JREF Swift Blog

Sylvia Browne: One Cool Cucumber

In the video below, Mark Edward, skeptic/mentalist/magician/activist, along with several of his friends, attends a Sylvia Browne performance on December 29th to commit activism, performance art, or sabotage, depending upon your view of such things. When given a chance to grab the microphone, Edward complains to Sylvia of being plagued by “spirits,” the names of whom are Opal Jo Jennings, Farrell —

“These are all your guides you’re thinking of,” croaks Sylvia.

“No, they’re not guides,” he says.

“Yes they are,” croaketh Sylvia.

“They’re dead.”

And that’s true. They are dead. Opal and Terrence Farrell are just two of the skeletons rattling around Sylvia Browne’s crowded closet, and she knows it. The way she responds to Edward’s mentioning their names says a lot about the lady’s mindset when she’s onstage. Take a look at the whole confrontation, and stick around for a quick analysis after the jump.

You’ll notice that the video also contains the voice of a mystery saboteur, impudently demanding that Sylvia tell him the exact age at which his father died. Sylvia at first says he was “young,” and then qualifies her answer by explaining that “young” could mean any age up to 73 (at least). For this, she receives a round of applause.

Mark Edward gets the mic a moment later. He speaks for only a moment before Browne apparently realizes that she is, as the video has it, being “punked.” Her voice betrays nothing. (I assume her face doesn’t, either, but the video’s too lo-fi to tell.) Hip to what’s going on, she immediately tries her best to keep Edward from speaking without alerting the assembled masses that there’s anything unusual afoot.

She is unsuccessful. In addition to Opal (a six-year-old whom Browne had claimed was sold into “white slavery” in Japan after her 1999 abduction, but who was actually killed in her Texas hometown) and Farrell (a firefighter who died on 9/11, but whom Browne predicted was alive and well and would be rescued within a few days of the tragedy), Edward quickly name-drops Linda McClelland (a grown woman whom Browne had incorrectly predicted was still alive after her abduction in 2002) and Holly Krewson (younger woman, same story). “They’re dead,” Edward says, “and they’re pissed.”

There is a brief silence, and in it Browne must be weighing her options. Should she acknowledge what’s going on and defend herself — her record, her gifts, her livelihood, her legitimacy as an emissary of the spirit world? Or should she keep up appearances, and continue to pretend that Mark Edward really is a man plagued by spirit-voices?

She pursues the latter tack. Never mind that her cynicism will be apparent to anyone who knows the names Edward is dropping. In her quick calculations, I believe Browne is reflecting that people who know things have never been her target demo. When Mark Edward affects a fainting spell after summoning up the specter of the Sago mining disaster, women scream; many assume they’ve just witnessed a spiritual anomaly in a performance full of them. Sylvia Browne knows otherwise, but she’s not talking.