The Search for Bridey Murphy (2 page)

Although the storm forced us to drive slowly, we were soon at
the house of my friend. I observed that this boy Thomas was a real charmer. It was thoughtful of our customer to have such a pleasant cousin, even if he had messed up my progress in the slogan contest.

At first the chatter was of the usual cocktail-party variety. I can’t remember how the conversation finally drifted to the subject of hobbies. But I do remember—I’ll never forget—the burst of laughter when it came Thomas’ turn to speak up. His hobby, he asserted, was hypnotism. We assumed, of course, that he was kidding.

He was not kidding. Indeed, he patently resented the laughter and rebounded with a challenge: “If you don’t believe me, I ask only that one of you be my subject, and I will prove it!”

While I was trying to decide whether he could possibly be serious, a tall, attractive blond girl spoke up and offered to be his subject. She had always wondered about hypnosis, she admitted, since the time one of her teachers had discussed the matter many years ago.

This, then, was to be my first close-up of hypnosis. I had heard about it, read about it, seen it on the stage. But I did not believe in it.

During my college days, for instance, I remember walking out on a stage demonstration of hypnosis; I wanted to make sure that my college chums understood that this silly business was beneath my intelligence. If they were willing to waste their time on such foolishness, fine and well, but it was not for me.

Now, however, I couldn’t walk out. Thomas was my guest. Besides, I was curious to learn just how he was going to pull himself out of this hole. So I sat back and watched.

The volunteer was told by Thomas to stretch out on the couch and make herself comfortable. He then removed a ring from his finger and asked her to stare at it. He explained that she must focus her attention upon the ring and continue to stare at it until it became hazy and obscure. He merely held the ring above her eyes and waited. We all waited.

Eventually we became restless, almost bored. Nothing was happening. The girl looked at the ring. Thomas looked at the girl, and we continued looking at Thomas. As the uneasiness mounted, some of the group stopped watching and began to whisper among
themselves. Others drifted out into the kitchen. It looked as though our hypnotist had drawn a blank.

Then suddenly he was talking softly to his subject. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be going to sleep. He continued talking, but I was not close enough to hear the words. In a few minutes he turned around and walked into the kitchen, where the majority of the group were evincing more interest in food than in hypnosis.

Thomas confidently proclaimed to the gourmets in the kitchen that they would soon have evidence of his hypnotic ability.

He urged all of us to sit down at the large kitchen table and go to work on the food. He assured us that his subject was sleeping comfortably, but that he would soon awaken her. After she awakened, he promised, she would be perfectly natural. Natural, that is, with one exception.

“After she has taken two bites of her food,” Thomas said, “she will suddenly reach down and remove her left shoe and stocking.”

This I wanted to see.

I had not long to wait, for Thomas went back to the girl, and after more soft words he finally awakened her. Immediately upon getting up she went into the kitchen and took the place that had been left to her. As she started to eat she told us how much she had enjoyed her little nap. “Wonderful relaxation,” she testified. “I’m ready for that any time.”

After her second mouthful of food she abruptly dropped her fork and removed her left shoe and her left stocking. There wasn’t a sound in the room; everybody was staring at her.

As a result of the staring and the sudden silence she soon grew self-conscious and looked around, asking what was wrong. There she was with her shoe and her stocking, just removed, clutched in her hand, and she wanted to know why everyone was so quiet and staring at her. What had she done?

Finally her escort spoke up. “What about your shoe and stocking? You’re sitting at the table eating. Why did you take off your shoe and stocking?”

For the first time she looked down at her leg and then at the shoe and nylon hose in her hand. I shall always remember her blank, incredulous expression because I have seen it on others, perhaps a thousand times, since then. She was completely bewildered. For a minute she said nothing, then she looked up and slowly shook her head. She just didn’t know; she couldn’t explain
why her shoe and stocking were in her hand. She didn’t even try to explain.

