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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the

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Speaker 2: very worst people in all of history. And if you're

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Speaker 2: listening to this, we've had a heavy start to the year,

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Speaker 2: doing four episodes on some of the new releases in

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Speaker 2: the Epstein Files. It's been dark, and whenever things get dark,

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Speaker 2: I like to go back to like a lighter kind

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Speaker 2: of fair, you know, something a little more fun now.

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Speaker 2: Since this is still a podcast about the worst people

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Speaker 2: in history, We're still going to be talking about horrible things.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, this is all a preamble to say we're

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Speaker 2: talking about a kooky psychic today. You're welcome everybody. I

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Speaker 2: know these are a lot of people's favorite episodes and

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Speaker 2: to hear about this person. We've got a great guest

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Speaker 2: for you this week, Cal Penn. Cal welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for coming on, Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 3: I appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously, people. I'm sure most people listening are very

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Speaker 2: well aware from you for your aware of you for

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Speaker 2: your career in film and television and your time in

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Speaker 2: the Obama White House. But you are now a podcaster here,

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Speaker 2: You've you've gotten dragged into the into the the podcasting trenches.

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Speaker 1: Your life has been upgraded.

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Speaker 4: Some might say, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there there weren't enough podcasts until I had one too.

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Speaker 2: That's right. It was a real problem. We were we

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Speaker 2: were all all worried about it. But thankfully you've you've

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Speaker 2: you've you've filled the gap. You want to talk about

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Speaker 2: the show you.

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Speaker 3: Do before we get into our episode, Thank you, Thanks

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Speaker 3: for the shameless plug opportunity. It's a it's a podcast

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Speaker 3: called Here We Go Again that looks at the past, present,

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Speaker 3: and future of things in pop culture. So we've had

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Speaker 3: Bill Andy the science guy, to talk about things like

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Speaker 3: the space race, had on Mehdi Hassan to talk about

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Speaker 3: the lack of trust in uh mainstream news even like

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Speaker 3: still my one of my favorites. UH. Right after he

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Speaker 3: was done being Transportation Secretary, we had Pete Booda Ja

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Speaker 3: John And technically I was supposed to talk about infrastructure,

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Speaker 3: but I really wanted to understand why when your flight

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Speaker 3: is early there's not a gate available, Like it's almost

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Speaker 3: never early. But if it's early, what's the problem here?

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Speaker 3: They always say that they didn't know we were coming.

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Speaker 3: Yes they did, That's how it works.

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Speaker 2: How do you not?

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Speaker 3: So, so now that I have a podcast, I get

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Speaker 3: to ask all of those, uh, all of those kinds

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Speaker 3: of questions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Transportation Secretary seems like one of those. Like every

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Speaker 2: time I'm in an airport, I'm like, Oh, if I

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Speaker 2: had that power, the things I change. And then the

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Speaker 2: second I leave the airport, it's like, oh, I can't

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Speaker 2: imagine wanting to think about airports for another second when

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Speaker 2: I'm not in one.

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Speaker 3: I totally agree, Yes, yes, exactly.

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Speaker 2: Well, Cal, I'm going to start by asking a question

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Speaker 2: that we ask all of our guests, Are you psychic?

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Speaker 3: I am not set. Well, see, if you were psychic,

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Speaker 3: you would know the answer to that question. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I'm not psychic.

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Speaker 2: Do you believe? Yeah? Have you ever heard of a

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Speaker 2: famous TV psychic named Sylvia Brown?

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Speaker 3: Yes, of course she was. She had all those daytime

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Speaker 3: talk shows.

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Speaker 2: Everywhere, everywhere. She was on Larry King, Montell was the

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Speaker 2: big one, she was.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, all those viral clips of her.

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Speaker 2: Yes, she's been going viral with the the gen z

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Speaker 2: or Gin Alpha. I'm split as to which Jin has

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Speaker 2: rediscovered her, but one of the younger ones, so Suri

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Speaker 2: discovered her in clips on TikTok, and she's has a

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Speaker 2: I think a lot of people like when you when

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Speaker 2: you get little clips out from someone and maybe she

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Speaker 2: sounds like kind of motivational in that one or or

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Speaker 2: optimistic in another and kind of encouraging, you get a

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Speaker 2: different picture of the woman that I think is accurate

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Speaker 2: to her. Because Sylvia Brown is she was like the

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Speaker 2: first crime fighting psychic, and that's how she built. She

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Speaker 2: didn't actually fight crime, she committed them, but she was

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Speaker 2: like the first TV psychic to be like, I work

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Speaker 2: with police in the FBI to help like solve missing

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Speaker 2: persons cases.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: She was the one who kind of turned that into

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Speaker 2: a trope. And in fact, I think you could probably

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Speaker 2: argue that she's like you know, the TV show psych

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Speaker 2: kind of played that idea for laughs. But I think

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Speaker 2: it like psych probably wouldn't exist if Sylvia Brown hadn't

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Speaker 2: hi been around in the nineties, like you know, making

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Speaker 2: that into a thing. Otherwise it would be like, well

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Speaker 2: with psychic detective, that's like that's just a weird concept.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: What's interesting about Sylvia is that while she's this person

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Speaker 2: who claims to be helping the police, who claims to

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Speaker 2: be finding people with her powers, she's not just bad

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Speaker 2: at it. She's so bad that she like ads harmed

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Speaker 2: the situations that were already disastrously dangerous. And we're going

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Speaker 2: to start these episodes as we usually do, with her

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Speaker 2: early life and childhood. I've got her. She wrote an autobiography,

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Speaker 2: Thank God, which I always love. When a grifter writes

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Speaker 2: an autobiography, you learn so much about how they want

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Speaker 2: to be seen. But part of the problem is she

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Speaker 2: kind of pains herself as a very sweet and re

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Speaker 2: reasonable person in that, and it might seem like as

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Speaker 2: it goes through, we're kind of being unfairly mean to her.

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Speaker 2: So before we get to her autobiography, I want to

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Speaker 2: actually open with a later chapter from her life to

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Speaker 2: kind of set the stage and make sure people knows

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Speaker 2: there's a reason why we're talking about this lady, right,

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Speaker 2: This isn't just like a harmless a harmless crank. In

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Speaker 2: two thousand and four, Sylvia Brown made one of her

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Speaker 2: many appearances on The Montell Williams Show. At the time,

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Speaker 2: Amanda Barry, a seventeen year old girl, had been kidnapped

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Speaker 2: about a year earlier. Amanda goes missing in two thousand

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Speaker 2: and three, and the last time Amanda had been heard

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Speaker 2: from was at eight pm on April twenty. First, she'd

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Speaker 2: called her sister to say she was getting a ride

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Speaker 2: home from her job at Burger King, and then she's

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Speaker 2: just gone. The FBI initially describes her as a runaway,

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Speaker 2: which I think is generally what they do in cases

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Speaker 2: like this. But a day or two later, an anonymous

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Speaker 2: person calls Barry's mother using her daughter's cell phone and says,

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Speaker 2: I have Amanda. She's fine, and we'll be coming home

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Speaker 2: in a couple of days. Amanda was not fine. She

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Speaker 2: was not home in a couple of days. And as

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Speaker 2: the months go on, her family gets understandably desperate, and

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Speaker 2: her mother decides she's willing to do anything to keep

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Speaker 2: public interest up about her daughter's case. Obviously, right, like

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Speaker 2: what other what else can you do in this sort

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Speaker 2: of situation. So she's willing to talk to anybody, and

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Speaker 2: she's willing to go on any show to keep Amanda's

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Speaker 2: name in the news. So in two thousand and four,

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Speaker 2: she decides to get on the Montel Williams show. For years,

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Speaker 2: Montel Williams had a profitable arrangement with Sylvia Brown, who

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Speaker 2: was a popular psychic reader and had in fact worked

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Speaker 2: with law enforcement on several missing persons cases, or at

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Speaker 2: least that's how she built herself. She was brought in

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Speaker 2: to do a reading on Amanda's distraught mother, Lawana Miller.

