A technique, most often using hypnosis, to help people recall a previous life. For many years, hypnotism has been used as a tool to help people remember things that happened in their childhood. A few high-profile cases suggested that it could also be used to regress people back beyond their present life into a life lived sometime in the past. In the latter half of the 20th century, it was probably the case of Bridey murphy that brought hypnotism as a regression tool into prominence.
An amateur hypnotist named Maurey Bernstein in Pueblo, Colorado, published The Search for Bridey Murphy in 1956. In the book, Bernstein details his hypnosis sessions with a young woman named Virginia Tighe, who began slowly not only to recall the events of a life she lived in 19th-century Ireland but to speak in the voice and accent of Bridey Murphy. Tighe (called Ruth Simmons in the book to protect Tighe’s privacy) recalled many obscure details of life in Country Cork during the time she claimed to have lived (1798-1864). Bernstein was able to verify some of these details through careful research, and he believed Tighe had had no access to any information about Irish life of the earlier time.