So Supernatural - MYSTICAL: Bridey Murphy

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

When a housewife in the U.S. undergoes hypnosis in 1952, she recalls detailed memories of a past life in 19th-century Ireland.  

If you've ever been to one of those hypnosis shows, you probably believe that hypnosis is real. In fact, there's not a lot of debate on whether it's possible to be hypnotized. The real fight is over what the process can and cannot achieve. Convince a patient to stop smoking, perhaps. Recall forgotten memories, maybe. But what about memories from a past life? There are plenty of cases of people who are born remembering previous lives. I've talked about some of them on this very show. But what if everyone has memories like those? They're just buried somewhere deep in

your subconscious. Wouldn't you want to remember who you were? The people you loved? Well, be careful what you wish for. For a young woman named Virginia Tai, her recovered memories of a past life turned her current life into a nightmare. This is Supernatural. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week's story is about a case of recovered memories that sent the whole United States into a tailspin. The patient was a young woman born in Chicago who had never even been to Ireland. But under hypnosis, she recalled detailed memories of living and dying in 19th century Belfast. I'll have all that and more coming up. In the 1950s, Pueblo, Colorado is everything you'd want

from a picturesque mid-century town. A one-screen movie theater, quaint little diners, and light blue T-birds parked on every corner. You may as well be walking through with a set of happy days. This proverbial slice of apple pie is where a young man named Maury Bernstein chooses to start a family and build his career. Shortly after high school, he's given a management position at the family business, a heavy equipment supplier. Thanks to massive construction projects all over southern Colorado, it's doing extremely well,

and Maury quickly proves himself to be a pragmatic young man with a knack for business. It seems like one day he'll take over the company and follow in his father's footsteps. Until one night in the late 1940s, when he sees something that completely changes the course of his life. Like any good mystery, it begins on a dark and stormy night. Maury is alone in his office catching up on work when the phone rings. He usually doesn't answer the phone after five, but given the bad weather, he figures it might be important. On the other end is a man named Jerry Thomas. He and Maury have never met, but Jerry explains he's a cousin of George Taylor, Maury's biggest

client. Jerry says he's stuck in Pueblo, the storm grounded his plane and the hotels in town are all full. Given how much revenue George Taylor generates for the company, Maury doesn't think twice about helping Jerry out. He picks him up from the airport and brings him home where his wife Hazel is readying the guest room. Now, Maury isn't usually a fan of unannounced houseguests, but as far as unannounced house guests. But as far as unannounced house guests go, Jerry is great. He turns out to be charming and a great conversationalist. Maury and Hazel even ask if he wants to tag along to the party they're going to that night, and Jerry is down. At first, everyone at the party loves him. But when the subject of hobbies comes up, Jerry takes a hard left turn. He proudly announces that he's a hypnotist.

He asks for a volunteer to demonstrate. There's a moment of reluctant silence, but eventually a young woman agrees. Jerry sits her down on the couch, takes off his ring, and tells her to stare at the ring intently until it becomes hazy. She does. Everyone waits and waits. Nothing happens. They're all just silently staring at this girl who's staring at the ring until eventually she just falls dead asleep on the couch. At this point, Maury is about to step in and save his house guest from himself, but just then Jerry starts talking to the couch. At this point, Maury is about to step in and save his house guest from himself, but just then Jerry starts talking to the woman. He tells her that when she wakes up, she'll be starving and that after she eats two bites of food, she should take off her left shoe.

Then he wakes her up. The woman seems to have no memory of the past 10 minutes, but just as Jerry predicted, she heads straight for the kitchen. She starts in on her plate of food, and two bites later, her left shoe is off. When someone points it out to her, she looks around confused and is surprised to find her shoe in her hand. That's right, she took it off without even consciously realizing it. The whole room is impressed, except for Maury, who doesn't believe it for a second. He asks Jerry if he can put her back under so they can run a few more tests, just to prove she's truly hypnotized. So, Jerry puts her into a trance again. The woman's fiance tries to make her burst out laughing by sitting next to her and attacking her face with little kisses, which, admittedly, sounds really cute,

