THE SEARCH FOR Bridey Murphy began in Pueblo, Colorado, in 1952. Under hypnosis, a brown-haired, trim-figured little housewife, Mrs. Virginia Tighe, began to talk in Irish brogue about her previous incarnation as a red-headed colleen named Bridey Murphy. William J. Barker, assistant editor of the Denver Post’s Sunday supplement, Empire, serialized the story in 1954 (Sept. 12, 19, and 26) under the title, “The Strange Search for Bridey Murphy.” The reader response suggested that here was material for a national best-seller. Morey Bernstein, the Pueblo businessman who had hypnotized Virginia, decided to write a book about it. Barker helped on the manuscript and Doubleday printed it in 1956 as The Search for Bridey Murphy.
For many weeks the book topped the country’s best-seller lists. It was translated into five other languages. A tape recording of one of Mrs. Tighe’s trance sessions was placed on a long-playing record and tens of thousands of copies were sold at $5.95 each. True magazine condensed the book. More than forty newspapers syndicated it. Movie rights were sold. Hostesses gave “Come as you were” parties. Juke boxes blared Do You Believe in Reincarnation?, The Love of Bridey Murphy, and the Bridey Murphy Rock and Roll. Night club hypnotists who hadn’t worked for years suddenly found themselves in great demand. All over the country, and especially in California, amateur hypnotists began sending parlor subjects back to previous lives. One lady described her existence in 1800 as a horse. In Shawnee, Oklahoma, a teen-age boy shot himself, leaving a note saying that he was curious about the Bridey theory and would now investigate it in person. Two studies of Edgar Cayce (see p. 216) were rushed back into print simply because Bernstein mentioned them favorably. A rash of new books on hypnotism, reincarnation, and related occult topics broke out on publishers’ lists.1 In the words of a Houston bookdealer, Bridey was “the hottest thing since Norman Vincent Peale.”2
One would be hard put to find a choicer sample of an utterly worthless book designed to exploit a mass hunger for scientific evidence of life after death, or a better example of the power of modern huckstering to swindle the gullible, simple folk who take such books seriously. The book is not even well written. All the miserable tricks of a low-grade pulp thriller are there to punch up the narrative (e.g., the single sentence paragraph: “Reincarnation—oh, no!,” “It was,” “I went,” “I did.”) As tasteless as the text is, Virginia’s remarks under hypnosis are even drabber. W. B. Ready, purchase librarian of Leland Stanford University, expresses it this way: “It is not the misstatements, the vagueness, the ignorance that are so depressing; it is the downright dullness. . . . There is not a single line . . . to brighten the eye, to quicken the breath, to cause anything but a feeling of discomfort.” 3 Mr. Ready rests his case on Virginia’s answers to some leading questions about her courtship:
Brian came to your house?
Uh-huh.
When you were seventeen?
Uh-huh.
“Now there is many an answer that an Irish girl would give to a query about her young and burgeoning love,” comments Ready, “but by all the powers that be it would never be Uh-huh.”
Obviously the book did not sell on its literary merits. It sold because readers of little faith thought that here at last was some sort of tangible “proof” of life after death even though it be the proof of a Christian heresy. As usual, prominent leaders of science fiction were properly impressed. Robert Heinlein, writing in Amazing Stories, April, 1956, predicted that before the year 2001 the survival of the soul after death would be demonstrated with “scientific rigor” by following the path broken by Bernstein. And John Campbell Jr., in Astounding Science Fiction, Sept., 1956, wrote, “Having had some personal experience with the profound professional ignorance of the nature of the hypnotic phenomena, I am all for Morey Bernstein’s highly successful effort to call attention to the lack of real understanding.” 4
If Virginia had been in the hands of a trained, well-informed psychologist, what would his reaction have been? In the first place he would have immediately recalled the classical cases exactly like Virginia’s. Almost any hypnotic subject capable of going into a deep trance will babble about a previous incarnation if the hypnotist asks him to. He will babble just as freely about his future incarnations. Usually what he has to say is dreary and uninspired. At times, however, he spins such a detailed story that it becomes a matter of special interest. In every case of this sort where there has been adequate checking on the subject’s past, it has been found that the subject’s unconscious mind was weaving together long forgotten bits of information acquired during his early years. There was nothing in the least exceptional about Virginia’s case. The obvious first step, therefore, of a trained psychologist would have been an investigation of Virginia’s childhood. Did this occur to Mr. Bernstein? If it did, there is no indication that he thought about it twice. Instead, he began a search for Bridey in Ireland! Irish librarians, an Irish legal firm, and others were asked to check on place names mentioned by Virginia and to look for evidence of a Bridey Murphy who once lived in Cork. Nothing of significance turned up. The Chicago Daily News ordered its London correspondent to Ireland. The results again were negative. The Denver Post then sent their reporter Barker, who began it all, to Ireland, printing his report as a special supplement to their March 11, 1956 issue. Barker summarizes this report in a chapter added to the Pocket Book edition of Bernstein’s book. Although Barker was firmly convinced of Bridey’s nineteenth century existence, the best he could discover on his expensive jaunt was that Virginia at some time had been exposed to a certain amount of Irish lore.
