← So Supernatural
So Supernatural
MYSTICAL: Dorothy Eady
00:39:37
In the early 1900s, Dorothy Eady suffered a fall that led her to recall memories of a past life in ancient Egypt. Afterwards, she dedicated her life to studying Egyptology and seemed to know of many archaeological finds and information well before they were officially discovered.
Loading summary
Transcript40 lines
- [00:02]
Yvette Gentile
I'm sure you've heard the idea that humans only use 10% of our brains. Well, I'm here to tell you I fell for that stat too. And it's actually scientifically false, y'.
- [00:15]
Racha Pecorero
All.
- [00:16]
Yvette Gentile
We use most of our brains pretty much all the time, even when we're doing the most mundane tasks like resting or sleeping or eating. What we don't know that much about is memory. For example, we still don't fully understand where and how long term memories are stored in the brain. We don't totally get how our brains are capable of keeping so much information. And we don't completely know why we forget certain details of our lives. But what if there was a way to sort of knock old memories loose? Would you try it? And what if that meant coming so close to death in order to make it happen?
- [01:09]
Racha Pecorero
This is what unintentionally happened to a little girl named Dorothy Eady in the early 1900s. After taking an ugly fall and being pronounced death dead, she came back to life with a whole bunch of memories she never had before. But they didn't come from this life. They came from one she lived back in ancient Egypt. Dorothy, who came to be known as Om Seti, had an uncanny knowledge about this period of time. Knowledge that could only come from someone who experienced it firsthand. And because of that, she dedicated her entire life to archaeology and opened a window into humanity's past. I'm Racha Pecorero.
- [01:58]
Yvette Gentile
And I'm Yvette Gentile. And this is so supernatural. If you're even a little interested in supernatural phenomena, then chances are you probably find ancient Egypt pretty fascinating, just like I do. Egypt is one of the world's oldest civilizations, and it was first united as a kingdom around 3100 BCE, or about 150 years after writing was invented. Many people associate ancient Egypt with mysticism and the occult, and for good reason. Because people during this time didn't think magic was some niche interest. To them, it was simply a fact of life and everyone knew magic existed. The ancient Egyptians tracked the way the stars moved across the sky and helped lay the foundations for modern horoscope and the zodiac. And some believe they also invented alchemy. All to say, many of the supernatural ideas we cover on this show were actually built on concepts established in ancient Egypt.
- [03:48]
Racha Pecorero
Of course, studies of the supernatural have become a bit more taboo over time, especially back in the early 1900s when today's story kicks off. That year, a young couple named Reuben and Caroline Eady are living in the London suburbs. Reuben is a professional tailor. And I'm not sure if Caroline has a job or not, but I do know that their pride and joy is their three year old daughter named Dorothy. Like a lot of girls her age, Dorothy is curious about the world around her. She loves learning new things and asking countless questions. She also, like any three year old, has a lot of energy. So much so that it actually gets her into quite a bit of danger. Because on January 16, 1907, Dorothy is playing near the top of the stairs in her house when she loses her balance and falls all the way down the flight of steps. She lands directly on her head and the fall knocks her unconscious. Luckily, her mother is home to help, but she can't wake her up. Afterward, she calls her husband who rushes home, but he can't get Dorothy to wake up either. Reuben and Caroline call a doctor over to their house. When he gets there, he checks for a pulse, but he can't find one. And he realizes Dorothy is no longer breathing either. That's when he goes back to Caroline and Reuben and delivers the most horrific news. Three year old Dorothy is dead. I can only imagine both Reuben and Caroline are completely inconsolable. So the doctor carries Dorothy's body into her bedroom and lays her down, then covers her up with a sheet. He tells the ED's he'll give them some space, but he'll be back in about an hour or so so they can fill out some legal paperwork. Except when he returns, he, Reuben and Caroline all hear noises coming from Dorothy's room. They go to see what's making the sound and find Dorothy sitting up in bed. In fact, she seems very energetic and completely fine. There's no sign that she just had a serious injury at all, let alone that she just died. Reuben and Caroline are more than relieved to see that their daughter is okay. But of course they're also thinking maybe this is the last time they called that doctor again. Right?
