Sylvia Browne

Sylvia Celeste Browne was a well-known American writer and psychic medium.

A medium is someone who claims they can talk to spirits. Browne said she could see angels and heaven. She also said she spoke with a spirit guide named Francine. She could feel different "vibrational frequencies" around her. Browne became a famous face on television and radio. She appeared on shows like The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live. She even had her own online radio show on Hay House Radio.

Browne's career involved many different businesses and books. In 1986, she started a church called the Society of Novus Spiritus in California. She also ran the Sylvia Browne Corporation. Her business manager said her companies earned about $3 million every year.

Browne was a very busy author too. She wrote about 40 books on paranormal topics. Some of these books were even on The New York Times Best Seller list. She often worked with other writers like Lindsay Harrison and Chris Dufresne to finish them. Many people wanted to hear her speak and follow her work.

Browne grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Her father, William Lee, worked in many jobs like mail delivery and jewelry sales. Her family had many different religious backgrounds. Her mother was Episcopalian, and her grandmother was Lutheran. Her father was Jewish. Browne said she began seeing visions when she was only three years old. She said her grandmother was also a psychic medium. Her great-uncle was also a medium who liked to talk about UFOs.

Not everyone believed that Browne had special powers. Many skeptics, or people who doubt such claims, criticized her work.

A famous critic named James Randi challenged her to a scientific test. He offered a one million dollar prize to prove her abilities. Browne did not take the challenge. She also faced legal trouble in 1992. She pleaded no contest to securities fraud. This happened because of how money was handled in a gold-mining business deal. She died in 2013 at the age of 77.

Many people studied Browne's predictions to see if they were true. Some of her claims were about missing people, but they were often wrong.

In one study, researchers looked at 115 cases. They found she was not mostly correct in any of them. For example, she made a prediction about a girl named Shawn Hornbeck. She said he was dead, but he was actually found alive years later. Another study looked at cases involving missing children. They found her predictions did not match what really happened. These mistakes led to much debate about her work.