Just curious if anyone has read this book, really loved it, of course I am a very opened minded person and read everthing. I am also a fan of Brian Weiss, his books are great and his c.d. on discovering your past lives really works, took 2 months, but I started uncovering some of my past lives.
The Search for Bridey Murphy
- Thread starter sara27
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nexus
Senior Registered
This was the first book I read when I was a teenager that brought the whole concept of reincarnation to light. I was fascinated and totally transformed by it.
My mother was alarmed at my interest in such "nonsense"...and made it clear that such thoughts were dangerous.
Years later.. she seemed delighted to share with me that she had read that the story was proven a hoax.
I never found out whether or not it was really proven a hoax , nor do I believe that all proof for hoaxes is accurate anyways.
But by that time , it was too late. I had experienced and read too many other things that altered my view of life towards reincarnation.
Nice to hear about her again, though.
Nexus
My mother was alarmed at my interest in such "nonsense"...and made it clear that such thoughts were dangerous.
Years later.. she seemed delighted to share with me that she had read that the story was proven a hoax.
I never found out whether or not it was really proven a hoax , nor do I believe that all proof for hoaxes is accurate anyways.
But by that time , it was too late. I had experienced and read too many other things that altered my view of life towards reincarnation.
Nice to hear about her again, though.
Nexus
kskshadow
Senior Registered
This is a great story, Virginia Tighe and the man who wrote this story lived right here in Pueblo CO.
For those who are not familar with the story.
http://skepdic.com
Click B for Bridey Murphy
For those who are not familar with the story.
http://skepdic.com
Click B for Bridey Murphy
F
Frenchi
Guest
Is Bridey Murphy a valid case?
I think this might be a valid case, although the evidence is not as strong as with some other adult regression cases.
One of the problems was that it could not be verified if some of the past life people mentioned by Virginia Tighe under hypnosis actually lived at the time of Bridey Murphy. Birth and death records were rather skimpy at the time. That doesn't mean these people weren't there only that it couldn't be verified.
Virginia Tighe spoke in an Irish brogue (as Bridey Murphy) under hypnosis. Many of the details she recalled were verified, some weren't. The Irish brogue and speech colloquialisms she used were common in Ireland at the time Bridey allegedly lived. Skeptics discovered that Virginia had an Irish baby sitter when she was a child. and speculated that she picked up the info about Ireland from her and later turned it into a past life fantasy under hypnosis. However, the baby sitter did not speak in the same brogue as Bridey.
I think it's unlikely that this was a deliberate hoax. Virginia Tighe did not want publicity and actually had Bernstein use a pseudonym (Ruth Simmons) in the book and movie. I think if this is not a valid case, it's probably a false memory fantasy of some type.
I saw the movie when I was a boy and like so many other people, this was one of the reasons I began to consider reincarnation as a possibility.
I think this might be a valid case, although the evidence is not as strong as with some other adult regression cases.
One of the problems was that it could not be verified if some of the past life people mentioned by Virginia Tighe under hypnosis actually lived at the time of Bridey Murphy. Birth and death records were rather skimpy at the time. That doesn't mean these people weren't there only that it couldn't be verified.
Virginia Tighe spoke in an Irish brogue (as Bridey Murphy) under hypnosis. Many of the details she recalled were verified, some weren't. The Irish brogue and speech colloquialisms she used were common in Ireland at the time Bridey allegedly lived. Skeptics discovered that Virginia had an Irish baby sitter when she was a child. and speculated that she picked up the info about Ireland from her and later turned it into a past life fantasy under hypnosis. However, the baby sitter did not speak in the same brogue as Bridey.
I think it's unlikely that this was a deliberate hoax. Virginia Tighe did not want publicity and actually had Bernstein use a pseudonym (Ruth Simmons) in the book and movie. I think if this is not a valid case, it's probably a false memory fantasy of some type.
