Tighe, Virginia (1923–1995)

American woman whose apparent recollection, while under hypnosis, of a past life fascinated the nation. Name variations: Bridey Murphy; Virginia Tighe Morrow. Born Virginia Tighe in Chicago, Illinois, in 1923; died of breast cancer on July 12, 1995; married.

In 1952, Morey Bernstein, a businessman and amateur hypnotist in Pueblo, Colorado, offered to hypnotize Virginia Tighe to relieve her allergies. Once under, Tighe spoke in a thick Irish brogue, claiming to have lived before as Bridey Murphy, a red-headed, 19th-century Irishwoman born in Cork 158 years previous. The story first appeared in a series of newspaper articles by William J. Barker in the Denver Post. Then Bernstein, who sold farm and mining equipment, went on to write The Search for Bridey Murphy, published in 1956. The book, No. 1 on the bestseller list for nonfiction, caused a national sensation, heaping notoriety on the head of the Colorado housewife. It also precipitated a national debate on reincarnation and an explosion of interest in the occult, long before the writings of Shirley MacLaine . Some 30,000 long-playing records were also sold in which Tighe was recorded as Bridey while in a trance. One 19-year-old boy in Shawnee, Oklahoma, killed himself, leaving a note saying that he was going to "investigate the theory in person."

What gave the story enormous authenticity was Tighe's ability to detail people, places, and customs with an accent and in words that seemed totally foreign to her. A few months later, an article in the Chicago American proposed that Tighe, during her girlhood in Chicago, subconsciously had ingested bits and pieces of background from another woman that eventually comprised the persona of Bridey. Reporters uncovered a Mrs. Anthony Corkell , nee Bridie Murphy, a 59-year-old mother of seven who had lived across the street from Tighe during her impressionable years. Tighe did not profit from the fame and successfully kept the press at bay for the remainder of her life.