Sylvia Browne
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| Mon, 12-10-2007 - 9:49am |
A while ago I was flipping through the channels and saw Sylvia Browne on Montell. She was doing her usual thing, giving readings for audience members....when and older lady stood up and told Ms. Browne that she too was a psychic and did readings for people. Some spiritual being had said to her that she was going to go to hell if she kept doing what she was doing. Sylvia got a 'that's b.s.!' look on her face and said, "No, no....not true!" She said, I have worked with priests, and they never said anything like that. So she reassured this lady to keep giving reading and things like that.
I'll give a little of my background here, to explain how I feel about this; I used to be into magick and stuff like that. I started hearing voices come out of my stereo, started hearing demonic 'choirs' at night. I would get scared and panicky if I was alone, because I often felt (knew!) that something was watching me. I was very depressed and suffered from severe anxiety. I had horrible, violent nightmares. I myself started feeling angry all the time, and violent.
All this was a few years ago. About a year ago my sister drug me to church with her. I went because she had been into magick and stuff like that too, and was having all kinds of problems like I was....but now she had been 'born-again' and was a completely different person. IN a good way! lol, not like the body-snatchers or anything. SO I went and POW! God met me there. I felt his presence...I repented....I just sobbed and sobbed uncontrollably for an hour as I felt his love for me, despite all I had done. I felt his spirit cleansing me and washing away my sins.
Now I am what you might call a fundamentalist Christian. I love the Lord, I love that he really did ransom me from death. I am a totally different person....My Lord Jesus fills my heart with peace, love, and joy.
So when I see people like Ms. Browne I feel sorry for her. I think that other woman was warned by an angel to change her ways. And now she probably won't. Can Ms. Browne predict the future? No! Can the demons she unwittingly comes in contact with? Yes! there is power in magick and fortune-telling, but it comes from demons.
Now that is just my opinion...but I have personally experienced both extreme sides of the spectrum. There is no darkness in God at all; he is pure and holy and good. Demons just do the devils work, to kill, steal, deceive, and destroy.

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I know Sylvia Browne is a big name and has been around for eons, and I've read a book or two by her, years ago, but I don't watch talk shows and I haven't kept up with her, just like I don't watch the John Edwards' show. I'm not personally sure of their "veracity" or whether their gifts are "real." Just no interest on my part to research them. I do believe in Divination and Magick as I am Wiccan. I was Christian for over half my life; I found I had to continue seeking, and I did so for many years before choosing my current path. I think we can all find the spiritual path and belief system that best nurtures our spirit, and hopefully helps us evolve and become better people. We have to do the work, the study, but we can find our best path. I tend to be a bit leery about anyone who comes into the "limelight" no matter what philosophy, religion, spiritual practice they are "selling." Marketing skills, IOW. ;)) Especially anything religious on TV or "selling" religion to convert me. I prefer to evaluate, go within to check against my own wisdom and insight and personal revelation. Use my own BS meter, IOW. :P I think we all have to be cautious. While I don't believe in demons or devils, I do believe each of us has Light and Dark energies within us. I think we need to keep them balanced, as the Tao Circle teaches. At the same time, I think evil is not an entity or separate energy of any kind, but is a wrongness we choose to express through our own actions and choices. Evil doesn't have to be within people, IMO, but people can let go of love, compassion, peace, integrity and not value others and all of life. And act in destructive and harmful ways toward others. Of course, in damaging others, they damage themselves, too.
Here's some links for others who may be interested in who Sylvia Browne is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Browne
Her personal site: http://www.sylvia.org/home/index.cfm
On John Edwards:
http://www.johnedward.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward
I don't find myself drawn to "professional" psychics, although I do believe we all have the gift of a "sixth sense" beyond our physical senses, but due to societal mental conditioning, and because there are charlatans out there, too, it's difficult to find someone with a true gift for divination. I have my own tools and I use them myself for help in seeing the "big picture" in my life. But divination practices are just tools to take a "snap shot" of energies working in my life. I still have to make the responsible and ethical choices and take action and face the consequences of same. We all do. ;)) For myself, I believe the only reality is the here & now. What I do, what energy I project, what I think and feel, how I deal with everyday life, determine my future. And from moment to moment that future can change, based on what I am doing in the present moment in time. The past is ancient history. It's gone. I can't do anything about the past. I can make choices in the here and now. That's all there is.
