Bestselling psychic Sylvia Browne offers a detailed account of life in heaven in Life on the Other Side. Readers should be warned that it takes a huge leap of faith to follow this celebrity psychic across the chasm of doubt to the other side. In her opening chapters she explains that she is like the young boy in the movie The Sixth Sense--she sees dead people. When she was a child, these spirits came into her room at night and disappeared when a light went on. "To this day I can't sleep in a completely dark room, because the minute I try it the room starts filling up," she writes. "As a child, it was scary. As an adult, it's just annoying..."

Once she establishes her lengthy connections to life after death (including conversations with a spirit guide named Francine and her own near-death experience), Browne launches into life in the fourth dimension. In a chapter titled "After the Tunnel, Arriving on the Other Side," Browne explains that newcomers pass through a "hall of wisdom" and then review their most recent life through a "scanning machine." In the chapter "Beyond the Entrance," Brown claims that spirits live in whatever kind of home they've longed for, or they recreate a favorite home from earth. Plus, "the more spiritually advanced we become, the more physical beauty we're given, as a badge of our progress and hard work." Sex is known as "merging" and does not require birth control or any commitments of exclusivity. These kinds of glowing accounts of the other side cause skeptics to snicker, believers to feel comforted, and thousands of fans to keep on buying her books. --Gail Hudson


From Publishers Weekly
Browne has been spreading her popular and uplifting psychic messages in private practice and on daytime talk shows for decades; her 1999 book, The Other Side and Back, hit number one on the PW bestseller list. Now she's back with a plainspoken, good-humored guide to the invisible worldAwhich some people call the "afterlife" and others call "heaven"Athat, she argues, is just "the other side" of our world. Browne takes readers on a detailed tour (with illustrations!) of this paradise, where there are buildings (concert halls, athletic stadiums, libraries and schoolsAbut no shopping malls); where psychological help is available for those who need help making the transition; and where "we don't need to eat," but we can do so for sheer pleasure (and we don't need bathrooms afterward). Drawing on her years of experience as a psychic hypnotist and healer, Browne suggests that the other side is a kind of rest stop for our souls, where we go in between our multiple sojourns in this dimension. The folks over there, she argues, can talk to us, help us cure AIDS and guide us as we try to heal the pain in our lives. Browne anticipates reader skepticism with a kind of tough-edged patienceAshe's been there and seems to genuinely want to help readers get past their crippling disbelief so they can understand the cycles of life. And she's armed with examples to show she's not making any of this upAshe tells of skeptics who, when hypnotized, began speaking ancient, dead languages they couldn't possible have learned in this lifetime and of audiotape recordings of voices from the other side. Although the book isn't likely to make believers out of scoffers, it is a well-written and entertaining cultural bellwether. BOMC, QPB, One Spirit, Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club selections. (July) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Browne, a well-known psychic, takes readers on a tour of Heaven. Those familiar with New Age writers such as Edgar Cayce and Ruth Montgomery will find much that is physically familiar--marble halls, spirits (all age 30) in white robes, and a council of elders. Browne's view is also spiritually compatible with those of her fellow gurus, drawing on concepts such as reincarnation and past lives. Amplifying what she covered in her last book, The Other Side and Back (1999), Browne offers a Fodor's guide to the Beyond: how to get there, what to expect, how to get back to Earth. Readers will be delighted to hear that once they settle in Heaven, they will be able to enjoy their own abodes, have plenty of time to pursue school and hobbies, and will get to listen to lectures by all the big names in religion (Jesus and Buddha, for example). Skeptics will find plenty to chuckle about here: Why use scrolls to research past lives? Hasn't God heard of computers? Then there are the cheesy illustrations where women wear skirts with thigh-high slits, and the mother-goddess looks like Xena, warrior princess. For believers, however, Browne offers a comforting view of the other side. She is a regular on the TV talk-show circuit, so be prepared. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Renowned psychic, spiritual teacher, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Sylvia Browne leads readers on an adventure of the spirit and gives them a surprising glimpse into the next world. Filled with stunning revelations and stories of those who have visited "the other side," this uplifting book is the ultimate guide to finding peace in the afterlife.

"I've personally witnessed her bring closure to distraught families, help the police close cases, and open people's hearts to help them see the good within themselves." (Montel Williams)

"Sylvia Browne is more than a psychic-she is a master at conveying the truth that exists in the fourth dimension." (Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit)

FROM OUR EDITORS

July 2000

A Look at the Afterlife

Sylvia Browne has been a practicing psychic for nearly 50 years and is well known to many through her television appearances on The Montel Williams Show, Sally Jessy Raphaël, Larry King Live, Unsolved Mysteries, CNN, and Entertainment Tonight. Her two previous books, The Other Side and Back and Adventures of a Psychic, both of which deal with such paranormal phenomena as ghosts, channeling, out-of-body visits, and the afterlife, became New York Times bestsellers. Now Browne expands upon her vision of eternal life, reincarnation, and things otherworldly in Life on the Other Side: A Psychic's Tour of the Afterlife.

