By Amy Nile

I’ll admit it: 15 years ago, I wanted to meet psychic Sylvia Browne.

Spending most of my sophomore year of high school at home, recovering from multiple broken bones and several orthopedic surgeries, left me with plenty of time. And, with just three network TV stations to keep me company, I found myself watching the Montel Williams Show.

In the late 1990s, Browne was all the rage on daytime television. And I, a teenage multiple trauma patient healing from a car accident that nearly killed me — and did take the life of my 15-year-old friend — had a lot of unanswered questions.

Was there anything I could have done? Did the one ER doctor on call really leave him to die in order to save me?

If there was a God or some sort of higher power, why would he take the life of a 15-year-old boy? And why that boy, especially considering his mother lost her other son, also a high school freshman, to a car accident a few years before?

And most of all, did my friend die without meaning?

Naturally, I wondered if Browne had these answers. She seemed like an old, wise soul on the Montel Williams Show.

I may have been just the type of grieving person Browne’s critics accuse her of preying on. Fortunately, I did not have $700, the going rate for a 30-minute phone reading and my Percocet-inhibited state reduced my motivation to do anything about it.

Eventually, I healed physically and emotionally, finding peace with the unanswered questions.

That ER doctor later told me he did all he could to revive my friend but I was bleeding out. Not wanting to lose two kids in one day, he came to me. I accepted that answer.

Over time, I came to terms with and the lack of meaning I perceived in my friend’s short life by vowing to make something of my own — because Dustin didn’t have the chance to — and I did.

Still, I carry that drive with me. But time and some distance put me in a much more objective place to meet Browne.

As a journalist, I did the research. I learned Browne’s critics call her technique cold reading. Basically, Browne offers vague details then waits for the person to search for a connection and offer more. Then she repeats the process adding in details that are impossible to confirm about past lives, other realms, or the future.

During my preliminary phone interview with Browne, I asked if she knew why I originally wanted to meet her. She said I was going through “something with my family.” Well, maybe, there was some animosity between my parents and I at the time. But, mostly, I needed answers about my dead friend.

Feeling like one of those gotcha-question asking TV news reporters, I offered the truth and moved on.

Most of the conversation went as Browne’s critics might have predicted. She threw out vague details and I didn’t offer much more, not wanting to fall into the cold read trap.

Browne said I should stop eating dairy because I have a problem with my stomach. I have had some concern about a possible stomach issue, so that could be true.

She told me to check the brakes in my car, which I actually have done a few times. But the mechanics haven’t been able to locate a problem.

Browne called my current love life “sketchy” and said I’d meet a better suitor in October. She said I will have two healthy baby girls and someday write a book about my life.

Browne told me I have a spirit guide named Rebecca and I am on my 48th and final life.

When I finally met Browne in-person the following day, I found the 76-year-old “psychic” sporting Hollywoodesque  sunglasses in front of a slot machine looking washed up and quite frail.

Though my “psychic” encounter left me with no solid evidence or confirmable details, part of me would like to believe in the possibility. Still, the uneasy meeting left me rather disconcerted.

And while I highly doubt her predictions about my personal life, the future remains to be seen.

Video Clips Featuring Psychic Sylvia Browne

Video Clips Detailing Browne’s Inaccurate Predictions

ABC news reports that Sylvia Browne on the Montel Williams Show told Amanda Berry’s mother she was dead in 2004. Berry was found earlier this year along with two other women who were held hostage in Cleveland house.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper features paranormal debunker James Randi, who accuses of Browne of preying on grieving people. Randi says Browne charges $700 for a 20-minute reading where she gives answers about past lives and other realms but doesn’t answer the person’s burning desire for answers. He says Browne uses a scam technique called cold reading, where an alleged psychic will provide vague details like a letter, or image the person can then look for some kind of connection with. Randi says Brown never followed through on his offer for $1 million for her to take a test of her psychic abilities, which she accepted on the Larry King show.

Randi cites how Browne told the parents of the missing Missouri boy, Shawn Hornbeck, where to search for his body on the Montel Williams show in February 2003. After four years, authorities later found Hornbeck alive with another kidnapped boy in suburban St. Louis in January 2007.

Anderson Cooper follows up after asking Sylvia Browne for proof of her accurate predictions. Cooper interviews Browne’s manager Linda Rossi on some of the predictions they claim to be successes but Cooper investigates leaving the audience to decide for themselves.

KMOV, a St. Louis TV’s station hidden cameras capture Sylvia Browne making bold predictions about a woman’s dying son living in May of 2010. The woman’s son died two days later.

Video Clips Detailing Browne’s Accurate Predictions

Montel Williams Show details several of Browne’s accurate predictions, including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political career, the capture and fate of the Oklahoma City bombers, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey remaining unsolved, and Saddam Hussein not having weapons of mass destruction.

One woman wonders if she has had three miscarriages because of ghost, she and her sister validate Sylvia’s debunking of an inaccurate medical diagnosis after finding the real cause of the problem.

Video Clips of Browne Describing Her Abilities

Kansas City NBC, Brown’s hometown news station, describes when she learned she was psychic. Her first prediction was her grandparents’ death. Browne said she comes from 300 years of psychics, including her son and grandmother. She said the comes from God but the closer she is to a person the less it works.

Browne talks about her ability on Phoenix’s ABC affiliate and how to find one’s spirit guide. For those wishing to meet their spirit guide, she recommends sitting against a palm tree and asking spirit guide to come out in a meditative state, eventually, Browne said, visions will come.