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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Novus Spiritus: A Board Member RespondsAn email from a high-ranking official in Sylvia Browne's church. BackgroundOn April 14 2007, two articles appeared on this site: Novus - A Matter of Control and Contradiction - Jesus' Age at Death. Four days later I received an email from Rev. Michael McClellan of the Society of Novus Spiritus ("SNS"), Sylvia Browne's church. The letter quoted passages from both articles, and included McClellan's comments on those passages. In the interest of fairness, I am publishing his email below, along with my comments. Michael McClellanFirst, to give the email some context, a bit about who Reverend Michael McClellan is. Although he modestly signs the email "Rev. Michael McClellan," he is more than a "minister" in SNS:
Asked if the email below was an "official response" or just his personal one, McClellan replied "My email is merely my own but echoes the feelings of many." The EmailHere is the text of the email, with my comments. Note: I have changed the formatting of the email somewhat to make it work better within a web page.
Here McClellan discusses the article Novus Spiritus - A Matter of Control.
In the article, I was talking about the money Browne and the board made in toto from Novus Spiritus, not just the sale of the JOS series (a series of eight study books). Is McClellan trying to deflect attention from that, and focus just on the books, which are just the tip of the iceberg? I've been told by multiple ex-ministers that they and the Study Group Coordinators are told to urge the other members of the study group to spend money on other of Browne's revenue streams: to purchase her books, to go on her cruises, to take "past life regressions" (facilitated by SNS ministers at a fee) and take $2,000 hypnosis classes. There is also the exclusive sale of Sylvia Browne's products at Church services and through the Study Group product order program, and more. No, the sales of the JOS series is by no means the only way Browne and company benefit financially from the Study Groups, let alone from the rest of NS. As far as Sylvia and the Board not getting any money, and the board members not getting paid to be on the board, there are future articles which will go into that. Back to the email:
I fail to see the important distinction between a $20 "registration fee" and a $20 "charter fee," and am not sure what McClellan's point is, but I stand corrected.
I understand that it is true that few Study Group members purchase all eight of the JOS books, partly because there is a high dropout rate, and most people leave way before all eight books are studied. And McClellan is correct, study group members generally do not purchase all eight books at once. The sentence following the one McClellan critiques here makes that clear: "That can make for a total of $160 from every member of every study group" (emphasis mine). But, as the Novus Spiritus site states, the eight JOS books are "Required Reading" for Study Groups. Back to the email:
This is rather disingenuous. The "complimentary gifts" cost the Study Group coordinator twenty dollars. To refer to them as "complimentary" is a well-known sales gimmick. ("Buy these steak knives, and receive a free potato peeler as our complimentary gift to you!" Does anyone really believe that the potato peeler is "free?") McClellan's claim that SNS goes "in the hole $10 plus" in this transaction is yet another time-honored sales gimmick ("I'm losing money on this!"). The "Novus Spiritus - Questions and Answers" booklet sells for $10, and the "JOS - Topic 1" booklet sells for $20. But this is not what it costs NS to produce them. These booklets, which are a series of 8.5 x 11" pages spiral bound with a cardstock cover, are generally printed and bound right in the NS office. I've been told that the Society's costs are around $5 each for the booklets which they sell for $20, and less than $4 for the ones they sell for $10. I asked a local print shop how much it would cost me to have a booklet the size of one of the JOS series printed and spiral bound, and was told it would cost me $9 for one, $8 apiece if I ordered 50 copies. Taking the print shop's profit margin into account, this makes the $5 figure sound about right. So, the "in the hole" is patently nonsense. The "free" booklets they sell to the Study Group Coordinator for $20 cost the Society around eight or nine dollars total. Add postage and handling, and there is still plenty of room for SNS to make a profit. Back to the email:
Agreed.
And, as I stated above, the books are just the tip of the iceberg. The email continues, discussing my article Contradiction - Jesus' Age at Death.
I don't know about "half-baked," but it is true I have no proof that any of Browne's books are ghost-written. This is why I said "perhaps." McClellan says that Browne writes them herself. I've heard from others - including one author who claims to have been approached to ghostwrite one of Browne's books - who say otherwise. But, to be clear, I have no proof one way or the other.
Yes, I stated plainly that some of the contradictions were insignificant, and that some - such as the Iena/Ilena one - were most likely due to typographical errors. I'm glad McClellan confirms this.
If Browne was "clarifying" this, she certainly did a poor job of it. She specifically stated, as McClellan quotes above: "Besides, he didn't die at age 30, he was 33." I see no way to interpret that other than "Jesus died at 33." Which, as mentioned in the article, contradicts one of the main Tenets of Novus Spiritus: ("XX - We believe that Our Lord was crucified but did not die on the cross and went on to live out His life in France with his mother and Mary Magdalene, his wife."). The email continues:
This is of course an intentional misrepresentation, since I have never attacked the beliefs of Novus Spiritus. I would ask McClellan to give a single example - in this or any other article on this web site - of a sentence where I attack the beliefs of Novus Spiritus (other than the belief that Sylvia Browne is psychic, which is not one of their tenets). As I have stated elsewhere on this site, I am agnostic. I find Novus Spiritus's philosophy (as opposed to its leadership) no better or worse than "traditional" Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, or any of a number of other religions.
No, nor do you find any attacks on Novus Spiritus here either. And in fact, I have received emails from several SNS members, as well as other Gnostic Christians, thanking me for focusing my criticism on Browne and the Board, and leaving the religion out of it. The name of this site is "Stop Sylvia Browne." It is not "Stop Novus Spiritus." If all Browne had ever done was found Novus Spiritus and promote her own brand of Gnosticism, this site would not be here. But unfortunately, that's not all she does. Just ask Shawn Hornbeck's parents.
Well, that's certainly a stretch, and yet another example of high school debating techniques: McClellan has nothing to attack my position (that Browne is not a psychic), so he invents a position for me, and attacks it instead. Note that McClellan does nothing here to prove that my accusations against Browne are incorrect. He doesn't even say that they are incorrect. He merely tries to distract from those accusations by asking why I am not making those same accusation against others. I promise you Reverend McClellan, if any of the leaders of other world religions go on television and falsely tell a woman that her abducted five-year-old granddaughter is in white slavery in Japan, I will put together a web site devoted to stopping them as well. In the meantime, I will continue to focus on stopping Sylvia Browne.
Here McClellan tries another swipe at the straw man he has constructed. I suppose that if Browne was a person of color, he would be calling me "racist" as well. No, my putting this web site together has nothing to do with Browne's gender, her age, her race, her religion, sexual preference, hair color or even the length of her fingernails. It has to do with what Browne does. What she does to vulnerable, grieving people. But even if we assume for the moment that I am sexist, that would have nothing to do with whether my claims about Browne have any merit. And so far, neither Browne nor any of her staff have done anything to refute those claims.
Reverend, thank you for writing. I think I provided enough Analysis within the email, and I invite readers to draw their own Conclusion.
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