Browne possesses a self-deprecating honesty and a down-to-earth appeal that serves her well in this inspirational look at life after death. Certainly her message -- that death is not to be feared and is not the end of our existence -- is one that many will want to embrace. But whereas Browne's tone may be down-to-earth, her reported experiences are anything but. She goes beyond mere claims of an afterlife; she describes it in detail and says she has been there, even providing sketches of some of the sights she has seen.

There is a great deal of religious symbolism and imagery in Browne's vision of life, the afterlife, and the connection between the two. Reincarnation and past-life regressions figure prominently, and at the heart of it all is what Browne calls the Godhead, which consists of the Father God and the Mother God, Azna. According to Browne, the Father God embodies our intellectual side, whereas the Mother God represents our emotional side. Together they provide a sort of spiritual balance that is fed, both in this life and in the eternal one, by the pursuit of arts, knowledge, and contacts with other souls. Browne devotes a portion of her book to explaining this vision of life and eternal life, even correlating several quirks of everyday life with occurrences in the eternal one.

For instance, Browne believes each soul is assigned a sex, although our corporeal existence here on earth may take the form of either gender. She offers this juxtaposition of gender as a reason why some people are born confused about their sexual orientation -- some lingering memory or awareness of their spiritual gender is in opposition to their earthly one. She also ascribes a high level of autonomy to our spirits, eliminating many of those "how could a beneficent God let this happen?" questions. Another of Browne's more intriguing theories is the attribution of phobias in our current life to events that occurred in a past one.

Browne then devotes nearly half the book to describing, in detail, what the afterlife is like. Basically, she claims it is a utopian version of life here on earth, where everyone is treated fairly and there is no need to be concerned about appearance -- one can, in fact, change it at will. We maintain a flesh-and-blood body, although there is no need to eat or drink, hence eliminating those pesky unmentionable bodily functions. No one ages either, and those who are plagued by deformity, injury, scars, or other disabilities will be pleased to note that, with one odd exception, these things are not carried over into the afterlife. And while Browne may disappoint a few readers when she says there is no sex in the afterlife, she does offer an intriguing substitute.

Time and space more or less cease to exist in this other world, and the laws of physics aren't quite what we understand them to be here on earth. The geography of this other world matches this one for the most part, though there are a few exceptions. Except for the curious absence of insects, the entire animal kingdom is represented there, all coexisting in peaceful harmony. There are magnificent buildings and structures, stunning works of art, and great pieces of literature that mirror those here on earth. Lest Browne's written descriptions not suffice, she provides several drawings of the buildings, structures, and lands in the afterlife that depict them in striking detail.

Browne delves into what happens at the time of death, where our spirits go (including a special Left Door for the truly incorrigible spirits that are beyond redemption), and what they do once they get there. She attempts to answer some of the more difficult questions inherent to her theories, but she never claims to have all the answers. In fact, her willingness to admit her inability to explain certain things, particularly some minor ones for which an explanation could easily be trumped up, tends to lend her more credence.

Skeptics will find plenty to scoff at here, and Browne even anticipates many of the objections. But there is no denying that her underlying message -- one of hope, eternal life, ultimate forgiveness, and the chance to be reborn and do it all again -- will be a popular and inspirational one.

--Beth Amos

ANNOTATION

Sylvia answers our five basic questions: "How do I get there?"; "What does it look like?"; "What are the 'local' like?; "What is there to do?"; and "How exactly do I get back?" She also looks over lifelong career as a psychic, using past experiences, readings, hypnosis sessions, and research to illustrate her findings about "the other side."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In her phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Other Side and Back, acclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne introduced millions of people to a world beyond our own, where they saw for the first time that death was the end but just another phase in our eternal journey. Now, with Life on the Other Side, she goes even further, attending to our most pressing questions and quelling our deepest fears about death. Like a "psychic travel agent," Sylvia answers our five basic questions: "How do I get there?"; "What does it look like?"; "What are the 'local' like?; "What is there to do?"; and "How exactly do I get back?" She also looks over lifelong career as a psychic, using past experiences, readings, hypnosis sessions, and research to illustrate her findings about "the other side." Now, for the very first time, we're led on an adventure of the spirit to see an unprecedented view of a peaceful place where our departed loved one--and the next leg of our exciting journey--are patiently awaiting us.

"I've personally witnessed her bring closure to distraught families, help police close cases, and open people's hearts to help them see the good within themselves." --Montel Williams

"The The Other Side and Back is the most grounded and authentic 'entry to the other' I have ever read. Browne is a master at conveying the truth that exists in the fourth dimension." --Carolyn Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit.

SYNOPSIS