Customer Reviews

The Search for Bridey Murphy

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This book is based on recorded transcripts done by Morey Bernstein on a patient, Ruth Simmons back in 1952. Dr Bernstein hypnotised Ms Simmons to talk about her early childhood events. During the course of these hypnotist sessions, she started talking about earlier lives. According to her account, she had several lives.

In one life she came as a baby who lived only briefly. She talks about her life with this family and her brothers and sisters playing with her and being ill.

The biggest past life she talks about is Bridey Murphy, a woman who lived in Ireland in the 1800s. She talks about her childhood and family and her husband and how she died. Bridey was named after her grandmother Bridgette. She died in her late sixties after a bad fall. After Bridey died, she was worried about her husband and apparently decided to stay in the house with him until he died. She says he was totally unaware of her presence even though she tried to communicate with him.

The whole book is a very interesting series of transcripts taken from the tapes of the conversations with Dr Bernstein. I am not a big believer in reincarnation, but I still found it the sort of book hard to put down. For those people who believe in reincarnation, this book is a must-read. For those nonbelievers, it is still an interesting book.

No matter what you have read about this story and choose to believe, as the saying goes, "the proof is in the pudding." I would like to point out that Morey Bernstein never once in his life said that this story was proof of reincarnation. Not even close. He said that it definitely warrants further invesigation into the phenomenon. At the time the book came out, the western world was against any idea of reincarnation as it flew in the face of western thinking (Although, lets take a look: hundreds of millions of people take reincarnation as a fact of life as part of their religion). The discreditors of the story never once found any way to show the story was a fraud. In fact, the discreditor happened to be a Chicago TABLOID!!! The women allegedly named Bridey Murphy who lived across the street upon further investigation turned out to be the mother of the TABLOID's owner. The person below me mentioned occum's razor (the simplest solution tend to be correct) Think about that. In fact, when a more credible Chicago paper picked up the TABLOID's story, it had to cut out a whole bunch of arguments because they were just way too outrageous. ex: When Ruth Simmons was a girl she had a park accross the street which she played in many times. This explains why she would have said she lived in "the meadow."
Now that is just ridiculous, especially when a hand-drawn 1800's map of the city Cork, the area in which Bridey lived according to Ruth's sessions was called "The meadow." Now Ruth, living in America her whole life, and having never even heard of the town called Cork, recalls an area of only a couple square miles in the 1800's in Ireland. None of this was made up. Everything Ruth said under hypnosis has been verified to be real and not a hoax. am i saying that reincarnation exists? After reading the book, i believe. But please, read the book and don't read anything trying to close your mind to one of the most amazing cases of age-regression hypnosis ever told.

I read this story at the age of 16. That was 15 years ago and it still has an impact of my belief system today. It changed my beliefs in religion. I loved the way it unlocked the realization that the universe is so wonderfully complex and profound. Even if the story is just that it is wonderful and holds a special place in my heart.

Definitely would recommend reading this important book, but if you use the Kindle version be aware of editing errors, one quite serious. Get used to reading "111" as "I'll", know that "AU" means "All", "tilings" is "things", and other annoying typos throughout that halt the pace of reading momentum. The worst transgression is the misinformed 'correction' by the editor who substituted every instance of "Friday" with "Bridey" at the time when she is first introduced as a very young girl. These occur at locations 1864-69, 1880 and 1915. Every instance of "Bridey" at those locations should read instead as "Friday". Ruth Simmons reveals herself as "Friday" here, as initially misunderstood by Morey Bernstein and all the witnesses, being that she is a four year old not yet able to clearly pronounce her own name. This is a key and memorable moment, yet the Kindle version manages to destroy the momentary mystery and the exchange between them makes no sense the way the editor changed it. I hope they will someday clean this up and restore its impact for future readers.

