Part Two: Sylvia Browne: Fake Psychic Detective

Summary

Behind the Bastards – Part Two: Sylvia Browne: Fake Psychic Detective

Host: Robert Evans
Guest: Cal Pen
Date: March 19, 2026
Podcast: Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts
Theme: A critical look behind the life and cons of self-styled psychic Sylvia Browne, dissecting her methods, fraudulent history, TV career, infamous failed readings, and harm done to families and broader culture.

---

Episode Overview

This episode continues the in-depth investigation into the notorious psychic Sylvia Browne. Host Robert Evans and guest Cal Pen scrutinize her rise to fame, the realities behind her supposed “psychic detective” work, her involvement in financial fraud, and her devastatingly inaccurate predictions—especially involving missing persons cases.

The tone is sardonic, deep-diving, and often mordantly funny as Evans and Pen point out not only Browne's misdeeds and errors, but the greater enabling environment of credulity, sensationalist TV, and the harm to desperate people.

---

Early Career and Psychic Gimmicks

[03:26 - 06:30]

• Sylvia’s Origin Story:
  After escaping an abusive first marriage, young Sylvia moves to California and starts her own psychic foundation bent on becoming a new religious figure. In the mid-1970s, she’s doing local Southern California talking gigs, Elks Clubs, channeling her spirit guide “Francine,” and fielding questions about aliens and the afterlife.
• Quote (Robert Evans):
  “If this isn’t evil, this is just a hoot. It’s the stuff that comes later that gets to be evil.” [04:31]
• Sylvia, reflecting the era, emphasizes, “Never go to a psychic before you go to a doctor,” a norm that would not be respected by modern grifters.
• Analysis:
  Early on, Browne is more carnival-act, but the framework is laid for more damaging fraud.

---

TV Fame and Psychic Cold Reading

[06:31 - 15:53]

• Local TV Stardom:
  Browne becomes a regular on San Francisco’s People Are Talking from the late 1970s into the 1990s.

• Legendary Television Appearances:
  Robert Evans shares a 1991 clip featuring Browne’s predictions:

  • Advises a caller against buying an apartment. Later, the caller claims the apartment was the site of the death of Eric Clapton’s son.

    • Quote (Browne):
      “I feel all kinds of negative energy around it.” [08:45]
    • Evans’ Analysis:
      Questions the authenticity and logic of the story, noting that while tragic, it’s unrelated to Browne’s supposed foresight.

  • Browne’s cold reads cover celebrity fertility and relationships (partial points for guessing Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s second child is a daughter, but notably wrong about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s marriage lasting).

    • Quote (Browne, re: Cruise and Kidman):
      “I think that they’re fun for each other and I think they’re going to make it… because she’s a real strong woman. And I think he needs a strong woman.” [13:34]
    • Evans: “Nope, that one did not. Correct.” [13:58]

  • Hosts and audience go along for entertainment; accuracy is not the metric.

• Cal Pen’s Satirical Take:
  “You hate IVF, right.” [15:05]

---

The “Science” of Past Life Regression

[15:54 - 29:13]

• Browne Adopts Past Life Regression:
  Browne’s hypnosis clients, originally there for smoking cessation or diet help, start “recovering” memories of their lives as ancient pyramid builders.
• Evans Debunks:
  • The histories Browne relays are full of factual errors—e.g., King Tut was not buried in a pyramid.
  • Clients “recover” memories of building pyramids with “anti-gravitational devices” and one supposedly speaks 7th-century Assyrian, a language Evans cannot verify existed as described.
  • Cal notes the lack of gender crossing in client “past lives,” and that Browne always gives herself glamorous backstories (beautiful high priestess in Africa, the “first Eskimo to use shoelaces”), satirized by Evans researching actual shoelace history.

---

Law Enforcement Claims and FBI Myths

[32:18 - 47:00]

• Browne’s Claims:
  Claims to have helped police and the FBI on many cases, specifics never provided until the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, where her supposed FBI contact “Ted Gunderson” reaches out for psychic assistance.
• What Actually Happened:
  • Evans details that Gunderson was a retired FBI agent and subsequent crank involved in satanic panic and far-right conspiracy theories, not an active investigator ([39:54]).
  • Browne uses “cold reading” to guess at the suspects’ names (e.g., “Salzamon” for “Salama”), but the information was public and her guesses extremely vague.
  • FBI files, obtained by the Skeptical Inquirer, show no record of any real collaboration with Browne; the only interest was in investigating her for fraud.
    • Quote (Evans):
      “The only interest the agency had in Browne was investigating her for fraud.” [41:22]
• Fraud Convictions:
  In the 1980s-90s, Browne and husband are convicted of financial fraud (e.g., gold mine scam), with a trail of bankruptcy, probation, and more fraud, but Browne keeps her married name.

---

Rise to National TV and True Damage

[47:01 - 63:35]

• National Exposure:
  Despite a fraud record, Browne’s career gets a rocket-boost from appearances on Montel Williams (starting in 1990), Larry King, and bestselling books. She becomes a pop culture psychic, dishing out readings for $850 a pop and peddling metaphysics, angels, and cold comfort.

• Horrific Misses:
  Repeatedly and publicly, Browne gives distressing and catastrophically wrong readings to families of missing/murdered persons:

  • Amanda Berry (Montel, 2004): Tells Berry’s mother her daughter is dead. Berry is later found alive. Browne later issues a tepid Facebook non-apology:
    “If there was ever a time to be grateful and relieved for being mistaken, this is that time. Only God is right all the time.” [58:05]
  • Sean Hornbeck Case: Tells Hornbeck’s parents he is dead; he is found alive years later.
  • Many cases cited: Always wrong about details—cause of death, perpetrator, circumstances—even when guessing crime was involved.
  • On Montel, claims involvement in high-profile criminal cases, e.g., helping with the “Bundy case”—no evidence backs this.

• Evans’ Core Point:
  Browne’s “psychic” career offered little but harm to real people in crisis. He highlights the deep irresponsibility of media platforms enabling the grift and the emotional devastation for families given false closure. - Quote (Evans):
  “You can really just be wrong constantly as long as you’ve got a fan base and it’s okay. Like, she never loses the core of her support, despite how wrong she’s… I guess it’s a prediction for where we are today.” [64:55]

  • Cal Pen: “That is quite the rollercoaster. Oh, shit. I knew none of this.” [64:46]
  • Cal Pen: “There is a massive desire we have to want to believe things.” [65:20]
  • Both discuss how desperation and TV culture create an ecosystem where false hope sells.

---

Browne’s Final Years and Death

[63:36 - 67:38]

• Continued to sell out readings for hundreds of dollars, maintained inflated claims (“90% accuracy”), and furiously published books, even as her predictions (from the papacy to Mars missions to U.S. elections) failed spectacularly.
• Final Irony:
  • Browne predicted she would die at 88; she died at 77 ([63:36]).
    • Evans: “Wrong. Right up to the end, girl.”
• Postscript:
  Evans and Pen contextualize Browne’s career as a paradigm of American grift, enabled by media and a culture addicted to sensational—often at the expense of real harm to individuals.

---

Key Moments & Quotes

• On Browne’s entertainment roots:
  “If this isn’t evil, this is just a hoot. It’s the stuff that comes later that gets to be evil.” (Evans, [04:31])

• Evaluating psychic guesses:
  “First off, this is a great situation to be a TV psychic in, because it’s a bunch of 50, 50 guesses.” (Evans, [13:58])

• On her past-life “research”:
  “She is like, ‘I’m Helen of Troy, but with shoelaces.’” (Evans, [27:43])

• On FBI connections:
  “The only interest the agency had in Browne was investigating her for fraud.” (Evans, [41:22])

• On horrific readings:
  “The damage she does to unsuspecting people in crisis situations is just atrocious.” (Gary Dufresne, Browne’s ex-husband, quoted by Evans, [62:04])

• On Browne’s enduring fan base:
  “You can really just be wrong constantly as long as you’ve got a fan base.” (Evans, [64:55])

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers a scathing, fact-driven profile of Sylvia Browne as a prototype of the harmful showbiz psychic. Robert Evans and Cal Pen use Browne to explore not just one woman’s failings and frauds, but America’s appetite for magical thinking, the pop culture machine that sells it, and the tragic cost to families seeking hope. The humor and thoroughness make the episode biting and essential listening for anyone curious about psychics’ real impact.

