The Search For Bridey Murphy

In 1956, Delmar, along with the rest of the United States, was talking about a book called “The Search For Bridey Murphy”.  

Sixty-nine years ago on November 29, 1952 Morey Bernstein placed Ruth Simmons (later identified as Virginia Tighe) into a deep hypnotic trance. Bernstein, a businessman and an amateur hypnotist, had mean Tighe at a party the previous month and convinced her to be the subject willing to try what believers in reincarnation call “past-life regression.” 

above Morey Bernstein

Through the power of hypnosis, he believed, he could lead Tighe back through time and into her previous life.  Tighe who was a 27 year old housewife was instructed by Berstein to fall into a deeper and deeper sleep he then regressed her to age 7 and after answering a couple of questions moved on to age 5 and age 3 and age 1.  He then asked her search her mind for something further back. 

It was at that point she developed an Irish brogue and begin telling about her life in vivid detail as Bridget “Bridey” Murphy from 1806 to 1864.  In several sessions with Tighe, Berstein accumulated a wealth of information on Bridey and life in Ireland in the 1800s.    In 1956 Doubleday the book publisher, published Morey Berstein’s "The Search for Bridey Murphy” It set the United States on fire talking about the possibly of genetic memory.  A rage of regression related hypnotist cocktail parties spread everywhere.  With the book release newspapers set investigators out to find out what was really going on.   Long story short, the investigators found Tighe had lived across the street from a house where Bridey Murphy Corkwell lived and she had merely absorbed the stories Bridey told about growing up in Ireland.  Tighe under hypnosis thought they were her own.  It gave a plausible answer to an event that had upset a great many.

A movie was released about the search for Bridey Murphy.  The internet is full of information about this event. 

Now that was 1956, today DNA is taken at hard scientific fact.  The average person can buy a DNA kit from ancestry.com and with no research on his part in a month’s time can show his family tree back to Eric the Red in Greenland and he believes it.  In truth DNA gives a lot of false or misleading information when doing family trees and there is a lot still not known about it.  If you believe your DNA is the reason why you have red hair and blue eyes and are a fisherman why would you not believe that in addition to those traits a part of the memories of your ancestors is not carried forward to you?  

People who have received an organ transplant will have their DNA altered (that seems to be accepted).  There has been a number of reports that after these transplants they begin to have memories of different people and events that they never had before the transplant.  It is called cellular memory theory.  Some believe others don't.   

In the case of Bridey Murphy it was blurred by the fact Bridey was not a direct ancestor but instead someone who was not related, a reincarnation of a person or a past life (PL).  Anyway it is something to rethink. 

Today the Bridey Murphy story was nothing but a distant memory for most Americans, a short-lived thrill that now resided alongside subsequent “paranormal” fads like UFOs, Big Foot, killer bees, and the Bermuda Triangle.