A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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| Montel: Ryan Katcher ReadingSylvia Browne gives a reading to a woman whose son is missing.  Sylvia Browne and Linda Griffith, Ryan's mother Click here to view video clip of reading. (3MB, .wmv format). BackgroundSome time during the night of November 5th, 2000, nineteen-year-old Ryan Katcher disappeared after being dropped off at his mother's home in Oakwood, Illinois. Subsequent searches of the surrounding area turned up neither Ryan nor his Ford 150 pickup truck, which had vanished along with him. Over the subsequent months, pleas for information regarding his disappearance were shown in local and state media. A web site (www.findryan.com) was set up in order to help in the search. Three years later, in December of 2003, staff of the Montel Williams Show - having read about the search for Ryan on the Internet - contacted Linda Katcher (Ryan's mother) and asked her if she wanted to appear on an episode of the show in which "psychic" Sylvia Browne would attempt to help people find their missing loved ones. Later that month, Linda Katcher went to New York to appear on the show. The ReadingThe episode, titled "Sylvia Browne: Unexplained Disappearances", was first broadcast on February 11th, 2004. Here is a transcript of the segment of the show regarding Ryan.
"Aspirated" simply means "inhaled," so this is rather vague. Sometimes, a person who is extremely drunk will regurgitate, and aspirate it into his or her lungs. Perhaps this is what Browne meant, but was trying to be delicate about it.
Note that Browne says "no" as though she already knew. But she doesn't say it until after Linda indicates that the truck had never been found.
Does "where you would be" mean Linda's home? If so, why doesn't Browne simply say that? Again, it seems unnecessarily vague.
AnalysisAt the time of the "reading," Ryan Katcher had already been missing for more than three years. If a person has been missing for that length of time, chances are, they will not be found. In a situation like that, a cold-reader can come up with just about any "reading" they want - short of saying exactly where the person can be found - with little fear of being proved wrong. And even should Browne later be proved wrong - as would be the case here - she has no worry that Montel Williams will do a follow-up show on the reading. Linda passed the information from the reading on to the police who were working the case, but it was of no help. How Accurate Was the Reading?More than three years later, on July 25, 2006, local police testing a new sonar device found Ryan's truck in forty feet of water in a pond in Kickapoo State Park. The pond (and many other local bodies of water) had been searched at the time of Ryan's disappearance, but sonar they had used at the time did not penetrate as far down as where the truck was eventually found. Inside the truck were human remains, which the cold temperature of the deep pond had helped to preserve. Both dental and DNA testing determined that it was indeed Ryan. It was determined that Ryan, under the influence of alcohol, had driven off the road and into the pond, where he had then drowned. So, let's take a look at Browne's "reading," and how it stacks up against what really happened.
Unless we give Browne "partial credit" for "aspirated," the reading was apparently one hundred percent incorrect. A Talk With Ryan's MotherRyan's mother - now Linda Griffith - and I have a mutual friend who told her about the StopSylviaBrowne web site, and asked her if she would speak to me about her experience with Browne on the Montel Williams Show. She graciously agreed to do so, and we recently spent more than an hour on the phone, talking about Ryan, Sylvia Browne, and some of Linda's experiences in the nation-wide community of families of the missing. Here are some highlights from my notes of that conversation. About the ReadingThere were a number of things which were edited out of the final version of the reading which was shown on television (probably for reasons of time). Linda said that she had specifically asked Browne if Ryan was in water. Browne had said that no, he was in a dry, underground area. This of course turned out to be incorrect. The name which had been censored from the show, which Browne had given as that of one of the two boys supposedly involved in throwing Ryan down a shaft, was only a first name, and a very common one. Browne had said that those two boys had been at the party with Ryan. As it turns out, the party was fairly small, and the names of all of the people there were known to police. There had been no one at the party by that name. Browne had said that Ryan's truck would never be found. Incorrect. During commercial breaks, the audience had been allowed to ask Browne questions, which turned out to be the usual questions about the names of their "guardian angels," who they were going to marry, and the like. As Linda said, "Those people might as well have taken one of those eight-balls and shook it up." (For those who don't know, a "Magic eight-ball" is a rather silly fortune-telling toy. You ask it a question and then shake it. When you turn it over, a simple answer, such as "looks good", "yes", "no" or "ask again later" is displayed.) About Psychics in GeneralOther than Browne, a total of five people claiming to be psychics had contacted Linda and her family. These "psychics" had told the family many things about Ryan, some of them horrible (one said that Ryan's hands had been cut off), none of which turned out to be true. Advice for families with missing loved onesI asked Linda if she had any advice for anyone considering going to Sylvia Browne for a reading. She said that she would hesitate to advise them not to, as she well-understands the desperation that such a family feels, and their willingness to try anything in order to find their loved one. She suggested not to use any psychic if they want to charge for their services. There are far better ways to spend your time, money and efforts. Posters and web sites, for example. She asked me to put this advice in the article, word-for-word: "Never give up hope. And remember: You are your loved one's best advocate." About Sylvia BrowneAs I said earlier, Linda is a very gracious woman. She likes to give people the benefit of the doubt, and tries to see the best in them. Nowhere was this more evident than when I asked her about her opinion of Browne. She said that, prior to being on the show, she had no real opinion about Browne one way or the other. What about after the show? Linda is a religious woman. She credits her Christian faith for getting her through these past six years. She believes it possible that there may be people with "God-given powers" who would be considered psychic. But, she said, if Sylvia Browne has such powers, they were not evident during the reading about Ryan. Linda has many contacts within the national groups which provide support to families of the missing. These are close-knit groups, and members keep a close eye on missing-person cases throughout the country. Linda asked around to see if anyone knew of a missing person who had been found through Sylvia Browne's help. Nobody knew of a single one. ConclusionCold-reading "psychics" prey primarily on people who are in distress. That in and of itself is bad enough. But when they prey on the families of missing people, it is particularly despicable and cruel. These families, desperate to try anything that might help them in their search, often pressure law enforcement officials to follow up on these false leads, wasting precious man-hours that could be better spent on real leads. If Browne is not psychic, but is, as I firmly believe, simply using cold-reading techniques to pretend that she is, then this entire episode of the Montel Williams Show was devoted to playing with the emotions of several families in the same position as Linda: desperately looking for a lost loved one. As I have mentioned elsewhere on the site, many of these family members don't believe in Browne's abilities, but agree to appear on the show for the national coverage, hoping that someone in the viewing audience will know something about their loved one, and will help. I believe that this is the only chance these families have of benefiting from their time with Browne. If anyone is wondering why I don't put up any articles about families who ended up finding a lost loved one thanks to a Browne reading on the Montel Williams Show, the reason is: because I don't know of any. If anyone knows of such a success story, please let me know. I will research it, and if the facts support it, will write an article about it and place it on this site. My sincere thanks to Linda Griffith for taking the time to speak with me. Related LinksClicking on any of these links will load a separate browser window for viewing the linked page. StopSylviaBrowne.com is not responsible for the content of any of these linked pages.
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