---

Further Listening

Guest Plug:
Cal Pen’s podcast, Here We Go Again, looks at cultural and political topics through past, present, and future lenses, offering hopeful takes and actionable insights.
[67:09]

---

Timestamps Quick Reference

• Browne’s TV career and cold reading: [03:26-15:53]
• Past life regression grift and debunking: [15:54-29:13]
• FBI and Ted Gunderson myth-busting: [32:18-47:00]
• Montel era: failed readings and real-world harm: [47:01-63:35]
• Final years, failed prophecies, and reflections: [63:36-67:38]

---

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

Call Zone Media.

Oh, my gosh, look at the time. It's behind the bastards. 45. It's actually 2:11pm Otherwise known as 8:00am in the morning for me because I let my sleep schedule get disastrously disordered and it is slowly destroying me and my life. But you know who it's not destroying is our wonderful guest for these episodes, Cal Pen. Calm. How are you doing?

[Cal Pen]

I'm doing well. I was going to make a joke about just perpetually being awake, but I had no good punchline. I'm good. I am awake. More of a morning person, but very excited to be here. I was just telling you before we came on what a fan I am. And so especially remember, can we talk about Sylvia's voice? Sorry, I'm just jumping the gun a little bit.

[Robert Evans]

And we'll be hearing more of it, don't you worry.

[Cal Pen]

Okay?

[Robert Evans]

Okay. Okay.

[Cal Pen]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

All right.

[Cal Pen]

Yeah. But no, I'm excited to be here, so thank you for. Thank you for having me.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Let's put it. Because I do want to hear what you have to say about her voice, but let's give the listeners, like, a minute or two of it, which they're going to get in a minute, and then we can really. We'll have something to sink our collective teeth into.

We'll dive in. Yeah.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

[Robert Evans]

Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?

[Boys and Girls Podcast Host]

Welcome to the boys and girls podcast. Arranged marriage is basically reality show. And you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family. I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition hoping to find love the right way. And instead I found chaos, comedy and a lot of cringe. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand better version of.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.

But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Hey there, folks.

[Amy Robach]

Amy Robach and T.J. holmes here, and

[T.J. Holmes]

we know there is a lot of news coming at you these days from the war with Iran to the ongoing Epstein fallout, government shutdowns, high profile, TR and what the hell is that Blake Lively thing about?

[Amy Robach]

Anyway, we are on it every day, all day.

[T.J. Holmes]

Follow us Amy and TJ for news updates throughout the day.

[Amy Robach]

Listen to Amy and TJ on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[iHeart Country Festival Announcer]

Saturday, May 2, country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas at our 2026 I Heart Country Festival presented by Capital One. See Kane Brown, Parker McCollum, Riley Green, Shaboozi, Dylan Scott, Russell Dickerson, Gretchen Wilson, Chase, Matthew, Lauren, Elena. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell [e-mail].

[Robert Evans]

So in case you're coming into part two of this episode like a maniac, we're talking about Sylvia Brown, who is not named Sylvia Brown yet because she hasn't married the guy that she takes the last name from. But we're going to call her Sylvia Brown anyway for the sake of making this simpler. She is a psychic who has found out that if you are sick or die in a war, that's because you chose to do that in a past life. She's gotten out of her first marriage to an abusive cop. She's moved to California. She has started a psychic foundation where she is working to create her own new religion. So by 1975, things are really starting to come together for Sylvia. She's getting more and more famous. She's getting paid to speak at events by local organizations in Southern California. And usually what this means is like an Elks Club or something will like, hire. It's like entertainment. And they'll channel her, Right. Or she'll channel Francine. Right. So she'll, she'll bring in and they'll get to ask Francine questions about aliens or the other side or whatnot. Right. Like it's a gimmick, you know? Yeah. It could be fun, right?

[Cal Pen]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

If this isn't evil, this is just a hoot. It's the, it's the stuff that comes later that gets to be evil. This is also the period where she claims she starts working as a pro bono consultant for cops and quote several medical and psychiatric professionals that she knew. Now, this is one thing that's interesting to me about this book. It tells you what a different era Sylvia came from where she has to reiterate several times, I never tell anyone to come to me first. I'm always only brought in if they've already consulted a medical professional or already talked to the police. And that didn't work. I'M just there to help. If they've already tried traditional methods. Never go to a psychic before you go to a doctor. Which is like a responsible thing to say. And she would absolutely not be saying if she were, like, doing this grift today. Right. Like, today you can just do away with doctors altogether. It's just interesting to me how even back in her day, you had to be like, obviously go to a doctor first. It's kind of a. Even the psychics trust doctors less than they used to.

[Cal Pen]

My question about this is, why not go to you first? Like, the cost, both in the actual what you're paying the doctor and the time you gotta take off work. And if she's so great and you can solve something in 20 seconds, why would we not go to you first?

[Robert Evans]

I, you know, logically you're right. It does make no sense. If she's a legitimate psychic, she shouldn't be saying that. Right. I think it's just that that was too much, like it was too crazy to tell people to do that in the 80s. People would have been like, you're telling people not to go to the doctor. That's fucked up. Right? Oh, I think the disinfo ecosystem has just advanced so much now. But you're right, like, if she's a real psychic, you would want to go to her before a doctor. Because doctors fuck up all the time and God doesn't. Right. Like, the spirit will know where your tumor is. Yeah, Right. So, yeah, she's. She's consulting and whatnot with all sorts of agencies, so she claims. And she also starts to show up on television. Right. This is when the beginning of her TV career starts and she gets asked to come to San Francisco, where she will for the next, like, decade, like almost 20 years, will be a semi regular guest on the local TV show. People Are Talking. This is like a San Francisco, like local access show or something like that. And finding episodes of local TV shows from the 70s is very hard. There's a ton of lost media from that era, which is actually really unfortunate. Like, there are efforts to archive a lot of that stuff that I'm very supportive of because it's a serious problem that so much of very important culture has been lost from that era. So I can't show you her appearances on People Are talking from the 70s. I just haven't found any. But I did find a 1991 episode of People Are Talking with Sylvia Brown. And I think it's fair to assume that this is similar to the stuff she would have been doing in the 70s and the 80s. So we're still in the 70s. I'm going to play this clip from the 90s because I want you guys to get an understanding of like what her TV appearances are like in the early stage of her career. Right. I hope that makes some sense.

[Cal Pen]

And this was this, this is 20 years into her doing this show.

[Robert Evans]

She's, she's. Well, she starts in like the late 70s. She, she's been doing it for like a decade, a little over a decade. She'll be on the show off and on, I think for like 20 years. Right.

[Cal Pen]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

This is about a decade into her run. Something like that. And before you ask, since this is from 1991. Yes. If you can't see, all of the women in this clip are wearing it. Thick shoulder pads and everyone's hair looks terrible. Just terrible, terrible hair.

It's the age of big earrings as well.

[Cal Pen]

Oh yeah, I love the whale eyeball earrings.

[Robert Evans]

It's beautiful. Yeah, Sylvia looks incredible. She's got, as Gal said, earrings that look like whale eyebrows. So the episode starts with a very low stakes story, right? Some guy wanted to buy. Sylvie is talking about a thing that had happened previously where some guy paid her to consult because he was going to buy an apartment with his wife and he wasn't sure about it. So he asked Sylvie if it was a good idea and she said, no, don't buy the apartment. It's a horrible idea. And then sometime later, that guy's wife calls in and leaves a voice message thanking Sylvia for telling them not to buy the apartment because of what had happened in it. And here's that voicemail. And by the way, I do think the person leaving the voicemail is intoxicated. But you can make your own opinions up on that.

[Sylvia Browne]

People that know me, I really don't beat around the bush that much. I probably was a little bit nicer than that, truthfully. But I said it's a bad idea, it's negative, there's something wrong with it. I feel all kinds of negative energy around it. And I came on very strong about it. Now. He then called our producer Kathy Churmel and left a message on her answering machine. And this is the message he left after he talked to Sylvia.

[Caller or Voicemail Speaker]

It's Terry. It's I guess 8:30 your time. Just wanted to tell you that the apartment that Eric Clapton's kid fell out of the window, I don't know if you heard he was killed, was the apartment that Billy, you know, and I have been looking at forever, that he Just lost today that someone else bought. So Billy calls and says maybe your psychic's right after all. Because your psychic said there are major problems with that apartment. So for what it's worth, he's a big believer again in your psychic. Can you believe that? Anyway, I thought you'd want to know.

[Sylvia Browne]

Isn't that something?

[Robert Evans]

Wow.