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Speaker 2: Sylvia very bluntly tells Lawana, your daughter is not alive

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Speaker 2: based on my psychic advent. She's like, I looked into

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Speaker 2: it psychically, your daughter's dead. And she says, your daughter's

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Speaker 2: not the kind who wouldn't call, basically because she hasn't

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Speaker 2: contacted you, like she's definitely gone. So she's very blunt

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Speaker 2: about this, and the whole inner is pretty brutal. It's

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Speaker 2: hard to find full episodes of the show from that

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Speaker 2: period of time online, but we've got a little segment,

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Speaker 2: just a couple of seconds Sophie's gonna play to give

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Speaker 2: you an idea of how Sylvia is talking to this woman.

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Speaker 4: Don't think I'll ever see her in yeah, in heaven

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Speaker 4: on the other.

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Speaker 2: Side, so she's like, am I gonna see her again?

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Speaker 2: And Sylvia says in heaven, which is pretty you can

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Speaker 2: see on her mom's face, like just how devastating that is.

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Speaker 2: And this is really fucked up because Amanda is not dead,

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Speaker 2: She is in fact alive and aside from being kidnapped

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Speaker 2: and locked in a basement, she is in good health

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Speaker 2: at the time of this Montell Williams broadcast. It turns

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Speaker 2: out she was one of three women or I mean

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Speaker 2: they're women after a period of time, but I think

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Speaker 2: they're mostly girls when they're kidnapped by a maniac. You've

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Speaker 2: all heard of this case. A guy named Ariel Castro

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Speaker 2: kidnaps three women and imprisons him in the basement of

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Speaker 2: his Cleveland home. This is the you know, that guy

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Speaker 2: gets like we're recorded talking about the case when they escape,

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Speaker 2: and it gets like auto tuned and stuff and turned

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Speaker 2: into like it's an early meme, like this is that case, right.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I don't mean to distract from the severity

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Speaker 2: of it, but this is the Yeah, this is why.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's a very famous story. And Amanda actually

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Speaker 2: escapes in May of twenty thirteen. She's the one who

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Speaker 2: gets out of the prison that he's built for them

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Speaker 2: and calls for help and gets them all rescued. This

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Speaker 2: is a story you've heard, obviously, it's fairly famous. But

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Speaker 2: what you probably hadn't heard is that Amanda's mom had

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Speaker 2: been told by a TV psychic ten years earlier that

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Speaker 2: her daughter was dead, and when Lawana goes home after

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Speaker 2: appearing on The Mantel Williams Show, she tells a friend

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Speaker 2: that she has been devastated by Sylvia's prediction. She calls

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Speaker 2: Sylvia ninety eight percent credible, and she accepts that her

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Speaker 2: daughter has died. Her friends and family say that she

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Speaker 2: kind of stops her efforts to find Amanda. She basically

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Speaker 2: gives up. She's hospitalized a year later with pancreatitis, and

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Speaker 2: she dies believing her daughter was dead. So that's that

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Speaker 2: like awful, I mean just yeah, what can you say

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Speaker 2: other than I think that sets the stage of like,

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Speaker 2: this is not a harmless psychic. This is not someone

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Speaker 2: who's like playing around and pretending to have powers and

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Speaker 2: talking to aliens and not doing any danger at the

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Speaker 2: time of what you're inserting yourself in a missing person's cases,

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Speaker 2: You've become a monster kind of right.

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Speaker 3: This is terrifying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's terrifying. It's interesting how she gets to this

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Speaker 2: stage because it's not kind of what I would expect,

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Speaker 2: Like the version of her life that she told people

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Speaker 2: is not very accurate to like how she actually gets

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Speaker 2: on television because she portrays herself as like someone whom

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Speaker 2: the police come to and start using in the seventies

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Speaker 2: as a resource. And that's very much not true. So

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Speaker 2: let's talk about the reality of Sylvia's life. Sylvia Celeste Shoemaker,

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Speaker 2: She's not born Brown was born in Kansas City, Missouri,

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Speaker 2: and nighteen teen thirty six. In our autobiography Psychic, she

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Speaker 2: states that she believes this is like because she lays

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Speaker 2: out in this book kind of her it's almost a

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Speaker 2: religion that she's kind of trying to put out. She

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Speaker 2: has her own like set of spiritual beliefs that she's

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Speaker 2: trying to get people to embrace. And based on that,

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Speaker 2: she believes that when we're born, we come from the

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Speaker 2: other side and we plan out our new incarnation before

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Speaker 2: like we come into the world. So our spirit laboriously

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Speaker 2: plots out every step of our future lives to quote,

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Speaker 2: help guarantee that we accomplish the goals we set for ourselves.

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Speaker 2: So Sylvia says, we choose our families, which I'm sure

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Speaker 2: we'll come to surprise to people with abusive relatives. We

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Speaker 2: choose our enemies, which I'm sure is a real shocker

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Speaker 2: to the victims of genocide, and we choose our careers,

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Speaker 2: which I assume will at least come as a surprise

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Speaker 2: to the guy I saw mucking out the slurry of

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Speaker 2: old Boozier and in trash in the streets of New

219
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Speaker 2: Orleans after Marty Grass. We pick all of that when

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Speaker 2: we're in the when we're on the other side, Like,

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Speaker 2: it's the kind of thing I guess if you're with

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Speaker 2: your life and who you are, that's a comforting thing

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Speaker 2: to believe. But like you have to imagine somebody sitting

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Speaker 2: back in the spirit world being like, what am I

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Speaker 2: going to do with this next life? You know, it'd

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Speaker 2: be great having like a crippling substance dependency and working

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Speaker 2: a series of marginal jobs until I die at age

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Speaker 2: twenty nine from meningitis. And then another guy spirit's like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to grow up in the

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Speaker 2: congo and get maimed by a landmine at age eleven.

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Speaker 2: That sounds awesome, Like that's literally what she believes.

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Speaker 5: That's like such a crazy level of like privilege and entitlement.

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Speaker 2: It's it's kind of inherently victim blame me. Yeah, right,

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Speaker 2: Like how can you if that's what you believe? How

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Speaker 2: can you sympathize with people who are suffering.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you chose this before you even got here.

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Speaker 3: You pre ordered your meal.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's like you're picking an in flight meal.

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Speaker 2: But it's like, hmm, pancreatic cancer sounds good, like age

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Speaker 2: forty five, you know, right in the middle there.

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Speaker 4: I was like, you know what podcaster?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I think podcasters are picked before

243
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Speaker 2: birth anointed. And there's also like some inconsistencies that I

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Speaker 2: just can't like square out in here. Like, for example,

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Speaker 2: she says that you pick your parents, right, and you

246
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Speaker 2: pick their good and their bad traits, But presumably didn't

247
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Speaker 2: your parents also start off as spirits that like picked

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Speaker 2: their life, So then like how does that all work? Right?

