She developed foreign accent syndrome -- a real, although rare, condition where stroke or head trauma causes an individual's speech patterns to change, giving their voice a superficially "foreign" accent. (Significantly, they don't suddenly gain proficiency in another language, despite what's sometimes claimed.) Weirder still, when she started school, she began demonstrating a knowledge of ancient Egypt that is, at the very least, unusual for a child her age. She got in trouble for comparing Christianity to the Egyptian pantheon, and was finally expelled when she flat-out refused to sing a hymn about the Exodus calling on God to "curse the swart Egyptians." She frequented a local Roman Catholic church, until a chat with the priest revealed that she was doing so because the pomp and pageantry of the Catholic mass "reminded her of the old religion," at which point the priest suggested she probably should entertain her reminiscences elsewhere.
These setbacks didn't discourage her in the least. A visit to the British Museum as a teenager sent her into raptures; when she saw a photograph of the temple of the Pharaoh Seti I, she said, "There is my home! But where are the trees? Where are the gardens?"
Interestingly, most people seemed to tolerate her odd claims, and in fact she studied Egyptian history and hieroglyphics under E. A. Wallis Budge, one of the foremost Egyptologists of the early twentieth century. Eventually -- perhaps inevitably -- she moved to Egypt, describing it as "coming home." During this entire period she was plagued by dreams, sleepwalking, and nightmares, including a vision of an entity that called itself "Hor-Ra" and claimed to be the spirit of Seti I. This spirit proceeded to narrate to her a tale, which Eady wrote down in hieroglyphics, telling of her previous life.
Eady, Hor-Ra said, had once been a priestess of humble origins named Bentreshyt, who had fallen in love with Seti. Despite her vow of chastity, she had sex with Seti and got pregnant. Knowing that once her transgression was found out, it was likely she'd be executed -- and in the process, disgrace the pharaoh -- she chose to commit suicide.
Alongside her claims of having been reincarnated, however, Eady did real, honest-to-goodness archaeological and historical work, assisting such brilliant scholars as Selim Hassan and Ahmed Fakhry, earning their respect and also the respect of her friends and neighbors. She was celebrated for her tolerance, keeping to her own practice of rituals celebrating Ra and Horus and Osiris and the rest, but also fasting during Ramadan and celebrating Christmas and Easter with the Christians.
Whatever you think of her story, Dorothy is kind of hard to dislike, frankly.
Dorothy Eady, ca. 1928 [Image is in the Public Domain]
Some pieces of her story do, oddly enough, seem to have some verifiable basis in fact. She pointed out a spot near the Temple of Seti where she said there'd been a garden in which she'd first met the pharaoh, and later excavation revealed the foundations of a garden that matched her descriptions. She was brought into a newly-opened room in the temple in complete darkness, and asked to describe the paintings on the walls -- which she did accurately enough to freak out the people present.
Eady -- by then usually known by her adopted name of Omm Sety -- died on the 21st of April, 1981 in Abydos, never wavering from her claims that she was a reincarnated Egyptian priestess. So what are we to make of her story?
One thing that strikes me is that although her persistence in devoting herself to Egyptian studies was certainly uncommon for a woman of her time, she does not seem to have been in it for fame, money, or self-aggrandizement. She was unassuming personally, and had no particular interest in making more in the way of income than she needed to be reasonably comfortable. In fact, Jonathan Cott, in his book about Eady's life called The Search for Omm Sety, quotes William Simpson, professor of Egyptology at Yale, as saying that "a great many people in Egypt took advantage of her because she more or less traded her knowledge of ancient Egypt by writing or helping people out by doing drafting for them for a pittance."
And it also seems certain that she really believed what she was saying. Unlike a lot of people who make similar claims, she doesn't have the look of a con artist. Even Carl Sagan, surely a skeptic's skeptic if there ever was one, was impressed, saying she was "a lively, intelligent, dedicated woman who made real contributions to Egyptology. This is true whether her belief in reincarnation is fact or fantasy... However, we must keep in mind that there is no independent record, other than her own accounts, to verify what she claimed."
This, of course, is the sticking point; Sagan is certainly not saying he believes she was reincarnated, just that it can't be rigorously ruled out. And, more importantly, that there may be no way to prove it one way or the other. Certainly her knowledge seems uncanny, but it's important to remember that during the 1920s and 1930s there was a significant Egyptomania happening, especially following the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in 1922. Stories and photographs were circulating everywhere, and it'd be hard for an unbiased evaluator to tease apart what Eady learned through her studies or other media, and what she might allegedly be recalling through strange supernatural pathways.
As you would no doubt expect, the people who already believed in reincarnation use this as one of their favorite examples, while the doubters still doubt, attributing Eady's obsession with Egypt not to a buried memory of a past life but to a blend of genuine curiosity and scholarship with delusions brought on by an early head injury. For myself, I might be convinced if her odd claim to knowledge had included understanding the Egyptian language prior to being taught it, or some other piece of verifiable information there's no way she could have obtained by ordinary means. I have to admit, describing the paintings in a newly-excavated room in the dark comes close; but given that others had seen the paintings, and also the commonalities that exist between a lot of examples of New Kingdom-era art, it doesn't quite get there, evidence-wise. She could have been told what the paintings looked like, or they may just have been shrewd guesses based on her extensive knowledge of Egyptian art and artifacts.
And it does strike me that this is yet another example of James Randi's objection to stories of reincarnation; that everyone in their previous life seems to have been a high priest or priestess or prince or princess or whatnot, and nobody -- as would seem, simply by the statistics of the situation, to be far more likely -- was a dirt-poor peasant in China or India, or someone who died as a child of diphtheria or measles or smallpox.
The fact remains, though, that Eady's case is an odd one. It doesn't convince me, but it does leave me scratching my head a little.
However, I'm not so fond of the idea of reincarnation in any case, so maybe it's for the best. Life is no cakewalk, and especially given that you aren't given any choice who you're reincarnated as, I'd just as soon not press "reset" and start the whole thing over. If I had to choose an afterlife, I'd go with Valhalla. Sitting around the table quaffing mead (can you just drink mead? Or do you have to quaff it?), having mock sword-fights with your friends, and generally raising hell just for the fun of it.
Certainly better than harps, hymns, and halos, which seems to be the only other thing on offer.
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