First off, I do think that lady's drunk. But second, that's a true story. Eric Clapton's son did die falling out of a window in a New York City apartment building. That's what she's claiming is that, like, the apartment they were going to buy was in the building that Eric Clapton's son fell out of. Which, like, I mean, first off, that's a tragedy, obviously. Like, it's horrible, but also doesn't mean that anything was wrong with his apartment. He wasn't buying Eric Clapton's apartment. And the child didn't die because the apartment was bad. The window was left open while it was being cleaned and the kid hadn't realized, and he, like, ran towards what he thought was a closed plate glass wind to put his face against it or something, and he fell over the side. It's a really sad story. But again, it's nothing wrong with the apartment. They wouldn't have died falling out of the apartment window. Right. Again, whatever. It's just there's this. And I have no idea at this point how much of this is even manufactured. Like, if that was a completely fake story because Eric Clapton's son dying was so in the news, that's kind of unclear to me.

[Cal Pen]

The producers, would they fact check calls that came in? We don't know.

[Robert Evans]

No, no. And I don't know that they would. But also, this is like a show. Like, it's about entertainment. They're not. So I don't actually know what's going on here. That said, as we established last episode, Sylvia has a history of deciding homes are cursed and not wanting to be in them. So I can believe this just happened to be the same apartment Eric Clapton lived in. Right, yeah. Um, so the next question here, they go to break, and when they come back, the hosts note that they're having weird electrical issues with the broadcast, which always seems to happen when Sylvia comes by and she's like, oh, every time I'm on tv, there's. There's electrical issues somewhere. You know, it's the spirits, the ghosts messed with the equipment. The recording and the video looks pretty clear to me from, you know, recording from 1991. But who knows? Next they take questions from the audience. So she's being asked now, this is a series of questions about celebrity marriages and celebrities trying to have kids and whether or not they're, they're relationships work out and she gets a couple, right? She's first asked if Maury Povich and Connie Chung are going to have a child together. And she says no, which we will call partially correct. The couple had fertility issues and were not able to conceive together. But they did adopt a child not long after this broadcast. So partially. We'll give her like a half score on that one. Right after that, they ask about Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's second child. Now, she does correctly predict that their second child will be a daughter, which is like a 50, 50 guess. But okay, we'll give her that one, right? She's, she's, she's right about this. The next one she's asked about is Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold. And they were at the time attempting to have a child through artificial insemination. And she goes on a real rant here. Her whole mood changes because she thinks God hates artificial insemination. I can't think of anything worse. She is so angry at the fact that they're getting, having artificial insemination. And there's also some weird, like, fat shaming parts of it, too, because when they, they talk about, do you think they'll have a kid? Like, the audience starts to laugh as they show pictures of Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr. And I think they're just like, laughing at the fact that they're like, heavier people, right?

Like, that's shitty.

It's kind of gross. But I guess TV in 1991. So the last question she asks about, and it is weird to me that she's so negative about ivf. But the next question we get to is my favorite because she's asked about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who had recently gotten together in 1991. And she's asked like, is this relationship going to last? And here's what she says.

[Sylvia Browne]

How about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman? They're cute. They're cute. And I think that they're fun for each other and I think they're gonna make it. And I'll tell you why. Because she's a real strong woman. And I think he needs a strong woman. And I think that's why it's going to be good. Because she's got the strength, because he's got that sort of charming little boy way about him. He really does. And I think she's good for him, and I think she'll whip him into line.

[Robert Evans]

Nope, that one did not. Correct. Yeah, they got divorced in 2001, citing irreconcilable differences. And you know, when you look at this, what you're seeing here, first off, this is a great situation to be a TV psychic in, because it's a bunch of 50, 50 guesses, right? Sure. And your accuracy is pretty good. First off, if you're being asked, will these celebrities who are already famous for having a tumultuous relationship, which was the case with a lot of these relationships, she's asked, are they gonna stay together? It's a pretty good bet to be like, well, probably not. Right. Cause, like, they're already having a bunch of problems. Also, the same thing with, like, they've had one daughter. Do you think their next child will be a daughter? 50, 50 shot. Pretty easy guess to get it right. But in 1991, Cruise and Kidman had just gotten married. They had not had any sort. There wasn't anything in the media about the relationship having, like, problems yet. Right. Every. All the press about them was positive. So Sylvia guessed that they were going to last. Like, she's not. It just really makes the case of what she's doing here. She can get it right when it's kind of a thing anyone could guess well. But when there's less to go on, she's going to be wrong because she's just. She's just blindly guessing, you know?

[Cal Pen]

Yes. It's such a 50, 50. It's a 50, 50. And you hate IVF, right.

[Robert Evans]

And you're really against the idea of artificial insemination. God hates it. Anyway, this episode is from the early 90s, but she's doing this stuff like this from the late 70s up through the 80s. And so we can safely assume a lot of her TV appearances during that period are kind of similar to this. And she's a good performer for what that show is. Right. Like, that's why they keep bringing her on. She does the job she's being brough on to do. And the hosts of the show know what they're getting out of her. Right. And they're pretty smart about tailoring because she likes to talk about metaphysics and aliens and dead people. That's more heavy than you want on, like a Daily Talk. You want to talk about celebrity marriages and babies, right?

[Cal Pen]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So this is kind of her at her most public facing, like, media. This is like the most digestible Sylvia tends to get. She is a hit, though. She starts doing fairly well Enough that she's able to rent a larger office and start hiring employees to handle her correspondence. She brings in two full time researchers for the Nirvana foundation and even an early computer system because they're, they're trying to map out all of the realities of the other side and, you know, how they're ranking angels and how angels work and trying to figure out the science of all of this stuff that she believes. Sylvia starts hosting regular hypnosis sessions and psychic readings and begins advertising that she can help clients quit smoking, lose weight, or fix their life in any number of ways. Sylvia says that at first these sessions were just a way for her to fund her foundation for Psychic Research. Quote, it never occurred to me that these hypnosis sessions would contribute far more than money to the foundation and its efforts to prove the spirit survives death. So the way these sessions prove that life exists after death is that she starts having clients who start telling her about their past lives. This begins with a guy named Frank who just. He comes in because he wants to lose weight. But wouldn't you know it, when she puts him down and hypnotizes him, he starts talking about, quote, his life in Egypt as a pyramid builder. We're going to talk about Frank and the pyramids in a second. But before we continue with Frank, we need to make a quick detour to the history of past life. Regression therapy. This starts like the origins of this kind of shit are in like the late, the end of the 1800s, early 1900s. You get these occultists and scientists in London who are kind of like, like Sylvia says she's doing, they're trying to, they set up foundations to try to find evidence of life after death. And it'll be a mix at this point of like spiritualists and scientists, because they're not that different in 1890. You know, like, there's not a real strong reason to be like, well, ghosts don't exist based on the science of 1890. It's like a, an arguable point really to a lot of scientists at that time, as opposed to, I mean, it's still an arg. I guess you could say an arguable point now. But a lot of mainstream scientists are willing to explore the idea that, well, maybe there's spirits, right? And maybe there's a way that we can like, like figure out scientifically how spirits work. That's very much the. In vogue at the time, in the 1930s. A researcher at Duke University tries to systematically study the experiences of people with past lives and start documenting them. And then in the mid-1950s, Maury Bernstein writes a book titled the Search for Brittie Murphy. This is a fiction book inspired by a real story of a woman named Virgin Tighe, an American lady who came to believe she was the reincarnation of a 19th century Irish woman. The book was made into a movie that was fairly popular. And this, obviously reincarnation is like a major aspect of a number of world religions, but this is, this book helps popularize the idea in a secular sense for Westerners. Reincarnation not as part of an existent belief system, but as something you can take all a cartoon. And if you're a Christian, you can stick it in your Christianity. If you believe in psychic powers and something, you know, weirder than that, if you're, if you're an occultist or a pagan or a Wiccan, you can, you can stick some, like Americans start seeing reincarnation as something. I can just grab this, take this out of the grad bag of world beliefs and stick it into whatever I already believe. Right. That, that, that kind of starts to really hit in the 60s and 70s and part is a result of this book. So by the 70s you get a number of psychologists and psychiatrists offering what they call past life regression services where they'll hypnotize or otherwise, like put people down and to try to bring up their past lives with the idea that a lot of psychosomatic illnesses and ailments are really caused by. If your foot hurts a lot and the scientists can't figure out why, the doctor can't figure out why, it's probably because in a past life you like, lost your leg to a mortar in World War I or something like that, or got hit by a horse or, you know, back on the prairie in the cowboy days. And so you gotta, if you can access that past life and that past life can explain what happened to it, you can fix the ailment. That's the idea that a lot of these people are going into in the 70s. And in 1991, the practice is pretty close to the peak of its popularity in the late 80s. So Sylvia's heading down very well trod ground when she starts doing this question.