Blessings on your path. :)
Gypsy ✬
Hairetikos
Courtesy of: http://emergraphiks.tripod.com/graphics1.htm
"An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will"
She changes everything She touches,
and everything She touches, changes.
Blessings,
Gypsy
)O(
You said you were a Christian, can I ask in what denomination?
Yes, I am well aware of the variety. ;)) I was raised Catholic in a very devout family and culture. As a child it was very comforting as a religion. As an adult, I found much that I could no longer accept. I have also tried other more liberal and more conservative versions of Christianity. I found them lacking and male dominated and patriarchal. I do not believe the Divine puts one gender in power over another. Nor is the Divine interested in our sexual orientation (after all the Goddess and God made us who we are, with love and acceptance, after all). Nor in how many kids we have, if any. Or whether we marry or stay single. I came to realize that there are many religions, many faiths, that can be fulfilling and help us to evolve as better people. I have spent some years as a Zen Buddhist as well as some years as an Agnostic. I could never really be an Atheist, as I believe in the Divine. Maybe it's because I need to believe, like so many others, because it helps me function and gives me a worthwhile focus in my life. Many years ago now, after becoming disillusioned with many Christian versions of beliefs as well as Zen, I found that male domination was a big problem with me. I don't believe in a male god or a god-condoned male hierarchy. (Read Sue Monk Kidd's book, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter for a very well written journey to female spirituality). I came to understand through my own daughter's questioning, that the Goddess is alive and well. Together (for she was born to me, I believe, to bring me home to the Goddess and God) we studied, read and discovered what had been missing in our spiritual paths. Even though many Christian churches have pulled away from the domination of patriarchy, realize women are called by their God/s to be priests or leaders as well as men, I still am not nurtured or fulfilled or enlightened by worshiping only a male God. On my path, I am loved and nurtured and guided and protected by my Lady and Lord. I feel very blessed to have "come home" to Them. :)
This is what I call Karma. I believe in Karma and Reincarnation, and that Karma is what helps us re-balance and understand what we did wrong, so we can make restitution in future Reincarnations, or in the current lifetime. It is not a judgment. It is a tool to help us evolve as spiritual beings.
The Goddess and God created this realm and our physical reality here. We have light and dark energy, like we have night and day, hot/cold, hard/soft. We cannot have one without the other. They must co-exist for this physical realm and reality to exist, in my beliefs. Neither is useful without the other, as a control, a balance. They are part of one another. We keep them balanced by recognizing when it is a harmful motivation to act vs one of love, integrity, compassion. We are imperfect as a species, and learning to use the strength and energy of the dark to empower the light and move in a positive direction in our lives, is what "balancing" is all about. It won't happen in one lifetime. That is why there are many lifetimes, as many as we need. I believe the Goddess and God gave us these tools for our own evolution to become fully Spirit. In order to do that, we work with other spirits in various lifetimes, as friends, spouses, child/parent, male/female, doing work together, as teachers and students with one another. This is my truth. This is what I believe. We are deeply loved. We are not judged. But we will have to meet the consequences of our actions. Without doing so, we cannot grow and evolve.
I don't think the dark is evil or that the light must drive it out. They are a team that dance together, to enable us to evolve, meet challenges to move forward in our evolution as Spirit. I don't fear the dark. It is a place to meditate, to be calm, to go inward. Much like the seasons of Nature can teach us. The winters are darker, but not as a cover for evil to reign. The winters are a time for the earth to lie fallow, to rest, to ready itself for the yearly rebirth and fruitfulness. The Winter Solstice is the darkest night of the year, the day the Goddess gives birth to the God. As the season turns, the days begin to lengthen, as the young God grows from infancy, toward the growing light of spring and summer and the harvest of fall. To his death on Samhain (Oct. 31st) and then his rebirth on Yule, to begin the cycle again. A yearly lesson for us, in our own seasons of our lives, as the Three Faces of the Goddess: Maiden, Mother and Crone. In each phase/season of our lives, we have opportunities for growth of spirit, as we experience our own lives.
