Other Side and Back Again: A Psychic’s Guide to Our World and Beyond by Sylvia Browne and Lyndsay Harrison

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
(Available in Print: COPYRIGHT: 7/1/2000; PUBLISHER: SIGNET; 1st edition; ISBN: 978-0451198631; PAGES: 274; Unabridged.)

*This edition-Digital: COPYRIGHT: (1999) 7/1/2000; ISBN: 9781101209219; PUBLISHER: Penguin Random House LLC (New American Library:Berkley); Unabridged; PAGES: 304; FILE SIZE: 764 KB

Audiobook-Possibly on Cassette.

Film or tv: No.

SERIES:
No

MAJOR CHARACTERS:
N/A

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
How I picked it: The print paperback was at a book sale. I have read at least one of Sylvia’s books, and liked it for the most part, though I would disagree with many of the conclusion she draws. She fortifies them with the ol’ “higher authority” trick, that being her Spirit Guide, Francine. I don’t begrudge her her Spirit Guide, or disbelieve in her, only in the assumptions and translations that Sylvia adopts based on what she feels she’s received from her. Anyway, it had been a couple of decades, plus or minus a few years, since I’d read one, and I decided to refresh my memory on Sylvia’s views. I left it at the house I only visit most weekends and wasn’t finding time to read it, so when I, and a couple of friends, started experiencing interesting phenomena, I borrowed the digital copy though LAPD’s Overdrive.
What it’s about: Sylvia talks about her life as a psychic, about her Spirit Guide, about the psychic gifts everyone has to one degree or another, about loss, death, and other self-help topics for which she provides insight and tips for dealing with.

I still find myself thinking, “No, that doesn’t make sense, I disagree.” About many of her conclusions, but more importantly, I still find most of her information worth consideration.

AUTHOR:
Sylvia Browne:
Sylvia founded a church; Society of Novus Spiritus, in Campbell, California, which continues to carry on.

This Wikipedia article on Sylvia was obviously written by someone who was not a fan (and proud of it) . . .
“Sylvia Celeste Browne (née Shoemaker; October 19, 1936 – November 20, 2013)[1] was an American author who claimed to be a medium with psychic abilities. She appeared regularly on television and radio, including on The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live, and hosted an hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio.
Browne frequently made pronouncements that were later found to be false, including those related to missing persons. She was also a convicted criminal, having faced theft charges in 1992. Despite the considerable negative publicity, she maintained a large following until her death in 2013.[2]”


Lindsay Harrison:
Near the end of this book, in a section called “Departed Loved Ones” Sylvia mentions sitting down with Lindsay to write the book, and similar mentions occurs in Chapter 7, but the book is written in first person, so, as with most, if not all, ghost writers, Lindsay doesn’t actually have a “voice”.

One of the few things I find on Lindsay is this sentence at Amazon: “Lindsay Harrison is a writer living in Los Angeles, specializing in ghostwriting and celebrity memoirs.”
Only Sylvia’s books appear in the list, although further digging does bring Lindsay up as one of two co-authors with Catherine Hickman. Perhaps there are more books, and one must simply hunt for them.

Another website, allstarbio.com, assumes that the Lindsay Harrison who co-authored Sylvia’s books is the same Lindsay Harrison who wrote, “Missing,” an autobiography of when that Lindsay’s mother, Michele, went missing. The thing is, in the dedication here, our Lindsay says her mother’s name is Fern Underwood—Fern Underwood and Lindsay Harrison both appear as co-authors to the afore mentioned Catherine Hickland book published in 2014. The forward of Catherine’s book discusses her friendship with Lindsay and the contributions by Lindsay’s then 94 year old mother, Fern, so it would seem this is NOT the same Lindsay who wrote the memoir, “Missing”. There’s always a chance that Fern was a step-mother (although what little I read about the "Missing" memoir indicated that that Lindsay's father married another Michele), or a mother figure, but my guess is that the memoir author is a different Lindsay Harrison than our ghost writer.

NARRATOR:
N/A

GENRE:
Non-fiction; Autobiography; New Age; Religion & Spirituality

LOCATIONS:
United States

TIME FRAME:
Contemporary (1999)

SUBJECTS:
Self Help; Loss; Death; Spirituality; Predictions for the new Millennium

DEDICATION:
"From Sylvia: For my family . . . For Angelia, may I be the wind beneath your wings that my Grandma Ada was to me . . . And always, for Montel

From Lindsay: For my mother, Fern Underwood, who has brought more to my life, including my introduction to Sylvia, than I can repay”

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From “Mind and Body”:

“I think we’ve all had this experience. You’re trotting along through the day, feeling perfectly fine, when someone says, “Are you okay? You don’t look well.” Sure enough, as the day wears on, you start to notice that you’re really not feeling so great after all. Ten times out of ten, the person who said you don’t look well isn’t blessed with the amazing power to judge your health better than you can. The only power they have is the power of suggestion. Before you know it, you’re thinking, “If I don’t look well, maybe I’m not well.” Your body, always eager to please, hears “not well” and dutifully conjures up some kind of discomfort. Next time, instead of “Maybe I’m not well,” try thinking, “I don’t have time for that foolishness.” Keep right on thinking it until you mean it. It’s a safe bet you’ll get through the rest of the day feeling just as fine as you did to begin with.

