I can remember when the story of Bridey Murphy first hit the news..... it was on everyone's lips for many years.... However, the case is not the only one, there have been many other convincing cases that prove that we reincarnate.

Conversations and the Search for Bridey Murphy

(Blogger’s Note: This is a short segment from my book, Conversations. I’m reprinting it here because it struck me that the attack on the Bridey Murphy story resembled some of the attacks on UFO reports. As you read this, you’ll see that those opposed to the idea that Ruth Simmons was the reincarnation of Murphy. What I mean is that some of the opponents of the idea, who believed they know the ultimate “truth” resorted to inventing evidence to prove that Simmons was engaged in some sort of hoax. While it is absolutely true that the evidence to support the idea that Simmons was reincarnated, it is also true that much of the evidence brought to bear was fabricated, misrepresented, and quite misleading. Any yes, I know the techniques used have been shown to be flawed, but the tale is interesting nonetheless, especially in the way that the media reported it. They all assumed that the first article had been properly researched, quoted from it without verifying the information, and then forgot about it. This is the real point here. Sometimes the media has its own agenda and sticks to its narrative with little regard to the facts. I’m sure that we all can think of examples of that without too much trouble. And yes, all of this and much more is covered in Conversations.)

The Search for Bridey Murphy

The idea of reincarnation splashed across headlines in this country in a big way in the mid-1950s when Morey Bernstein published, The Search for Bridey Murphy. Murphy, according to Bernstein, was a woman who had lived in the mid to early nineteenth century in Ireland and who had died in 1864. Bernstein had met Murphy long after she died, while preforming a hypnotic regression experiment on a woman he called Ruth Simmons (her real name has been printed since then, but I see no point in using it here so I will use the name created by Bernstein) who lived at that time in Colorado.
Bernstein had met Simmons earlier at a party and hypnotized her, realizing that she was a good subject, slipping into a hypnotic state quickly and easily. Later, as he learned about reincarnation, first from an acquaintance, and then from the teachings of Edgar Cayce and the Association for Research and Enlightenment, he decided to try to hypnotically find "memories before birth." His first task was to find a proper subject for his experiment, one who could be placed in a deep trance so that she would not consciously remember what had happened under the influence of hypnosis. He had a subject in mind, one who fit the bill as a good subject, but he had left for the Navy before the experiment could be conducted. Bernstein finally remembered Simmons and settled on her.
Because he didn't know Ruth, or her husband Rex, well it took several weeks to set up the appointment for the hypnotic regression. As Bernstein wrote in his book, "I was forced to compete with bridge games, cocktail parties and club dances." Finally, his patience rewarded, he met with Simmons with the purpose of learning if he could take her back, into another past life.
According to Bernstein in The Search for Bridey Murphy, he first made her comfortable, and then with a tape recorder running, he started the session.
To begin, he regressed her to an earlier age, and asked her what see was seeing.  She described a scene from her early childhood while she was in school. He then tried to take her back, deeper and deeper into her past, until she was six, or four, and finally one. Then Bernstein told her that she could remember times before she was one. Bernstein said, "Oddly enough, you can go even farther back. I want you to keep on going back and back in your mind. And, surprising as it may seem, strange as it may seem, you will find that there are other scenes in your memory. There are other scenes from faraway lands and distant places in your memory."
When Bernstein asked her what she was seeing, Simmons began to speak of a life that preceded the one she was now living. She told Bernstein that her name was Bridey (Bridget Kathleen Murphy, born December 20, 1798) and that she lived in Cork, Ireland. At first, Bernstein misunderstood her, thinking that she said her name was Friday. She told Bernstein, and those assembled in the room watching, that she had scratched the paint off her metal bed. She had been punished for that.
Bernstein tried to probe deeper and Simmons, as Bridey Murphy, was able to answer questions about her life in Ireland, giving the names of her father, mother and brothers. When asked, she told Bernstein that the year was 1806. She also said that she was only four years old.
Moving forward in time, Bernstein learned more about the life of Bridey Murphy. She described her house, playing with her brother and that she had another brother, but that he'd died while still an infant.
As Murphy, Simmons described what they ate, and how they lived. She revealed that her father was a barrister. Bernstein found the use of that word interesting because, to Americans, all barristers are lawyers. Under the English system, different types of attorneys are ranked. Bernstein was surprised that a fairly young American woman would use a term more properly used in Great Britain.
Murphy provided Bernstein with a wealth of detail about her life. She said that she had been named for her grandmother and that was why she was called Bridey instead of Bridget.
She talked about her schooling in Ireland at Mrs. Strayne's Day School. The curriculum was limited to "house things... and proper things."
She also spoke of her husband, Brian MacCarthy, who, according to Murphy, was still going to school. Brian's father was a barrister too.
Murphy didn't have children and after marrying Brian, moved from Cork to Belfast. She mentioned friends she had in Belfast, the name of the priest at her church as well as the name of that church.
Simmons, speaking as Murphy, told of her death at age sixty-six. She had fallen down the stairs and broke several bones. After she died, she didn't "go" anywhere. Instead, she stayed on at her house watching her husband, apparently waiting for him. He died many years later.
Interestingly, Murphy described "visiting" her home in Cork after she died. She visited her brother, Duncan, who was still alive. It amazed her that he had survived her. He was "so old" according to her.
Murphy also described seeing her little brother, the one who had died in infancy after her own passing. Her little brother didn't know who she was because she had to tell him. She also saw Father John.
Bernstein, writing in his book, said that it had never occurred to him that Murphy would be able to describe her... "existence" after death. This was an area that he just hadn't thought about.
For Bernstein she told of where she was during the period between lives. She said that she never had to eat or sleep and that she never got tired. That world, the "spirit" world, according to what Bernstein learned, was a transitory place. "Just a period, just something that happened." She left that world, according to what she said, to be born in Wisconsin. That was the life she was living as Ruth Simmons.
She also recalled a life as a baby in New Amsterdam in the New World, but she died as an infant. There wasn't much for her to remember because she died so young. She was able, however, to tell Bernstein, when he asked, that New Amsterdam's name had been changed to New York. Even though she was experiencing, or remembering a life that pre-dated the existence of New York, she was able to bring her knowledge as Ruth Simmons into the sessions when she was talking about her past lives. She still had access to the information that Simmons had, even when experiencing an event that was far older than Simmons.
Bernstein used hypnosis on several other occasions to learn more about the life of Bridey Murphy. She was married in 1818, and her husband published some law articles in 1843. She died in 1864 without having children of her own.
Because Murphy lived into the second half of the nineteenth century, there was a chance that there would be records from her life. It was possible, Bernstein believed, to corroborate some of what he had been told. There was some discussion of this in The Search for Bridey Murphy. Bernstein told of their luck, or their lack of it.

Bridey Murphy a Hoax?

Once the book was published in January 1956, the critics lined up to attack it. In May and June, a Hearst newspaper, the Chicago American printed an expose, proving, at least in their opinion, that the Bridey Murphy story was a hoax. Other magazines, assuming that the American reporters had done their job properly, announced that the search was over... "ended by a series of Chicago American articles."
Other newspapers and magazines, jumping on the bandwagon, published their own exposes of the Murphy hoax. In one, it was claimed that Simmons had admitted that she had invented the story. Another reported that "Only after he'd written a best-seller did Bernstein shamefacedly admit that The Search for Bridey Murphy belonged on the fiction, not the non-fiction shelves."
Read more @ http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/conversations-and-search-for-bridey.html

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~