Getty Did Sylvia Browne predict the coronavirus outbreak?
Sylvia Browne, a self-proclaimed psychic and medium with a number of critics, wrote a passage in a 2008 book that seems to eerily predict the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak.
Kim Kardashian recently shared the passage to her followers. Browne died in 2013.
This is what Browne wrote:
“In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely.”
You can find Browne’s End of Days book here. The book’s blurb on Amazon states, “Religious wars, global terrorism, pandemics, and genocide have all helped to usher in the Anxiety Age. Who better to lead the way out than popular psychic Sylvia Browne? In End of Days, Browne tackles the most daunting of subjects with her trademark clarity, wisdom, and serenity, answering such difficult questions as: What’s coming in the next fifty years? What do the great prophecies of Nostradamus and the Book of Revelation mean? If the world is really going to end, what will unfold in our final hours?”
Kourtney just sent this on our group chat
But was this a prediction or “lucky guess”?
Snopes concluded, “Self-described psychic Sylvia Browne wrote in her 2008 book ‘End of Days’ that a respiratory illness would spread across the globe.” But the site concluded that it wasn’t clear whether this was just a “lucky guess” because “the book was written after the SARS outbreak.”
She’s not the only author to make a coronavirus-like prediction; check out what Dean Koontz wrote about Wuhan:
Here’s what you need to know:
Browne’s Website Describes Her in Glowing Terms But She Had Critics & a History of False Predictions
Apparently #sylviabrowne predicted #Coronavirussouthafrica about 12 years ago and she says it will just vanish then return years later.
Browne’s website has been updated to read, “Sylvia often times made many world predictions. throughout her career. She mentions an outbreak of a severe pneumonia-like illness that attacks the lungs and bronchial tubes, (COVID-19) Corona Virus.”
Browne’s website describes her as “Sylvia Browne, world renowned spiritual teacher, psychic, author, lecturer and researcher in the field of parapsychology.”
“Sylvia was well-known for her dynamic, genuine, down-to-earth style and personality. Her lectures, teachings, counsel and love for people was felt all over the world including Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Sylvia manifested her psychic ability at the age of three, in her home town of Kansas City, MO,” it reads. “For many years she shared her gift with friends and family, and became very well-known for helping people to see their future. Moving to California in 1964, she continued assisting people privately. Sylvia then wanted to make a professional, legally sanctioned organization to further her research into the paranormal. This goal was realized in 1974 when Sylvia incorporated The Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research, a nonprofit organization (now known as Sylvia Browne Corporation). Since then, Sylvia has helped thousands of people gain control of their lives, live more happily, understand the meaning of life, and to find God in their own unique way.”
The website adds, “Sylvia has over 50 published works resulting from her research into parapsychology with 22 appearing on the New York Times Bestsellers List. These books include: (Her biography) Adventures of a Psychic, The Other Side and Back, Life on the Other Side, Book of Dreams, Contacting Your Spirit Guide, Book of Angels, Visits from the Afterlife, Prophecy, Secrets & Mysteries of the World, Animals on the Other Side, Phenomenon, If You Could See What I See, Insights, Exploring the Levels of Creation, The Mystical Life of Jesus, Secret Societies, Temples on the Other Side, End of Days, and Mystical Traveler. Her most recent books, All Pets Go to Heaven, Psychic Healing, Messages From Spirit, Accepting the Psychic Torch, and The Truth About Psychics have been a major hit with readers all over the world. Her latest release, Psychic – My Life in Two Worlds, Sylvia’s first of three books with her new publisher, HarperOne, is an intimate, unapologetic, no-holds-barred memoir that candidly discusses deeper personal and professional experiences that she has never revealed in public.”
According to Newsweek, Browne’s book is surging in sales after the Kardashian tweet.
According to Newsweek, when she was alive, some of Browne’s predictions were completely discredited. For example, she once told the mother of missing child Amanda Berry that Amanda was dead, but she was very much alive and later rescued.
Newsweek reported that Browne appeared on well-known television programs like Larry King Live and The Montel Williams Show and did psychic readings over the telephone for money.
Benjamin Radford, writing for the Center for Inquiry, repudiated Browne’s prediction, pointing out that she used the hedge word “around” when giving the year. “So we have a two-sentence prediction written in 2008 by a convicted felon with a long track record of failures. Half of the prediction (the second sentence) have demonstrably not happened,” he wrote.
“The other half of the prophecy describes an infectious respiratory illness that does not resemble Covid-19 in its particulars and that would happen within a few years of 2020. At best, maybe one-sixth of what she said is accurate, depending again on how much latitude you’re willing to give her in terms of dates and vague descriptions. Anyone who finds this prediction to be astonishingly accurate should contact me for information on a bridge I happen to have for sale.”
According to her CNN obituary, Browne was 77 when she died in a California hospital. CNN referred to her as “a leader in the paranormal world who appeared regularly on television and radio and also wrote dozens of top-selling books.” A cause of death was not given.
She told Larry King she communicated with the dead and could see the future, saying, according to CNN, “I don’t know how I do it. I’ve done it all my life.”
Huffington Post said that Browne’s failed predictions included one on her own death, which she said falsely would come when she was 88. In 2010, Skeptical Inquirer analyzed 115 predictions she made and found that none came true, Huffington Post reported, adding that she also told the parents of missing child 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck that he was dead when he, too, ended up being alive. In 1992, she was indicted on fraud and grand theft charges, the site reported, adding that she “eventually pleaded no contest to securities fraud and was indicted on grand larceny.”
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