Psychic (Sylvia Browne) Who Said Amanda Berry Was Dead Silent After Berry Is Found Alive

[MADem]

266. Of course they are manipulative. Plastic surgeons are, too. So are people who sell self-help

books, or get-rich-quick books, or Scientology books....buy my book, it will change your life! And people do buy the book, they read it, they want more. Idiots line up around the block to go to "seminars" where the things they believe are reinforced by a charismatic leader.

PT Barnum said it--There's one born every minute. There's not a damn thing any of us can do about it. Adults are adults, and some have a strong internal desire to "believe"--in Sylvia Browne's ability, or in the "rightness" of James Randi's grousing. They both have acolytes who are parted from their cash on a regular basis, make no mistake. They're both all about the Benjamins. But we can't tell grown-ups what's good for them. That's what being an adult is all about. And some adults get something out of these interactions, the same way people "get something" out of a visit to the witch doctor in primitive societies.

However, there's a difference between being a charlatan who sells either belief in the supernatural (with expensive "individual readings&quot or "I Am The Way and The Light" Skepticism (and the five hundred dollar seminars that suckers line up to attend) and actually stealing someone's identity, and/or aiding and abetting that activity. Both of these elderly people might well be con artists and shit-sellers, but only one helped someone to steal an innocent man's identity. And the one who did that is the guy who is telling everyone else how "opposed to fraudsters" he is. It's a cognitive dissonance problem.