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Speaker 2: Like what enjoys there for you?

250
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Speaker 3: I enjoy that you're trying to rationalize this, Yeah, you

251
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Speaker 3: have to think about these things, right, Yeah, Like the

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Speaker 3: math is.

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Speaker 4: Not mathing's what you're saying.

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Speaker 3: No, exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty like hard to

256
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Speaker 2: kind of draw a logical line between all of this.

257
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Speaker 2: And obviously, you know, religion is never perfectly consistent with

258
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Speaker 2: what we'd call human logic. That's kind of the point.

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Speaker 2: God works in mysterious ways and all. But I think

260
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Speaker 2: we can all agree this is pretty incoherent, right, Like

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Speaker 2: when you're saying, like victims of human traffic like sat

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Speaker 2: down at some sort of celestial D and D table

263
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Speaker 2: and like picked that out as a trait, Like, that's

264
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Speaker 2: just kind of messed up. Even in her own autobiography,

265
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Speaker 2: which opens with her wedding to husband number five in

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Speaker 2: her seventies, kind of makes funny about how silly this

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Speaker 2: idea is. She writes, quote, Obviously, when I was on

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Speaker 2: the other side writing my chart, it seemed like a

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Speaker 2: great idea to wait until I was in my seventies

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Speaker 2: to meet the real mister wright. I repeat, what the

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Speaker 2: hell was I thinking? Yeah, because maybe that's a really

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Speaker 2: dumb way to think about life. Oh Man. Back to

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Speaker 2: her story, Sylvia has a good relationship with her dad.

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Speaker 2: She really likes him. She kind of describes him as

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Speaker 2: a scumbag, but she has a good relationship with him.

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Speaker 2: I guess like he's constantly cheating on her mom, but

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Speaker 2: she hates her mom, so she winds up sympathizing with

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Speaker 2: her dad over it.

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Speaker 3: Well, look, she chose it, she.

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Speaker 2: Shows it right, Yeah, and her mom must have chosen

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Speaker 2: to have a bad husband. She describes her mother, Celestia,

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Speaker 2: as basically the devil herself. Quote, she was physically abusive

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Speaker 2: when my father wasn't around, and she delighted in telling

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Speaker 2: me about lying awake at night trying to figure out

285
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Speaker 2: if she could kill me and get away with it.

286
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Speaker 2: And it's hard when you're dealing with an autobiography of

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Speaker 2: someone who is like talking about their horrible child abuse

288
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Speaker 2: and then talking about like the fact that they can

289
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Speaker 2: see the future or talk to aliens, and you're like, well,

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Speaker 2: I know a lot of this isn't true. How much

291
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Speaker 2: of it is true, right? I tend to try to

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Speaker 2: take some of that, like the stuff about her the

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Speaker 2: basics of her life, at face value, just because usually

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Speaker 2: even when people are kind of like manufacturing a backstory

295
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Speaker 2: for themselves, they don't make everything up out of whole cloth.

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Speaker 2: And this is all like fairly consistent. The consistency of

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Speaker 2: her anger towards her mother means that it seems pretty

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Speaker 2: believable to me that they had a really fraught relationship.

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Speaker 2: Sylvia has concluded that her mother is something called a

300
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Speaker 2: dark entity. Dark entities are those who, because they've turned

301
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Speaker 2: away from God and abandoned light. She's to spread nothing

302
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Speaker 2: but darkness in their lives by their own choice. When

303
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Speaker 2: they die, their spirits don't transcend the sacred perfection of

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Speaker 2: the other side. Instead, they enter what's known as the

305
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Speaker 2: left door, plunged through a godless, joyless abyss, and cycle

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Speaker 2: right back into some poor, unsuspecting fetus. Again, if one

307
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Speaker 2: of these days you read about someone in their late

308
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Speaker 2: teens triggering a violent uprising in some historically peaceful country,

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Speaker 2: you can confidently say to yourself, Oh, look it's Sylvia's mother.

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Speaker 4: Is that for.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, really doesn't like her mom. It's interesting too, because

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Speaker 2: that's like she's basically saying that, I guess kind of

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Speaker 2: the normal way, like reincarnation is what happens, like if

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Speaker 2: you're a bad person and the good people get to

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Speaker 2: sit down as spirits and pick out what they're going

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Speaker 2: to do. Otherwise you just kind of like it happens

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Speaker 2: at random. Seems to be more or less how she's

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Speaker 2: saying it. It goes down, Yeah, her earliest childhood memories.

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Speaker 2: Also she's angry at her mom, but she also says

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Speaker 2: that her spirit picked the bad traits of her mother

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Speaker 2: at before birth. So how much anger, kid, you really have.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Her earliest childhood memories are all about

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Speaker 2: her mom being me like just terrible. And she tells

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Speaker 2: one story in here called the time she tried to

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Speaker 2: burn my foot off. And I'm not actually sure if

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Speaker 2: this is just like a story of Sylvia's mom sucking her,

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Speaker 2: a story of like a mother getting distracted during bathtime.

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Speaker 2: I was three years old. It was bathtime. What I

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Speaker 2: distinctly remember his mother putting me into the tub, turning

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Speaker 2: on a full blast of scalding hot water and leaving

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Speaker 2: the room. My feet had to be treated for some

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Speaker 2: second degree burns, And yeah, like that is the kind

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Speaker 2: of thing I can believe happened. Her mom says it

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Speaker 2: was like a maintenance issue. She didn't realize the water

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Speaker 2: heater was broken. Sylvia is convinced from an early stage

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Speaker 2: that her mom tries to murder her. I kind of

337
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Speaker 2: wonder if maybe this all she starts feeling about her

338
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Speaker 2: mother this way just because of like a fuck up

339
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Speaker 2: with like the heating. But it's really impossible to say.

340
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Speaker 2: Sylvia's main positive female influence her life is your grandmother,

341
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Speaker 2: Ada Coyle. It was Ada who seems to have first

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Speaker 2: told Sylvia that she was a psychic, and not just

343
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Speaker 2: a psychic, but one of a very long line of psychics.

344
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Speaker 2: She was, in fact, quote another link in a three

345
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Speaker 2: hundred year psychic family history. So she's got like she's

346
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Speaker 2: like the Mayflower of psychic families. Grandma Ada doesn't tell

347
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Speaker 2: her about this history at first because she doesn't want

348
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Speaker 2: to unfairly prejudice the baby into thinking she was psychic,

349
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Speaker 2: because not all the kids in the family get to

350
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Speaker 2: be psychic. If your Grandma Ada, you know that, you

351
00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:35,960
Speaker 2: don't want to disappoint the ones who wind up not

352
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Speaker 2: being psychic. This is the way Sylvia writes it, at

353
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Speaker 2: least and then kind of. At age six, Sylvia predicts

354
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Speaker 2: the birth of her baby's sister and the death of

355
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Speaker 2: her grandfather, and then the deaths of several other family

356
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Speaker 2: members in short succession, and this starts to freak her

357
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Speaker 2: out because she's worried she's causing these deaths, until Grandma

358
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Speaker 2: sits her down and tells her it's not your fault

359
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Speaker 2: and talks to her about her gift. After this point,

360
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Speaker 2: she starts to see ghosts on regular basis, and she'll

361
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Speaker 2: begin like warning stopping strangers on the street and saying, like,

362
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Speaker 2: your gallbladder has a problem, you need to go to

363
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Speaker 2: a doctor about your liver. I don't you know. I

364
00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:12,640
Speaker 2: don't think this is real. I think this is her

365
00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:16,840
Speaker 2: working backwards and inventing a psychic backstory for herself. But

366
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Speaker 2: this is at least what she wants us to believe

367
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Speaker 2: about her life. That like as a child, she's trying

368
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Speaker 2: to like save people, you know, warn them about like

369
00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:28,840
Speaker 2: their random health issues and whatnot. She tells several stories

370
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Speaker 2: of her powers saving the day, like the time she

371
00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:33,119
Speaker 2: made her dad leave a movie with her and they

372
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Speaker 2: got home just in time to save her sister who

373
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Speaker 2: had come down with pneumonia and get her to a hospital.