I saw the movie when I was a boy and like so many other people, this was one of the reasons I began to consider reincarnation as a possibility.
ssake
Senior Registered
From what I have read about this case (including the book itself), this was a strong case and it was dishonestly "debunked". What people haven't caught onto yet is that some debunkers resort to dishonest tactics, ranging from twisting interpretations, all the way to deliberate fraud. In this case, someone determined that Virginia Tigue had a neighbor from Ireland who may have told her stories of the "old country", and that was the source of all her memories under hypnosis. However, if you look into the case closely, it is not reasonable that she could have gotten the facts--many of which were historically verified--in this way as a child.
There is another case which shows how dishonest debunkers work, and that is the channeling of magician Harry Houdini after his passing by medium Arthur Ford, as described in Ford's autobiography, "Nothing So Strange". This article was kind of floating around the internet, appearing and disappearing, and I finally "snagged" it and reproduced it on my own website just as it was. Here's the URL:
http://www.ial.goldthread.com/houdini.html
Steve S.
There is another case which shows how dishonest debunkers work, and that is the channeling of magician Harry Houdini after his passing by medium Arthur Ford, as described in Ford's autobiography, "Nothing So Strange". This article was kind of floating around the internet, appearing and disappearing, and I finally "snagged" it and reproduced it on my own website just as it was. Here's the URL:
http://www.ial.goldthread.com/houdini.html
Steve S.
Wicker
Senior Registered
Apparently several of us were influnced as a teenager by "The Search For Bridey Murphy". I know that I was. I was disappointed to read of the debunking of the Bridey Murphy story but later I read an article about the debunking of the debunking. It's so similar to what has gone on for centuries I suppose. Some people just don't want to entertain any idea that there may be something more to reality than what we all are accustomed to believe.
It's still happening as we speak. Just consider the debunking of John Edwards, Sylvia Browne, James Praague, George Anderson etc. And what about the debunking of John Kerry?
It saddens me to read attempts of some people to debunk Pearl Curran, my favorite "psychic" and all the beautiful work she channelled from Patience Worth. It is such a loss to humankind to have her work degraded by people who haven't even read it. For me, Patience Worth provided an elaborate "proof" of another reality which intersects with the one in which I live. It is such a pity that she has been relegated to some dark spider-webby closet of the "occult".
I had mentioned my web site about Patience Worth to one of my neighbors who is quite religious in an evangelistic young modern Moody-Broadcasting sort of way. We had been getting along sort of well before I mentioned my web site but now, they have not spoken to me, apparently after they looked at the web site. Well, I guess I am a "satanist" to them since Patience Worth was channelled using a Ouija board (which she later discarded) as a focusing tool.
You know, I really don't have the answers to anything but at least I am trying. That is more than I can say for some people who seem to close their minds after they graduate from high school.
The world and reality are so much bigger and more unfathomable than any of us suppose. It is so egotistical to think that any of us have even one iota of the truth about the universe as it really is. Well, I'm rambling now.
Your friend, Wicker
It's still happening as we speak. Just consider the debunking of John Edwards, Sylvia Browne, James Praague, George Anderson etc. And what about the debunking of John Kerry?
It saddens me to read attempts of some people to debunk Pearl Curran, my favorite "psychic" and all the beautiful work she channelled from Patience Worth. It is such a loss to humankind to have her work degraded by people who haven't even read it. For me, Patience Worth provided an elaborate "proof" of another reality which intersects with the one in which I live. It is such a pity that she has been relegated to some dark spider-webby closet of the "occult".
I had mentioned my web site about Patience Worth to one of my neighbors who is quite religious in an evangelistic young modern Moody-Broadcasting sort of way. We had been getting along sort of well before I mentioned my web site but now, they have not spoken to me, apparently after they looked at the web site. Well, I guess I am a "satanist" to them since Patience Worth was channelled using a Ouija board (which she later discarded) as a focusing tool.
You know, I really don't have the answers to anything but at least I am trying. That is more than I can say for some people who seem to close their minds after they graduate from high school.
The world and reality are so much bigger and more unfathomable than any of us suppose. It is so egotistical to think that any of us have even one iota of the truth about the universe as it really is. Well, I'm rambling now.