but the woman doesn't stir. Then, Maury suggests they prick her hand with a sewing needle. One might think this is taking things a little too far, but they go for it. And once again, she doesn't so much as flinch. She is out. By the end of the party, Maury goes home astonished. The next day, he starts digging into the research and he's shocked at how little scientists have actually studied the phenomenon. Because if hypnosis is real, it could be a powerful tool to help people. For example, Maury's wife Hazel suffers from chronic headaches. She's been to a dozen doctors and hospitals, including the Mayo Clinic, and every medical professional assured her that there was no physical reason for her condition, like kidney

stones or blood disease. The headaches are purely a psychological problem. So when Hazel sees her husband pouring over books on hypnosis, she suggests that he should try to hypnotize her to try and release the pain. Maury is happy to try. He puts her into a trance using some of the techniques he's learned, and according to Hazel, it works like a charm. She wakes up completely free of pain. Even Maury doesn't believe it. He wonders whether she's putting on a front to appease him. But Hazel tells everyone what happened, and the word gets around

quick. Pretty soon, friends and family are asking Maury to help them quit smoking or get rid of a bad habit. And each time, it works. In one instance, he even helps a teenage boy overcome a stutter. And as time goes on, Maury grows interested in more advanced forms of hypnotherapy, specifically regressive hypnosis, a practice that can supposedly help a patient recover lost memories, especially from childhood. From his research, Maury knows that regressive hypnosis works best on people who experience total amnesia during sessions, meaning they remember nothing about being in a trance. And he knows exactly the right patient. There's a 29-year-old woman who came to him for help curing her allergies. Her name is Virginia Tai, but everyone calls her

Ginny. Maury has hypnotized her twice before, and both times he was struck by how little she remembered from their sessions. Maury convinces Ginny to be his guinea pig, and on November 29, 1952, she and her husband Hugh arrive at Maury's house ready to see what he can do. Ginny settles into a reclining position on the couch then Maury lights a candle and turns off all the lights. He turns on a tape recorder and then hypnotizes Ginny by having her stare at the candle's flame until it becomes fuzzy. Once she is fully under he takes her back through a few memories of childhood, going younger and younger until she recalls moments from infancy. At that point, in his words, he is ready to take her over the hump. Maury tells Ginny to go back, back, back and back until oddly enough you find yourself in some other scene, in some other place,

in some other time. Ginny's breathing slows as she sinks deeper into a trance. Then a warm smile crosses her face, like she's smelling the most wonderful bouquet of flowers. Maury moves his tape recorder closer and asks what she sees. She yelps in a slight Irish accent. Scratch the paint off all my bed. Maury laughs a little and asks her for more context. In a childlike voice, Ginny explains that she's just been spanked for misbehaving. To get back at her parents, she scratched the fresh coat of paint off her metal bed frame.

Maury asks if this spunky little kid had a name. Ginny nods and says, Bridie Murphy. We'll meet Bridie coming up. Now back to the story. According to Ginny, Bridie Murphy is an eight-year-old Protestant who lives in the meadows just outside of Cork, Ireland. Now, even though Bridie is speaking through Ginny during her hypnosis session, I'll just be using Bridie's name to refer to her from here on out. Anyway, Maury leads Brid works as a lawyer in town.

This is already a clear and vivid recollection, so much so in fact that Maury barely believes it. He decides to keep pressing for more details, and this is basically the life story he gets. He asks Bridie to remember something from when she was a little older. When she next starts speaking she's 17 and going to etiquette school. She tells Maury about one night in particular when she arrives home from school and starts helping her mother with dinner. Just after sundown, Bridie's father comes home with two other men, a fellow lawyer from work and his 19-year-old son, Brian. Brian is tall and stately, but rigid. To Bridie, he seems humorless. She doesn't have time for people who took themselves too seriously. Granted, part of her distaste might be because she secretly knew why he was invited for dinner. She's 17, he's 19, and they're both single.

Her theory is confirmed when Brian sits down next to Bridie and starts asking her questions about herself. Bridie tries to be polite, but honestly, she doesn't like the man one bit. She asks Brian questions in return and learns that he doesn't live in Cork. In fact, he's going to school way up north in Belfast. That strikes her as a surprise. Bridie likes the idea of a man who travels and studies and seems to be going places. She still isn't quite sold, but Brian is intent on pursuing her. And over the weeks that follow, Brian's prickly shell softens and Bridie sees