374
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Speaker 2: Oddly enough, none of her relatives beside her grandmother, seemed

375
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Speaker 2: to find this in any way noteworthy. They don't seem

376
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 2: to realize that she's psychic, even dad, just grandma. When

377
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Speaker 2: she's eight, Sylvia says that she's visited for a spirit

378
00:18:50,800 --> 00:18:52,320
Speaker 2: for the first time, and this is going to be

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Speaker 2: her spirit guide.

380
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Speaker 5: And all this information is coming from her autobiography. There

381
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Speaker 5: isn't like a second source on this.

382
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Speaker 2: We hit some second sources for pieces of this, but

383
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Speaker 2: no from her, like when she's eight. I don't have

384
00:19:04,560 --> 00:19:09,280
Speaker 2: a secondary source actually, other than that, a lot of

385
00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:12,760
Speaker 2: her family members don't seem to have believed this stuff, right, Like,

386
00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:15,600
Speaker 2: there's some evidence from people who are kin to her that, like,

387
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:18,680
Speaker 2: Sylvia was not always like this, but nobody else like

388
00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:21,439
Speaker 2: writes about her as a little girl. So this, this

389
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:23,600
Speaker 2: spirit guide comes down in a beam of light and

390
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:25,879
Speaker 2: it tells her not to be afraid. And Sylvia is,

391
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,920
Speaker 2: of course afraid, until her grandmother finds her and explains

392
00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:31,720
Speaker 2: what all this is about. Quote. A spirit guide, it

393
00:19:31,760 --> 00:19:33,880
Speaker 2: turns out, is someone who, when we decide to come

394
00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:36,760
Speaker 2: to Earth for another incarnation, agrees to be our vigilant

395
00:19:36,760 --> 00:19:39,440
Speaker 2: companion and helpmate. Well, we're a a from home. They've

396
00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:41,880
Speaker 2: studied our charts and know what we intend to accomplish here,

397
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:44,800
Speaker 2: and it's their assignment to support and advise us along

398
00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 2: the way without depriving us of our free will. And

399
00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:51,720
Speaker 2: you know, I find the whole scripture life before birth

400
00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:54,159
Speaker 2: thing to sort of rob people of free will. And

401
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:56,120
Speaker 2: it also doesn't if you think about like the history

402
00:19:56,200 --> 00:20:00,960
Speaker 2: of it. Like, so theoretically Hitler like scripted out being

403
00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:03,640
Speaker 2: Hitler back before he was born and was like Okay,

404
00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this, and he must have gotten like

405
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:07,920
Speaker 2: eighty million other people to be like, oh, great, idea,

406
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,080
Speaker 2: Hitler's soul and we're all going to die in the

407
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:12,160
Speaker 2: horrible war that you start. That's what I'm writing out

408
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:14,800
Speaker 2: for my chart. This will be cool like how well?

409
00:20:14,880 --> 00:20:18,800
Speaker 2: Like what? How else could it possibly be functioning unless

410
00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,000
Speaker 2: all of the people who suffer in wars are these

411
00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:23,080
Speaker 2: dark souls like her mother, and then they kind of

412
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:26,640
Speaker 2: deserve it, right, there's no there's a kind of sinister

413
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:28,639
Speaker 2: side if you think too much about what all this

414
00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:29,359
Speaker 2: stuff means.

415
00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:29,600
Speaker 5: Yeah.

416
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,080
Speaker 4: Who was Hitler's spirit guide? That's my question?

417
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:39,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, who? Right now? Sylvia's spirit guide, Sylvia's.

418
00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:41,040
Speaker 4: Mom, that's right.

419
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:45,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the first incarnation of Sylvia's mom Jesus.

420
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:50,360
Speaker 2: So what's interesting to me is she talks about who

421
00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:52,520
Speaker 2: her spirit guide was in life, because her spirit guide

422
00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:55,840
Speaker 2: had originally been a person, and like Sylvia, praises this

423
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:58,680
Speaker 2: guide for its wisdom and whatnot and talks about her

424
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,840
Speaker 2: throughout the entire book and also shows no respect for

425
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:04,719
Speaker 2: her guide's past life and identity, like listen to this.

426
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:07,920
Speaker 2: She lived her one incarnation on earth as an Aztec

427
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 2: Incan who, at the age of nineteen, was killed by

428
00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 2: a spear in fifteen twenty while protecting her infant daughter

429
00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:15,679
Speaker 2: during the Spanish invasion of Columbia. She told me her

430
00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:18,600
Speaker 2: name was Elena. I apparently either didn't care for or

431
00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:21,320
Speaker 2: couldn't remember it, because I promptly renamed her Francene and

432
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:24,440
Speaker 2: have never called her anything else. That's kind of offensive, right,

433
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:28,600
Speaker 2: You're like, spirit's a genocide victim, and You're like, I'm

434
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: gonna call you Francine.

435
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 3: It's kind of bung. A whole thing is bonkers.

436
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:37,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is supposed to be enticing to people.

437
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,000
Speaker 2: You're supposed to read this and be like, Wow, this

438
00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:44,480
Speaker 2: is how the world works, Like you're really you've convinced me.

439
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,640
Speaker 2: I want to believe the things you believe, Sylvia. Now,

440
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 2: because I'm me, I had to dig into the backstory

441
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:52,399
Speaker 2: of her spirit guide to see is like any of

442
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:56,159
Speaker 2: this even plausible? So, first off, she claims that Elena

443
00:21:56,240 --> 00:22:00,119
Speaker 2: is an Aztech Incan name. Elena is a Greek name.

444
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:02,440
Speaker 2: It's a variant of the word Helen, So right off

445
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 2: the bat, we're having some trouble. Also, the fact that

446
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:07,879
Speaker 2: Elena was apparently an Aztec Incan woman makes no sense

447
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 2: because despite the fact that both the Aztec and Incan

448
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:14,120
Speaker 2: empires existed contemporaneously, they were very far from each other

449
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:18,119
Speaker 2: and there's very minimal evidence for direct contact between the

450
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 2: two empires. There's indirect trade between them, but there's not

451
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:23,960
Speaker 2: a ton of cross pollination. And I haven't found any

452
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 2: evidence of like as tech Incan people, Like that's not

453
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 2: like a that's not like a thing that really happened. Also,

454
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 2: when I looked into like Columbia during this period of time,

455
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 2: the area we now call Columbia was not settled by

456
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 2: the Aztec or the Inca. It was primarily settled by

457
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:45,119
Speaker 2: the Tehronas and the Muiscus peoples. Right, so none of

458
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:48,199
Speaker 2: this makes sense. Like this, this is like a This

459
00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 2: is a white lady who doesn't know anything about Astec

460
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 2: or Incan history, trying to wanting to have a connection

461
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 2: to like Shamans and like the mystique of like South America.