Your friend, Wicker
lagrima
It wasn't MPD after all!
What a great post wicker!
What you say is sooo true. I am often amazed at how much time and energy people put into something they don't believe in.
If you don't believe this stuff, then why bother? I come from a very fundamentalist evangelical Baptist background, so navigating these waters are quite new to me as well. Your neighbors probably don't know what to make out of it as they are taught by their elders to fear the things you embrace. Better to leave it alone, but keep being kind.
What you say is sooo true. I am often amazed at how much time and energy people put into something they don't believe in.
If you don't believe this stuff, then why bother? I come from a very fundamentalist evangelical Baptist background, so navigating these waters are quite new to me as well. Your neighbors probably don't know what to make out of it as they are taught by their elders to fear the things you embrace. Better to leave it alone, but keep being kind.
Re: What a great post wicker!
I going to be honest with you, there are way to many skeptics out there who will not and do not believe unless it happens to them, haven't you heard people who say I would never have believed it if it did not happen to me. I do not think it is are job to make people believe in the afterlife or psychic ability's and any thing else out there that cannot be scientfically explained. All that matters is what you believe in, that is what I like about Sylvia Browne, she does not push people she only states what she knows and if you are interested buy her book it is up to you. She also does not try to get people to buy one of her readings, if you are interested then buy one, if not then do not. I have had a reading with her and all I can say is she is amazing.Originally posted by lagrima
What you say is sooo true. I am often amazed at how much time and energy people put into something they don't believe in.
If you don't believe this stuff, then why bother? I come from a very fundamentalist evangelical Baptist background, so navigating these waters are quite new to me as well. Your neighbors probably don't know what to make out of it as they are taught by their elders to fear the things you embrace. Better to leave it alone, but keep being kind.
hello all im new here and have been flicking through the threads and this caught my eye .....regarding sceptics.....people dont remember their past lives if they cant confront them, especially if they have led [ in their own opinion ] disreputable ones.
now consider someone who wanted to hide a shady past or vested interest....wouldnt the idea of immortality and having to live with their conscience forever do little else but welcome with open arms the possibility of death forever?
this invalidation of past lives shines a new light on some people.and if it became clear to them that they would be back time and time again then wouldnt they have to change their ways ? after all we have to live in a future we ourselves create.
so the next time somebody starts shouting and screaming and telling you its all nonsense- just ask them what it is they are so afraid of confronting......lol thats when the fireworks really start!!!
once you have a strong certainty and personal reality on pastlives then it makes death nothing more than a new beginning.
now consider someone who wanted to hide a shady past or vested interest....wouldnt the idea of immortality and having to live with their conscience forever do little else but welcome with open arms the possibility of death forever?
this invalidation of past lives shines a new light on some people.and if it became clear to them that they would be back time and time again then wouldnt they have to change their ways ? after all we have to live in a future we ourselves create.
so the next time somebody starts shouting and screaming and telling you its all nonsense- just ask them what it is they are so afraid of confronting......lol thats when the fireworks really start!!!
once you have a strong certainty and personal reality on pastlives then it makes death nothing more than a new beginning.
Wicker
Senior Registered
Deborah,
The very best book about Patience Worth is one titled The Case of Patience Worth by Walter Franklin Prince, published by University Books in 1927 and reprinted in 1964. This book is out of print now, I believe, but copies can be purchased through the web at various book stores, usually those dealing in antique books or out-of-print books. The book has 509 pages. Dr. Prince devoted the last two decades of his life to full time work in psychical research. He was a meticulous investigator and provides much detail in his book about Patience Worth and Pearl Curran.
Dr Prince had been a Methodist and Episcopalian minister earlier in life and eventually became Research Officer of the American Society for Psychical Research. In 1925 he founded the Boston Society for Psychic Research and was Executive Officer and Editor until his death in 1934, He was also President of the Society for Psychical Research in London and was president in 1930 and 1931. He also adopted a young girl with multiple personality disorder and wrote about his work treating her condition.