the gentle loving heart that's beneath it. Gradually, the pair fall in love. They married a year or two later in Cork. Soon after the wedding, Bridie moves to Belfast with her new husband so that he can finish school. The newlyweds move in with Brian's grandmother, living in a small cottage behind her home, kind of like a guest house. The pair never have children, but their marriage is full of love. Bridie says they rarely fight, and when they do, it's over little things. Brian is an attentive husband, and he never fails to make her feel happy and safe. Eventually, Brian is offered a job as a professor at the Queen's University in Belfast and thanks to his new salary bump, he's able to buy a

two-story townhouse. Bridie is a little sad to move out of grandma's cottage but she loves having her own place. She dresses it up and it feels like home. She and Brian fill the house with happy memories growing old together under that same roof. Which brings the conversation to a solemn place. One morning, when Bridie is 66 years old, she falls down the stairs and breaks several bones in her hip. Bridie is put on bed rest for months. Brian has to carry her around on the few occasions she leaves the room. To make matters worse, that winter, she catches a deathly cold. Between that and the broken hip, Bridie knows she's dying.

But that's okay, really. She had a good, long life. She isn't scared. She just hopes death will come soon. The next time Bridie speaks, she's distant and confused. She's still in her home, but she's staring down at her own body. She's dead. She lingers in the house for long enough to watch her funeral.

Then she drifts into an infinite nothingness. She's surrounded by hundreds of souls all drifting around without purpose. No one seems to be in charge, no one knows where to go, but through the crowd, Bridie sees someone she hasn't thought about for years, her little brother who had died when he was just a baby. Yet here he is in the spirit world, able to talk, fully aware of who Bridie is. She can't remember much of what they talked about in the afterlife, just that it was nice to see him. Bridie remembers staying in the spirit world for some time. She isn't sure how long. It seems like she keeps drifting between her home in Belfast and the Nothing Place. Then one day,

she's a person again. An infant learning how to speak. Her mother calls her Ginny. By this point, Ginny's consciousness has returned to her body. It's then that Morrie decides to end the session and slowly brings Ginny out of her trance. When she wakes up, Ginny feels light and well rested. She's startled to see Maury and her husband staring at her in disbelief. Ginny doesn't remember anything about the session, and when they tell her what she said, she's at a loss for how to explain it. She'd never been to Ireland or gone out of her way to learn anything about the country. No one is more surprised than Maury. Until then, he'd always considered himself an atheist. But after his session with Ginny, he can't help but wonder whether the spirit really does live on after death. I mean, if Bridie turns out to be a real person, and that's still a big if, what other explanation is there?

Maury is so intrigued, he schedules at least five more follow-up sessions over the next 10 months. He asks Ginny, or Bridie, about every little aspect of her life, and the amount of detail she provides is frankly pretty astounding. She describes the house she lived in, the meals she cooked, trips she and her husband took. She names the priest who officiated her wedding. And session after session, her story never falters. Even when Maury tries to trick her, she never misses a beat. Personally, Ginny isn't fully convinced that she's the reincarnated soul of anybody, Bridie Murphy or otherwise. She's just going along with the experiments.

But she can't explain how she's able to give such eerily accurate descriptions of places she's never seen. What's also notable is Bridie was apparently a pretty average woman, which is pretty unusual for a situation like this. Turns out our subconscious minds tend to be pretty self-aggrandizing. Those who believe in past lives are more likely to remember themselves as, for example, King James IV of Scotland or the best friend of Empress Josephine Bonaparte. But Bridie's story is completely free of narcissism. Her marriage is sweet and passionate, but hardly a love story for the ages. Her death was fairly

normal too, and the extensive details she recalls can easily be fact-checked to see if they're accurate or not. Which Maury doesn't do. In 1956, he publishes a book called The Search for Bridie Murphy, which is largely a transcript of his sessions with Ginny. And there's practically no fact-checking before it hits the press. Which means it's up to the public to decide whether the story is true or not. And the skeptics are already sharpening their knives. Coming up, I'll look at the evidence for and against Bridie Murphy. Now back to the story. When the search for Bridie Murphy hits the shelves in 1956,

the country dips into what Life magazine called a hypnotizzy. The book is a bestseller for 26 weeks. There are several pop songs about Bridie. There are reincarnation themed parties where people come dressed as their past lives. A film based on the book is released within less than a year. You have to understand people in the 50s are already really into the paranormal, UFOs, ESP and all that. So this is the perfect moment for a past life regression craze. But not all the attention is positive. There's a huge backlash from skeptics who want to debunk the story. Psychologists attack hypnosis as pseudoscience and reporters from all over the world pour money into investigating the details of Bridie's supposed life.