462
00:22:57,720 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 2: And so she's just like bullshitting and made it didn't

463
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 2: even bother to be like is a Lena a Greek

464
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 2: name or is it a name someone might have had

465
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:04,919
Speaker 2: from this period?

466
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, she just wanted an ayahuasca trip pre internet.

467
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 2: Right, Oh yeah, she would have if she'd come up

468
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 2: a little later, she would have really been a big

469
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:19,680
Speaker 2: advocate of the ayahuasca therapy. I suspect. So Sylvia grows up,

470
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 2: you know, talking to Francene in her head. She goes

471
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:24,399
Speaker 2: to Catholic school, and she gets in trouble with the

472
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 2: nuns because nuns don't like it when you claim that

473
00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 2: you're channeling spirits, not a thing. Nuns tend to be

474
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 2: huge fancy. She gets in trouble because she talks up

475
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 2: in class and because Franccene has a lot of disagreements

476
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:38,920
Speaker 2: about the way God works, and so when the nuns

477
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 2: will say something, she'll be like, well, actually, the voice

478
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,840
Speaker 2: in my head says something very different. And this does

479
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,440
Speaker 2: not go over well. She tells the nuns that hell

480
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 2: doesn't exist. They're not thrilled about that. Nuns are kind

481
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:54,720
Speaker 2: of big on hell. So she has a tough time

482
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 2: in her early school career. Sylvia herself actually gets pissed

483
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,360
Speaker 2: at her spirit guide Franccene. Years later when her grandmother

484
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 2: gets sick because Francecene refuses to fix the illness. She

485
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 2: just keeps telling Sylvia everything will work out as it's

486
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 2: meant to work out, so she kind of will go

487
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 2: dark on Francene for periods of time as a kid

488
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 2: when she gets angry at her She in general doesn't

489
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 2: seem to have had a super happy like early childhood.

490
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 2: She doesn't like living at home. She doesn't get along

491
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,439
Speaker 2: with her sister because she thinks her mom programmed her

492
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 2: sister into being sick and introverted. I think maybe she

493
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 2: just had a different personality than you, Sylvia. So at

494
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 2: age sixteen, she decides to free herself from her family

495
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 2: via a full proof plan. She's going to get married.

496
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 2: She convinces one of her male friends to get hitched

497
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 2: with her, and she doctors her birth certificates that it

498
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 2: says that she's eighteen. Then she and this guy Joe,

499
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,119
Speaker 2: cross state lines and get married by a justice of

500
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 2: the peace. This works as well as you'd expect. When

501
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 2: she comes back home and is like, I got married,

502
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,360
Speaker 2: her dad says, the fuck you did, and they hand

503
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 2: all the hell out of that marriage very quickly. Wow

504
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 2: Via graduates and gets accepted to Saint Teresa's College in

505
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: Kansas City. She majors in education in theology, and it's

506
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 2: around this time that her grandma takes a final turn

507
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 2: for the worst and passes on in the hospital. Francine

508
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,479
Speaker 2: assures Sylvia everything's fine, but she doesn't believe her spirit

509
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 2: guide until she and her boyfriend are driving home and

510
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 2: her boyfriend sees grandma's spirit in the car, which convinces

511
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 2: her that not only is everything fine, but that her

512
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:27,959
Speaker 2: psychic gifts are definitely real. So she comes into adulthood.

513
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 2: She goes to college and she's she's training to be

514
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 2: a teacher. She's never wanted to do anything but teach.

515
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 2: Her spirit guide tells her she's there to be a teacher.

516
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 2: Her grandma says she's there to be a teacher, and

517
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:40,119
Speaker 2: she takes that very literally, that she's meant to like

518
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 2: teach kids in a school. So she's on her own now.

519
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 2: She knows she wants to be a teacher, but she

520
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 2: doesn't really know what kind of like. She thinks she

521
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 2: wants to be, Like school teacher is the thing that

522
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,880
Speaker 2: she's supposed to be, but her grandmother had always told

523
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,160
Speaker 2: her that she needs to use her gifts to speak

524
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 2: to large groups of people, and she's not sure like

525
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:02,679
Speaker 2: which direction to go in. And you might say wouldn't

526
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 2: a real psychic know what the future held in store

527
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 2: for her? But Sylvia's come up with a workaround to that.

528
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 2: As Francine informed her, none of us is allowed to

529
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 2: read our own charts while we're here on earth, which

530
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 2: is why there's not a psychic on Earth who's psychic

531
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 2: about themselves, which is an extremely convenient way to work

532
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 2: this out. Yeah, it's kind of a load bearing part

533
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 2: of Sylvia's narrative that she can't read her own future,

534
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 2: but I can read your future, listeners, and it's going

535
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 2: to send you to the advertisers of this podcast right now, And.

536
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 1: We're back back back again.

537
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, back again. Talking about Sylvia. So, she falls in

538
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 2: love and almost gets married, wants to drop out of

539
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 2: school to get hitched with this guy, right, she's about

540
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 2: nineteen at this time, but he tells her he wants

541
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 2: her to move to a farm and like give up

542
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 2: her career and raise children with him, And she's down

543
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 2: to do this until she finds out that he has

544
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 2: a wife and children back one of those things, And

545
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 2: I'm kind of wondering, like, Okay, you can't predict your

546
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 2: own future, but shouldn't you been able to psychically tell

547
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 2: that this guy had a secret family. Yeah, that seems

548
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 2: I love.

549
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 5: When you're bringing up this flawed theory of hers, You're like, ah, girl.

550
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 2: It's very inconsistent the way these powers are supposed to work. Yeah,

551
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 2: you can tell your guy's got liver cancer, but not

552
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:28,199
Speaker 2: that like a dude who's hitting on you has a

553
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:29,400
Speaker 2: wife and kids back home.

554
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 3: Yeah.

555
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 2: So, during her time in college, she becomes increasingly fascinated

556
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 2: with the workings of a human mind, and she signs

557
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 2: up for a class in abnormal psychology, which, like, who

558
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 2: didn't she takes me to? Yeah, a lot of people

559
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,360
Speaker 2: do this. She also starts taking classes and hypnosis, And

560
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 2: just so we're clear, because I don't think a lot

561
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 2: of people know this. Hypnosis is like a thing with

562
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 2: like demonstrable effects that's written about by like actual, like

563
00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 2: mental health professionals. There's an I've found an article in

564
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:03,160
Speaker 2: the Journal of the APA by Kirstin Weir that notes

565
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 2: hypnosis is as old as the field of psychotherapy itself,

566
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,439
Speaker 2: but today advocates, pointing to its evidence, say it deserves

567
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 2: a fresh look and a much wider audience. Hypnosis has

568
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 2: a certain historical mystique that can sometimes make it difficult

569
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: for pracnitioners to understand its modern relevance, said David Goodo, PhD,

570
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 2: a clinical psychologist in Long Beach, California. In fact, clinical

571
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 2: hypnosis has clear benefits in psychotherapy, improving outcomes in areas

572
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 2: such as pain management, anxiety, depression, and sleep. And there's

573
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 2: so what I want to say is that like this

574
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 2: is a this is like a real thing, and there's

575
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 2: very real evidence that hypnosis has impacts on people, which

576
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 2: is part of what It's very dangerous when people get

577
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 2: trained in it and like fuck around with it because

578
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 2: you can actually like really mess people up by screwing

579
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 2: with this stuff. It's a potentially like dangerous thing to

580
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 2: mess with. And I'm not qualified enough to go into

581
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 2: like the weeds of how all this works, but it's

582
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 2: enough for you to know that it is a potentially

583
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 2: powerful tool for therapy. And Sylvia decides she likes this,

584
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 2: and she's enthralled with her abnormal psychology course. But once

585
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 2: she gets further along in the course, she starts to

586
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 2: get scared too, because she starts reading that things like

587
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,959
Speaker 2: hearing voices in your head are potentially symptoms of like

588
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 2: mental illnesses, and she writes it this quote. Some of

589
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 2: these illnesses quote described me too much, too closely for

590
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 2: my own comfort, and I might be like, ma'am, maybe

591
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 2: this is time to like self reflect a little bit more.

