Sylvia Browne doesn't believe in death. If she did, the 68-year-old psychic would have a hard time explaining a career built almost entirely on communicating with the spirits of so-called "dead" people. The Campbell, Calif., church that Browne founded in 1986 -- Novus Spiritus -- embraces spiritual eclecticism, including the old-time religion of the Spiritualist church, which has among its beliefs that the living can communicate with people whose bodies have been buried, cremated or otherwise put to rest. That belief is shared by growing numbers of people from a variety of religious backgrounds, according to national polls. In 2001, the Gallup Organization noted that half or more of Americans believe in psychic or spiritual healing and extrasensory perception, while 28 percent believe in spirit communication -- "talk" between dead and living people through mediums, seances, electrical signals (flashing lights, phones ringing), physical changes (doors shutting, pennies appearing), even hearing a person's voice or smelling a perfume.

That's 10 percent more than in 1990. In addition, a Harris poll last year showed that 27 percent of Americans believe they have been reincarnated, 82 percent believe in heaven and 62 percent think they're bound for that happy afterlife. Only 1 percent think they're headed for hell.

View: Full Article | Source: The Times-Picayune