And I don't know if you mentioned it in part one. Do we know what kind of religion, if any, she was raised with?

Yeah, she's raised Catholic. She goes to a Catholic school as a girl. And she respects it and she believes in God. But she also has notes.

Sure, some of the iv. Yeah, because some of the IVF stuff could stem from that, yeah, they're very anti ivf. And, yeah, it's just interesting, the. I don't know, it's interesting to see, like, some of the Catholicism bleed into her beliefs here.

You can even see it in the idea that, like, well, before we're born were these fully sentient spirits that pick out our entire lives. Right. Like, you can see pieces of that there too.

Yeah.

So back to Frank, this guy who wants to lose weight and then starts talking about his life as a pyramid builder once Sylvia puts him under.

Oh, Frank.

Yeah. Now, Sylvia says that the way he talks about pyramid building is, quote, so unremarkable and current to him that you would have thought he'd stopped to see me on his lunch break and would be heading straight back to put some finishing touches on King Tut's tomb. And this is where I gotta stop us for the first time, because King Tut was not buried in a pyramid. King Tut is buried underground, simply not in a pyramid. Not at all in a pyramid. The opposite of a pyramid. He's in kind of a basement.

[Cal Pen]

She could have just picked the one that we've all heard of.

[Robert Evans]

She could have just picked the one that. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Now, I did want to look into a couple of things to try to parse out the actual history here because, hey, maybe, maybe a pyramid builder might also make tombs too. But that's also seems to be unlikely because Tut died around in the 1300s BC. Pyramid building kicks off in Egypt in the 2600s BC and it evolves over time. But by the 1700s or so, the practice is in pretty steep decline. In Egypt, one of the last significant pyramids was built for the Pharaoh kinjir somewhere around 1760. And by the time King Tut died, because of how all of the pyramids keep getting burgled, Egyptian royalty are being buried underground. So Frank's recollections of pyramid building don't bear a lot of resemblance to what we know of the practice. For one thing, when she asks him, how did you build the pyramids? He says that we had anti gravitational devices that we used in their construction, which is not how pyramids were built. So he's definitely on the. We had, like, alien technology things. And at one point, when she's down, Sylvia says that Frank lapses into what she first describes as a steady stream of fluent Martians. She thinks it's Martian. And she records him talking. She says she does this with his permission. I hope so. And she sends the tape to A psychology friend at Stanford who calls her back and is like, where did you get this tape? And she's like, what do you mean? This was just one of my patients. And he's like, those nonsense syllables you said you heard, that was a fluent monologue in an obscure 7th century BC Assyrian dialect that would have been common among pyramid builders.

[Sylvia Browne]

What?

[Robert Evans]

So now I gotta look into this.

[Cal Pen]

First off, the Assyrians, the research you had to do as you were reading this, jeez, you got to do way

[Robert Evans]

more research to bust the lie.

[Sylvia Browne]

Were you.

[Robert Evans]

Were you on a plane or mid Mardi Gras when this was happening too?

Yeah, I'm doing this during Mardi Gras. That makes sense. Yeah, because. And the Assyrians did build ziggurats, which are different from Egyptian pyramids, but close enough that I guess you could call. You call yourself a pyramid builder. However, there's not like a dialect of Assyrian. I found no evidence that there was like a dialect that pyramid builders would have used because these were generally like public projects. And also, like, you would have a lot of like, artisans who would get brought in to work on these projects, but they had other skills. There's not like a language that the pyramid guys use.

[Cal Pen]

Was there a citation of who at Stanford this person was?

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no. She doesn't even say a professor. She just says a psychology friend. Also. I don't trust that you're a psychology friend at Stanford, knows Assyrian. How is he? Who is he doing? Is he playing it to the Assyrian guy? I guess. Let's just take it over to the.

[Cal Pen]

This could be a little tighter of a story. This story on her behalf. I have notes.

[Robert Evans]

Zip it up a little.

[Cal Pen]

I have editorial notes for her.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, you could zip this up a little bit tighter, Sylvia. So the next several pages of her autobiography are just like a list of past life regressions that she does and all the different illnesses she cures by finding out people's past lives.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

Lives.

[Robert Evans]

So since this is working so well.

[Cal Pen]

Sylvia, can I interrupt you for a second? I have a question.

[Robert Evans]

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cal Pen]

Does she ever mention. I think one of the things I think is so interesting whenever I've read about things like this is that like, almost nobody seems to break gender with their past lives.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Interesting, huh?

[Cal Pen]

Is there any example of like, one of her patients is like, oh, yes, when I was a. He's a dude. And he's like, yeah, when I was a 14 year old girl back in Mali. Is there any, anybody ever, anybody in this book who breaks gender?

[Robert Evans]

Any of her patients I haven't. I don't remember perfectly. But everyone I remember, their past lives are the same gender as their current life, so.

[Cal Pen]

Interesting. Okay, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Now, what I will say, Cal, that did interest me about the past lives of her patients. A lot of them were, like, commoners. Normally you get a lot of past lives where, like, oh, everybody was like, a king. Huh? Everybody's like, a great warrior. This guy's like, I built pyramids or whatever. I was just like, a dude, a laborer. And you actually do get a weird amount of that with Sylvia's, which I kind of like. Oh, that's an interesting spin on the grift. Like, a lot of these are just, like, normal pastime jobs. Sylvia, however, does not have normal past lives because she starts interrogating her own, and she comes to the conclusion that, quote, I'd once been the most beautiful high priestess in all of Africa and that in a later life, I'd been the first Eskimo to use shoelaces. Now, I don't know how much debunking I need to do. Like, Africa has never been one political entity, like, priestess of what. There's a bunch of religions that have existed on that continent. So many of them over history. High priestess of what? Most beautiful. Who decided that? Who voted on it? Like, and then the whole thing about fucking shoot. First off, Eskimo is like a slur. It's a colonial slur that generally refers to. There's a couple of different groups of people that it refers to, like the Inuit and the Yupik, but it's not a term that you would have used for yourself if that was your past life. You wouldn't call yourself. Even in the 90s, even in the 90s. We knew that. I did look into when those different peoples had shoelaces, developed shoelaces, just to see. Man.

[Cal Pen]

Your research. Yes, go on.

[Robert Evans]

I had to know. I don't think. We don't know when shoelaces first came into being, but the peoples who eventually. Wow. Like, who, like, wound up in that part of the world probably took shoelaces with them because we've had the concept for a very. Otzi the Iceman had shoelaces. And there's actually. I think the oldest shoelaces we've ever found were in an Armenian or someone buried in Armenia. I don't know if they were Armenian or. Because, you know, people's move. We had shoelaces a lot for a long time. I don't think there was a first girl who was like, I'm Invented shoelaces.

[Cal Pen]

I really enjoy that. She, in the section you just read, must have smoked such a beautiful little bowl before she penned those sentences. Right? She's like, and I had shoelaces. And you're sitting here sober, just doing the research on when shoelaces made it to native Alaskan communities.

[Robert Evans]

And it kind of seems like they always had them.

She is like, I'm Helen of Troy, but with shoelaces.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

This has. Just researching this has given me like a. If anyone ever starts talking about past lives to me, the first thing they ask is, what was your name? And then you just look up, is that a name those people had or is it a Greek name? 100%. Speaking of Greek, our sponsors could be Greek. You don't know. Neither do I. We don't ask.

[SimplePractice Advertiser]

If you're a therapist, listening, you already know your work doesn't magically end when the session does. There's scheduling, notes, billing, insurance, follow ups, all of the admin that happens before and after the work you actually care about. That's where SimplePractice comes in. SimplePractice is an all in one EHR built specifically for therapists with HIPAA compliant tools and high trust certification. No juggling systems or cutting corners, just to keep things moving. Scheduling, documentation, billing, insurance, client communication, even automated appointment reminders. It all lives in one place. And if you're starting or growing a practice, SimplePractice also offers a credentialing service that helps simplify insurance enrollment, which can be a huge lift alone. It's no surprise SimplePractice is trusted by over 250,000 health and wellness professionals. Start with a seven day free trial, then get 50% off your first three months. Go to SimplePractice.com to claim the offer. That's SimplePractice.com I went and sat on

[Podcast Guest or Listener]

the little ottoman in front of him.