- [06:35]
Yvette Gentile
Could you imagine that somebody told you that your child had passed and then all of a sudden she's alive?
- [06:42]
Racha Pecorero
Yeah, I would be like, use my.
- [06:44]
Yvette Gentile
You know what, right? And that doctor would be long gone for sure. So a few days later, Dorothy's 100% back to her original self. Only she starts asking these really strange questions like when can I go home? Her parents tell her that she's already home, but she keeps asking. And Rubin and Caroline don't understand why. They just figure this is a phase she'll grow out of. Like most things with kids her age, except an entire year goes by and now 4 year old Dorothy still regularly says she wants to go to her real home. When her parents ask her what she means, Dorothy always says the same thing. I don't know, but I want to go there. Her parents assume she's just got a very active imagination. So rather than try to solve the mystery or take Dorothy to see more doctors, they just try to keep her active, which to them means embracing her love of learning.
- [07:56]
Racha Pecorero
So sometime in 1908, Reuben takes Dorothy to the British Museum in London. While they're looking at an exhibit on ancient Egypt, Dorothy has this very intense reaction. Unlike most small children at a museum, Dorothy becomes incredibly excited, even thrilled, at what she's seeing. Reuben doesn't know what to make of this, but before he can say anything, Dorothy starts running through the entire exhibit. She presses her face right up to the glass cases, rambling about how the objects come from her homeland. She even kisses the feet of the statues that are on display and bows before a mummy. But her obsession doesn't end when she leaves the museum that day. Dorothy starts tracking down books, magazine articles, newspaper clippings and anything else she can get her hands on, just to learn more about ancient Egypt. One day, when she's 7 years old, she's flipping through one of the pages of her father's magazines. And inside she sees a photo of a temple that was built during the reign of Pharaoh Seti I. He ruled from 1290 until 1279 BCE. The building is in a town called Abydos, which is in the middle of modern day Egypt. The ancient people considered it a holy city, so it's no wonder there's a massive temple there. But it clearly means something to Dorothy too, because the moment she sees the picture, Dorothy says something that leaves her father completely stunned. She says, quote, there is my home. She insists that she remembers living in the temple. This is the home she's been wanting to go back to this entire time. She also complains that the photo doesn't look quite right. It shows ancient ruins in a barren desert. But she remembers the temple being surrounded by lush gardens and a ton of trees. If you've ever spent any time around children like my beautiful daughter Leilani, you know how obsessive about certain subjects they can be. But in Dorothy's case, this isn't just a phase. She is still fascinated in 1914, when she's 10 years old, that's when she.
- [10:28]
Yvette Gentile
Decides to skip school one day so she can visit the British Museum again. And while she's there, she meets an English archaeologist named Sir Ernest A Wallace Budge. He's in charge of the Ancient Egypt collection, so he's very knowledgeable about everything that's on display. They start talking about the artifacts and it becomes so clear to him that Dorothy knows her stuff. Ernest is very impressed, so he promises to take her under his wing and teach her how to read hieroglyphics. He walks her through some of the basics and then gives her some homework. And a short while later, Dorothy comes back to show him what she's learned. To Ernest's astonishment, the work is flawless. When he gives her another follow up lesson, Dorothy picks it up almost instantly. When he asks how she was able to learn so quickly, she says it doesn't feel like it's something new to her. It's more like she's remembering a lost skill, like riding a bike. For the next several years, Dorothy keeps working with Ernest and they become quite close. He even shows her some artifacts that haven't been put on display yet. Things that the general public usually wouldn't even be allowed to see. At first it just seems like Dorothy is an excitable student. But when she gets to her teenage years, something changes. She starts having these very vivid dreams about ancient Egypt.
- [12:15]
Racha Pecorero
She also begins sleepwalking around this time and having lucid dreams in which she claims to have been visited by a pharaoh. These continue as she gets older and soon she starts getting out of bed and sitting at her desk. While she's sound asleep. Sometimes she grabs a pen and paper and writes things down. And when she checks her desk in the morning, she finds pages filled with text she doesn't even remember writing. Strangest of all, she's not putting all of this down in English. She's scrawling in hieroglyphics. Eventually she comes to realize she's recording every detail from her dreams. But she has a gut instinct that these dreams are aren't just wild flights of fancy. They're a true story of something that happened to her in a past life.