Like the reviewer below, you've perhaps heard that the Bridey Murphy saga has "all been explained" in mundane terms. As Carnac the Magnificent might've said to Ed McMahon: "WRONG, reincarnation breath." The "next-door-neighbor-named-Bridey" explanation itself has been thoroughly discredited for 40 years (although the debunkers won't concede this), and this book remains as one of the classics that anyone with an interest in reincarnation must read. It's from 1956 and is by no means as compelling as one of Ian Stevenson's exhaustive studies, but it is a serious case that was well-handled by the standards of the time and has a number of inexplicable features. In any event, don't be put off by the misinformation that the case has been explained away. There have indeed been a number of high-profile cases that have proved to have mundane explanations, but this isn't one of them. (As an aside, I was amused a couple of years ago when a debunker website made a snide comment about Morey Bernstein, assuming he must've died 25 years ago. This brought a quick response from Bernstein, who was very much alive and quite feisty.)

That was a question that I often asked myself on numerous occasions when her name was mentioned in connection with various things "lost". I think it was the advent of the internet which finally made it easy for me to check out the answer to my mildly irritating query when it re-emerged one day.

This particular book, in fact, answered my question and then went much further. The entire story is conveyed by a man (the author) who became personally entangled in the story and who ultimately wrote this coherent non-fictional account.

It's not really a spoiler to tell you that Bridey Murphy MacCarthy died in 1864 -- the kicker here is that Ruth Mills Simmons, born in 1923, knew all about Bridey Murphy... because she WAS Bridey Murphy (reincarnated? for lack of a better term).

This book is for people who wonder, "What happens after you die?" There are actually a lot of good answers to that question in here as the author recounts, in addition to other facts, the so-called "Bridey Murphy hypnotic sessions".

While Bernstein was really just a guy who got himself involved in this fascinating offbeat incident, he does a great job of re-telling all of what was discovered to his readers. Highly recommended for folks interested in true mysteries and/or psychology.

I first read this book around the age of 20. My mother had purchased it.
I already believed in re-incarnation because I had two clear memories of my own,...since childhood, of a nature no child of 3 or 4 could Possibly dream or fantasize about. (yet my mother had always told me they were 'dreams' when I tried to talk to her about them)

So,...at 20-ish,...here she suddenly had this book. I was a young bride, married to an adoring husband who had proposed to me the first time he saw me,...he'd explained "Something told me to look toward the door,...so I turned away from the person I was talking with and looked to the door, you came through a moment later,...and suddenly through my mind flashed the thought 'That's the girl I'm going to marry !!'... He said he felt a flood of love rush through him as he quickly made his way to my side, to introduce himself,...he already seemed (felt he knew)'everything important about me,...but my name (now)' He proposed just as quickly as he was able to,...but had to spend the next 8 months trying to convince me it was Real love and he wasn't crazy,...(it wasn't lust,...I was a plain mouse compared to his ravishing girlfriend who he dropped without an explanation) So, two years later I was to read my mother's book, about Bridey Murphy,....AT LAST,....Something Solid to confirm my own memories,...and explain the new husband's instant recognition of me, and subsequent proposal,.....he had 'remembered' me, not with his eyes, but with his soul (and the things he felt he 'already knew about me',...ALL proved to be true,....things he had No Way of 'knowing' on mere observation,....much less a flash recognition. 4 years after (I'd read the book) he decided to tell me that if there was ANYTHING to what I believed in,....he would find out, for sure, if anything ever happened to him in his (oftimes) dangerous job. And he'd added " If there IS,...then there is a way to 'come back',......and I WILL come back,...because there Can't be Anything greater in the Universe than 'love',...and Lady, I Love you !,....so God's gonna Have to understand and let me come back to find you, again" I filed that away and thought no more of it; he was young and healthy and loved life with a passion,...as far as I was concerned, my handsome young husband with the ever twinkle in his eyes,...was invincable (!)

