Having read two of
Sylvia Browne's books on the afterlife, and listened to some of her audio tapes in the past, as well as viewing many of her appearances on Montel, I have to say I'm impressed. She herself doesn't claim 100% accuracy, but well over 70%. My initial impression was that her the accuracy of her material, and sometimes live demonstrations are around 70-80%. Quite amazing, and very skilled.
On the other hand, she has received a great deal of criticism over the years, as she's been in the "Psychic Industry" since the 70's, and therefore enough time has passed to test many of her futuristic predictions. Some she's hit, many she hasn't. But that isn't necessarily an indication of her accuracy. For example, consciousness is an amazing thing... when you give new ideas to consciousness, thought patterns immediately change. Therefore, the actions that a particular consciousness would perform with one level of knowledge is far different, than the same conscionsess with new information. To incapsulate that idea... one of Oprah's favourite authors
Maya Angelousaid "When you know better, you do better." Well that's consciousness in a nutshell. Well if someone who is actually psychic looks into the future, and sees what might happen to the world given the sensing of the energy at that time, then bringing that knowledge back with them, and sharing it with the populace has a signifigant affect on the world. So I wouldn't necessarily discount her "inaccuracies" as quickly as some skeptics might.
Through my own experiences, and my own research into the structure and the layout of the other side, I tended to agree with many of the claims made by her material. While I disagreed firmly with others. Some things in her texts were either avoided, or not mentioned at all out of convenience. It's curious, as I would have thought the more obvious points such as this would have been mentioned, however certain things don't add up.
The overall structure of "The Other Side" seems plausible, yet somehow you get the sense of limitation - which is something I strongly feel the other side does not have. For example, her description of suicides seem to mention or state that they are treated differently than others, by somehow breaking some sacred rule or covenant with God. And the "punishment" of this is to somehow be subjected to a different fate than those who were able to stick it out here on earth and make it through. The purgatory or nonsensical reality that they find themselves in seems to be a holding area for those who have broken his promise to God, and therefore must wait around for some form of external salvation. I find this hard to accept, as quite frankly if you are to believe that there is an Omnipotent entity out there which is all knowing and all seeing, and has therefore created the conditions of reality itself, I find it extremely difficult to logically accept that this entity can have something done to him/her/it against its will or knowing. So if God knew you were going to commit suicide, then why let you embody in the first place? Why would you even exist to begin with if you were one of these "failed" entities that couldn't take the hardships of life on earth... wouldn't God know? Also this overall seems to allude to the concept that things are happening beyond our control, which is counter to Taoist philosophy, and also modern day psychologies. Also this is contrary to my own beliefs, and also concepts presented in
ACIM, and
CWG.
From a purely "Fun Factor" point of view, none of her material cites experiences of flying while on the otherside, where I would have thought that the obvious difference in physics between worlds would have been mentioned. Also she seems to believe that "We are not Perfect" and that the bodies we inhabit on the other side are reflections of this. For example, there are souls walking around with chipped teeth, or skin rashes or discolourations. As in her belief system, perfection is only reserved for GOD. Well, in a
pantheistic belief system, we are all One, and God is all things, including the bodies we inhabit, so how would she address this quandary?
My answer to this is that yes, there most likely is a "level" of reality where those who BELIEVE that perfection is only reserved for God... experience their reality as such, and therefore out of some sadistic or poor me type of mentality, unconsciously manifest some level of imperfection to reflect their belief. Unbeknownced to them, there are other levels of reality where people/souls simply do not have these beliefs, and hence do not show these imperfections in their manifested forms. Perhaps this level of imperfect reality is "reserved" for those who like plastic surgery on earth... where nothing ever seems to be perfect for them anyway.