- [13:21]
Yvette Gentile
In 1907, three year old Dorothy Eady fell and hit her head and was declared dead by her doctor. Except then she woke up and seemed to know an awful lot about ancient Egypt. Years went by and thanks to some very vivid dreams that began when she was just 12, Dorothy came to realize she was actually remembering a past life. Here's what she managed to piece together.
- [13:51]
Racha Pecorero
Dorothy believed she had lived during the reign of Pharaoh Seti I, sometime between 1290 and 1279 BCE. At that time, her name was Bentrichet, which translates to harp of Joy in English. But to keep things simple, we'll keep calling her Dorothy. Apparently, she was born in the holy city of Abydos. This is the same city she saw in magazine photographs where Satie's temple with the trees and the gardens used to be. Except when Dorothy was born into this ancient Egyptian lifetime, the temple was still under construction. In this time, Dorothy's father was a soldier and her mom a vegetable seller. But when Dorothy was just three years old, her mother passed away. And her father didn't feel like he could handle being a single parent, especially not while he was still serving in the military. So he brought Dorothy down to the temple and said he wanted her to be raised there as a priestess. From that day onward, Dorothy's entire life was dedicated to the gods. She lived in the temple and learned all about the secret religious practices. When she was 12 years old, she formally vowed to spend the rest of her life serving Isis, the Egyptian goddess of death, magic and motherhood. As a priestess of Isis, Dorothy also had to promise to remain a virgin for the rest of her life. But it was very hard for her to stay true to her word when just two years later, she met the pharaoh himself, Seti the first.
- [15:40]
Yvette Gentile
And just for context, Seti was 40 years old and Dorothy was just 14. And yes, that is a pretty upsetting age gap. But the moment he stepped into the temple, he set his eyes on Dorothy. Apparently, this was in part because Dorothy was, as we know, fair skinned with blonde hair and blue eyes. And most other people who lived in Abydos had darker features. So she stood out. A few days later, Seti came back to the temple again. He was wandering through the gardens for fresh air when Dorothy passed by with the two of them alone, Seti told the priestess that he was attracted to her. He knew he wasn't allowed to pursue her because of the vows that she'd taken. So he was going to start avoiding her and he wanted her to do the same. Except after he finished the conversation, Dorothy didn't leave. She admitted she felt the same way about him and she didn't want to avoid him. She wanted to be with him.
- [16:53]
Racha Pecorero
Before long, the two began a forbidden sexual relationship. They had to go to great lengths to hide what was going on, because if she got caught, she would be put to death. The ancient Egyptians took vows to the gods very seriously. Even the pharaohs were expected to follow the rules. They did a pretty good job of covering their tracks at first. But eventually, Dorothy realized she was pregnant. She knew once the temple officials learned she was no longer a virgin, she'd be executed. But first they, the officials would go to great lengths, possibly including torture, to learn who the father was. That way they could punish him too. Since SETI was the pharaoh, he was above the law, so he couldn't be executed, but he could be subjected to shame and scandal. And as terrible as it felt for Dorothy to know she was going to be executed, she couldn't bear the thought of shaming her lover as well. That's when she decided to die by suicide instead. That way, she'd never give up her secrets, or SETI's.
- [18:14]
Yvette Gentile
This is such a tragic and unsettling story. But when Dorothy starts telling people that she's recovered these memories of her past life through her dreams, guess what? Nobody believes her. In fact, her parents think she's experiencing delusions. That, plus her alarming new sleepwalking habit has them thinking there's something not quite right with their daughter. So by the time she's 14, they force her to check into a mental health hospital. Only the doctors can't find anything wrong with her. So Reuben and Caroline try another facility and another one after that. And Dorothy spends her teenage years in and out of treatment, and she's never diagnosed with anything. And her doctors all say she's fine, but her parents just can't accept that she's telling the truth about remembering a past life.
