The Search for Bridey Murphy (29 page)

Ooh.

How do you feel, Ruth?

In asking people to listen to the tape recordings, I had particularly sought out keen thinkers whose incisive analyses would probe all possible explanations of the Bridey Murphy phenomenon. And I was especially interested in drawing out a conclusion from one listener whose brilliance and penetrating logic had won him national prominence. Consequently I called on him several months after he had listened to the recordings.

“You’ve heard the Bridey tapes,” I said, “and you’ve had time to think about them. Now what’s your opinion of the whole thing?”

“I’ve given those tapes considerable thought,” he answered. “At this point I’d be unwilling to state a definite conclusion. But I don’t mind listing some general observations.

“In thinking over the Bridey matter, for instance, I was reminded that philosopher Hume said that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish. And in the Bridey Murphy case I admit that alternative explanations are more fantastic than the rebirth explanation she gives while under hypnosis. Her explanation, in fact, is the only one which seems to fit all the facts.

“For example, an alternative theory which will probably be suggested by some is that your subject has read or heard a story which she has adopted as her own. But this idea has too many shortcomings. Hearing or reading a story would not account for her subtle Irish brogue while under hypnosis; it would not account for her ability to dance the Morning Jig. Furthermore, Bridey’s life is too drab and unromantic to have been the theme of any story. And if there is such a story, where is it?

“If she had read or heard all this, your subject could easily explain that fact under hypnosis. But she insists that she actually lived through those experiences. And I believe I’m safe in saying that anyone who has
listened
to your tapes will promptly agree that the spontaneity and character of her responses—and her association of thoughts—indicate that this is a person who is actually relating her own experiences and not merely repeating a tale.

“On top of all this, it is very unlikely that any story would have included the after-death episode that Bridey describes.”

“What about the possibility that the whole thing might have been produced by fraud?” I asked him.

“That’s even less tenable than the story theory,” he replied, “for some of the reasons I just mentioned. Moreover, if there was trickery or deception, it means that your subject was acting. And if what I heard was a histrionic performance, then Ruth Simmons is a greater actress than Sarah Bernhardt.

“Besides, much of the information she disclosed while in trance simply was not available to either you or her. Some facts were not even available on this side of the Atlantic. No, fraud is not the answer.

“Any alternative explanation, it seems, would have to include the fantastic combination of ingenious and costly research, histrionic perfection, astonishing coincidence, plus fraud and collusion. The probability of such a combination fades to the point of impossibility.

“But despite these observations, we still know far too little about the mind to conclude safely that the Bridey Murphy case proves the reincarnation principle. About all I can say—and perhaps all you should say—is that it is an interesting piece of evidence and might point the way to further exploration.”

Yes, I admitted to myself, that was about the size of it.

Later, when I was about to leave, he added one more observation: “There is another hopeful aspect of the Bridey case. For years men have been trying to learn whether man’s consciousness survives the death of his physical body. Almost invariably investigations in this area have gone in only one direction—the attempt to establish some sort of communication
after death
of the physical body.

“The Bridey type of experiment at least suggests the possibility
of reversing the direction of these investigations—of establishing evidence, that is, of individual consciousness
before birth
.”
¹

His point was clear. To prove the survival of consciousness after death is a task fraught with extreme difficulty. By reversing the direction, however, we are at least provided with a solid launching platform—a living, conscious being.

As I played the tape recordings for various groups in both Colorado and New York—groups which included hardened skeptics from the ranks of doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and Wall Streeters—I was naturally bombarded with questions. Some of these queries were repeated so frequently that it might be well to touch on them at this point.

Naturally, most listeners wanted to know about Ruth Simmons’ reaction. How does a normal twentieth-century woman—a youthful matron primarily interested in her family and a well-maintained home—react to hearing her own recorded words describe a previous lifetime in nineteenth-century Ireland? To be sure, Ruth, who had never before given a thought to the reincarnation concept, was stunned by the impact of the first disclosure of Bridey; she gasped again and again as the Bridey story unfolded.

On the other hand, her interest subsided quickly as she returned to her normal duties as a housewife. Even playing bridge or watching the local baseball club took definite priority over another “Bridey session.” She now took for granted that in her last lifetime her name had been Bridey Murphy, and that was that. As a matter of fact, she said, “I know there has got to be something to Bridey Murphy, but it has in no way affected my outlook in this lifetime.”

The attitude of her husband can perhaps be best summarized by his reply to a group who had sought him out to learn whether he accepted the rebirth idea. “What choice do I have?” he asked. “I know my wife and I know all that information could not be
pouring out of Ruth.” He added that they owned no encyclopedia or reference books, nor did they even have a library card.

One problem which particularly disturbed thoughtful listeners was bluntly expressed by a newspaper editor who asked, “If this Bridey Murphy business, with all that it implies, is true, then why am I hearing about it for the first time from a businessman? How can it be possible that some psychiatrists are not running into the same thing?”