I believe, too, that the Goddess and God are within us. We can be connectors to the spirit realm, channeling and accepting Their power and tools, so that we may evolve. I don't believe in sin. We do wrong, yes, but it is Karma that helps us set things right, to improve, to learn. We are all in different phases of our reincarnations. Advanced spirits reincarnate, such as Jesus, Buddha, the Dali Lama, Gandhi, etc., to help us with a new perspective, a new tool as a way of thought, to evolve as Spirit. We are all at different stages of our evolution. We help each other learn the lessons through Karma as well as through interaction with each other. It is a great Dance that we can do with the Goddess and God and with each other. I believe we are meant to be happy here. To dance with joy. To laugh. Love. Live in peace and harmony. Each reincarnation and Karmic lesson can help us approach that kind of life. I don't believe in judgment. The Goddess and God help us to grow and evolve. We earn the consequences of Karma by our actions, both good and harmful. They do not punish. They keep sending love and the tools of Reincarnation and Karma, Magick, Divination, all of it. They wait for us to learn that we have the power to evolve within ourselves, Their gift to us. We have but to unite with Their power, as Connectors of Spirit to this physical realm, to be able to move forward to being fully Spirit. I think the world is still perfect, but we, as a species, have not learned how to treat it respectfully, let alone each other. We create all the suffering humans experience. It's not evil. It's that we are not fully evolved, and we are learning through our suffering, how to create a world where suffering is no longer needed. That takes lifetimes of work.
I am happy you have found an evolutionary path that helps you grow. That is awesome. There are many paths, many God/s, and each, when followed with integrity and intelligence and inner dedication, have the potential to help us as tools, to become truly Spirit. I believe all Gods are one God. And one God is all Gods. We all worship the Divine. We just do so with different faces on our God/s, different rituals and beliefs and dogma. Yet I believe it all leads us onward as Spirit. We just are looking through different spiritual lenses. And for me, that's fine. There is no one true path, IMO. They can all be true, if they bring out the best of who we are, and help us become better than we are. To grow. To be fully Spirit. :)
Blessings! :))
Gypsy ✬
Hairetikos
Courtesy of: http://emergraphiks.tripod.com/graphics1.htm
"An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will"
She changes everything She touches,
and everything She touches, changes.
Blessings,
Gypsy
)O(
Wow, your beliefs are so different than mine.
Hi, terlgerl.
There is much valid wisdom to be learned from each other, IMO. I think judging a religion based on the fringe extremists that may be within it, does a great disservice. Just because I have found a particular faith path unworkable for me, in no way means I judge it "less" because I left it behind. It doesn't work for me, but that doesn't make it is unworkable for others. We each choose our God/s and paths that best guide and nurture us. Each according to our needs And that is as it should be. ;))
Here is a link to more in depth information on Wicca:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/witchcra.htm
I believe it is the task of all us to learn to live in peace and harmony, not only with each other, but with this planet and all life upon it. Our species will learn or become extinct and the Goddess through Nature, will try again. It's really up to us, in all our diversity, of religion, culture, etc. We can do it, if we learn mutual respect, tolerance and appreciation of differences, as well become open to learning from each other. And each and everyone of us can do so, if we value our diversity instead of fearing it. All of us together contribute to what our world has become. Something we need to consider. And learn to work together to change things for the better. So I believe. So I hope.
Blessings!
Gypsy ✬
Hairetikos
Courtesy of: http://emergraphiks.tripod.com/graphics1.htm
"An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will"
She changes everything She touches,
and everything She touches, changes.
Blessings,
Gypsy
)O(
This has been an interesting thread to follow...
This line of yours in particular stood out to me:
I really believe that Sylvia Browne gets her info from demons.
Sylvia is a people pleaser. She tells everyone what they want to hear.
She is a Christian from hell. she said there are two Mary's one the mother and one the wife.
Montel means well but he is fooled by her because he is not a Christian either. A Christian will not be pulled in by her.
Wife?????????????
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