The Denver Post sends a journalist to scour Ireland, looking for documentation to verify her birth or marriage, her hometown, or literally anything that could prove that she was a real person. And what they find is basically a huge blank. The Post claims they can't find any evidence of a woman named Bridie Murphy living in Cork or Belfast during the time she was supposedly alive. But this doesn't necessarily mean anything. I mean, for one thing, public record keeping in 19th century Ireland wasn't great, so it's really not surprising they can't find anything. For another thing, Bridie might not

have been her legal name. At the time, Bridie was a popular nickname for Bridget. And that's kind of a dead end too, because there isn't a town in Ireland that doesn't have a Bridget Murphy in the books. That'd be like finding a mall without a Sbarro. It's not happening. But here's something that's a little harder to explain away. The Post also isn't able to find any records on Bridie's husband or father-in-law who were supposedly lawyers and who probably would be mentioned in at least a few court documents. They can't find the street Bridie lived on, or the parish priest she named. They do find a church with the same name Bridie mentioned, but it was built after Bridie's death. There are a few other details that can't fully be debunked, but do seem a little odd.

Bridie claimed to live in a white wooden house, but wooden houses were super rare in Ireland at the time. And the very first thing Bridie said under hypnosis about scratching the paint off her bed, metal bed frames were also super rare at the time. They were usually made of wood. Then again, it's not like metal was that hard to find in Cork. Who's to say Bridie's bed wasn't made out of some leftover metal piping or something.

But in the end, the Denver Post discredits most of Bridie's story. But they do admit that she gave creepily accurate descriptions of the places around Ireland that she did mention, especially given that she'd never been to the country before. Without a definitive answer either way, other newspapers keep investigating, and the next search takes place a little closer to home. So when the search for Bridie Murphy was published, Ginny Tai wanted nothing to do with it. She still wasn't fully convinced that her supposed memories weren't all nonsense, so the book uses a pseudonym so Ginny can stay anonymous. But the Chicago American newspaper does some digging and they find out Ginny's real

identity. And by looking into her past, they uncover some details that do match the story of Bridie Murphy. At one point in her childhood, Ginny lived in a white wooden house. She had a metal bed frame, and according to her relatives, she'd been punished as a child for scraping the paint off of it. Brian, the name of Bridie's husband, was also the middle name of Ginny's husband. And most interesting of all, Ginny once had a neighbor across the street named Bridie Murphy Corkell. Now, some of that could be a coincidence, like Brian is hardly an uncommon name. And for her part, Ginny remembers a Mrs. Corkell, but she claims she never heard her first name or maiden name. But the Chicago American has their own theory. Most of Bridie's happy childhood

memories might actually come from Ginny's own childhood in Illinois. That doesn't mean Ginny is making it up. She might not even be aware that these memories are her own. In fact, studies have shown that memories of past lives are usually the result of something called source monitoring error. Basically, this is when you have a clear memory of some event or information, but you forget where that memory came from. For example, say you read about a current event in the newspaper, but then later on you think that you learned about it from watching the news on TV. Or say you have a few vague memories from early childhood without being able to place them in context. A white wooden house, scratched paint

on a metal bed, a woman named Bridie. If you're put under hypnosis and primed to believe that those memories are actually from a past life, well, that's what your brain is going to believe. Now, is that enough to debunk Bridie's entire story? For a lot of skeptics, yes. But for believers, there's still no real proof that Bridie wasn't real. There's enough evidence on both sides to sustain the argument for generations. As for Ginny, she never decided what to believe. After her identity was published, she mostly tried to stay out of the spotlight. She wanted the truth, sure, but more than that, she wanted her privacy, and the Chicago American article destroyed that. The entire nation's attention and fury was directed at her. She once said, if I had known what was going to happen, I would never

have lain down on the couch. Although later in life, she's quoted as commenting, well, the older I get, the more I want to believe in it. And maybe that's the most important takeaway from the Bridie Murphy craze. Death is scary. It's perfectly natural to want to believe that death is just the beginning of a new life, a new way to start over, find a new soulmate, and create more happy memories that, at least under hypnosis, we'll always be able to remember. Stories like Bridie Murphy's give us hope that the end is not the end. And whether reincarnation is real or not, if that hope makes this life easier to enjoy, maybe it's worth believing in. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode.

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