In the first place, it should be made clear that some psychiatrists
have
been “running into the same thing” for years. Brief reference has already been made to the British psychiatrist, Dr. Sir Alexander Cannon, who long ago encountered the principle of reincarnation. This knighted scientist, the holder of an imposing list of degrees, wrote as follows:

For years the theory of reincarnation was a nightmare to me, and I did my best to disprove it and even argued with my trance subjects to the effect that they were talking nonsense, and yet as the years went by one subject after another told me the same story in spite of different and varied conscious beliefs, in effect until now, well over a thousand cases have been so investigated I have to admit that there is such a thing as reincarnation.
¹

Nor does this man stand alone. There are, indeed, a number of scientists whose experiments have led them to the same conclusion. The first part of the answer, then, is that some specialists do know about this other dimension and have been publicizing their findings. For some reason, however, their reports have never been circulated as extensively as they might have been.

The other part of the answer concerns those scientific workers who know considerably more than they admit. But for this they can hardly be blamed; it is the code of the sophisticated. One young person, explaining her silence after she discovered evidence of rebirth, summarized her position with these words: “All this experience I kept to myself as a profound secret, for, young as I was, I realized what judgment the world would pass upon the narrator of such a story.”

Kipling, too, had given some thought to this same problem: “I
saw with sorrow that men would mutilate and garble the story; that rival creeds would turn it upside down till, at last, the western world which clings to the dread of death more closely than the hope of life, would set it aside as an interesting superstition….”
²

It is not surprising, then, that we do not hear more from professional quarters. Many well-established specialists likely conclude that they would have more to lose than to gain by evincing an active interest in this subject.

A businessman, on the other hand, need show no such reticence in disclosing the results of his experiments. It is doubtful, in other words, that the tonnage of steel products distributed by my company will decline as a consequence of my experimentation.

In any event, there is good reason to believe that at last—during the next decade—we will be hearing a good deal more about these investigations from all quarters.

Another question that inevitably pops up is: If we have all had previous lifetime experiences, then why is it that we have no memory of them? Obviously I am not qualified to solve this problem. I can, however, at least point out what other researchers have theorized; and these hypotheses range from Conan Doyle’s comment that “such remembrance would enormously complicate our present life,” to the theory of another student, who contends that perhaps we might remember something of our past but that our training and conditioning, particularly in the Western world, has “washed our brains,” obliterating these memories.

The latter observer believes, in short, that many children carry memories of their prenatal past, but that these memories are gradually washed away by the repeated suggestion, both directly and indirectly, that all children are original creations at birth. (The power of conditioning by “brain washing” has been dramatically exploited, although for entirely different purposes, by the Communists who “re-educated” GI prisoners in Korea. The captives were at first inclined to laugh at the Red efforts, but the persistent, organized conditioning—hypnosis in slow motion—finally eroded away ideas and beliefs of some of our servicemen with a success that shocked the Western world.)

Even so, it seems that some persons do retain memories of a previous life. The example of the Indian girl, cited on
this page
,
while more sensational than most cases, is not a rarity in oriental countries. In any event, our memory is not a true measure of whether we have had a prior existence. As one author wrote, “Doubtless the butterfly has no recollection of its previous life as a worm; but this defect in its memory does not change the facts, nor affect its identity.”
³

The reason why we cannot remember our past should not, according to Rudolf Steiner, be our primary concern. “Not this we should ask,” he wrote, “but rather: ‘How may we attain such knowledge?’ ”

It must be conceded that science does not yet know how memory works. Meanwhile, few of us can remember even those events that occurred before the age of three. So how can we normally expect to recall memories of a prior existence? In this respect it is interesting to note that hypnosis often brings back the forgotten memories of infancy. (And victims of general amnesia, who seldom recall
any
prior events, often respond to hypnosis.)

The consensus of opinion on this topic would seem to be that, although we do not remember specific incidents of previous life episodes, we still carry over impressions, tendencies, capacities,
⁴
and dispositions—subconscious checks and balances—which restrain us from repeating past mistakes and guide us in the eternal process of evolution.

Many times during discussions of this issue the charge has been made that the reincarnation principle was “unfair”—that to plod forward without a conscious record of our past is altogether unjustifiable. Whether we like or dislike the theory, however, is hardly the central issue. Our first job is to establish whether it is a fact.

In every group who listened to the Bridey Murphy regression, there was always at least one imaginative person who promptly perceived another possibility: “If you can regress her into the past, then what about taking her into the
future?
In short, what about age
progression?
“

For obvious reasons I have never tried to take a hypnotic subject into the future. Even if the subject’s “prophecies” turned out to be sheer nonsense, considerable anxiety might be aroused
while she awaited the outcome of events. If, for instance, she “sees” at some particular time in her future a hospital, sickness, injury—or worse—then she, and any friend or relative who hears about it, is likely to suffer nervous apprehension until the designated date has been safely passed.

There are, however, scholarly journals of hypnotism
⁵
which include reports on age-progression experiments. This is one more exciting field in hypnosis from which interesting developments are expected.

The subject of heredity, too, usually arises during the quiz period. To begin with, we should be ready to concede that the known principles of heredity include a great many more mysteries than solutions. Who among us has not been baffled by the ever-present anomalies of brothers who differ radically, by the genius who springs from a background of mediocrity, by the criminal who descends from eminent ancestry? Children of a genius, with few exceptions, rarely attain the stature of the parent; the antics of child prodigies are fantastic; and the extreme physical and mental differences within a single family are inscrutable.