My Pueblo colleague has written a chronology for The Search for Bridey Murphy which I am reproducing here. I will be adding comments and new items to the list following his original work. It would be almost impossible to list every item that could be included in such a chronology. The references to Bridey have numbered in the thousands over the years. These are included for their direct bearing on the book and the subsequent controversy. The Bridey Murphy bibliography now in preparation will list the more important items. We hope that this will be a helpful tool for understanding the Bridey phenomenon.
A BRIDEY MURPHY CHRONOLOGY
1952-53 Six hypnotic sessions (all recorded on tape) bring forth the life and times of “Bridey Murphy.” The dates were: November 29, 1952; December 18, 1952; January 22, 1953; July 27, 1953; and October 1, 1953.
1953 Bridey Murphy is, for the first time, revealed to the public in a series of three articles written by William J. Barker in the Empire Magazine section of The Denver Post in September.
1954 The Barker articles drew such a large response that a fourth article appeared on December 5, resulting in 10,000 advance orders for the book over a year before it was published.
1955 In the fall, a 12-inch LP phonograph record, The Search for Bridey Murphy, was released. It contained excerpts from the first hypnotic session of November, 1952. The number sold and given away by Morey Bernstein totaled over 30,000.
1956 In January, the book, The Search for Bridey Murphy, was published. This version of the book contained only 18 chapters.
1956 In February, Bill Barker is sent to Ireland by The Denver Post and spends about three weeks investigating just how true many of the things that Bridey said about her life in Ireland were.
1956 Barker publishes his findings in a supplement to The Denver Post of March 11, “The Truth about Bridey Murphy.” This is an 18,000 word essay.
1956 An article critical of Bridey and laced with falsehoods appeared in the March 19 issue of Life magazine. This was the infamous Herbert Brean article, “Bridey Murphy Puts Nation in a Hypnotizzy.” Bernstein responded to this article but Life refused to publish his rebuttal. He also wrote an essay answering these and other critics of this period, but never published it. Copies are in the Bernstein Collection at the Pueblo County Historical Society.
1956 The theosophical magazine Ancient Wisdom begins a lengthy series on Bridey Murphy with its March issue. Morey Bernstein corresponded frequently with the editor, Charles Luntz, and penned a preface to Luntz’s book, The Challenge of Reincarnation. This is one of the very few items published by Bernstein other than TSBM.
1956 Highly critical articles on Bridey appeared in a series in The Chicago American newspaper during May and June. These, too, contained false and misleading information. An article in a 1958 story would accuse Bernstein of fraud.
1956 Milton Kline publishes A Scientific Report on “The Search for Bridey Murphy.” Much of this critical material is itself critiqued later in chapter 20 of The Search for Bridey Murphy, “Debunking the Debunkers,” and is hotly argued by later commentators.
1956 In May, Pocket Books publishes a revised paperback edition of The Search for Bridey Murphy containing a new chapter by Bill Barker, “The Case for Bridey Murphy in Ireland.” This is chapter 19. It was reprinted in the November edition of Fate magazine.
1956 Bob Byers of The Denver Post checks out The Chicago American’s allegations and publishes an article in the June 17 edition of the Post entitled, “Chicago Newspaper Charges Unproved.”
1956 Completely ignoring Byers’ article in The Denver Post, Life magazine publishes a denunciation of Bridey in the June 25 issue, basing their story upon The Chicago American as if it were the truth. This story was repeated in many magazine and newspaper articles because of the claim that Virginia’s neighbor, Bridie Murphy Corkell, was the source for Virginia’s memories of Ireland. Byers discovered that there was no proof of Mrs. Corkell’s maiden name being Murphy, but he did discover that she was the mother of the editor of The Chicago American!
1956 Robert A. Heinlein, the famous science fiction author, publishes his essay, “The Third Millennium Opens,” reprinted and updated by the author in his 1980 book, Expanded Universe. He accepted that Bridey Murphy had established the existence of previous lives as fact.
1956 The August issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction publishes an essay by W.B. Ready, “Bridey Murphy; an Irishman’s View,” which will become the basis for much of the future criticism of Bridey.
1956 The science fiction magazine Tomorrow devotes its Summer issue to Bridey Murphy. The highly critical articles inform all future skeptical arguments.
1956 On October 1, 1956, the movie, The Search for Bridey Murphy (starring Academy Award winner Teresa Wright and Louis Hayward) is released. It was a poorly produced movie and failed miserably at the box office. Bernstein and Tighe both thought later in their lives that a new movie should be produced.
1957 Martin Gardner’s Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science is published with material about Bridey Murphy. It forms the basis of most of the skeptical attacks on Bridey for the next 50 years.
1960 Ian Stevenson publishes “The Evidence for Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Reincarnations” in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 54 (1960): 51-71 and 95-117. This is the first major publication by Stevenson concerning reincarnation. The Bernstein Brother’s Parapsychology and Health Foundation would later fund some of Stevenson’s research and publishing.
1960 C.J. Ducasse publishes “How the Case of The Search for Bridey Murphy Stands Today” in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 54 (January 1960): 3-22. This will be revised in his 1961 book, A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life after Death. It was the most thorough philosophical examination of the case ever written until Paul Edwards’ work 35 years later.
1965 An updated revised edition of The Search for Bridey Murphy is published, containing the foregoing chapter 19 by Bill Barker and a new Barker chapter, “Bridey’s Debunkers Debunked.” This is chapter 20. Bernstein wrote the new chapter and the publisher wanted him to give it to Barker to “Barkerize.” The idea was to make it look like it was the result of Barker’s own research, and therefore more objective. Bernstein edited the chapter for publication.
1978 A paperback edition of the 1965 version is published and is promoted as the “counterattack” edition, so called because of chapter 20 (see above).
1981 Bill Barker dies.
1983 Ian Stevenson publishes “Cryptomnesia and Parapsychology” in the Journal for the Society for Psychical Research (British) 52 (February, 1983): 1-30, the most thorough attempt by a paranormalist to answer the charge that cryptomnesia explains memories of former lives.
1986 Melvin Harris publishes “Are ‘Past-Life’ Regressions Evidence of Reincarnation? in Free Inquiry (Fall, 1986): 18-23. He is the first researcher to point to the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) as a source of information in Chicago about Ireland for Virginia Tighe. He only had information about one Irish village at the fair, when there were two, and he neglected the 1933-34 world’s fair in Chicago when Virginia Tighe was 10 years old. It also had an Irish village.
1995 Virginia Tighe/Virginia Morrow/ “Ruth Simmons” dies.
1996 Skeptic Paul Edwards publishes Reincarnation: A Critical Examination, which includes the first lengthy philosophical analysis of TSBM since C.J. Ducasse. Much of the material first appeared in Free Inquiry magazine.
1999 Morey Bernstein dies.
2000 The A&E cable television show Biography airs a segment entitled, “You Only Live Twice: The Saga of Bridey Murphy.”
2002 The American Psychological Association convenes a seminar on Bridey Murphy at its annual convention. It is chaired by Melvin A. Gravitz. Dr. Gravitz’s paper, “The Search for Bridey Murphy: Implications for Modern Hypnosis,” is reprinted in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 45 (2002): 3-10.
2002 The Book-of-the-Month Club reprints the first edition of The Search for Bridey Murphy as an alternate selection for its members. This is the version with only 18 chapters.
2006 Robert Genter publishes “’Hypnotizzy’ in the Cold War: The American Fascination with Hypnotism in the 1950s,” The Journal of American Culture 29 (June 2006): 154-69 in which Bridey plays a prominent role.