[Cal Pen]

Hi, dad.

[Podcast Guest or Listener]

And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass. Convict me just finished five years. I'm gonna have cookies and milk at

[Robert Evans]

mom

[The Cino Show Host]

on the Cino show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trejl talk about addiction, transformation and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Adish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.

[Podcast Guest or Listener]

I'm an alcoholic and without this probe, I'm gonna die.

[The Cino Show Host]

Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search the Cino show and listen Now.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

When you listen to podcasts about AI and tech and the future of humanity, the hosts always act like they know what they're talking about and they are experts at everything. Here at the Nick, Dick and Pole show, we're not afraid to make mistakes. What Coogler did that I think was so unique.

[Robert Evans]

Who's he?

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

He's the writer, director.

Who do you think he is?

[Robert Evans]

I don't know.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

You meet the, like the president.

You think it was the president. You think Canada has a president? You think China has a president? Let's walk through that. God, I love that thing. I use it all the time. I wrap it in a blanket and sing to it like it's like the

old Polish saying, not my monkeys, not my circus. Yep, it was a good one. I like that saying.

It's an actual Polish saying.

[Robert Evans]

It is an actual Polish.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

Better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

Which. Which, which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually. I thought it was. I got that wrong.

Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bob Pittman]

Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds and market marketing. I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between. This season of Math and Magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario, financier and public health advocate Mike Milken. Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.

[Robert Evans]

If you're unable to take meaningful creative

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't

[Robert Evans]

play in this business.

[Bob Pittman]

Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and our own Chief Business Officer, Lisa Coffey.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed human promise behind it really makes it rise to the top.

[Bob Pittman]

Listen to Math and Magic stories from the frontiers of Marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Robert Evans]

And we're back. So Sylvia claims that her relationship with law enforcement began in the 1970s. Like her professional relationship, but she doesn't give any detail. She doesn't talk about cases solved. She doesn't say that. Talk about specific interactions. She just says that she'd been helping and you know, the police valued her, but she, she gives us nothing else to go on. And so we don't really get any details about how she used her so called psychic powers to help solve crimes. Until one day in 1993, her friend Ted Gunderson, who she describes as an FBI agent. Keep that in mind, Cal. She calls Ted Gunderson. An FBI agent gives her a call. A writer truck filled with explosives had just been detonated under the World Trade center, killing six people. And you know what happens a few years later as a result of that? It's that attack. It's the 93 World Trade center bombing. And so Ted Gunderson, FBI, calls Sylvia and is like, we got. We need your help tracking down the terrorists who did this. You know, the FBI can't do this without Sylvia. She writes, quote, I'd worked with Ted on other cases and my respect for him wasn't as unparalleled. Whatever I could do to help him, if I could help at all, no matter what, all he had to do was ask. By the time he called me, I had read that three of the Islamic terrorist bombers had been arrested. And Ted wanted my psychic input on any others who might be involved. I told her there were five, maybe six men involved, including the three in custody. Now I gotta dig into this, Cal, because since. And we'll talk about Ted in a second. But since a total of six terrorists were arrested, Sylvia claims victory. Right. I knew there were gonna be five or six. They arrested six. I'm right. Look at how psychic I am. But that's not quite accurate. That's not quite an accurate picture of how many people were involved in making that bomb. Right? There were six guys arrested, but there was a seventh person involved. One of the government's key witnesses when they bring these guys to trial was an FBI informant, former Egyptian army officer Imad salem. With the FBI's help and direction, Salem infiltrated the group that bombed the World Trade Center. And he built bombs for them and taught them how to build bombs using bomb building techniques the FBI gave him. We don't talk about this a lot. We probably should. It's a pretty big fuck up.

Wow.

For an interview with him in history.com, ibrahim Elga Brownie invited me and this is. Sorry, this is Imad Salem talking about his time infiltrating this group. Ibrahim Elga Brownie invited me into his house and blasted the radio loud because he was thinking the FBI was monitoring his apartment. And he asked me, can you build big bombs? I Said, yes, I can. He asked, what do you need to build big bombs? Because 12 bombs he built 12 pipe bombs for these guys already are not really making me happy. I wanted something big. I said, I need a detonator. And then I gave him some demands. So they switched gears from 12 small pipe bombs into a big, massive bomb, similar to the Oklahoma City bomb. So first, that's a Mads, the guy the FBI sent into this group, saying, well, they got the idea to do one big bomb because I told them it would work better than 12 pipe bombs, which already I would say, if I'm a psychic, that makes him involved in the creation of this bomb. Now, what happens next is a little unclear to me, but per a 1993 New York Times article by Ralph Blumenthal, it looks like the FBI found out that there was a cell of terrorists in New York who were working to build a bomb to attack the World Trade Center. So they come up with an initial plan to infiltrate am into the group and have him basically provide them with fake ingredients. So they're going to build a real bomb, but the explosives inside it are fake. So the mechanics of the bomb would be real, but there'd be fake stuff inside of it. So the bomb doesn't work when they set it off, and then they arrest everybody. Right. That's how you'd think something like this should go, right, if you're going to do this. However, that plan was called off at the last minute by an FBI supervisor who had a different plan about how to use Mr. Salem, and it's unclear what his plans were. A lot of this is very murky because it's the FBI. Lam may have had a feud with his supervisor. Ultimately, he's pulled off the case, and when he's not in the group, they succeed in finishing the bomb that he'd helped them start building, and they detonated in the World Trade Center. It is unclear how much Sillim actually helped them and how much of what the bomb they used he had had a hand in. We really don't know. But the evidence we have does suggest that he helped them figure out some aspects of bomb making. Either way, Sylvia's psychic powers gave her no hint that this guy existed whatsoever. For her part, Sylvia takes a lot of pride in the fact that during her recorded interview, which is a real interview, she told her friend, Agent Gunderson, quote, one of the men you need to. And I'm doing the psychic hand thing here. If you can't see one of the men, you need to look for Has a short bill, wiry black hair, black eyebrows. There's an M on there. An S, S, A L, Z, E, M, something. Salzion. Salzamon. Mon. Okay, Salzamon. And she predicts one of the men is named Salzaman. Now, one of the men who had already been arrested at that point was named Muhammad A. Salama, which isn't really all that similar to Salzaman. They start with an S. Otherwise, very different names. I would say you got it wrong. It's like if it was like, I'm going to have a guest for a podcast I'm reading a K. Kevin Calvin. Oh, Cal, I got it right. Perfect. Like, no, I didn't. I didn't foresee anything. And this is cold reading, right? That's the technique she's using, right? That's where it's a very old psychic fraud. You start with, I'm hearing A. And you start going through a couple of different. And someone in the adults who'd be like, oh, I had an aunt who was. If you said IM was Mary or my cousin Mike, you know, and then you kind of. You zero in from there and you kind of refine the grift a little bit. This is cold reading. That's what she's doing in this interview. She writes about getting this wrong. No doubt about it. I was off by a few letters. But when Ted told me they had arrested someone named Salama, it was as close enough that I screamed, you got him. Now, obviously she accomplished nothing at all. But she carts this around as a. Again, he was. They had him in custody. When she's interviewed, she doesn't do shit. That said, I need to point out here, it's not accurate for her to say you got him to Ted Gunderson. Because, and here's the fun part, Ted Gunderson wasn't an FBI agent in 1993 and had nothing to do with arresting the men who bombed the World Trade Center.

Who was Ted?

[Cal Pen]

Yeah, who was he?

[Robert Evans]

Who the fuck is this guy?

This is great question. Ted Gunderson was a retired FBI agent at the time of the World Trade center attacks. He'd had a successful career. He'd at one point run the Los Angeles branch. Like, branch is the wrong word. But he run the LA FBI office, right? But in the 1980s, he retired and he went into private practice where he became an insane crank. He becomes a major figure in the satanic panic. He is the guy doing the McMartin preschool trial. He's the guy like digging up stuff in the fucking yard of McMartin Preschool and making public statements about. I can tell from that children were sacrificed here, babies were murdered. Right? He's that fucking lunatic, right? He, he is a huge figure in American conspiracism. Like Ted Gunderson, because he used to be in the FBI, has all of this unearned credibility. And so when he says stuff like that, oh, I've seen a lot of satanic ritual abuse. I know there's thousands of babies being trafficked for the devil in this country. People trusted him. Right? That's who fucking Ted Gutterson is. She's not working with the FBI. She's working with a crank who used to be in the FBI. Wow, Perfect.

