Chapter 26 Chapter 26 Brad Murphy and Others

The search for Brad Murphy began in Pueblo, Colorado in 1952.Mrs. Virginia Tay, a brown-haired, good-looking, short housewife, under hypnosis states in an Irish accent that her previous incarnation was a red-haired Irishwoman named Brad Murphy. William Barker, assistant editor of the Denver Post's Sunday supplement, Empire, edited and published this serialized story (September 12, 19, and 26) in 1954 entitled "The Curious Story of the Search for Brad Murphy ".Readers considered it the subject of a national bestseller.So businessman Maury Bernstein, who hypnotized Virginia, decided to write a book about it.Barker worked on the manuscript, and "Doubleday Books" published "Finding Brad Murphy" in 1956.

The book was the number one bestseller in the country for many weeks.It is translated into 5 languages.A recording of one of Mrs. Tye's seances was made into slow-rotation LPs, which sold tens of thousands of copies at $5.95 each. Fact magazine published an abbreviated version of the book. More than 40 newspapers were simultaneously published in newspapers through newspaper syndicates, and film production rights were also transferred.The housewives hold a "Please come" party.The jukebox blasted "Do You Believe in Reincarnation?" , "Brad Murphy in Love" and "Brad Murphy Swing Dance."A hypnotist in a nightclub whose business has been sluggish for many years suddenly became overwhelmed.Across the country, and especially in California, amateur hypnotists have also opened up, transporting clients to their past lives.A lady recounts what life was like when she was a horse in 1800.In Shawnee, Oklahoma, a teenager shot himself, leaving a note saying he was curious about Bryde's story and was now going to investigate for himself.Two studies by Edgar Cayce (see Chapter 17) were hastily published only because Bernstein made favorable reviews.New books on hypnotism, reincarnation, and occult subjects were suddenly flooding publishers' catalogs.In the words of one Houston bookseller, Bride is "the hottest thing to write about since Norman Vincent Peale."

This book exploits the public's hunger for scientific evidence of the resurrection of the dead, and writes something utterly frivolous; it exploits modern-day hype salesmanship to deceive gullible honests.This book is not very well written and has all the bad taste of a low-brow porn thriller.The text of the book is dull, and what Virginia says under hypnosis is even duller. The sales of the book are evidently not due to its literary merit, but because less religious readers feel that it is, after all, clear evidence of a resurrection, even if of a Christian heresy.As usual, the leaders of sci-fi were impressed.Writing in the April 1956 issue of Astounding Stories, Robert Heinlein predicted that by 2001 the theory of the existence of the soul after death would follow the path blazed by Bernstein with "scientific rigor." confirmed.John Campbell Jr. wrote in the September 1956 issue of Astonishing Science Fiction, "I have a personal experience that people are so professionally ignorant of the nature of hypnotic phenomena that I fully agree with Bernstein for A very successful effort to call attention to it."

A well-trained psychologist of real ability will first think of some typical cases similar to those in Virginia when conducting experiments.The subject's mind was found to weave together bits and pieces of his acquired, long-forgotten situation while unconscious.Virginia is no exception.The obvious first step, therefore, to the trained psychologist was to investigate Virginia's childhood.Has Mr. Bernstein thought of this?Instead, he sets off to Ireland to find Bride! So I asked the Irish librarian, an Irish law firm, and others to check some of the place names mentioned in Virginia, and to look up a Brad Murphy who once lived in Cork. But nothing came of it. The Chicago Daily News ordered its London correspondent to go to Ireland. Still got nothing. So the Denver Post sent Barker, the reporter who had originally started covering the story, to Ireland to make his report as their March 1956 A special issue of the 11th was published. Barker abbreviated the report into a chapter, which was included in the pocket edition of Bernstein's book. Although Barker firmly believed that Bryde had existed in the nineteenth century, he The most that Hoffer could discover on his vast travels was that Virginia had at one time been exposed to a considerable amount of Irish folklore.

And so, amid astonishing cheers, the Sunday supplement of Hearst's Chicago American, The Weekly American (once the national playground for pseudoscience), found the lost Bride! With admirable scientific sensibility, the reporters of "American" began to visit Chicago, Virginia's hometown.With the help of Wally White, pastor of the Chicago Evangelical Church, where Virginia had attended Sunday school, they soon found out Mrs. Anthony Cocker's address.Now a widow with seven children, she still lives in the old log cabin where she lived when Virginia was a teenager.For five years Virginia lived in the basement of an apartment across the street.Mrs. Cocker's Irish background strongly attracted the little girl.An old friend of hers recalled that Virginia was even "madly infatuated" with John, a boy from Coyule.Coker's other boy is named Kevin, after an imaginary friend of Bryde's.What was Mrs. Cocker's maiden name then?Brady Murphy!

The more the reporters talked to Virginia's friends and relatives, the more it became clear that Virginia was simply digging up her childhood memories when she was haunted.In order to conceal Virginia's parentage, Bernstein carefully gave her a pseudonym in his book.But Virginia's early life was so eerily similar to Brad Murphy's that several of her childhood friends, who had no idea she lived in Pueblo, were surprised when they read the book Recognized that it was written by her! Virginia was born in 1922 in Madison, Wisconsin, in a white log cabin exactly as Bride depicted it.Her mother's name was Catherine Pauline (Bride's mother was named Kathleen).Virginia's sister fell down the stairs once, just like the fall that Brad said had killed her.