I like the book Singer in the Shadows by Irving Litvag because it provides an excellent overview of the case and gives information about Pearl Curran after Prince's book( published in 1927) up to her death in 1937. He does not provide much of the Patience Worth poems and other materials however. Two other books, one by Herman Behr and other by Casper Yost, also contemperories of Pearl Curran and participants in the channelling of Patience Worth provide many of her poems written before 1927. I also have two of her novels---The Sorry Tale and Hope Trueblood. The language and style of The Sorry Tale is somewhat difficult to understand at first but Hope Trueblood is written in somewhat modern English and is very easy. They are both available over the internet.
Most of the Patience Worth/Pearl Curran original material is stored at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis Missouri, much of it unpublished.
Patience Worth disclaimed that there was anything like reincarnation, but her writings are chock full of references to rebirth and recycling of the old to make the new. The part of her discourse in response to a question about reincarnation, sounds to me more like she misunderstood the question in that she provided a convoluted response that sounded like an answer to a question about resurrection of the body rather than rebirth of the spirit in another body. Her response is perhaps of little conquence however as it is the body of her work that provided the real answer.
Patience Worth's work cannot be taken piecemeal. I believe that the proof of reincarnation or spirit survival provided by Patience Worth is in the totality of her work not in any sound bite one can find. Her use of the English language from medieval times through the Victorian era and beyond is beyond explaination. The language is sometimes difficult to understand expecially since she does what the common folk of England did in the 1600's, that is, she follows few rules of grammar and often used verbs as nouns and nouns as verbs. She also uses archaic English words rarely if ever found in printed English materials, words that Pearl Curran didn't know when she delivered them. However if one reads her work carefully and rereads it, eventually the meaning becomes clear and the beauty of her work is revealed.
(Sandra, I think you especially could appreciate her work since she has been compared by some critics to Shakespeare in her use of language.)
The Patience Worth materials are not for anyone wanting a quick fix for the question about reincarnation, but if one has some time and interest to consider this case in total in the light of reincarnation (especially that Pearl Curran may have been the reincarnated spirit of Patience Worth and perhaps some of the other characters in her novels, e.g., Telka or perhaps Hope Trueblood or especially Theia in the Sorry Tale ) and considers what Patience Worth implied about rebirth in her poetry and other communications, then I think that one will have extensive evidence of the very best case validating the continuing existance of the human spirit after death of the body.
Your Friend, Wicker
The very best book about Patience Worth is one titled The Case of Patience Worth by Walter Franklin Prince, published by University Books in 1927 and reprinted in 1964. This book is out of print now, I believe, but copies can be purchased through the web at various book stores, usually those dealing in antique books or out-of-print books. The book has 509 pages. Dr. Prince devoted the last two decades of his life to full time work in psychical research. He was a meticulous investigator and provides much detail in his book about Patience Worth and Pearl Curran.
Dr Prince had been a Methodist and Episcopalian minister earlier in life and eventually became Research Officer of the American Society for Psychical Research. In 1925 he founded the Boston Society for Psychic Research and was Executive Officer and Editor until his death in 1934, He was also President of the Society for Psychical Research in London and was president in 1930 and 1931. He also adopted a young girl with multiple personality disorder and wrote about his work treating her condition.
I like the book Singer in the Shadows by Irving Litvag because it provides an excellent overview of the case and gives information about Pearl Curran after Prince's book( published in 1927) up to her death in 1937. He does not provide much of the Patience Worth poems and other materials however. Two other books, one by Herman Behr and other by Casper Yost, also contemperories of Pearl Curran and participants in the channelling of Patience Worth provide many of her poems written before 1927. I also have two of her novels---The Sorry Tale and Hope Trueblood. The language and style of The Sorry Tale is somewhat difficult to understand at first but Hope Trueblood is written in somewhat modern English and is very easy. They are both available over the internet.
Most of the Patience Worth/Pearl Curran original material is stored at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis Missouri, much of it unpublished.