- [19:14]
Racha Pecorero
As you can imagine, this constant cycle of checking in and out of hospitals is exhausting. Plus, it's impossible for Dorothy to stay on top of her schoolwork. So she drops out of school at age 16. But she can't let go of her obsession with ancient Egypt. Over a decade later, in 1931, Dorothy is 27 years old, and it's still all she can think about. Luckily, that's when she gets a job writing articles for a magazine that covers all sorts of Egyptian topics. Politics, history, art, and excavations of the pyramids. One day, a bunch of Egyptian students who live in London meet up to discuss political issues. The magazine sends Dorothy to report on the gathering. And while she's there, she meets a man named Imam Abdul Majeed, and they really hit it off. They start dating and stay together for the next three years. It's a challenging relationship, though, because he eventually moves back to Egypt and they have to make things work long distance. But in 1933, when Dorothy is 29 years old, Imam writes her a letter. In it, he says he wants her to come live in Egypt with him as his wife. Dorothy says yes, in spite of her parents objections. They don't think she should move to a country she's never even visited before. But she ignores their protests and buys a boat ticket to Cairo. And the moment she reaches its shores, she's overwhelmed with this feeling like she's finally exactly where she's supposed to be. Dorothy is so overcome with emotion, she literally gets down on all fours and kisses the ground.
- [21:09]
Yvette Gentile
Right? It's like she's finally home.
- [21:11]
Racha Pecorero
Finally home.
- [21:12]
Yvette Gentile
A handful of days later, she and Imam have their wedding. And pretty soon after, Dorothy finds out she's pregnant and she gives birth to a son who she names Seti. This is also when Dorothy changes her name to Om Seti, which is how we will be referring to her for the rest of this episode. It translates to Mother of Seti. And according to an Egyptian tradition that's still practiced today, mothers always name themselves after their children when they give birth. Imam knows about his wife's alleged past life. She's told him all about it. So he isn't exactly thrilled to have a son named after her former lover. In fact, he's getting the sense that Omm Seti isn't as committed to him as he'd like. These feelings come to a head in 1935 when he gets a job offer in Iraq. He tells Om Seti he's going to accept it, and he expects his wife and one year old son to come with him. Well, she refuses to leave Egypt. She's basically like, you can do what you want, but this is my home and I'm staying. So Imam and Omm? Seti divorce after just two years of marriage, and when he moves to Iraq, he leaves their son with her. She continues dedicating herself to her studies about ancient Egypt. She also begins practicing an ancient Egyptian religion. She frequently leaves offerings at the foot of the Sphinx and spends holy days and nights inside the pyramids. This rubs a lot of the locals and the region's archaeologists the wrong way, mostly because they think she's not originally from Egypt. But Om Seti insists that she's simply living the way people used to thousands of years ago. And many of these old practices have been lost to time, but she feels like she's bringing them back.
- [23:23]
Racha Pecorero
Then, in 1956, when she's 53 years old, she gets this weird feeling that she needs to stop doing what she's doing and head south. That's where Abydos, the holy city from her past life memories, is. During this decision, she writes a letter to Egypt's Antiquities department, which is the group that organizes archaeological expeditions. She doesn't mention anything about reincarnation because she doesn't want to be dismissed as irrational. But she does explain that she's been studying Sati's temple in Abydos her entire life and she knows more about it than anyone else. When she gets the reply by mail, she learns there's an opening at a dig in Abydos. The archaeologists there need someone to translate hieroglyphics for them and proofread papers and articles they're writing for English magazines and newspapers. Om Sethi's qualified for the job. It's hers if she wants it, so she accepts. She leaves her home near Cairo, ready to embark on the next chapter of her life. One where she can demonstrate just how knowledgeable she really is and prove her her memories of a past existence are real. Om Seti claimed to have memories of being a priestess in ancient Egypt and having a forbidden love affair with Pharaoh seti I. In 1956, when she was 53 years old, she accepted a job on a major archaeological dig in Abydos where she would find evidence of some of those claims.
- [25:20]
Yvette Gentile
Now, this isn't just any dig. Excavators are uncovering the temple of Seti I. The very same temple she remembers from her past life, the one remember that she said was surrounded by trees and gardens. So the instant she gets to town, before she even has a chance to unpack her bags, she heads to the site where they're working and she starts telling the men all about the temple's layout, including the parts that haven't been uncovered yet. At first, the archaeologists don't take her seriously. I mean, she's a translator, not a trained archaeologist. But Om Seti, you gotta remember, right? She's used to this for her entire life. People have doubted her. They've never taken her seriously. But now she has a chance to prove herself and demonstrate that the knowledge from her past life is authentic.
