by Sylvia Browne

If you know my work, or you've seen me on television, or you've been to one of my lectures, you've heard me say a thousand times that I come from a lineage of psychics that dates back three hundred years. And you're also aware that I'm neither the first nor the last of the psychics in my family to devote a lifetime to these gifts.

I was born in Kansas City, the heart of the Bible Belt, in 1936. Neither of my parents had retained a shred of the psychic abilities they were born with, which left that confusing and often frightening part of me in the capable, empathetic hands of Ada Coil, my maternal grandmother, who'd been psychic all her life, as had many of her ancestors.

Grandma Ada was born in 1865. She was clairvoyant (she saw spirits and visions), clairaudient (she could hear and communicate with the Other Side), clairsentient (able to receive thoughts and emotions and experience them as her own), and a renowned healer. She had several Spirit Guides, whom she referred to as her "voices," but the most prominent one was named Athena. She was eons ahead of her time, doing readings in her threadbare little apartment. I spent much of my early childhood sitting quietly nearby watching a steady stream of  clients from every imaginable race, creed, religion, and circumstance find solace through Grandma Ada's gifts and her extraordinary compassion.

The one healing she could never accomplish was on behalf of her son Marcus Behn, my uncle, whom we called Brother. He was stricken with cerebral palsy as a child and, according to his doctors, wasn't supposed to live past puberty. He lived with Grandma Ada all his life, and she adored him. He had a brilliant mind and an equally gentle brilliant gentle spirit. Grandma Ada always said she'd never leave him. She died when I was eighteen, and Brother died two days later at the age of fifty-two, of what the coroner called "unknown causes." I felt my world had ended when I lost them.

I was seven years old, alone in my bedroom, playing with my flashlight one night as usual, when, with no warning, the glow from the flashlight began to grow and intensify until it filled the room with almost blinding white light. I was gaping at it, too mesmerized and frightened to move, when from what seemed to be the center of the light a woman's high pitched chirping voice said, with a clarity I'd never experienced before from the spirit world, "Don't be afraid, Sylvia. I come from God."

I was out of that room and down the stairs in less than a heartbeat, screaming in terror for Grandma Ada, whom I careened into in the kitchen. Through wracking sobs I described what had happened. She quietly stroked my hair and said, “That was your Spirit Guide, sweetheart. She's here to help you."

I was in regular communication with Francine from that night on. It's interesting that although I could see other spirits with the greatest of ease, I only got a brief glimpse of her once, years later, and even then I turned away. Other people routinely see her, including my grandchildren when they were younger, but it certainly helps to illustrate the point that no psychic, child or adult, sees every spirit in our midst.

My children, Paul and Chris, showed psychic gifts at an early age. Paul Dufresne came first, an outgoing, very funny boy with a sense of humor identical to his mother's -- to this day Paul and I can be doubled over with laughter in a corner of a room while everyone else stares at us wondering what on earth is so funny. From the time he was born, he was as psychic as every other child, giggling and waving from his crib at spirits who stopped by his room to say hello, but he was neither very verbal about nor interested in the spirit world and his psychic gifts. He knew his Spirit Guide's name was Timothy but rarely talked about him, and when he was three years old he asked me in passing who the woman was who followed me around all the time, which of course was and is Francine.

Chris Dufresne came along a few years later, as enchanted by his psychic gifts as his big brother wasn't. From the time he was an infant he could see and hear the spirit world around him, and it delighted him. He communicated regularly with his Spirit Guide Charley even as a toddler, years younger than I was when I became aware of Francine, and unlike his mother, Chris found nothing frightening about Charley or any of the other spirits in his life. One area in which Chris's psychic preferences and mine have always differed is that he loved astral projection, while I studiously avoid it.

All of my wonderful grandchildren have psychic gifts, each as unique as they are. Paul's son Jeffrey is very psychically connected to his father. Even as a small child, he could always tell us with uncanny precision just exactly when Paul would be arriving home from work. Chris' son Willy is happy, funny and easygoing. He is also so conscious of the fact that we're all just visiting here from The Other Side. When the family is going through a crisis, he'll say without a hint of sadness or doom, "Bagdah (his and his sister's nickname for me), let's give it up and go back Home where we belong."

Someone once described Chris's daughter Angelina as being "Sylvia's heart on two legs." It's a perfect description of our connection from the moment she was born, and there's a reason for that, far beyond her being my granddaughter; I knew the instant I saw her - psychically, spiritually, and absolutely - that Angelina was literally the reincarnation of my cherished Grandma Ada, back in the physical body, blessing me twice in one lifetime with that exquisite soul. No reincarnation is a duplicate of the previous one, and no reincarnated spirit is a clone of whoever it was before. So as thrilling as it was to know that Grandma Ada was physically in my life again, I also knew she hadn't come back to be Grandma Ada; she'd come back to be Angelina.

But, of course, children being the psychic creatures they are, she didn't need us to tell her a thing. We were on a family trip to my hometown of Kansas City. Chris was driving as we toured the neighborhood where I grew up, and suddenly Angelina startled us all by yelling from the backseat, "Daddy, stop the car!" He did, with some screeching of the brakes. She was excitedly pointing at a nearby storefront. "Bagdah, look!" she said. "Remember when I was big and you were little, and I used to carry you across the street to the grocery store right there?" Angelina has also exhibited profound healing gifts, once holding a seemingly dying baby bird in her hands and, after several moments, a healthy baby bird flew away. She is also very conscious of playing with her Angels and Ariel, her Spirit Guide.

My family is so special to me. It has been a joy watching my children and grandchildren develop their unique psychic gifts. May you have the pleasure of watching your family members develop their psychic gifts to their full potential.


Love always,

Sylvia Browne


Sylvia Browne is without question, "America's #1 Psychic," an internationally known psychic and medium.