Patience Worth disclaimed that there was anything like reincarnation, but her writings are chock full of references to rebirth and recycling of the old to make the new. The part of her discourse in response to a question about reincarnation, sounds to me more like she misunderstood the question in that she provided a convoluted response that sounded like an answer to a question about resurrection of the body rather than rebirth of the spirit in another body. Her response is perhaps of little conquence however as it is the body of her work that provided the real answer.
Patience Worth's work cannot be taken piecemeal. I believe that the proof of reincarnation or spirit survival provided by Patience Worth is in the totality of her work not in any sound bite one can find. Her use of the English language from medieval times through the Victorian era and beyond is beyond explaination. The language is sometimes difficult to understand expecially since she does what the common folk of England did in the 1600's, that is, she follows few rules of grammar and often used verbs as nouns and nouns as verbs. She also uses archaic English words rarely if ever found in printed English materials, words that Pearl Curran didn't know when she delivered them. However if one reads her work carefully and rereads it, eventually the meaning becomes clear and the beauty of her work is revealed.
(Sandra, I think you especially could appreciate her work since she has been compared by some critics to Shakespeare in her use of language.)
The Patience Worth materials are not for anyone wanting a quick fix for the question about reincarnation, but if one has some time and interest to consider this case in total in the light of reincarnation (especially that Pearl Curran may have been the reincarnated spirit of Patience Worth and perhaps some of the other characters in her novels, e.g., Telka or perhaps Hope Trueblood or especially Theia in the Sorry Tale ) and considers what Patience Worth implied about rebirth in her poetry and other communications, then I think that one will have extensive evidence of the very best case validating the continuing existance of the human spirit after death of the body.
Your Friend, Wicker
The book "Patience Worth: A Psychic Mystery" (Published 1916 by Casper S Yost) is available in it's entirety (291 pages) on the internet in PDF format here: http://www.psychic-directory.com/pdfbooks/PatienceYost.pdf
You can also find parts of the other books Wicker mentioned here (Along with some other compelling reading links):
https://openlibrary.org/subjects/spirit_writings
You can also find parts of the other books Wicker mentioned here (Along with some other compelling reading links):
https://openlibrary.org/subjects/spirit_writings
Hippy16
Senior Registered
I recently stumbled upon this book at a flea market, so i bought it and read it in a little over 2 days ( i wish i could read books for school that quick) and i only read late at night after i was in for the night.well anyways i loved it. i loved the skepticism, becuase it made me think of all possibilities.
But i really enjoyed the book, my opinion is it was a true case of reincarnation, but im not sure. it still leaves me guessing.
what i want is the skeptics to get however many people they want to get, randomly off the street, and have them make up, a past life story. maybe easy, but now see if the names match up, the places are true, the customs the relay are real customs. and i highly doubt the stories will resemble actual past life memories. how many of us remember action? i know i dont. most of my memories im just in my house, or remembering my chilhood from that life. i would say made up stories would resemble movies more than an actual memory. like one point "Bridey" went off on a tangent about how her father was upset about her marriage, despite the hypnotist just wanting the facts. if it was a hoax wouldnt the charlaten(sp) have all the facts, and wouldnt worry about the life details that are so important to those of us who are fortunate to remember, or regress to them.
well i sort of rambled on. but yeah..
But i really enjoyed the book, my opinion is it was a true case of reincarnation, but im not sure. it still leaves me guessing.
what i want is the skeptics to get however many people they want to get, randomly off the street, and have them make up, a past life story. maybe easy, but now see if the names match up, the places are true, the customs the relay are real customs. and i highly doubt the stories will resemble actual past life memories. how many of us remember action? i know i dont. most of my memories im just in my house, or remembering my chilhood from that life. i would say made up stories would resemble movies more than an actual memory. like one point "Bridey" went off on a tangent about how her father was upset about her marriage, despite the hypnotist just wanting the facts. if it was a hoax wouldnt the charlaten(sp) have all the facts, and wouldnt worry about the life details that are so important to those of us who are fortunate to remember, or regress to them.
well i sort of rambled on. but yeah..