Thomas, clearly pleased with the performance, glanced at me. He seemed to be remembering that it was I who had laughed the loudest at his assertion that he was a hypnotist. Now he was silently suggesting that I swallow some crow as gracefully as possible. Actually, he said nothing. But I answered him anyway.

“I don’t believe it!”

Thomas looked puzzled; he really didn’t understand what I was talking about. “What don’t you believe?”

“I don’t believe that she was hypnotized.”

Now Thomas was really puzzled. He simply didn’t understand my skepticism. He got up and walked back and forth in front of the table, wondering how to handle my challenge. Then he turned to me and asked whether there was anything he could do to convince me that his subject could actually be placed in a hypnotic trance.

“Put her back under, if that’s what you call it,” I said. “After all, we aren’t sure that there was no collusion between you and her. We didn’t hear everything you said. You may have suggested to her that you could both have some fun if she went along with the gag. So put her back under, and we’ll think of some tests.”

He promptly obliged. This time he did the job quickly. He merely counted to three, snapped his fingers three times, and the girl apparently “went out.” As I learned later, the speed of this second induction was made possible by what are known as post-hypnotic suggestions. In other words, before Thomas had awakened her the first time, his soft whispering had included the suggestion that in the future she would slip immediately into the trance state when he counted to three and then snapped his fingers three times.

So here it was again; our “test case” was ready. Thomas repeated his earlier question: “Now what do you want me to do to prove that she is really hypnotized?”

Then the girl’s fiancé spoke up. “Let me try something. I know her well enough to be sure that I can make her burst out laughing if she’s just faking.”

So our hypnotist instructed his attractive subject that she would not laugh under any circumstances, that she would maintain a poker face, that she would show no emotion whatsoever. Further
more, he had her open her eyes while he kept her in the trance state.

Then the boy went to work. He commenced by kissing her, in a rather silly fashion intended to evoke laughter. But when she did not so much as blink an eye, he launched into a series of wild antics.

But the girl might as well have been far away.

Before we conceded, however, I asked for still more proof. I wanted, for instance, to see how she would react to tests concerned with pain. So the unfortunate subject was forced through another series of tests which included having a needle passed through the skin on the upper portion of her hand. But, regardless of the nature of the test, it was clear that she was in a state that I had never before thought possible.

I was beginning to realize that I was licked. I had always thought that the subjects of hypnotists were stooges—shills—or that the minds of the subjects were so simple that they could be shoved around at the will of the so-called hypnotist. But this girl was neither a fake nor a fool. On the contrary, she filled all the specifications for the intelligent, normal, healthy, wholesome female.

“O.K., Thomas, you win; you can wake her up.” I sank into a chair, totally defeated, But there was more than defeat; there was an overwhelming sense of amazement, of wonder, almost of shock.

Having finally learned that hypnosis is a reality, I machine-gunned a round of questions at our victorious hypnotist. If this thing is true, if this is a fact, then why is it not more widely used?… If the mind can be so detached, then aren’t the possibilities infinite?… If suggestion is so powerful in this state, then is this not a powerful weapon for good?… If the human mind can be so directed, so molded, so impressed, then why does not every doctor understand the fundamentals of hypnosis? Why is it not a “must” for every psychiatrist?… Why, at least, is it not a requisite for every student of psychology?… What is the reason that science does not show more interest?… Why do people like me have to become acquainted with hypnosis only through stage performances or as a result of accidents like this?… And what about practical applications in the fields of education, law, business, dramatics, advertising, and almost everything else under the sun? Why hasn’t more been done about it?

I got my answer. It was the same answer I was to receive over and over again during the next ten years. It was a shrug of the shoulders.

Driving slowly home through a storm that was now subsiding, Thomas explained how he had learned about hypnosis in the first place. A relative had been ill and he had sought a way to relieve her pain. He had, consequently, enrolled in a psychology course at a university; it was one of the few courses available which dealt with hypnosis to any extent. And even this course, he admitted, only briefly explored the subject. It had been expanded beyond the confines actually set by the textbook only because of the instructor’s personal interest in hypnotism.