592
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 2: This is actually the only self reflection she does in

593
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 2: this book. She writes out that she knows all the

594
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 2: things she's described, experiencing, the voices, the seeing people that

595
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 2: aren't there are classic signs of schizophrenia, and she decides

596
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 2: to go to a psychiatrist to like actually like talk

597
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 2: this out and see, am I crazy? Like that's the

598
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 2: way she writes. She comes in collusion, maybe I'm nuts.

599
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 2: And so she sits down with one of her professors

600
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 2: and engages her professor like as a psychiatrist to analyze her,

601
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 2: which you're not supposed to do. I looked around a

602
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,959
Speaker 2: little bit and per the Liaison Committee on Medical Education,

603
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 2: health professionals who provide psychiatric and psychological care to medical

604
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 2: students must have no involvement in the academic evaluation or

605
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 2: promotion of students receiving those services. You are not supposed

606
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 2: to teach someone and be their psychiatric analyst. It's like

607
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 2: considered a very bad idea. And I think this anecdote

608
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 2: really makes the case as to why because this teacher

609
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 2: clearly likes Sylvia that she makes the appointment with, and

610
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 2: he's not going to be very critical towards what she

611
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 2: says to him. So right before she meets with her

612
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 2: professor about this, Sylvia says goodbye to Francine. She's like, look,

613
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 2: I've decided you're just a figment of my imagination and

614
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: I'm going to cut off contact because I don't want

615
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 2: to be crazy. But if you're not a figment of

616
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 2: my imagination, I'll give you one last chance to appear

617
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 2: in person before me, which had not happened before. And

618
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 2: she starts to show up in person in front of

619
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 2: Sylvia and her whole family, Sylvia claims, and Sylvia runs

620
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 2: out of the room because she gets so scared by this.

621
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 2: And unfortunately none of her family members were all by

622
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 2: the time of this book being published for me to like,

623
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 2: did anyone else see this lady? Has anyone else told

624
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 2: this story? But this convinces Sylvia that Francine is real,

625
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: So she goes to her appointment with doctor Rennick and

626
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 2: she tells him what happens, and for some reason, this

627
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 2: psychologist and professor is like, oh it is all perfectly normal.

628
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,239
Speaker 2: The fact that you're scared that your psychic powers might

629
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 2: make you crazy means that you're definitely saying And he

630
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 2: writes down a diagnosis on a piece of paper normal

631
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 2: but has paranormal abilities question mark, sir, I don't think

632
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 2: you're supposed to do that for you good, Yeah, sir,

633
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 2: She's going to keep this diagnosis her whole life, like

634
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 2: this is he just this is like handing liquor and

635
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 2: a loaded gun to an angry fifteen year old, Like,

636
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 2: there you go, There you go, Sylvia. You've got like

637
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 2: your backup from a professional. Now go out into the

638
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 2: world and mess with people.

639
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 4: That was, sir Robert. That really door.

640
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 2: It's not great. This professor seems to really give her

641
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 2: like a wide purview. He lets her channel Francecene in

642
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 2: class for her classmates in the Abnormal Psychology class question.

643
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 2: In the s they question her spirit guide for hours

644
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: on end, while Sylvia is apparently insensate. Quote, there was

645
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 2: unanimous agreement that even though it was my voice, they

646
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 2: were listening to the speech patterns, the terminology, the rhythms,

647
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 2: and everything else that came out of my mouth sounded

648
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 2: absolutely nothing like me. At all and gee, here's the

649
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 2: good news. Everyone loved her and wanted her to come

650
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 2: back soon. Everybody clapped. It's a great experience for them.

651
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 2: And hey, this I'm pretty hesitant to believe a lot

652
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 2: of what she says. If you think back to like

653
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,479
Speaker 2: the sixties and like the science fiction of the sixties

654
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,479
Speaker 2: and seventies, even like early Star Trek episodes and stuff,

655
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 2: there was this fairly widespread acceptance, even from very scientifically

656
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 2: minded people, that there was something to psychic phenomenon, that

657
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 2: this was real, that there was some reality behind claims

658
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 2: of psychic powers. And so it's not actually weird to

659
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 2: me that like a college cl in like the sixties

660
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 2: and seventies would let someone get up and channel and

661
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 2: people might take it seriously. Like that kind of stuff

662
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 2: wasn't as kooky then as it seems now, in part

663
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 2: because we've had another like fifty years of psychics trying

664
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 2: to prove their psychic powers and like not doing it

665
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 2: on television. So maybe this really happens. Sylvia claims in

666
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 2: her autobiography that she graduates shortly after this at age nineteen,

667
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 2: and starts teaching at a small school near Kansas City.

668
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: This is a lie. And it's here that I can

669
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 2: bring some outside evidence finally into her autobiography, because in

670
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, one of her ex husbands made

671
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 2: a public claim that she had lied about her higher

672
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 2: education experience and her teaching experience. In order to kind

673
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 2: of disprove his lies, she sends her college transcripts over

674
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 2: to a critic who had published his claims, and the

675
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 2: transcript she sent accidentally reveals that, like, she did attend college,

676
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 2: but she never graduates, and she never gets a teaching degree,

677
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 2: and she probably never works as a teacher, which is

678
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 2: good because I don't have to go through the long

679
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 2: section of the book where she does like a stand

680
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 2: and deliver and she talks about it. I knew which

681
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 2: kids were being abused, and I would like secretly help

682
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: them and talk to them and like, you know, maneuver

683
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 2: to help them out of it's all lies. She never

684
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:14,280
Speaker 2: teaches kids.

685
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 5: I'm pretty glad she never worked with children, because I

686
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 5: can't even imagine, can't even imagine the harm she would

687
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 5: have caused.

688
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like especially imagine like somewhat with as wrong

689
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 2: as she was about things her just like going up

690
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 2: to a random kid with a normal hold life and

691
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 2: being like, your dad's hitting you, isn't he? I can

692
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 2: see it psychically. Yeah, Miss Brown is really scary.

693
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 5: Dad.

694
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 2: I don't understand what she's saying.

695
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:41,879
Speaker 5: Teacher comes up to, did you know that your mother

696
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 5: murdered that man?

697
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 2: And yeah, there's a dark vibe to your house. There's

698
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 2: a ghost in it.

699
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,360
Speaker 4: By the way, the dog did not get sent to

700
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 4: a farm.

701
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the next thing we can verify in her

702
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 2: life is that she starts dating. In fact, the husband

703
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 2: who later reveals that she didn't graduate college, who is

704
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 2: a police officer at the time, a guy named Gary Dufraine.