And then, in a wonderfully hilarious and crushing climax, Hearst’s Chicago American, whose Sunday supplement The American Weekly was once the nation’s outstanding purveyor of pseudo-science, actually found the missing Bridey!5 With admirable scientific acumen, American reporters began to prowl about Virginia’s old home town— Chicago. With the help of Rev. Wally White, pastor of the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle where Virginia once attended Sunday School, it did not take them long to locate Mrs. Anthony Corkell. Now a widow with seven children, she was still living in the old frame house where she had lived when Virginia was in her teens. For five years Virginia lived in a basement apartment across the street. Mrs. Corkell’s Irish background had fascinated the little girl. One of her old friends recalled that Virginia even had a “mad crush” on John, one of the Corkell boys. Another Corkell boy was named Kevin, the name of one of the imaginary Bridey’s friends. Note also the similarity of Corkell and Cork, the city where Bridey was supposed to have lived. And what was Mrs. Corkell’s maiden name? Bridie (with an “ie”) Murphy!
The more reporters talked to relatives and friends of Virginia, the more it became obvious that in her trances she had simply dredged up childhood memories. Bernstein had been careful to give Virginia a fictitious name in his book in order to conceal her identity. But so striking were the parallels between Virginia’s early life and the life of Bridey Murphy that several of her childhood chums, who had no idea she was living in Pueblo, recognized her when they read the book!
Virginia was born in 1922 in a white frame house in Madison, Wisconsin, exactly like the house that Bridey described. Her mother’s name was Katherine Pauline (Bridey’s mother’s name was Kathleen). Virginia’s sister once suffered a bad fall down the stairs just like the fall Bridey said had caused her own death.
When Virginia was four, her parents separated and she was taken to Chicago to live with an uncle and aunt. Her uncle recalls how she used to dance jigs on the street for pennies. (One of the few impressive incidents in Bernstein’s book is when Virginia, in a trance, dances an Irish jig.) Bridey’s brother died when Bridey was four. Virginia had a brother who died when she was five. At the age of six or seven she had been soundly whipped for scratching fresh paint off her metal bed, another incident that figures prominently in the book and which greatly impressed the naive Bernstein. It is odd that Virginia did not tell this to her hypnotist because she certainly had not forgotten it. One of her friends recalled her laughing about it some dozen years after it had happened.
A friend of Virginia’s foster parents was a man whose first name was Plezz, but whom Virginia called “Uncle Plazz.” Uncle Plazz told reporters that he remembered Virginia well. Bernstein had been enormously excited by the “authenticity” of Bridey’s “Uncle Plazz.” One of his “Irish investigators” told him that this was “phonetic spelling” of the “very rare Christian name Blaize,” after the Irish Saint Blaize. Evidently the Irish “investigator” was confusing “Blaize” with Saint Blaise, a fourth century Armenian saint. “I had been unable to find anyone who had even heard of such a name,” Bernstein writes. It never occurred to him to ask Virginia if she had ever known an Uncle Plazz.
Attending high school on Chicago’s north side, Virginia was both active and talented in school dramatics. Her teacher recalled that she memorized several Irish monologs which she delivered with a heavy brogue. In one monolog she was Bridget Mahon; in another, Maggie McCarthy. Her uncle told a reporter, “She could put on a brogue so well you would swear there was an Irishman in the room with you.” Moreover, Virginia had an Irish aunt (no longer living) of whom she was very fond and who used to tell her Irish tales about the old country. There is some evidence that it was from this aunt that the lonely Virginia, rejected by her parents, received the most affection. If so, it would explain her lifelong love for things Irish. One of young Virginia’s favorite songs was the Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) which, oddly enough, was also one of Bridey’s favorites. Virginia liked potato pancakes. So did Bridey. Even Bridey’s flaming red hair had a parallel, for Virginia had so admired red hair that she once dyed her own hair red!
