By Marc

(fyi, this is from reading the paperback version of The Other Side and Back, for page references)

What seemed to be the biggest content for the book was stories. Stories of this reading or that investigation, yet another incredible experience. While interesting and amazing, these are pretty much valueless. There is no truth in advertising putting limits on 'non-fiction' books, as demonstrated by the books explaining why OJ is innocent sitting next to ones saying why he's guilty. These stories may be true, they may also be inaccurate, exaggerated, built up, or outright lies. It is not unheard of for proponents of the paranormal to make up 'true stories' in order to promote their beliefs.

The second biggest content for the book was surprisingly good advice. I have to admit there was a lot of stuff in there that made sense. I guess every self-help idea or philosophy, (including my favorite cult) has at least some good advice buried in the center of it. If they didn't have anything then they probably wouldn't be able to attract any followers.

Now we get to the various feel-good fluff being passed off as reality.

Sylvia apparently thinks she's a psychic detective in addition to her other stories. On pg xxiv "I began to get calls from law enforcement agencies and the medical community, asking for help with everything from unsolved murders and missing persons to physiological and psychological problems...,The day I demand a check for helping find a missing child or a murderer, or guide a doctor to a diagnosis or cure for a life threatening medical or psychiatric problem, is the day I imagine my psychic gift will be taken away, exactly as it should be." I guess charging for readings isn't included in that. I'd like to know exactly what crimes she is supposed to have solved, what missing persons she has found. According to This article "How Psychic Sleuths Waste Police Resources" "As these examples show, psychics are a hindrance rather than an aid to police. In fact, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a branch of the Department of Justice, states there is not a single documented instance of anyone finding a missing child through the use of psychic power. (Marder 1994.)"

Life on the Other Side One interesting claim is that the spirit world is 3 feet above our own. She supports this statement by saying People who have seen spirits invariably describe them as "floating above the ground. pg 3. First off, are spirits invariably seen floating? From so many paranormal shows, web sites, etc., there have been many stories about spirits, but I don't think that many of them were 'floating', certainly not invariably floating. So the idea is the spirits are standing on land that is a little higher than our own, which makes it look like they are floating. Does that mean the spirit world has EXACTLY the same topography as our world? What about building? If you are on a platform 6 feet high, will the spirit appear 3' inside the ground? Are they incapable of appearing on the second floor of a building?

Lets see, animals exist on the other side. pg 24 "the animals on the other side include every pet we've had in this and all our past lives" So that means dogs have souls? Do stray dogs end up on the other side? What other animals? cats, gerbils, mice? rats, mosquitos, cockroaches, slugs? It's nice to think our beloved retriever would be there waiting for us, but that would mean the vicious dogs that attacked children would also be there. Oh, but that would be solved by saying there is no 'negativity' on the other side, so they would be good little puppies over there.

On life on the other side, we learn they speak all languages. "The most universal language on The Other Side is the eloquently descriptive Aramaic of ancient Syria, a dialect of which was spoken by Christ and His disciples." pg 7 I asked someone who's knowledge on the time is much greater than my own (CX) and he described Aramaic as 'guttural'. It was probably the language Christ used not because it was eloquent, but it was in common use and so would be easily understood by the people he was preaching to. Oh, by the way, there are 9 continents on the other side, and while people can just teleport wherever they want, they sometimes choose to instead take landspeeders like in Star Wars pg 272.

So what do spirits do over there all day? Pretty much whatever they want. What is interesting is "they study, work , research ... create everything from inventions to medical cures to great art, music, philosophy, and scientific breakthroughs." pg 6 Strange thing, why exactly should they engage in scientific research? After all "Like all entities on the Other Side, we will have access to all knowledge when we get there" including Askashic records, and "constant, total communion with God" pg 7. In fact "there's no such thing as not knowing on The Other Side". So what is there left to research? And what do they do with these breakthroughs? Why they telepathically transmit them to capable people on earth. This I find particularly insulting. That is like saying Einstein did not come up with relativity, he was just a suitable person for the real discoverer to transmit the findings to. These researchers work hard to make these breakthroughs, sometimes making it their life's work trying to solve some mystery, now to just say it was a spirit that made the real discovery and the researcher was just a useful conduit?!?

We are told there is no negativity on the other side, and no unfinished business. If so, then how come we are supposedly suffering from lingering 'negativity' from past lives? A story of a woman who did not get along with her mother-in-law finds out they had been sisters in a previous life and had never resolved the constant, competitive jealousy of that previous lifetime. How come? Those lives are over, since no negativity is brought over to the other side, then they wouldn't have any to bring back. Bad feelings are not the only things brought back. Illnesses can be left over trauma. Say you were killed by a knife to the chest in a previous life. In this life you may have chronic heartburn because of it. But wait a minute!! in another chapter she also says birthmarks are leftovers from previous lives, so that knife in the chest might also end up causing no illnesses, just a funny mark. So which is it? Do they result in illnesses or birthmarks? Sylvia repeatedly claims her daughter is the reincarnation of her grandmother, as evidence she offer her daughter's birthmark which is on the same arm as a burn her grandmother got. However, the burn was on the inside of granny's arm, the birthmark is on the outside. So these remembered traumas do not even have to actually match up the place they are supposed to have happened?

So what evidence does she relay offer for any of this stuff?