705
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,320
Speaker 2: So she meets this cop and they start dating and

706
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,760
Speaker 2: they get hitched on October nineteenth, nineteen fifty.

707
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 4: He's a cop.

708
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a cop. It's a start foresel who gets

709
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 2: fired for me. He gets fired presumably for being a

710
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,799
Speaker 2: crooked cop. She doesn't say that, but they like have

711
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 2: to move. Oh, it's bad. Yeah, this is fifty eight. Okay,

712
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 2: in fifty eight.

713
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 4: You gotta be pretty bad to get moved as a

714
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 4: cop in the fifties.

715
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, in fifty eight. Yeah. Now, And she also says

716
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 2: that almost he's very sweet when they're dating, but as

717
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 2: soon as they get married, he starts becoming physically and

718
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 2: mentally abusive, which I have no trouble for. You not know,

719
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 2: it's not just that it's the fifties, but like you know,

720
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 2: forty percent of police households experienced domestic violence. This is

721
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 2: a credit. And also he publicly hates her like her

722
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 2: whole life. Now, she's also pretty bad, but I don't

723
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 2: doubt that he abused her in any way, shape or form.

724
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 2: Like everything she writes here seems very credible, and yeah,

725
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,439
Speaker 2: that's that. What I will note is that Sylvia gives

726
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 2: us some hints that she herself was not an easy partner,

727
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 2: which doesn't justify anything. But she tells a story that

728
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 2: is incredibly frustrating if you put yourself in the other

729
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 2: person's shoes. Where they buy a house. They go through

730
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 2: the whole process of buying a house, the huge expense,

731
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 2: all the nightmare of signing all the paperwork, and the

732
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 2: day they move in, she panics and says there's an

733
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 2: evil spirit in the house and like, something's wrong. We

734
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 2: can't live here, Like you didn't figure that out during

735
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 2: the walk there? Yeah, exactly during the inspection that there's

736
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 2: a ghost. So they have to live in the house

737
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 2: for a while because like they can't just leave they

738
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 2: don't have enough money. She concludes the house was built

739
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 2: on an old Native burial ground, and when she I do,

740
00:36:58,000 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 2: Gary's a bad guy. But I love his response to it,

741
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 2: because She's like, we're built this house was built on

742
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,879
Speaker 2: an Indian burial ground, and Gary says, so what, I'm

743
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 2: sure someone's buried pretty much everywhere where are we supposed

744
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 2: to live in mid air? Not a bad response, So

745
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 2: per Sylvia, there's a bunch of storms that hit the house,

746
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 2: and then Gary loses his cop job and the family

747
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:24,839
Speaker 2: moves to California. Her parents move with them, and they

748
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,280
Speaker 2: like live next door in a duplex, but the marriage

749
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 2: continues to degrade. Sylvia has an emotional affair with a

750
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 2: creative writing professor who's into the occult and who starts

751
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 2: giving her occult books like Helena Blovotsky's Theosophy books to

752
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 2: read and tells her like, you're a great psychic and

753
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 2: you have to use your powers to change the world.

754
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 2: And then he dies very suddenly and tragically. I have

755
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 2: no idea. I can't verify this guy's existence, so I

756
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 2: don't know if he was real, or if she just

757
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 2: invented him because he was narratively convenient. But after this point,

758
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 2: she leaves Gary, they get divorced, and she takes there

759
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 2: now two children with her. She meets a new man

760
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,839
Speaker 2: shortly thereafter, a guy named Dal, and they move into

761
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 2: a house together while she completes her hypnotism classes to

762
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 2: become a master hypnotist, and she's starting to practice primarily

763
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 2: as like a psychic. She's not doing a lot of

764
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 2: professional hypnotism right now. She's doing readings on people, and

765
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 2: she's sometimes giving like speeches and stuff to classes, and

766
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 2: that's kind of how she's making her living. I think

767
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 2: Dal is primarily supporting her at this point, but she's

768
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:27,959
Speaker 2: starting to build up her career. And we'll talk about

769
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 2: what comes next, but first adds and we're back. So

770
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 2: my favorite detail from this period of time after she

771
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:44,399
Speaker 2: moves in with her new husband is that one day,

772
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 2: Sylvia's cooking dinner for her family and she starts a

773
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:50,720
Speaker 2: massive grease fire that nearly kills her, and she's rescued

774
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 2: from the grease fire by a spirit that looks to

775
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 2: be a young woman in her thirties. Francine informs her

776
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 2: that this spirit was really Grandma Ada and got her

777
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 2: read this is my favorite chunk of her whole stupid book.

778
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 2: I gotta read this to you, guys. I impatiently pointed

779
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 2: out to Harry that Grandma Ada's hair was white. It

780
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 2: was blonde when she was thirty. She said, all spirits

781
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 2: on the other side are thirty years old? Why are

782
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 2: they thirty? Considering all the years I had been communicating

783
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 2: with her, I should have seen this answer coming. Because

784
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,399
Speaker 2: they are. I couldn't argue with that.

785
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 4: Thirty thirty.

786
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 3: Thirty because they are, because they are.

787
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 2: God was like, you know what the right age is?

788
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 2: Thirty thirty thirty?

789
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:38,720
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's giving jonnither Gardner, it's giving thirteen

790
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:42,280
Speaker 5: going on thirty thirty thirty and thriving thirty.

791
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 3: I think that shows us that she actually believed this.

792
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:50,400
Speaker 2: She has to have to some extent right.

793
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 3: She must have believed that, because if you're if you're

794
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 3: not gonna bother to justify it with anything other than

795
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 3: they said, because it's just that's how it is, Like, damn,

796
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 3: you're in deep.

797
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a It's also just objectively, like, you

798
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 2: know what age people want to be when they're on

799
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:13,240
Speaker 2: the other side forever, the age when their knees started

800
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 2: to give out. That's the perfect age now in their

801
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 2: early twenties when you could like drink like a sieve

802
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 2: or whatever, like thirty. Yeah. So not long after this,

803
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 2: she and Dal go to see a famous psychic give

804
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:32,919
Speaker 2: a lecture. Sylvia very decently doesn't name this psychic because

805
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 2: they were still practicing at the time the book came

806
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 2: out and she didn't want to start beef. But Sylvia

807
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 2: is very offended at how we ignorant this psychic is.

808
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 2: And she's particularly offended because the psychic takes credit for

809
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 2: her gift, for having for their gift right that like,

810
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 2: this is my gift, I'm special as the psychic, and

811
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 2: Sylvia believes that you have to give God credit for everything, right,

812
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 2: So she's kind of offended at that, and she's just

813
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 2: in general angry that this woman's getting a lot of

814
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,400
Speaker 2: important details wrong. So she turns to her husband Dal

815
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 2: and she expresses fury that this has quote a whole

816
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 2: audience sitting there looking for answers, looking for comfort about

817
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 2: their deceased loved ones. All no they got back was

818
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 2: a bunch of double talk lies in half truths, which

819
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 2: is a very ironic sentence to come out of the

820
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:13,360
Speaker 2: lady whose whole career is going to be lying to

821
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 2: people about their dead left ones later and sometimes they're

822
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 2: a lie of loved ones who aren't dead. Her husband

823
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 2: dal I don't know, maybe he just wanted to, like

824
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 2: get her to stop yelling. But he's like, why don't

825
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 2: you do something about it? If you're so much better

826
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 2: of a psychic in this lady, you know, why don't

827
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 2: you become a big psychic and start giving psychic lectures?