Bridey’s Irish husband was named Sean Joseph Brian MacCarthy. Sean is Gaelic for John, the name of the Corkell boy on whom Virginia had her childhood crush. Brian happens to be (though Bernstein never mentions it) the middle name of Virginia’s husband! And we all know who Joe McCarthy is, or rather was back in 1952 when Virginia first slipped into her trances. Then, too, Virginia was a “McCarthy” in one of her Irish monologs.6
“Virginia had a good imagination,” one of her childhood friends told a reporter. “I always thought she could write a book.” That of course, is exactly what she did, only Bernstein’s name is on the title page and the royalty checks from Doubleday. It would have been the simplest thing in the world for Bernstein to have checked on Virginia’s past, but then of course he wouldn’t have had his book. Fortunately, it looks as though the Chicago American articles gave the book its much needed coup de grace. At any rate it dropped quickly from best-seller lists.
Bernstein ends his book with a cliff-hanger that obviously hints at plans for a dramatic sequel. He speaks of an “idea for expanding the Bridey experiment—an idea so fascinating that I can hardly wait to set up the experiment. It looks as though I’m about to take another step on the long bridge.”
One would guess that Bernstein’s next step, if he takes it at all, will be neither as long nor as profitable as his first one. But one should never underestimate the skill of Manhattan’s copy writers or the credulity of the suckers for whom the copy is so carefully written.
Dr. Joseph B. Rhine, in his brief comments on the Bridey mania (Tomorrow, Summer, 1956), agreed that there was nothing in the book that a student of science would want to take seriously. On the other hand, he felt that the wave of Bridey excitement had done more good than harm by stimulating public curiosity concerning matters on the fringe of orthodox psychology and so paving the way for serious study of such phenomena. To the extent that Bernstein’s book did this, I would agree that some good may come of it. But I am more inclined to think that the book has encouraged only crank research. There already is an enormous popular interest in the occult, as the astrology magazines testify, and no doubt Bridey Murphy stimulated this interest. But the total absence of scientific insight on Bernstein’s part has resulted in a book more likely to repel the serious student of psychology than fascinate him.
Of course some good may result from even the wildest pseudo-scientific work. In previous chapters I made no effort to pause and point out what such good results might be, so let me summarize a few of them here. In the first and obvious place, it is good to have off-trail work constantly going on because there is always the possibility that the eccentric scientist, however incompetent, may stumble upon something worth-while. In fact most pseudo-scientific cults, especially those that attract a mass following, contain many praiseworthy elements. The homeopathic movement, for example, arose in pre-scientific days of medicine when doctors were fond of giving patients heavy doses of drugs that were little understood and often harmful. By diluting their doses to an infinitesimal amount, the homeopaths developed a materia medica that caused no harm because it had no effect whatever. As someone once put it, homeopathic patients died only of the disease whereas patients of the orthodox doctors died of the cure as well. The success of the homeopathic movement thus not only called attention to the evils of large and indiscriminate doses, but it also pointed up the psychosomatic value of the placebo.
Similarly, the naturopathic movement helped publicize the value of sunlight, fresh air, exercise, fresh foods, low-heeled shoes for women, and a host of other good things. Orthodox doctors were not in opposition to these views, but it is true that they made little effort to stress them. With all his crank and at times dangerous medical opinions, one must grant that Bernarr Macfadden’s publications did a certain amount of good in bringing a few sound ideas to the attention of persons who might not otherwise have encountered them.
Even when a pseudo-scientific theory is completely worthless there is a certain educational value in refuting it. “False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science,” Darwin wrote, “for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.” Darwin had in mind the theories of scientists more competent than most of the men discussed in this book. It is not likely that any new roads to truth will be opened by refuting Velikovsky. Nonetheless, Darwin’s remark is applicable in a way to almost any fringe scientist. Anyone who refutes Velikovsky, for example, can hardly avoid learning a great deal of physics and astronomy. The Chicago American exposé of Bridey Murphy has, let us hope, made it more difficult for pseudo-psychologists of the future to be misled by hypnotically induced memories of previous lives. This “path toward error” has been closed so many times before, however, that one hesitates to be optimistic.