"I then validate it through meticulous research, including regressive hypnosis" pg 3. I don't know what you think on this Debbie, but hypnosis has been shown to be ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS in aiding memory, of this life or any other. Hypnotic regression therapy does not help memory, it puts a person into a suggestible state where their imagination or the suggestions of the hypnotist can be taken as reality. This has been the source of 'recovered memories' resulting in false accusations of child abuse, murder, claims of satanic ritual abuse, alien abductions, and past lives (including my favorite cult). See the False Memory Syndrome Foundation for more information on the troubles caused by false memories. The false memories can be encouraged or even created by suggestive or leading questioning. Sylvia claims that she never leads the subject, but on pg 120 she asks "What was your life's purpose?" This question is very leading by implying that the life had a purpose. She also suggests asking kids "Who were you before this? Who around here have you known before" pg 86 which takes it for granted the person was someone else before.

Oh yes, she also mentions the Bridey Murphy case, a case that was solved. It was discovered the woman was not remembering a past life as an Irish woman, she was remembering a childhood neighbor Irish immigrant who told her stories as a child. "I have enough proof of authenticated past life regressions in my files to fill another book--and I do mean authenticated." pg 120 I'm sure a LOT of people would be interested in those 'authenticated' files. An interesting note, she claims people wait around 100 years to be reincarnated, yet she repeatedly gives stories that would be people who reincarnated in much less time, such as her grandmother, and a boy reincarnated from someone who died in 1942.

btw: she claims to have had 51 past lives, and I'm sure would say most people have had a number of past lives. How do you reconcile this with the fact that the number of people alive today just might outnumber the people who have died?

Among her other 'evidence' she cites Kirilian photography. A worthless curiosity that is claimed to photograph auras, even though you can get an 'aura' off of a penny with it. pg 108 "which captures on film an image of the energy or aura that emanates from every living thing, that an amputated limb continues to appear in energy form as a part of the body long after it is gone." This is a false statement. No photograph has shown a nonexistent limb. This claim comes from tearing a piece off of a leaf then photographing it, using the same glass plates which still have the moisture and residue from earlier, giving the false image of a whole leaf.

She also uses the old "energy can't be destroyed" misrepresentation. Yea, in ordinary reactions energy and matter are not created or destroyed. Take a wineglass to the top of the world trade center and throw it off. Technically no matter has been destroyed, but you don't have a wineglass anymore. Then there is her weird statements on how hundreds of spirits can occupy the space of an elevator without being crowded. She explains this is possible because their matter is much denser than ours?!?! pg 265. Umm... density doesn't make any difference how many people can fit in a small space, it's volume. Greater density just means they weigh more, or they are much smaller. So is she saying we all become tiny when on the other side?

Oh, and I like this one under exorcisms: "Ancient rituals sacred to any religion are powerful precisely because they carry the sanctity of the ages with them" pg 177. So it doesn't matter if you worshiped a stone carving of a turtle, it just matters if it was worshiped long ago? Hey, does that mean I can make up a hokey ritual involving peanut M&Ms to exorcise spirits? Sure they won't do anything, but in 3 thousand years they will have the 'sanctity of the ages' and will be able to do stuff then.

Besides blaming health problems on past lives, Sylvia also blames them on words. Saying "He/She makes me sick" will make it so. pg 98 Or they are symptoms of psychological problems "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?" etc. Depression might actually be a 'psychic attack' by a Dark Spirit pg 199.

Sylvia claims to be able to talk to the dead. Then again, she also claims to be able to predict the future, and even you have seen she does not exactly perform well on that front. In looking at her predictions for the new millennium I found these two interesting tidbits: "Atlantis will begin to reappear in 2023 and be fully visible by 2026" pretty good for a place that never existed. "Aliens will begin allowing themselves to be seen on earth in the year 2010. They will not harm us. Instead, they will be here to observe what we are doing on this planet. They will also teach us again to use anti-gravity devices, as they did during the construction of the pyramids." Do I even need to go into this nonsense?

According to Sylvia we decide the course of our lives before we are born. " includes everything from the kinds of parents, families, and childhoods, career, health, financial, sexual preference, marriages, children, length of lifetime." pg 8 " illness is such a natural part of the life experience that we include it in our charts" pg 232 Now, since we plan our lives before we are born does that mean we don't have any free will while alive? that we have no choice but to follow this path? I know you've said yes we do Debbie, but Sylvia seems to say differently. pg 135 "we cannot change our life's themes". 218 "am I following my chart? answer is unequivocal yes". "no one- not even ourselves- can interfere with those life themes or the unfolding of the charts we've written" 137 That seems to put it very clearly that we can't change our 'destiny', only change how we react to it. So if you accept everything Sylvia says, then you have to accept that our future is planned out and we can't change it. It is useless to try and save a marriage if you've written it in as going to fail, despite what you and your loved one want.

Now, assuming we choose our lives to learn things, exactly what does a person learn by being born and dieting a week later? If they really do learn something from that, then are they forced to choose parents from poorer countries, where they lack the medical resources and infant mortality is higher? We supposedly choose our parents too, so does taking fertility drugs make parents more attractive to spirits, suddenly getting pregnant for septuplets? Can we choose parents who did not put 'kids' into their blueprint? or do we have to arrange that ahead of time? If you choose to have a lot of kids, do you have to recruit spirits to be them ahead of time? and do you have to coordinate your blueprints? Say you wrote into your blueprint that you'd be a great mother, what if a person born to you wrote into theirs they would have a lousy mother?

That's the problem with the concept of 'choosing your life', it's not just your life, but the life of everyone else you touch. To truly decide on it ahead of time you would have to coordinate it with everyone you would eventually come into contact with. Now if you throw in that concept of 'exit points' you are really throwing other people's plans into a tailspin. What if someone chose to lose a child in this life, yet the kid decide not to take that 'exit point' and live to a ripe old age? That throws the parent's blueprints into the trash heap. Or worse, choosing an exit point before they meet you, when you had written in an important relationship for the two of you.

I think I've rambled on enough for now, it's late and my eyes are tired. Not even going to get into her Dark Entities/demons now.

- Marc