That leads to my strong belief that we should eliminate a whole other definition of “body language” from our vocabularies—ie., the stream of careless clichés that can cue the body to develop health problems. An extreme illustration was a friend of mine whose boyfriend had left her. She kept repeating over and over, “He broke my heart.” I kept asking her to please stop saying that, but clichés are hard habits to break. Two months later she was in surgery for a double bypass.

Make a deal with your spouse or a friend to notice how often you use this form of negative “body language” and work together to break the habit. Here are just a few examples:
“He/she makes me sick.”
“He/she is a pain in the neck (or other body part).”
“I’m worried sick (or worried to death) about . . .”
“He/she wears me out.”
“You’re giving me a headache.” “You’re going to give me an ulcer.”
“Something is weighing heavy on my heart.”
“You’re going to be the death of me.”
“I’d rather die than . . .” “He/she/this is nauseating . . .”
If you listen closely, you’ll be shocked at the frequency with which you’re subtly sabotaging your body and almost ordering it to break down.

Similarly, your body is absolutely literal in the way it responds to the environment around it. I first started noticing this many years ago when I visited a dear friend, Dr. James Cochran, who was in the hospital dying of bleeding ulcers. I held his hand and asked him what was going on, and he looked back with the saddest brown eyes and said, “I don’t know, Sylvia, I guess I just can’t stomach life anymore.” Not long after that I was at a doctor’s appointment of my own, trying to get rid of a recurring bladder infection. Another friend, Dr. Jim Fadiman, who’d known me forever, listened patiently to my list of symptoms and then said, “You know better than this. Talk to me, what’s going on with you?” Without a moment’s thought I blurted out, “It’s my family. They just really piss me off.” And I wondered why my bladder was acting up? We had a good laugh over that.

I’ve run across countless variations on that theme with clients in all these years since. Very often, if there are issues in our lives that our minds refuse to address, our bodies will speak up loud and clear:
Your neck chronically hurts? Who or what is the pain in your neck?
You have chronic backaches? Who or what are you carrying on your back?
Eyesight failing? What in your life don’t you want to see?

Chronic laryngitis? What don’t you want to say . . . or what did you say that you shouldn’t have? Hearing starting to fail? What are you trying not to hear? By the way, have you ever noticed that it’s always only one person in a couple, never both of them, whose hearing goes? The words “take a hint!” leap to mind.
Chronic breathing or bronchial trouble? What do you need to get off your chest?
Dizzy spells? Who or what is keeping you off balance?
The list goes on and on. But the point is, remembering how literally the body reacts to information, many recurring health problems can be healed when the mind identifies the real source of the problem and starts taking steps to address it.”

(My reaction to all of that is that, I do not literally think that every vision problem means you're trying to avoid seeing something, or a hip pain is due to saying someone is "a pain in the a- -.", but it wouldn't hurt to watch what we say, all the same . . .and it does make me worry about the AA group that begins every session, and presumably every day with the pronouncement that each member is (and always will be) an alcoholic." I get that they want to remember to stay away from the poison that is alcohol--that they think some people can consume it without ill effects (I, personally am not so sure) but that they are of the group to who it is always unsafe to consume it, but I just don't feel right about them declaring everyday, all day, that they are sick. An oncologist would NEVER tell a patient to mantra-ize their ailment, I'm not sure it's any wiser with this ailment.

RATING:
3 stars.

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
5-19-2022 to 7-3-2022 ( )

This is the first book I’ve read by Sylvia Browne and now I’ll be trying to get hold of her other books.

This wonderful book exceeded my expectations.

Sylvia was born in 1936 and has since passed on herself; she tells us she will not be coming back.

Sylvia was born with a caul wrapped round her head – an ancient sign that a newborn has been given the psychic gift at birth.

She saw visiting spirits as clearly as she saw everyone else in the room.

When she was eight, her Spirit Guide, whom she called Francine, appeared. Francine was her constant companion and friend. She told Sylvia she would become a well-known psychic some day, helping a lot of people and talking to large audiences.

Sylvia knew that The Other Side and the Spirits who live there are as real as the earth we live on, and the only thing separating us is “a thinly veiled difference in vibrational frequency”.

She knew that there is no such thing as death and that before we come here we write our own blueprint to chart exactly what we want to accomplish “on this brief trip away from Home”.

She knew that we are always surrounded by Spirit Guides, Angels, departed loved ones, and God Himself.

The Other Side is right here among us, “another dimension superimposed on our own world, some three feet above our version of ‘ground level’”. “Its vibrational frequency is much higher than ours, which is why we don’t perceive it.”