- [26:22]
Racha Pecorero
So they continue digging, and soon enough, they find walls, statues, and even fossilized trees in the exact places Om Seti said they would be. The archaeologists can't say how Omm Seti knows all of this, but after this demonstration, they are much more willing to ask for her opinions. From that point on, anytime the archaeologists find an artifact they don't understand, they show it to Omm Seti and she explains to them exactly what it is.
- [26:56]
Yvette Gentile
That has to be so gratifying for her, right?
- [26:59]
Racha Pecorero
Validated for so long.
- [27:01]
Yvette Gentile
And now she's right. Now she's 100% validated.
- [27:04]
Racha Pecorero
Yes.
- [27:04]
Yvette Gentile
@ one point, they find a broken Piece of stone that used to be part of a column. Om Seti tells them exactly how tall the column was before it fell apart. Now, there is no way she should know this information, but when they uncover the rest of the pieces and put them together, guess what? Om Seti was.
- [27:27]
Racha Pecorero
Right. And these sort of things happen again and again. Her achievements start stacking up. Here's one of her most important contributions. Om Seti tells the team there's a garden just outside the temple, and she pinpoints the exact spot where they need to dig to find it. Keep in mind, she has been talking about this particular garden ever since her visit to the British Museum when she was just four years old. Decades have gone by. This entire time, archaeologists have known there's supposed to be a garden somewhere in the area, based on the records from that time. But they haven't been able to find it, not until they dig in the exact place Om Seti told them to. That's where they uncover stone vases, irrigation systems, and more fossilized plants and roots. It's the remains of a beautiful ancient.
- [28:34]
Yvette Gentile
Garden. Wow. Well, here's some more convincing evidence I found. At one point while she was in Abydos, her dig crew was restoring a room in Seti's temple, the same temple where she supposedly lived and had an affair during that path's life. As the team brushed the sand and grit off the room's walls, they saw they were covered in murals. For some reason, Om Sethi wasn't at the dig during this exclusion excavation, but she came by later that evening to check on the crew. They told her all about this new room that they had found. But before they could describe it in detail, Om Seti said she didn't need to hear any more. She already knew exactly what the room looked like because she remembered it. She spent a lot of time there as a priestess. One of the other archaeologists was, to say the least, skeptical. So Om Seti arranged a demonstration to prove she was telling the truth. By this time, the sun had set, and the crews hadn't left any lanterns or flashlights in the temple room. It was completely dark. Om Seti went into it anyway, and it's too dark to see anything, but the crew yells something like. One wall shows an Egyptian God bowing to Seti, who's sitting on a throne or on another panel. Seti is going through a purification ritual in order to become divine. And then Om Seti points to the part of the room where she remembers the mural was painted. And each time, she was right. Even though she'd never laid eyes on the artwork she during the daylight before. At least not in this particular life. This is especially shocking because there is no way she could have researched the murals in advance. They didn't appear in any books, any magazines, or newspaper articles. Nobody even knew they existed before the professionals working in Apydos found.
- [30:49]
Racha Pecorero
Them. This all feels impossible. No one knows how Om Seti knows so much. But she stays dedicated to archaeology up until 1973. By this time, she's 69 years old and she can't handle the physical toll of the work anymore. So she retires. Eight more years go by, and Om Seti's health continues to be deteriorate. It's clear she's facing the end, which is why Om Seti starts preparing to die again. The problem is that she has no idea where she's supposed to be buried. She's been openly practicing the ancient Egyptian religion for decades now, but she's apparently the only one in 1981. There are no funeral companies that offer mummification or or burial in the pyramids. She doesn't want a traditional Christian or Muslim grave. And she doesn't think any of the local churches or mosques would allow a non believer to be buried on their land anyway. At one point, she tries to hire a construction crew to build a miniature Egyptian tomb in her own backyard in Abydos. But health and safety officials shut that right down. Eventually, a local church hears about her struggles and they make her an offer. They own a plot of land in the middle of the desert. It's far from the city, and the church can't think of any practical use for it. So they tell Om Seti she can be buried there, but she can't put anything on the land that would go against their faith. So no pyramids, no altars to Isis, nothing like that. It's the best offer Omm Seti has, so she accepts it. She passes away later that year at the age of 77. She's buried without a headstone. The only marker on her grave is a pile of rocks. That seems so sad to.
