Jack Lallane's juicer before I would throw money at Montel).

Fortunately, I have learned to eat - and even to enjoy - many fruits and veggies in their non-juiced state (Oregon, evidently), and so do not need a juicer to help me eat my MDR of them.

 

[RSLancastr]

My reply to the email in the OP:

[name]:

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts with me.

It is always gratifying to hear from someone who has found my web site to be useful.

I think it would take a tremendous amount of personal integrity for a "dyed-in-the-wool" believer in Browne to read (and actually consider) what is found on my site. I would imagine that many/most of them stop reading after the first article or two, rationalizing their doing so by labeling me a mere "hater".

You not only took the time to read and consider what I have written - a difficult step in and of itself -but you took two more bitter (I would imagine) pills:

1. You allowed the evidence to take you to the rough realization that you had been taken in by Browne.

2. You wrote to me to tell me so.
​

Admirable steps, all of them.

Again, my thanks.

Best regards,

Robert S. Lancaster

Founder & Webmaster,
www.StopSylvia.com

 

[ExMinister]

Excellent! Someone told me recently that being willing to abandon something you believe in based on strong evidence to the contrary, and then to consider alternate ideas, is very brave. I had never thought of it that way. I hope she keeps searching for "truth."

I have the Jack Lallane juicer. A friend just gifted it to me. Seems to be a good one.

 

[RSLancastr]

Excellent! Someone told me recently that being willing to abandon something you believe in based on strong evidence to the contrary, and then to consider alternate ideas, is very brave. I had never thought of it that way.

Was that "someone" a bearded guy who wears a lot of Purple?

I have the Jack Lallane juicer. A friend just gifted it to me. Seems to be a good one.

But remember, Montel's is not a juicer, it's an emulsifier! (he stresses this (rather nebulous) point many times during the infomercial.

 

[RSLancastr]

Here is his or her reply:

if your website was unfair in any way, i think i would have latched onto that immediately, as i was not trying to see your point of view at all! however, the evidence is OVERWHELMING, and extremely compelling. ive had to revamp so many of my views this year alone, that im nearly a completely different person. all part of finally growing up, i guess....believe me....i was DRAGGED HERE KICKING AND SCREAMING, as i held onto immaturity with both hands, and both eyes shut! oh well, its not foolishness that im after, and im sure ill keep on falling, but its so much easier to get up and not look back now! AGAIN, thanks for giving me what i was looking for.....its SO HARD TO FIND!!!


[name]

 

[DuvalHMFIC]

Thanks for posting the letter. Your website and Bob Carroll's Skepdic were the first two skeptical sites I'd ever found. I had fun last summer going through pretty much everything you had posted on stopsylvia.com

I was already a non-believer in psychics, but it was nice to actually have some "bang behind my buck", so to speak, when people asked me why. And then, of course, I found this place through all the great skeptical podcasts.

Keep doing what you do, it's appreciated. I'm surrounded by believers, but I'm chipping away at them with stuff like this letter, slowly but surely.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Excellent! Someone told me recently that being willing to abandon something you believe in based on strong evidence to the contrary, and then to consider alternate ideas, is very brave. I had never thought of it that way. I hope she keeps searching for "truth."

A friend of mine once spoke with a Trappist monk who said he believed it was important for him to totally throw out completely his concept of "God" every other year or so.

It sounds brave, but IMO if he ever really did that, he'd be an atheist. (Not that he'd be the only atheist "man of the cloth" if he did!)

Actually, based on what my friend thinks, the real goal was probably just to be, rather than to be either a theist or an atheist. . . . (Of course, in my book, if you're not a theist, you are an atheist.)

 

[ExMinister]

Here is his or her reply:

She really might enjoy Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World now. Just a thought.

A friend of mine once spoke with a Trappist monk who said he believed it was important for him to totally throw out completely his concept of "God" every other year or so.

It sounds brave, but IMO if he ever really did that, he'd be an atheist. (Not that he'd be the only atheist "man of the cloth" if he did!)

Actually, based on what my friend thinks, the real goal was probably just to be, rather than to be either a theist or an atheist. . . . (Of course, in my book, if you're not a theist, you are an atheist.)

I never thought of it as brave as applies to me, though I can see how there is an element of bravery to being not only willing to consider relinquishing cherished beliefs in the face of evidence, but being brave enough to actively apply skepticism to those beliefs, looking, deliberately, for where they might not hold up, willing to go where the process leads you. It was just a new way of thinking about it that hadn't occurred to me.

Me, I think maybe I just have a masochistic streak, ha. After the whole Browne disillusionment thing I started to question everything and I was pretty vicious about it, I read everything skeptical and scientific I could get my hands on and I continue to read. It created a steady process of elimination. I figured whatever was left standing would be my belief system. This is true but at the same time another type of structure has slowly built up in place of the old one, and it turns out to be very similar to Carl Sagan's.

So I don't know if I was brave, but I was definitely determined.

 

[RSLancastr]

She really might enjoy Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World now. Just a thought.

Already done, based on your earlier mention of it, thanks!

I would post here the email I sent to her about that, but I think I will run it by you via email first for your permission to post it here, as it is largely about you.

So I don't know if I was brave, but I was definitely determined.

Perhaps being brave is largely a matter of being determined when it would be far easier to be otherwise.

 

[RSLancastr]

Ex-M, I just PM'd it to you.

 

[ExMinister]

Ex-M, I just PM'd it to you.

I'm really glad to think you could use my story to encourage someone else. Feel free to reprint it here and/or use it whenever you like.

Just one little thing I would clarify: I hadn't had face to face contact with Browne since my early 20s and as a minister lived out of state, though we did have phone calls with Sylvia, who we considered more a good friend than a spiritual teacher. I think she considered us friends too. That made the sense of betrayal so much worse. In our early 20s we did work/volunteer in the office and had the face-to-face contact then. That level of detail is probably beyond the scope of the email though!

At the time you also recommended I read Faith Healers and Flim-Flam by James Randi, which I did and which I also enjoyed. And I did spend a lot of time on this forum, which also strongly influenced me. For many, many reasons. This forum, for all its faults, has so much to offer. But for some reason it was Sagan's book that made me see the New Age world I had been immersed in so long in such a profoundly new way.

At any rate, I hope the book helps her. Thanks for running it past me first!