[Cal Pen]

Incredible Little Chef's kiss moment there.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, beautiful.

Of all the ex FBI agents, it had to be Daryl. Ted.

I'll admit, at first I took it at face value. They're like, maybe the FBI brought her in for an interview. They've done crazier things. And then I like, I'm gonna look up Ted Gunderson just on a. Oh, wow. For a little more on ted. At a 1995 conference in Dallas, he alleged that the New World order controlled the US government and was performing for 4,000 human sacrifices in New York City every year. He also claimed that the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by the US government to slander the far right. Later in life, he wrote copiously about child slave labor in underground alien controlled facilities. He's like, there's a white. A big part of QAnon is the belief that there's these underground, like evil military bases where the aliens are like sucking adrenochrome out of kids heads. Ted Gunderson helped start all that. Like, he is a foundational figure in American conspiracism. So that's good.

[Cal Pen]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

Good that she's working with this guy.

So glad they found each other.

Question mark. Yeah, it's nice when two grifters do

[Cal Pen]

I want to know what their friendship was like outside the interview. Did they just kick it and talk about conspiracies or did they have a normal. Did they just like have beers and play ping pong and it wasn't weird? Like, what was the great question?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, do you watch movies together or do you just like sit alone together listening to numbers stations or something? Like, what is your friendship with Ted Gunderson look like? So Sylvia has a lot of pride in her long history of collaboration with the FBI. And you'll hear her bring it up in her book and in most interviews where she talks about her work with law enforcement. The Skeptical Inquirer actually filed a series of requests for FBI files because they wanted to know, did she have any relationship with the Bureau whatsoever? Did she do anything for them and the FBI? The short answer is no. The FBI has no record of her ever helping any agent on any case. That doesn't mean they had no record of her, though, quote, recently obtained FBI files shatter her insinuation that she had a relationship with federal law enforcement and showed that the only interest the agency had in Brown was investigating her for fraud. So she was involved with the FBI, but not in a good way.

[Cal Pen]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, Sylvia.

In her book, Sylvia claimed that the interview I quoted from had been conducted by the FBI, but no FBI record exists that she ever spoke with him about the World Trade center bombings. The Inquirer then filed a FOIA request for any documents or video the agency had about Brown's interviews regarding the attack. And the Bureau responded. We conducted a search of the central record system. We were unable to identify the main records responsive to foia. Ultimately, the Inquirer concluded there is no documentation released by the FBI to support the claim that Brown conducted any psychic readings for the FBI, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, Gunderson's name appears nowhere in her FBI file, and the topics in the FBI release do not discuss working with the FBI. Thus, there is no evidence from the records that Brown was involved with the agency. That said she has a criminal record herself. There's a criminal complaint that get filed against her in Santa Clara county, California on May 26th of 1992. And it alleges that Sylvia and her husband at the time, I think this is husband number three, had been selling securities under false pretenses. And I. This is really good. I want to quote from the Santa Clara Chronicle here. Although telling a couple their $20,000 investment was to be used for immediate operating costs, the complaint stated the Browns transferred the money to an account for the Nirvana foundation for psychic research just one month later in April of 1988, the complaint stated they declared bankruptcy in the venture. So the idea is this is like a gold mine that they're selling shares in, basically. So it's like a securities fraud scam. And they're just taking the money and instead of investing it into this mine, they're putting it directly into the foundation and just robbing people per. Like. During the. Like the pair's arraignment, the San Francisco or the Chronicle noted, quote, sylvia Brown claimed to have strong psychic feelings that the mind would pay off. But it doesn't and she and her husband, Kinzel Dalzel Brown, and that's where she gets the last name Brown, plead no contest to a felony charge and are made to pay back their victims. Right. So they each get a year of probation and now they're felons. So that's good. We got a little gold con in here. You know, this is kind of a law. She does a lot of conning of people in banks to fund her foundation, which kind of. I had just said she was starting to see success and that's how she writes it. And most of the articles on her will say that like, yeah, in the 70s and 80s she builds a larger and larger business. The Skeptical Inquirer's reporting makes it look like she probably wasn't ever very successful prior to the late 90s. She's just stealing money to fund her foundation. People aren't paying her for her psychic. She's a total fraud in that regard. Right. We'll talk a little bit more of that. I do want to note, Sylvia and Kinsel are estranged at the time that they get charged with felonies. But she keeps his name and adds an E to it. I don't know why. I just kind of think that's funny.

That's amazing.

So let's talk about those FBI files on Sylvia about her other financial fraud cases because there's a lot of them. The Bureau describes her as a self proclaimed psychic and notes that they investigated her starting in the 1980s and the Nirvana foundation as well for violations of federal law and applying for loans from FDIC institutions in the amount of 1.253 million million. So she is getting more than a million dollars in fake loans for her business. They know well the loans are real, but she's lying on her loan paperwork. They note that her fraudulent advice also caused multiple businesses sustained losses. So she's also getting money for the foundation by giving business advice that's fraudulent. Most of what she's doing is falsifying financial statements to enhance her net worth and lie that she's worth two or three million dollars when she's not worth anything close to that. To get these hundreds of thousands of dollars and eventually well over a million dollars in loans. The FBI notes that her loan proceeds went to support an extravagant lifestyle. And they have her dead to rights and don't prosecute because the U.S. attorney decides there's insufficient evidence of criminal intent. Basically, we know she got all this money and we know she lied on her loan applications, but she may have believed the business could work.

[Cal Pen]

Oh, gosh. This goes back to that. I feel like she believes the things she's saying.

[Robert Evans]

Right, right. And apparently convinced a U.S. attorney of that as well.

Wow.

Now Cal, you know who never commits financial crime?

[Cal Pen]

Kermit the Frog.

[Robert Evans]

Well, that is probably the case. Yeah. I have trouble imagining him getting away with it. Although it is fun to think of Kermit on the witness stand and someone like reading back as like texts to Miss Piggy and that embezzling money. Oh, I can't do a good Kermit voice otherwise.

I can't. That was more Patrick Mahomes than Kermit.

But yeah, it was. It was. Well, think about Kermit the Frog as we go to ads.

[Amy Robach]

Did you know you can save up to 70% on the best brands just by shopping at from rebel.com we're talking about strollers, car seats, high chairs, espresso machines, cookware. Everything you need for way less. Here's how it works. Every single day, REBBL drops thousands of new products on the site for up to 70% off. It is a constant stream of endless deals from top brands like Uppababy, Nuna, Baby bjorn, Breville, Nespresso, KitchenAid, Le Creuset, and more. But you have to act fast because every deal is one of a kind. So if you see something you love, make sure you add to cart fast. So stop paying full price when you don't have to. Whether it's baby gear, kitchen upgrades, or a treasure for your home you didn't know you needed, Rebel has it for way less. Up to 70% less. Shop from rebel.com and save big I

[Podcast Guest or Listener]

went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him.

[Cal Pen]

Hi dad.

[Podcast Guest or Listener]

And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass convict, right? Just finished 5 years I'm of cookies and milk at mom

[The Cino Show Host]

on the Cena show podcast. Each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor cultural icon Danny Trejo. Talk about addiction, transformation and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Adish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.

[Podcast Guest or Listener]

I'm an alcoholic and without this trouble, I'm a guy.

[The Cino Show Host]

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the Cino show and listen now.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

When you listen to podcasts about AI and tech and the future of humanity, the hosts always act like they know what they're Talking about and they are experts at everything here. The Nick Dick and Pole Show. We're not afraid to make mistakes. What Coogler did that I think was so unique. He's the writer, director.

Who do you think he is?

[Robert Evans]

I don't know.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

You meet the, like the president.

You think the president. You think Canada has a president? You think China has a president? Those law cruise that. God, I love that thing. I use it all the time.

[T.J. Holmes]

What color?

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

I wrap it in a blanket and sing to it at like.

It's like the old Polish saying, not my monkeys, not my circus. Yep, it was a good one. I like that saying.

It's an actual Polish saying.

It is an actual Polish.

Better version of Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

Which.

Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually. I thought it was. I got that wrong.

Listen to the Nick Dick and Poll show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

A ambitious, well intentioned, ferocious and wealthy

[Robert Evans]

mother looks like in the black community.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

This woman's History Month. The podcast Keep It Positive Sweetie celebrates the power of women choosing healing, purpose and faith. Even when life gets messy, love, it's not a destination.