The spectacular recent successes of pseudo-science have a value also in publicizing aspects of our culture that are much in need of improvement. We need better science education in our schools. We need more and better popularizers of science. We need better channels of communication between working scientists and the public. And so on.
Finally, we must not forget that these Don Quixotes of the scientific world, with their mad antics and fantastic rationalizations, are often vastly amusing fellows. Alfred Lawson, for instance, is one of the nation’s great unintentionally comic figures. If you read the works of these men in the right spirit, you will find much high and refreshing humor.
In view of these merits, should one then conclude that publishers do us all a favor by bringing out in hard covers a worthless scientific work? To answer this question we shall have to return to one of the continuums cited in Chapter 1. Off-trail science is a spectrum that ranges from the obviously crackpot views of a Voliva to the reputable views of a Rhine. We can all agree that a distinguished publishing house should not lower its standards by printing a book proving the earth to be flat, just as we can all agree that the same house should not hesitate to publish a book by Dr. Rhine. Somewhere near the middle of this spectrum is a vague area where a manuscript will be in doubt; where there will be equally good arguments on both sides. To ask, therefore, whether a given book should or should not be published is to ask whether it lies so far below this area of doubt that nothing will be gained (aside from financial profits) by publishing it. And how is the location of a manuscript on this spectrum to be determined? Obviously, it can only be decided by scientists themselves. A reputable house should no more think of submitting a scientific work to a literary critic for his opinion than it would think of submitting an unpublished novel to a research scientist. Actually, a scientist’s opinion of a novel would likely be of more value than a literary critic’s opinion of a work of science. Most publishing houses recognize this, of course, and when a scientific manuscript falls into their hands it is immediately routed to an appropriate expert for his opinion.
In many recent cases, however, this commendable practice was violated and pseudo-scientific works far below the area of reasonable doubt were published and heavily promoted by houses that either did not seek expert opinion or disregarded it It is in these cases that the publication of a book begins to smack of fraud, for the public has grown to expect the larger houses to weed out worthless manuscripts. The very fact that their imprimatur is on a book suggests to the man in the bookstore that here is something worthy of his consideration. And if the promotion of the book portrays it as a revolutionary new scientific hypothesis to compare with Darwin’s, then the fraud is compounded.
Eric Larrabee, an editor of Harper’s magazine who introduced Velikovsky’s views to the public by way of a Harper’s article, has, like a man with an uneasy conscience, repeatedly defended his action. In a letter to Scientific American, May, 1956 (to which physicist Harrison Brown makes a long and good reply), he states his opinion that Velikovsky has behaved better than his detractors, and that when a few scientists threatened to boycott Macmillan’s textbooks unless it abandoned Worlds in Collision their behavior was a “disgrace to American science.” He is shocked at how slender is the faith of scientists in the “open testing of ideas.”
In my opinion Mr. Larrabee never comes to grips with the central problem—whether he, as a non-scientist, did a good thing when he trusted his own judgment concerning Velikovsky as opposed to the judgment of astronomers and physicists. To the professional scientist, Velikovsky’s manuscripts no more deserved the dignified treatment Larrabee accorded them than scores of similar manuscripts that are rejected every week by editors. Larrabee has persistently ignored the fact that scientific societies provide a highly efficient means for the “open testing” of ideas. He has only to glance at back issues of the Bulletin of the American Physical Society to see how often scientists sit and listen with patience and interest to a weird and unorthodox paper. Obviously there are still lower levels of the spectrum where views are so preposterous that the only way the scientist can get a hearing is to publish the views himself. This of course is precisely what he does. It would be foolish to expect the leading publishing houses and magazines like Harper’s to take on the staggering burden of proclaiming these off-trail theories.
Let us put it this way. If Velikovsky deserves to be praised in the pages of Harper’s then so do dozens of other men mentioned in this book. Let’s have an article by Larrabee on the great work that Wilhelm Reich, certainly a man with a far more distinguished scientific background than Velikovsky, is doing with orgone energy. Let’s have a Harper’s article on the virtues of Krebiozen as a cancer cure, so that the research of Dr. Andrew Ivy can be tested in the market place of public opinion. One sees at once that editors have to be ruthlessly selective. They can’t publicize every eccentric theory that comes along. And this snaps us quickly back to the basic question of who should do the selecting. Editors untrained in science?
By all means let the Don Quixotes of science be heard. But let them be heard in a manner befitting their position on the spectrum of unorthodoxy, and let that position be determined by those who alone are qualified to do so.