It is actually in the Spirit World that all beings are completely and fully “alive”.

Sylvia informs us that all Spirits on The Other Side are thirty years old, even though we may be two or ninety-two when we get there.

The Other Side is immensely beautiful - “a breathtaking infinity of mountains, and oceans, and vast gardens, and forests”.

Residents of the Other Side study, work, research, and have brilliant social lives, full of parties and music, dancing and sporting events.

Telepathy is the most popular form of communication, though all languages are spoken and understood.

There is no negativity there, no aggression, jealousy or judgement.

We all have a Spirit Guide, someone we were very close to on The Other Side, Spirit Guides have spent at least one life here. They are not someone we have known in this lifetime.

The Spirit Guide’s job is “to urge, nudge, encourage, advise, support and --- guide us on our life’s path”.

Spirit Guides communicate with us in a variety of ways. Even if you can’t hear them, they are still sending us plenty of messages, most often through our subconscious mind.

When we ask for help, we must remember to be specific and tell our Spirit Guide what is wrong, and what we need.

There is a section telling us about the various sorts of angels, and about departed loved ones.

There’s a chapter about how to discover your own past lives, and this also contains a list of 44 life themes; we all have both a primary and a secondary life theme.

Sylvia’s primary life theme was “Humanitarian” and secondary life theme was “Loner”. One of mine is definitely “Loner” but I don’t know what the other one is.

A section about birthmarks tells us that a birthmark often indicates an injury we received in a past life.

Sylvia also provides a meditation by which to access our past lives.

In a chapter entitled “Hauntings” we’re informed about ghosts. These absolutely exist: Sylvia has met many and talked to them.

None of the ghosts know he/she is dead.

Mostly, ghosts refuse to transcend to The Other Side but insist on staying earthbound.

Sylvia talked to a ghost who had been imprisoned in Alcatraz. He was a convicted hitman named Abie Malkowitz who’d been killed by another prisoner in the laundry room.

She told him his life had ended and he could now go home, but he refused to listen.

Abie Malkowitz is still a prisoner there, an earthbound ghost.

However, Sylvia and The Other Side had one success - “the most frightened, desolate ghost she’d ever met”, a nun whose life had ended by an illegal abortion.

S investigated and talked to many ghosts and tells us the full story of each case.

She tells us about a stubborn, ornery and argumentative ghost in a Toys R Us in Sunnyvale, California. The ghost was not the man it was thought to be but another one, a preacher called John Johnston who bled to death from an axe wound in 1889. He was in love with a woman called Beth; S told him if he’d just go through the light he would find Beth on The Other Side, but he got so fed up with S nagging him about it that he told her “If you tell me I’m dead one more time, I’m not going to talk to you anymore.”

S informs us that sooner or later, in minutes or hundreds of years, ghosts will find their way to the light.

Spirits have already transcended to The Other Side and visit us from another dimension, which makes them more difficult to see and hear clearly.

I personally have been visited by at least three deceased beings, but I’m not sure whether they were spirits or ghosts, spirits, I think.

There’s also a section on imprints, which are caused by “a highly concentrated collection of intense feelings”.

There is an important section on The Dark Side, which contained new information for me.

The Dark Side exists because God gave us free will and some spirits have chosen to reject the light.

Entities of the Dark Side have no conscience, no sense of responsibility for their actions, and no remorse.

Dark entities in human form are the true sociopaths among us. Dark entities don’t genuinely get to know or care about the people around them.

White entities are sensitive and compassionate. A dark entity can’t be turned white, no mre than a white entity can be turned dark.

S’s mother was a dark entity: a physically and emotionally abusive parent.

Francine states: “One white entity can dispel a thousand dark ones.”

There’s a right door and a left door on The Other Side.

White entities go through the right door when we die. Dark entities, on the other hand, go through the left door into an abyss of nothingness. Left door people have chosen to turn away from God. They do not stay there for long but go right back in utero again for another lifetime.

Dark entities recycle, life after life after life, without a blueprint, without Spirit Guides, without Angels.

I won’t go into more detail, but just conclude by stating that this is an informative, inspiring, amazing book that I highly recommend that you read. ( )

Again I read this book for a sense of peace after my father's recent passing. I don't know how much of it is true. Some of it I knew to be true through personal experience and innate, inexplicable beliefs I have about life after death. But then, some of it seemed silly. I choose to believe in a lot of what Sylvia Browne has to say, but I know I don't have the patience to do a lot of the mind exercises and affirmations she recommends. I read this for a sense of peace and that is what I got. ( )

Great reading, whether you believe in after life or not, there are some really wise points there. It's a positive reading, and there is nothing to be scared of :)
Just now though, I found out that she charges $850 for a phone reading! In the book she says that if she were to charge for using her gift, she would immediately lose it, because she is just a way for the message to be delivered and she cannot take advantage of it... $850 seems to me taking advantage of the gift really...she should loose it then...what a disappointment. Also, her website looks like one of those advert you find on magazines... ( )