2 years later, he was killed on the job in an accident so bad there was not enough left for me to have to go and try to identify. My children were young, one was in grade school. That one tried to comfort me. "Mom,...Dad Said he'd come back and find us, again" I believed he'd come back,...but Find us ? no. But for the next 12 months,...he visited me regularly in my dreams,...trying to help me deal with his loss,.....I was alone with my children and had no real family support.

On Nov. 11, 1977,...the Ann. of his loss,...he came one more time,...and he told me it would be the last time,..he had 'something he needed to go do',..He hugged me one last time, and then led me a few steps further,...to someone in the shadows,...and told me simply "stay with him, he'll be good to you" I woke up and spent that first Ann, of his loss comforted, Finally,...and the day was spent doing something creative, to mark his life and my on going forward. I was to celibrate every Ann. of his loss doing something 'positive' for my future,...often involving my children, who still do that,.....until last year,.....after Spring of '07,...there has been no more reason to recognize Nov. 11.

In 2000,...I married again. I'd spent 14 years looking for that 'man-in-the-shadows' and I'd finally found him. But April '07,....the husband I'd lost so long ago,...Found, me. 100+ miles from where either of us now lived,...in the City we'd lived in as a married couple for 8 years,...just a couple of miles down the road from the small church we'd been married in. He had never been to that City before,...but he'd been guided there on the only day I would be there,...and he encountered me within 5 minutes of his arrival. That was roughly a year and a half ago.
It's been rough. I can't pretend, otherwise. He's never married. I have been re-married for 18 years now. My husband accepts him 100% as being the man I lost when I was 26. (and they are the best of friends) Amazingly,....the rest of our friends,....and even my earlier husband's Present friends and family,...have all been WONDERFULLY supportive. Of my sons,...the youngest is not ready to meet his returned Dad (who's younger than him)(but he says to give him more time to get used to the idea) and the oldest who always believed his Dad would return,...has been un-reachable to be told,...if he knew,...he would be on a plane to meet him as quickly as he could arrange it.

I know I'm not talking about the book. Others have already done so far better than I can try to speak of a book I read some 38 years ago. But if Bridey's story is questionable in Anyone else's mind,.....it is NOT so, in mine, or the two husbands who's rings I now wear. We're still working through the problems (and they're Vast) but a Christian lady friend of our's summed it up pretty good : "If God, can do 'Anything',....why not, This,...also,....as long as the 3 of you love each other,...it's no-one else's right to try and judge you, or try to tell you there's a lie to what the three of you KNOW to be Fact"

I've come here to order a copy of Bridey's book for the husband who's been by my side for the last 18 years,...we tried to find it at the library yesterday,...and there isn't a copy in the whole system. Love?
Isn't that what life is Supposed to be all about ? My present mate is happy that my earlier one loved me so much he was able to cross Heaven and Earth to find me again.....and now,...God is in His Heaven and all in right in the world,...at least,...in mine.

I read this book in 1957 and thought it was great. Bought a copy to reread. It is one of the best on simple hypnosis. Using his technique anybody can do it on right subject. NOT A PARLOR GAME. WARNING: It works!

The phrase "a household name" has rarely been more truly applied than it was to the name Bridey Murphy during the late 1950s and early `60s. The impact of Morey Bernstein's book was felt in virtually every city, town, and hamlet in the Western world because it suggested that the theretofore alien concept of reincarnation was a demonstrable fact. In the media frenzy that followed the book's release - it was even made into a movie - numerous falsehoods were circulated as debunkers and überskeptics attempted to undermine the evidence. These days, the idea of reincarnation is not so novel and the brouhaha over Bernstein's book seems almost a bit of quaint Americana; nevertheless, the evidence remains so strong that the case is currently ranked ninth in the Survival Top 40. -- Reviewer is the author of [ASIN:0971044821 The Survival Files: The Most Convincing Evidence Yet Compiled for the Survival of Your Soul]

I read this book 20 years ago and it has had a profound impact on my beliefs regarding reincarnation. Very compelling reading and wether you believe or not it gives lots of interesting ideas to think about.