828
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 2: And so Sylvia does. She founds the Nirvana Foundation of

829
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 2: Psychic Research, a registered nonprofit in California, in nineteen seventy four.

830
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 2: Her stated goal with this is to create a new

831
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 2: religion right to like, or at least to augment the

832
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 2: existing world religions. You get the feelings part of it.

833
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 2: She wants to like correct the other religions. She thinks

834
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 2: they all got pieces right, but they don't know that

835
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 2: you're thirty forever when you're dead. You know, that's not

836
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 2: in the Bible. We gotta pencil that in, right.

837
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 3: Sounds like so he didn't want to pay their taxes.

838
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh yeah, that's right, you've hit the nail

839
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 2: on the head whenever someone wants to start her religion.

840
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 2: So she starts running ads in the newspaper for classes,

841
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 2: and it being the nineteen seventies, people show up. Sylvia

842
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,160
Speaker 2: gets so many students that regrettably, and she hates this.

843
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 2: She hates to do this. Oh, she has to start

844
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 2: charging the money. It breaks her heart. She has to

845
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 2: get money from these people.

846
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I have to scam the people I'm scamming.

847
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 2: There's just too many of them for me to not

848
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 2: take your money.

849
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 4: Oh can I not take advantage of these people?

850
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 2: Quote? I had been offering for free for so many years,

851
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: but for one thing, it was the only way we

852
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 2: could afford to make a full time commitment to the foundation.

853
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 2: For another thing, as more and more people have been

854
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 2: pointing out to be making a living, putting one's gifts

855
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 2: to work is pretty much the definition of virtually every

856
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 2: career you can name. So long as I devoted by

857
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 2: gifts to God's greatest good, I had no reason to apologize.

858
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 2: I don't know that that is the definition of every

859
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:08,239
Speaker 2: virtually every career you can name, Like putting like we

860
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 2: all like to think that that's the case. But I

861
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:12,919
Speaker 2: don't know if I think like most of the people

862
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 2: I know who like worked as a bank teller weren't

863
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:17,439
Speaker 2: like I'm putting my gifts to work. They were like, well,

864
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 2: I needed a job while I was in college, you know, Yeah,

865
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:22,279
Speaker 2: I need something to do.

866
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 3: I can teach acting classes for free.

867
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. So true to her word though, after this point,

868
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 2: Sylvia is not going to apologize for anything she does

869
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 2: over the next fifty years. We have now that's a

870
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 2: sign of prospers threshold. Yeah, and she she is going

871
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 2: to be from this point forward making money full time

872
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 2: off of her psychic research. She's going to start hiring people,

873
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 2: bring them in and expanding the Nirvana Foundation, And by

874
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five or so, she is a full time

875
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 2: psychic teaching classes and extrasensory skills like dream interpretation, and

876
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 2: becoming increase in like prominent within like the kooky world

877
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:05,359
Speaker 2: of New Age thought as that starts to kind of

878
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 2: explode in the mid seventies through the early eighties. She's

879
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:12,800
Speaker 2: one of these people who's like in Southern California giving

880
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 2: obvious it's always in Southern California, like giving classes and

881
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 2: putting out books and pamphlets on like how the psychic

882
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 2: world is supposed to work, and there's very much this

883
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 2: idea that like, we're treating this like a science, and

884
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:28,879
Speaker 2: so we'll see how this science develops. Cal in part two.

885
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 2: How are you feeling at the end of part one

886
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 2: about our friend Sylvia?

887
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 4: Yeah? What do you think of Sylvia so far?

888
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 3: I appreciate this backstory because I knew I grew up

889
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,399
Speaker 3: in the nineties, so I remember, like when you were

890
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 3: stick home from school, like with a flu on the

891
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 3: couch watching just bad daytime shows. She was a fixture

892
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 3: of a lot of them, I guess Montella especially. I

893
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 3: don't remember what I would watch back in the day,

894
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 3: but I remember that, and I remember just there was

895
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 3: like the gap obviously a college after once the Internet

896
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 3: comes around YouTube, and then obviously now social media, like

897
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:04,359
Speaker 3: these clips that circulate of her. I have that weird

898
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 3: memory of remembering that as a kid, but then not

899
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 3: knowing anything else about her. So all of that was

900
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:17,360
Speaker 3: very interesting, and I guess I didn't realize how troubled

901
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 3: she was from such an early age. And I'm trying

902
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 3: to use that term generously instead of saying that she

903
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 3: was a fraud or whatever. Like it just sounds like

904
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 3: whether whether she actually believes this or whether it was

905
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,360
Speaker 3: a it was a calculated fraud. She doesn't sound well

906
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 3: from the beginning, right, No.

907
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 2: No, And I think it's probably accurate to think that

908
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 2: this doesn't Nobody starts, or at least very few people start,

909
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:42,359
Speaker 2: you know, the way she would say, mapping it out.

910
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,359
Speaker 2: She's not as a twenty year old or whatever, mapping

911
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 2: out and then I'm going to light at people about

912
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,800
Speaker 2: their kidnapped relatives. Yeah, right, this is this is a

913
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 2: kid who she's got a difficult home life. You know,

914
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 2: she's got a grandma who makes her feel special. I

915
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 2: don't have trouble believing because a lot of people could

916
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 2: have experiences like an older and though I'm a little touched,

917
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 2: I've got a little bit of of the gift or whatever.

918
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:04,319
Speaker 2: And her grandma probably certainly didn't say everything that she

919
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 2: puts in her grandma's mouth, but she probably said a

920
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 2: few things. And then Sylvia expands the lore over time

921
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 2: because it makes her feel special and comforted, and you know,

922
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,800
Speaker 2: things snowball and eventually you get a lot less ethical.

923
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:21,320
Speaker 2: You start making compromises to keep it going. You find opportunities,

924
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 2: and I do think you like breaking bad is a

925
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 2: more gradual experience for a lot of these people. You know,

926
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 2: they're not all l Ron Hubbard who came out of

927
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 2: the gate like I'm gonna con as many people as

928
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 2: I can. We can't all be LRH, though we might

929
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:38,840
Speaker 2: wish we could. Well, cal you want to plug your

930
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 2: show again before you're all out here?

931
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 3: Sure. I'm the host of a podcast called Here we

932
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 3: Go Again, where we look at the past, present, and

933
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,359
Speaker 3: future of specific topics. You can think of it as

934
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 3: like a place where you can have fun, make some jokes,

935
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 3: but at the end of the episode, feel like you've

936
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 3: actually learned a little bit of something, a little bit

937
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 3: of a maybe like a little just tiny tiny bit

938
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 3: of hope about the topics that we cover.

939
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 2: A tiny bit of hope sounds incredibly generous for twenty

940
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 2: twenty six, So I am looking forward to that. You

941
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 2: all should be too. All right, everybody, until Thursday, this

942
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 2: has been Behind the Bastards. We'll be back and like

943
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:18,879
Speaker 2: a day or so. You know how this all works.

944
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 2: We've been doing this for almost ten years.

945
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: Sweets Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone

946
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: Media for more from cool Zone Media. Visit our website

947
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

948
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video

949
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: episodes that Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix,

950
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:43,840
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951
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,600
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952
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:50,280
Speaker 1: episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel YouTube

953
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:54,240
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954
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,320
Speaker 1: forty percent of you, statistically speaking,