Email: "Sylvia and a 9/11 Widow"
Browne does a phone reading for a fireman's widow.
Published: May 25 2008
Written by: Robert S. Lancaster
"Every day since my phone reading I have wondered how I could be that taken in."
- Email author
Background
Recently, a woman wrote to me and said that reading the Sylvia Browne and 9/11 article on this site had made her physically ill. This woman's sister-in-law had lost her fire-fighter husband on September 11, 2001, and had subsequently had a phone reading with Sylvia Browne - a reading which had shattered her belief in Sylvia Browne's "abilities."
At my request, this woman put me in contact with her sister-in-law, who subsequently sent me her first-person description of her contact with Browne.
That email, from the widow herself, is reproduced below.
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The Email
Here, with the author's permission, is the email. At her request, I have changed the names mentioned. I have also removed other pieces of identifying information.
As always, the email is merely one person's account.
From: [] <[]>
Date: Thu, May 22, 2008 1:26 am
To: []
Mr. Lancaster,
[...]
Phyllis [] told me she emailed you about my Browne experience. Thank you for your comforting words about people being taken in by her. Every day since my phone reading I have wondered how I could be that taken in. When Phyllis told me about your web site I spent two hours reading the horrible stories on it. It might make me sound like a bad person but I'm feeling less gullible knowing other people were taken in like me.
I am going to try to give you my story in my words but I may stumble some. I still grieve my exhusband even though I remarried. Sam will never leave my heart. My only request is that Sam's name and my name are not posted in any article you make.
[...]
Going back a long time I need to share that my mom died when I was ten of breast cancer. She went fast considering how long she would live today with the disease. The speed of her transformation between healthy wonderful mom to sick mom was too fast for my siblings and I to understand. I didn't get to tell her goodbye because my dad sent us to stay with family while she was having a mastectomy from which she didn't recover. After that I was the oldest girl and with my siblings being little I needed to "be strong". I don't remember the exact date but one day in 1998 I found a copy of Sylvia Browne's book at a closeout sale. Her writing about the dead never leaving us was what I wanted to hear. I wanted my mom to be watching me as a guardian angel. What person doesn't want to see their dead family again? She takes advantage of that I think.
In 1999 I tried to get a phone reading with her. They kept putting weird conditions on a scheduling me for the phone reading. Her staff wanted deposits of different amounts and strongly encouraged me to go to her classes, like public speeches, which were not in my budget or convenient. When I couldn't do that stuff her staff stopped calling me back. One thing they did say was that she was booked for two years. I dropped it.
I married Sam on [], 2000. Sam and I had dated for a year before that and he was the best boyfriend because he really wanted to help me put my grief for mom in the past. Sam was very spiritual but I don't know how he felt about Sylvia's books when I kept buying them and talking to people about her. At the time I was trying to get a phone reading with her, while we dated, he warned me about people who gain from another ones grief. I should've listened to him. We loved each other completely. We planned to have children at the end of his probie period but we didn't suceed.
On September 11 2001, we were glued to the television like every person in the nation. He had just been placed in a station house maybe ten weeks before 9/11. I think because of that newness he wanted to make good impressions. He was not scheduled to work that evening but he took a call for someone who couldn't come in because they knew a firefighter at ground zero. Almost as soon as he got to the station they had a call to an industrial fire. Everyone was on edge because of the days events which contributed to false urgency in getting to the fire. There were rumors that the terrorists would start fires in chemical plants to poison cities. They rolled out their ladder truck and chief's truck which was just an SUV. No one is sure even know what happened. The lights were on on the vehicle and they went through an intersection when another vehicle coming across the intersection broadsided the chief's truck. It hit Sam's side. He died forty minutes after the crash of punctured lungs and a shattered pelvis. I know he suffered as much as I wish he hadn't. Because of it being the worst day in American history the accident didn't get publicity. It did get noticed on a legislative level when they tightened the procedures for emergency vehicles needing side airbags.
That and the day my mom died were the worst in my life. I went into serious depression. I'm not proud of what I did but I attempted suicide using otc sleeping medication. I was found and saved. Not more than four months later, I contacted Sylvia's people again because I needed to know Sam was with my mom. Her staff was the same at first telling me I'd have to go to her readings or classes. I blurted out of frustration that my husband had died "recently" and the lady asked when. I said September 11th. That was like a magic date because the assistant said she'd call me right back and did four hours later asking when I could do a phone interview. I said anytime and within a few days the call was scheduled. I realized that the price they gave me was less than they did before and I asked about it. They told me a higher-up had authorized a lesser charge because of my husband's recent death.
Our phone conversation started with Sylvia offering a blessing or something. I didn't understand what she was saying and interupted her to ask her to say that again. It seemed to annoy her which I thought was strange. She asked me to verify that he had died on September 11th and I said yes. Then she asked if he "was a civilian"? I didn't get what she was asking because I have only heard that term used in the mlitary sense. I told her that and she said, "No honey. Was he a fire fighter or police officer or..." I cut her off and said he was a fire fighter and she said, "I was going to say that's what I'm getting because I see the boots and yellow coat. That's good. That's what I'm being shown." She started talking and talking without letting me answer her questions or add information to her 'reading'. Then she said the thing that sunk my heart. "Dear, he knew when he went in that he wasn't coming out. That was his destiny and he knew that." She told me he had helped "people get down the stairs." and had died peacefully because he had fulfilled his destiny and that's what we're all here to do. I didn't know what to say. What do you say when you realize that this medium is making it up? I told her that he wasn't at the WTC or any other target on 9/11. She said, "I know he was in the tallest building." What?! I told her she wasn't understanding me because he was no where near the east coast on September 11. She got quiet and said, "But you told me he was a fire fighter didn't you...and he died on 9/11. " I confimed that that was the case but that he'd died in a car accident on his way to a fire in [] on 9/11.
I didn't expect to be called a liar but that's the impression she gave me. She said I must have been giving her the wrong energy. When I told her that I didn't think that was it she said she must be talking to the wrong person. I dont' recall her words exactly but there was something about me being one of "those people" who are "trying to mislead her" which was ironic. She got angry and flustered to a point where she said the reading was a set-up and hung up. I started bawling and called my best friend who came over immediately. Before she got to my place there was a phone call from the assistant and he said that I was a liar and I'd better not ever call again. I can't tell you how much I was sobbing by the end of that call and I never heard a word again. I expected to hear something when I cancelled payment on my card the next day but not even then did they call me.
Sylvia Browne is evil. Any grown woman who uses grief to do what she did and does is evil. I am over the moon that you are exposing her scam. I need to go take a break from this. Good night.
[]
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Analysis
I think it is pretty clear what happened here.
I agree with the sister-in-law who, in her initial email to me, said that in her opinion, Browne "wanted to have some link to the tragedy."
It fits in with the other things Browne pulled in regards to 9/11, some of which are documented in the aforementioned Sylvia Browne and 9/11 article. I believe that Browne desperately wanted to have a story she could tell in her books, and in her lectures, about supposedly connecting someone with a victim of the terrorist attacks of that day. Her staff evidently thought this woman was it, and inadvertently set Browne up to look very foolish.
Of course, if Browne was truly psychic, she would have realized that before this woman corrected her.
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Conclusion
My thanks to this woman for sharing her story. It was obviously not easy for her to do. But, as she said in a subsequent email:
If it prevents some grieving person from falling into her trap then it will be worth the painful memories.
My thanks also to her sister-in-law "Phyllis" for letting me know of the story.
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