[Robert Evans]

You have to work on it every day.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Keep It Positive Sweetie creates space for honest conversations on self worth, love, growth, and navigating life with grace and grit, led by women who uplift, inspire and tell the truth out loud.

[Robert Evans]

I have several conversations with God and I know why it took 20 years

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

to hear this and more. Listen to Keep It Positive sweetie on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Robert Evans]

We're back. Cal, are you familiar with the theory that Kermit caused 9 11?

[Cal Pen]

No, but I'm here for it.

[Robert Evans]

Please. Oh, it's fucking crazy. So in the Muppet Movie that comes out in like 2001, it's like, basically Muppet It's a Wonderful Life where Kermit wonders, like, what would happen if I'd never been born. And in like, the normal Muppet world before, it's like New York after 9 11, right? There's no Twin Towers. But in the version when he, like, sees life, if he'd never been born. The Twin Towers are back.

[Cal Pen]

No way.

[Robert Evans]

So something about Kermit's life caused 9 11. No way. It's fucking crazy.

[Cal Pen]

Oh, my gosh. All right, I gotta. I'm a big Muppets fan, so I

[Robert Evans]

need to go and look into this. I love it too. Yeah. Kermit 911 should bring you most of what you need.

[Cal Pen]

There goes my weekend.

[Robert Evans]

Thanks. So weirdly enough, it's only after her 1993 no contest plea to a felony that Sylvia Browne gains national fame and renown. If you look at like what and what it looks like from what the Skeptical Inquirer uncovered is that she's kind of a middling psychic and most of her money and success comes from fraud. Until she starts getting on real tv. She's on this local channel for a while, but it's when she hits like national television that she becomes a big deal. Now she does continue. It's also weird to me, after her, her fraud conviction, she keeps working with police departments. There are some who hire her. In 1997, the Thibodeau, Louisiana Police Department pays her $400 to consult on the murder of a priest. So this, this priest has been killed and Sylvia's brought in and she tells the authorities the priest was killed by a young mulatto homosexual who was enraged by the priest's rejection of his advances. So basically she blames it on a non white person who was gay who hit on this priest and then murdered him out of rage. Uh, and she said that someone with the street name of King had had gang people do the murder, which I'm sure is also more racism. Right. Now this murder is eventually solved. Ten years later, the culprit, Derek Adoms, had murdered the the priest in a robbery gone bad. Nothing, no gay stuff, no gangs, just a guy who killed another dude in a robbery. Happens all the time.

[Cal Pen]

Do you guys do merch for this

[Robert Evans]

pod we have in the past? You got a suggestion?

[Cal Pen]

Yeah. Young mulatto homosexual is an amazing T shirt. I would buy this T shirt.

[Robert Evans]

That's a solid performer name. Yeah.

[Cal Pen]

Or a good band name.

[Robert Evans]

Or a good band name. So there's no real evidence to suggest that she had any kind of extensive, long lasting relationship with law enforcement. Again, Thibodeau hires her once, but not again because they waste their money on her. And there's certainly no evidence that she catches any bad guys. But she sure starts claiming that she had once she gets famous due to her appearances on the Montel Williams show. As best as I can tell, their relationship starts in 1990 because Montel wants to do a Halloween episode about the haunting of the Queen Mary, which is like this boat, Sophie. It's like a boat you can tour that's like off of Long Beach. Right? Right. And you know, it's an older boat. There's I think, supposed to be Ghost on it. So she, she gets brought in. They're like, we need a psychic. Montel's people, like, we want a psychic for this episode. They bring in Sylvia. She does a really good job on the episode because she knows how to entertain an audience. And Montel's like, you're great. They hit it off and they. He keeps having her on, right? It's just a good match. Montel provides her with instant fame and legitimacy, treating her with casual deference and opening her up to a whole world of major entertainment figures. She does a whole series about Ang on Montel's show that's so successful, Larry King rings her on his show to do the same thing, to talk about, like, how to have callers tell stories about how angels save their lives. And she'll explain how angels really work. Right? It's very 90s, but like, she is, you know, by the time you're on Montel and Larry King, you're pretty prominent, right? It doesn't get a lot bigger than that.

You're. You're borderline a household name if not.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Quote, no matter the situation, the basic experience was always the same. During a crisis, a stranger arrived seemingly out of nowhere, had a Prof. Impact on the crisis. Carrying a drowning woman out of the sea and delivering her safely to the beach. Removing a trapped driver from a badly damaged car moments before it caught fire. Laying hands on the forehead of a feverish child in the hospital seconds before the fever coincidentally broke and then disappearing before anyone could find out who they were and thank them. And these are the angel stories people tell. And I get why people believe in this. As someone who's had, like, loved ones just like, die tragically and not had an angel, it does kind of render like, well, why, why don't the angels help everybody? Yeah, like, why don't. Why do the angels really seem to like, to help people like affluent kids in like, western hospitals and not like kids with like, gut worms in sub Saharan Africa. It's weird. The angels don't, like, save them, huh? Just the kids in nice hospital. Okay, choice. So Sylvia starts writing books. I mean, she had been for a while writing books, but they start to become bestsellers. She, she claims she has more than 20 New York Times bestsellers. And I think this is pretty much accurate. She has her books sell very well. She makes a shitload of money.

[Cal Pen]

And this is all after the Montel stuff.

[Robert Evans]

Yep, all after the Montel stuff. This is all in the late 90s, right. In 1998, she co writes the book Adventures of a Psychic With Antoinette May, in which she blames her 1988 bankruptcy on her husband Kinzel's attempts to hide his criminal behavior. She does not acknowledge being convicted of a felony for gold mine fraud, per the Chronicle. She laments that while ignorant people say, well, if you're so psychic, why didn't you blank? The answer, she says, is that I'm not psychic about myself. So she is consistent about that. But like, that doesn't answer the question of why did you defraud people for a fake gold mine? Now, despite all these very obvious lies and his history of failed predictions, she's really good on tv. So she keeps getting invited on Montel's show. All Sylvia has to do is make sure that every word out of her mouth is a lie, per the Skeptical inquirer. In her November 2004 appearance on the Montel Williams Show, Brown said, I remember when I was working on the Bundy case talking about Ted Bundy. Outside of this offhand comment, there's no evidence to affirm that Brown worked on a Bundy case, much less the case of serial killer Ted Bundy, whose capture was not connected to a psychic. So she'll just start dropping this whenever a famous murderer or crime or terrorist actually say, oh, I helped on that, I consulted. I can't talk about it.

But there's literally no evidence to support that claim whatsoever. Cool.

No, we started these episodes by talking about the case of Amanda Berry, who was abducted in 2003 and whose mother in 2004 consulted with Sylvia on the Montel Williams show and got a very bad reading. As I noted, she's devastated by this. She returns home and gives away her father's or her daughter's things, takes down the pictures, and it's very sad. But what's interesting to me about this is that but Amanda Berry's mom is actually responsible for the only verified contact with the FBI that Sylvia ever had. Per the Cleveland Plain Dealer. At Miller's request, FBI agents investigating Amanda's disappearance met with Miller after the show to discuss Brown's other psychic views on the case. Special Agent Kelly Liberty said Brown said she envisioned Amanda's jacket in a dumpster with DNA on it. So she like, tells them, this psychic told me that my daughter's jacket was in a dumpster and it was covered in blood. And the FBI is like, okay, we'll look into it. But that's her only real connection to the FBI.

[Cal Pen]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

That's the only one that there actually is. Now when the real abductor was caught, most people would be ashamed. Brown took a victory lap even as the media rightly lambasted her for wrongly declaring a woman dead. Because, well, here's the thing. Sylvia had gotten the fact that she was dead wrong, obviously. But she was right about who did the crime because she predicted that Amanda was abducted by a sort of Cuban looking man who was maybe 21 or 22. Now, the actual culprit was, first off, born in Puerto Rico, was in his 40s, not 21 or 22. Yeah, just wrong. She also described him as short and he was of average height. She's wrong about everything. In a statement posted to her Facebook page following Barry's dramatic escape, Brown acknowledged that she'd been wrong about her death. Writing for more than 50 years as a spiritual guide and psychic, when called upon to either help authorities with missing persons cases or to help families with questions about their loved ones. I have been more right than wrong. If there was ever a time to be grateful and relieved for being mistaken, this is that time. Only God is right all the time. Okay, all right, all right, okay. She's got a little something.

[Cal Pen]

She's got a little, like, suburban mom PR going, right?