A childhood friend of Virginia told reporters, "Virginia has a rich imagination, and I always thought she could write a book." Of course, that's exactly what she did, but Bernstein's name was printed on the cover. son, and the manuscript fee was paid by "Double Day Publishing Company".It would be the easiest thing in the world for Bernstein to check Virginia's past, but then of course he wouldn't have written the book.Fortunately, it appears that the Chicago American article gave the book the finishing touch it so much needed.Regardless, it quickly disappeared from the bestseller list.

Dr. Joseph Laing, in his short review of Breeder Fever (Summer 1956), agrees that there is nothing in this book that would require a scientist to take it seriously.On the other hand, he felt that the wave of Breeder fever did more good than harm, because it paved the way for serious study of the phenomenon by stimulating public curiosity about issues on the fringes of orthodox psychology.To the extent that Bernstein's book goes to this point, I agree with the statement that there is probably something good to come out of it.But I'm more inclined to think that this book encourages only grotesque research.As various astrology magazines attest, the public has developed a great interest in ghosts, and Brad Murphy has certainly stimulated that interest.But because of Bernstein's total lack of scientific insight, his book is likely to disgust serious psychologists rather than attract them.

It is true that some good results can come out of even the worst pseudoscientific writings.First, there are benefits to doing outlandish research, since there is always the possibility that an obsessive scientist, no matter how incompetent he may be, will occasionally find something of value.In fact, most pseudoscientists, especially those who attract large followings, have something to commend them.The homeopathic movement, for example, arose from pre-scientific medicine.Physicians at the time were fond of giving their patients large doses of drugs whose properties were unknown and often harmful.Homeopaths dilute the dosage of the medicine to a minimum to create a concoction.It does no harm because it does nothing at all.As it has been said, the homeopathic patient dies only of the disease, while the orthodox doctor's patient also dies of the cure.Thus, the success of the homeopathic movement not only noted the harmfulness of indiscriminate high-dose drug use, but also emphasized the value of placebos for psychosomatic disorders.Likewise, the naturopathic movement helped spread the word about the goodness of sunshine, fresh air, exercise, fresh food, flat shoes for women, and so on.Orthodox physicians do not disagree with these points, but they certainly do not emphasize them.For all of Bernal McFadden's many outlandish and sometimes dangerous medical claims, one must admit that his publications have also done some good in calling attention to some legitimate claims.

Even if a pseudoscientific theory is utterly worthless, the process of disproving it can be instructive in itself.Darwin said, "False facts are extremely injurious to the progress of science, because they often persist long uncorrected; but false opinions, even when supported by some evidence, are not so harmful, because everyone is In the process of proving his error, he learns; thus the way to error is blocked, and the way to truth is often opened at the same time." The scientists to whom the Dahls refer are far more talented than those discussed in this book. Most people are much smarter.Refuting Velikovsky does not necessarily open any new path to truth.However, Darwin's words are applicable to almost all scientists with a little knowledge of superficial knowledge.For example, anyone who refutes Velikovsky will almost always learn a lot of physics and astronomy.We hope that The Chicago American's revelation of Brad Murphy will dissuade future pseudo-psychologists from being led astray by hypnotized past-life reminiscences.However, this "road to the wrong" has been blocked many times before, so we can't be so optimistic.

The remarkable progress of pseudoscience in recent years reminds people that there are still many areas in culture that need to be improved.From this perspective, pseudoscience has value.Our schools need better science education.We need more and better popular science books.We need better channels between accomplished scientists and the public, and so on. Finally, we must not forget that the Don Quixotes of science, with their eccentric behavior and whimsical reason, are often very interesting people.For example, Alfred Lawson is a comic character who doesn't want to.If the reader is in the right mood to read these men's work, he will also find some deep and refreshing humor. Given this benefit, does it follow that publishers are doing us a favor by publishing worthless scientific works in hardcover?To answer this question, we have to go back to the continuum mentioned in Chapter 1.Weird science forms a wide spectrum, from the obviously bizarre to the respectable.We would agree that a well-known publishing house should not lower its standards to publish a book proving the flat earth theory, and we would agree that this publishing house would not hesitate to publish Dr. Laing's work.Somewhere near the middle of the spectrum, the boundaries are less sharply defined, and manuscripts in this region are very suspect, and there are plenty of reasons for and against.Therefore, to ask whether such a book should be published is to ask how far below the suspicious zone it is.How to determine the position of a manuscript on this band?Obviously, only the scientists can decide.A reputable publishing house would never send a scientific work for comment to a literary critic any more than it would send a draft of a novel to a scientific researcher for comment.In fact, a scientist's opinion on a novel is likely to be worth more than a literary critic's opinion on a scientific work.Naturally, most publishers are aware of this, and when they get a manuscript for a scientific work, they immediately forward it to an appropriate expert for comment. Recently, however, there have been many instances of departures from this laudable practice, with pseudoscientific works well below this dubious zone being published and heavily marketed without seeking expert advice or ignoring it.It is in such cases that the publication of a book begins to smack a little of deceit, as the public increasingly expects the big publishers to weed out worthless manuscripts.The very fact that a book is printed is a sign to the buyer that there is something worth reading in it.It would be doubly deceitful to portray this book as a revolutionary new hypothesis comparable to Darwin's. One can see that the editorial staff has to be selective and cannot boast of every outlandish theory that comes up.Which brings us back to the old question: who should pick?By editors with no scientific training? In short, let the Don Quixote of science speak.But let them speak in a manner appropriate to their position, which should be determined by those who are only qualified to do so.