When we reached home we promptly retired, and I could hear Thomas snoring before a quarter of an hour had passed. As for me, there was no sleep that night. I was thinking about this stranger I had just met, hypnosis.

Although I didn’t know it then, I had just stepped onto a long bridge, a bridge that was to span two continents, two eras in time. And at the far end of the bridge was a woman I was to know as Bridey Murphy.

The next morning I was back at my office. Legally and commercially, it is known as Bernstein Brothers Equipment Company (in Pueblo, Colorado), but we in the family refer to it as Ulcers, Incorporated.

My grandfather had started the place more than sixty years ago, which means that three generations have wrestled with it. I’m the third generation.

When Granddad opened shop in 1890, it was nothing more than a junk yard. Grandfather would wreck practically anything just to salvage the scrap material. He admitted that his ancestors had not come over on the
Mayflower
but he was convinced that his forebears must have scrapped the big ship.

With the second generation, my father and uncle, the company expanded vigorously. The accent shifted to buying and selling merchandise, anything from concrete mixers to diesel tractors,
from bathtubs to oil tanks. Franchises for nationally advertised industrial and agricultural products were acquired, and both wholesale and retail outlets were opened. What had once been a scrap yard was now a merchandising power, a sort of industrial department store distributing more than one thousand items. “From the bottom of a pile of scrap iron to the top of Dun and Bradstreet,” a local reporter had written.

By the time I was ready for college, our company was well known throughout the West. So it had never even occurred to me that I might do anything other than take my place in the family business. Accordingly, I chose a school that specializes in turning out executives, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of finance. There, for four years, I polished up on everything from business law to stock-market analysis. After that I returned to Colorado to put the theory into practice.

I had been trained for my job, and I liked it. For several years I added new products and departments and intensified our advertising. I enjoyed every phase—choosing new products, buying trips, sales promotion, merchandising. So I should have been pleased, that morning after hypnosis had flown into my life, to get back to the slogan contest just where I had left off the previous night. But somehow I had rough going that day. My mind wouldn’t fix itself on the job at hand; it kept wandering back to the episode of the night before. Soon I was calling a bookstore to order a half dozen books dealing with hypnosis.

When the books came, I stopped reading novels. Even magazines and trade journals were neglected to some extent. I just couldn’t tear myself away from the hypnotism books; I was utterly enchanted. Whether the book was concerned with the history of hypnosis, the technique of trance induction, medical hypnosis, the treatment of undesirable habits—whatever the topic—I gobbled it up. I was still overwhelmed by a single question: Why hasn’t science done more with this near miracle? In the years to come I was to learn why science was restrained in this field, and I was also to discover more proof that this phenomenon was, indeed, a near miracle.

I read, studied, wondered, and then read some more. But still I had not hypnotized anyone. I had to find a subject, a guinea pig. Who would be willing to submit to an amateur hypnotist? I took
the problem to my wife; perhaps she would have a suggestion. She did.

“Why don’t you try this hypnosis stuff on me?” Hazel asked. “I’ve got another splitting headache; maybe you can do something about it. I’ll try anything!”

Every doctor who had examined her, every clinic she had gone through (including the Mayo) assured her that her headaches had no organic basis—no tumor, no kidney disease, no high blood pressure. Strictly psychological, they all insisted; and her last physical check-up had been taken only a few days previously. So what was I waiting for?

“Give me some time to make an outline,” I told her, “and I’ll tackle that headache.” Then I went into another room with a stack of textbooks and started my outline. When I had finished I went back to Hazel.

But it was too easy! I didn’t believe it.

Hazel responded just as the texts had assured one and all that a good subject should respond. And when I awakened her, she insisted that her headache, much to her amazement, had somehow faded away.