[Robert Evans]

I feel like, honestly, the version of this today would be like, oh, she's not alive. That's a fake. You know, the government planted her or something like you, like our modern grifters can't even admit to being that wrong. It's weird how refreshing it is that she at least acknowledged reality.

[Cal Pen]

Yeah, good point.

[Robert Evans]

So this is not her only Fuck up. In 2003, Brown gives a reading on Montel yet again, this time about the 2001 disappearance of Jerry Chesney Jr. She told that man's sister that Chesney had been hit on the head, choked and thrown into a river, and added that he'd been killed because he saw something he shouldn't. In 2010, that man's roommates were charged with shooting him and hiding his body over a drug debt. He was buried in the woods. Again, wrong about every detail in the case.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

In 2005, she gave her reading on Montel to Tamara Ivy, the mother of a murder victim named Dustin. She blamed a teenage boy and a young dark haired woman, one of whom was a sexual predator and had used a rock to kill Ivy. Then she promised the case would be solved soon. There is no evidence that Dustin was sexually abused. Police ultimately charged his brother for the murder, although his brother was found not guilty at trial. So the case is still unsolved and she says it would be Solved quickly. So again, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. That same year, per the Skeptical inquirer, Sylvia Brown's November 30, 2005 reading for Samantha Mater, mother of Christopher Mater, had a much clearer outcome. Brown gave the mother a name which was again censored and claimed Christopher's murder stemmed from the killer not liking the food at the bar he worked in at. Then later, the killer saw him passing by and shot him. Brown also told the mother to start looking where he ate breakfast. Matthew Corell and Sean Meyers were charged with the murder and Coral was found guilty and Myers pled guilty. In 2012, the two had attempted to rob Mater. Again, totally fucking wrong. Perhaps her most devastating fuck up was in 2002, an 11 year old boy, Sean Hornbeck, went missing while riding his bike. Sean's parents went on the Montel Williams show and Sylvia told them their son was dead dead and that his body would be found buried beneath two boulders, per an article on grunge. Fortunately, not everyone believed her. When a boy named Ben Ownby went missing in 2007, journalist Michelle McNamara, who would later be credited for helping to identify the Golden State Killer, connected Hornbeck and Ownby based on physical similarities and their ages when abducted. Sure enough, it was McNamara who was right. When Ownby was found by law enforcement four days after his disappearance, they were shocked to find Hornbeck was still 2. He was still fucking alive. She did it again. She was wrong about another person that she declared dead to their family.

[Cal Pen]

That's great that he was alive.

[Robert Evans]

It's great that he was alive. Thank fucking God.

And I'm glad that there was like an air of disbelief.

Yeah. Hornbeck's father later told cnn, hearing Brown's prediction was one of the hardest things we've ever had to hear. And that stuck with the guardians. Jon Ronson. So the same year 2007, he booked himself on a brown LED cruise and got an interview. When he asked her what happened, she claimed she had focused on three missing children. Two were dead. And I think what I did was I got my wires crossed. There was a blonde and two boys who are dead. I think I picked the wrong kid. Still, her ex husband, Gary Dufresne, condemned her, saying the damage she does to unsuspecting people in crisis situations is just atrocious. Yeah, yeah, clearly.

[Cal Pen]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. It's all, all pretty bleak. And there's a lot of these that we could go through. Like there's, there's so many of these different, like, cases. The Skeptical Inquirer has, like A whole list of them. And even in the cases where she's kind of right, where, like, she got the. The murder, the fact that someone was murdered. Right. And more or less the cause, she's always wrong about where the body is, what happened to it, all that stuff. Now, Sylvia doesn't limit her predictions to crimes or the personal lives of her clients either. In her 2005 book, Prophecy, Sylvia wrote that after Pope John Paul II passes, there will only be one more elected pope, and wrote he will be succeeded by what is essentially a triumvirate of popes. That's not what happened. I don't have to bust that myth. We all live through it. We're several popes down now. We've been going through popes left and right. You know, still, it sounds fun having three popes, but. But not yet.

Spina Popa palooza.

Yep. In 2008, she wrote a book called End of Days, in which she predicted there would be a manned mission to Mars in 2012. And in 2011, she predicted Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama in that next year's presidential election. All wrong. In her later years, Sylvia attracted increasing criticism for being wrong about everything. But she stayed on TV until late in her life and continued to give $850 readings to thousands of customers who trusted her implicitly. On her website, she claimed an accuracy rate of between 87 and 90%. A 2010 analysis of 115 predictions she made on the Montel Williams show, done by the Skeptical Inquirer, rated her success as roughly 0%. To really make that point for you, Cal. Sylvia predicts her own death in 2003. On the Larry King show, she tells Larry that she would die peacefully at age 88. She actually dies 11 years earlier, age 77, on November 20, 2013. Wrong. Right up to the end, girl. Whoa. Yeah.

[Cal Pen]

That is quite the rollercoaster of, oh, shit. I knew none of this. I knew who she was, and I knew none of this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's so funny that, like, you can really. You can really just be wrong constantly as long as you've got a fan base and it's okay. Like, they'll. They'll back you up, you know, like, she never loses the core of her support, despite how wrong she's. I guess it's a prediction for where we are today, like, politically and in everything else.

[Cal Pen]

There's a massive desire that we have to want to believe things.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Cal Pen]

So I. I can. I can somewhat empathize with. I mean, people who want to believe something.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Cal Pen]

Also can we just acknowledge. Are you really. This is not a call out to a parent who's desperate to find their kid. Obviously. But are we really thinking that the Montel Williams show is the apex of how we're solving scientific crimes? Crimes. We're all just okay with this.

[Robert Evans]

Elections.

And I think you're right on the money, Callan, that, like, everyone is to blame the viewers, the people on the show, Montel, Sylvia. But the parent. Cause you can't. Like, the parents can't be expected to be sane when their kids have been kidnapped. Of course.

[Cal Pen]

Like, did you see that documentary on the Jerry Springer Show?

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

No.

[Cal Pen]

It's fantastic. It's worth a watch. It's very similar to a lot of peeling back the curtain on that just makes me think. I don't know anything about how the Montel Williams show work, but obviously it's a TV show. So to your point earlier, Robert, it's about entertaining people, period, more than anything else. And Springer was the sort of most egregious version of that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean, it really is like pulling back an unfortunately a dark curtain on this part of my childhood that I had never really analyzed more. Yeah, they're psychics on TV and they read PS5 and it's like, no, no, no. This could be pretty harmful, too. Sometimes they also defraud banks, which I have less of a problem with. That's not my primary issue with her. Well, you want to plug anything? Oh, sorry.

[Cal Pen]

No, go ahead. Good.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, I was just asking if you had anything to plug at the end here, because we're coming to the end.

[Cal Pen]

I would love to plug my podcast, which is not about psychics. It's called Here We Go Again. And we look at topics through pop culture and politics, past, present and future of the specific topic, and hopefully leave the audience with feeling a little smarter about what you learned and a little more hopeful about how you plug into that particular issue.

[Robert Evans]

Awesome. Well, hopeful sounds good right about now, so check that out. Thank you, Cal, for coming on the show. Thank you all for listening.

[Cal Pen]

Thank you for having me.

[Robert Evans]

That's gonna be it for us today. Go away. Now listen to something else by.

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday hit Remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode for clips in our older episode catalog. Continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com BehindTheBast we love about 40% of you, statistically speaking. Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?

[Boys and Girls Podcast Host]

Welcome to the Boys and Girls Podcast. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show and you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family. I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition hoping to find love the right way. And instead I found chaos, comedy and a lot of cringe. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand better version of.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Nick Dickenpole Show Host]

Which by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.

But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close though. Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Hey there folks.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Amy Robach and T.J. holmes here and

[T.J. Holmes]

we know there is a lot of news coming at you these days. From the war with Iran to the ongoing Epstein fallout, government shutdown downs, high profile trials, and what the hell is that Blake Lively thing about?

[Amy Robach]

Anyway, we are on it every day, all day.

[T.J. Holmes]

Follow us, Amy and TJ for news updates throughout the day.

[Amy Robach]

Listen to Amy and TJ on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[iHeart Country Festival Announcer]

Saturday, May 2nd, country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas at our 2026 iHeartrading Heart Country Festival presented by Capital One. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell out at ticketmaster. Com. That's ticketmaster.com this is an iHeart podcast.

[iHeart Podcast Announcer]

Guaranteed Human.