New age: Details about 'Bridey Murphy'
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Bridey Murphy is the name of a woman that U.S. housewife Virginia Tighe (April 27, 1923 in Madison, Wisconsin–July 12, 1995, near Denver, Colorado) claimed to have been in her previous life. In 1952, amateur hypnotist Morey Bernstein hypnotized Virginia Tighe in Pueblo, Colorado. He 'regressed' her to her alleged past life as a 19th-century Irishwoman, Bridey Murphy, who had allegedly lived about 1798–1864. She claimed to have never been in Ireland but gave vivid accounts of Irish rural life and sang Irish songs. Unfortunately, Bernstein and Tighe listened to the recorded sessions during the series, so that 'Bridey Murphy' was able to amend details as the sessions unfolded. Bernstein published the book The Search for Bridey Murphy in 1956; in it he called Tighe "Ruth Simmons". The book and recordings made of the hypnosis sessions became very popular and were turned into a unsuccessful 1956 movie. The phenomenon spawned a rash of comparable reincarnations. U.S. journalists made inquiries in Ireland and found no evidence of a Bridey Murphy. However, journalists working for the Chicago American found Bridey Murphey Corkell, who had lived across the street from Tighe's childhood home in Wisconsin. They concluded that Tighe's "memories" as Bridey Murphy were based on her tales of her childhood experiences. It was later revealed that Tighe had been coached on details of 19th-century Cork, Ireland. Supporters of Tighe say that some of the information she knew could not have been obtained through ordinary means. References in literatureIn Thomas Pynchon's V. (1963), a character called Esther is reading The Search for Bridey Murphy as she is sitting on a bus. This occurs in the fourth chapter of the novel, "In which Esther gets a nose job". ReferencesFads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner (Dover Publications, 1957) |
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