- [33:00]
Yvette Gentile
Me. Yeah. And she takes all of her knowledge and memories as of ancient Egypt with her. But she leaves behind a complicated legacy, because to this day, nobody's entirely sure exactly how to talk about Om Seti's life. The story of her first life featuring forbidden love, secret affairs, and a tragic sacrifice. It is dramatic.
- [33:30]
Racha Pecorero
Y'.
- [33:30]
Yvette Gentile
All. I mean, so dramatic, in fact, that some people think her narrative is completely unbelievable. Instead, they say she may have been, I don't know, Exaggerating about her past life memories or making them up entirely? I don't know. Maybe she did that to give her career a boost. Because it turns out Om Seti may not have been quite as much of an expert as she claimed to be. Earlier, we talked about how she learned to read and write hieroglyphics very quickly, almost supernaturally. So she said it was because she already understood the language from a past life, but just needed a refresher. Except since her passing, other experts on ancient Egypt have looked at her translations and they seem to think her skills are, I don't know, mid. At best, she's far from fluent in hieroglyphics, but I guess most people don't know the language well enough to see her limitations. So in other words, maybe she could be a fraud. Someone with a passable understanding of ancient Egypt and a very creative imagination, which I just have to say, I find that hard to.
- [34:50]
Racha Pecorero
Believe. Me.
- [34:51]
Yvette Gentile
Too. But you know, I do have to be the devil's advocate here. A lot of the claims she made are just that, impossible to verify. Obviously, there are almost no written accounts of what life was like in the 1200s.
- [35:11]
Racha Pecorero
BCE. But if om Seti was faking it, how did she know so much about ruins that hadn't even been excavated yet? I mean, she managed to impress trained archaeologists. She even knew what the room's murals looked like, even though she'd never seen them before. There's no way she could have just guessed and been right so consistently. Instead, those details make me think she had to have a deep understanding of ancient Egyptian culture, language and. And architecture. Something that even trained archaeologists didn't have. But there's something else we haven't mentioned. Before she died, Om Seti said something really interesting. She claimed there was an amazing but long lost library full of texts that are thousands of years old. It's buried in Abydos, directly underneath the temple. Unfortunately, to this day, nobody has checked to even see if that's true. Meaning there could be an entire treasure trove of information about a long lost society. Perhaps the key to confirming Om Seti's story is by finding that library once and for all. And if that's the case, then we. We have to consider this. Maybe Om Seti was reincarnated for a reason. As for what that reason is, I'm particularly intrigued by this theory I heard from a tour guide known only as Mara. She's from Ireland, but she lives in Egypt and studies ancient magic rituals and practices. And she incorporates that information into the tours that she gives. Mara also says she knows how to translate hieroglyphics, and she's read the writing on the walls of Seti's temple in Abydos, the same temple where Om Seti worked for the last few decades of her life. Mara says the hieroglyphics tell the story of Seti, the first rule, with possible references to his forbidden affair. According to Hur, these hieroglyphics say that when Seti I learned his lover had taken her own life, he was devastated. So much so that he swore an oath to the gods he'd never forget her, not even after thousands of years had passed. Perhaps that oath was more powerful than death, and it ensured Om Seti wouldn't forget him either. Not even when she was reborn into a new body an entire millennia.
- [38:07]
Yvette Gentile
Later. Wow, that is such a deep statement. Think about that power, that sorrow, that longing of Seti I's oaths to the gods and to his forbidden love. If this story is true, then it would suggest that our souls live on after we pass. And it's sort of beautiful to think we will never forget the ones we love, that they stay with us for what seems like eternity. It also suggests that we get several chances to accomplish our goals and to make things better the next time around. If true, Om Seti's account may be proof that death is not the end, but rather a new beginning. After.
- [39:00]
Racha Pecorero
All, This is so supernatural. An audio Chuck original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram @sosupernaturalpod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all new episode. I think Chuck would.