The Woman Who Came Back From the Dead

British Egyptologist or Ancient Egyptian priestess? What happens when you wake up one day with the memories of somebody else? When you are consumed by the need to return home; you don’t know where home is, but you know that it’s not where you are… Historical mysteries are a dime a dozen, but none are quite as intriguing or as well documented than that of the case of Dorothy Eady.

So, what on earth happened???

Dorothy Eady was born at the turn of the twentieth century in London, England. Her father Reuben Eady worked as a Master Tailor but would later become an entrepreneur for cinema. Her mother Caroline Eady would stay at home to look after Dorothy.

It was 1907, when the young girl was just 3 years old, that tragedy struck. Running about the house, Dorothy tripped and was sent hurtling down a flight of stairs! Being discovered unconscious, a doctor was immediately called to the scene. Much to her parents’ horror, Dorothy showed no sign of a response when the physician checked her vitals. When a mirror was held above the girl’s lips and it was observed that she was also not breathing, the doctor pronounced her dead.

Leaving the grief-stricken parents alone to process the event, the doctor went back to his surgery in search of a nurse to help him prepare the child’s body for the funeral. Within the hour it had taken him to make this journey, something very strange had occurred. When the doctor returned to the Eady household, he happened upon Dorothy, awake, seemingly unscathed and playing in her room. Rushing to tell her parents, the man found himself being chased out of their house. His pleas that she had most definitely been dead when he had last seen her, falling on deaf ears as they berated him for causing so much unnecessary heartache. As remarkable as their daughter allegedly rising from the dead may seem, it would end up being the first of many strange occurrences for the Eady family.

Not long after the incident Dorothy started to have regular emotional outbursts, often hiding under a table and crying for hours. When her parents showed concern, she would state again and again, “I want to go home.” The young girl didn’t seem to have any real idea where ‘home’ was on the few occasions that her parents pressed her for answers, only that she needed to go there. Clearly playing on her mind, Dorothy also began having recurring dreams of a vast stone building with tall columns and beautiful exotic gardens. The image was very specific, scarcely deviating, as if it were a place she had been to before.

The girl’s confusion and distress continued until she was 4 years old when her parents took her on an outing to the British Museum. Whilst Dorothy initially showed little interest in any of the exhibits, she suddenly became incredibly enthusiastic as the family entered a room filled with Egyptian artefacts! She dashed left and right, weaving in and out of the statues of Egyptian gods. Ecstatic at having found this place, she would bend down and kiss the feet of the deities. Her mother and father would have to awkwardly pull her away however as she begun angrily telling off passers-by for wearing their shoes before the gods. As they tugged her in the opposite direction, Dorothy fell silent; she had spotted a mummy in a glass display case and was completely taken by it. She stared deeply into the face of the dead, refusing to move. It was there that she stayed, in complete silence, for the next 30 minutes. When her mother attempted to pick her up, she snapped, kicking and screaming, “Leave me. These are my people!”

This kind of behaviour, though initially thought to be a passing phase, would stand to continue; Dorothy’s outbursts becoming common place. In 1911, the girl would discover an article on the Rosetta Stone which fascinated her. She would consistently leave the magazine open, alongside a magnifying glass that she had used to attempt to read the hieroglyphics on the images. When questioned about this, she seemed to be under the impression that she knew the language but had temporarily forgotten it. Not too soon after that, she happened upon a picture of a temple, built in Ancient Egyptian times in Abydos for pharaoh, Seti the First. Her face lit up, an enormous feeling of clarity washing over her. Excited about her discovery, she ran straight to her parents to tell them the good news. She held up the photo of the temple. “This is my home!” she exclaimed. Everything was correct, everything except the gardens she had dreamt so often of.

The next few decades for Dorothy saw her consumed by the desire to learn everything she could about her ‘homeland’. This didn’t come without its own trials and tribulations, but Dorothy remained headstrong. There were times when this mentality got her into trouble. Such as the moment she told both her teachers and a priest that Catholicism was no more than a pale imitation of Ancient Egyptian religions. Or the day she hurled her book across the classroom. It’s target? The teacher who had just reprimanded her for refusing to sing a hymn which called to ‘curse the swart Egyptians’. If she wasn’t skipping classes to spend more time at the British Museum, she was learning how to read hieroglyphics; something she did at a notably fast pace.

By the time she was 12, she was travelling up to 8 miles a day on horseback to find her nearest library; eager to visit these libraries in new locations whilst traveling with her family as often as possible. When she was 14, she began having recurring dreams again. Although this time, they were more like recurring nightmares; sparked by a vivid dream the teenager had of Seti the First. In Dorothy’s own words (as stated by The Dark Histories Podcast):

‘I half woke up, feeling a weight on my chest. Then I fully woke up, and I saw this face bending over me with both hands on the neck of my night dress. I recognised the face from the photo I had seen years before of the Mummy Seti. I was astonished and shocked and I cried out, and yet I was overjoyed. … [I]t’s difficult to explain. It was the feeling of something you have waited for that has come home at last.’

The recurring nightmares she had – which saw her standing in a dark space, overwhelmed by the scent of incense as an official looking figure hounded her with questions, pummelling her with his fists when she refused to answer – would lead to her parents committing her for psychological evaluations on multiple occasions. Very dangerous territory for a time period (early 1900s) which had previously seen women placed into mental asylums as a punishment for behaving in manners which male society did not agree with. It was also a time period in which the world had just been through WWI, creating an influx of poor mental health in citizens, alongside the 1918 flu pandemic which ran rife in the overcrowded asylums. Patients were treated as second class citizens during this time and, if not mistreated, were more or less ignored as the pandemic raged on. In some very lucky turn of events, Dorothy was discharged each time, authority figures from the institutions deeming that they saw no cause for concern. She would not make sense of the vivid dream she’d had or the recurring nightmares until she was almost thirty years old!

After dedicating her life to learning about the Ancient Egyptians and taking writing jobs for magazines which championed Egyptian public relations, she met political activist Imam Abdel-Maguid who advocated for Egypt’s independence from British rule. They ended up marrying and moved together to Egypt when Dorothy was 29. The day she stepped off that boat, she knelt down and kissed the earth; finally feeling in her heart of hearts that she had returned home. They had a son, who Dorothy named Sety and the woman became known around the town as Omm Sety (Arabic for: mother of Sety). It was during this time that Dorothy claimed to receive visits during the night; unknown entities whispering in her ear about her past life. Writing down the bits and pieces she’d heard in a trance-like state, the woman would not initially be able to comprehend much the following mornings. However, once she had pulled everything together, she finally felt she understood what all of her previous recurring dreams had meant.

Dorothy claimed to be a girl named Bentreshyt, left at an ancient temple in Kom El Sultan as a two-year-old. At 12 years old Bentreshyt had made vows to become a virgin priestess in the same temple she had been left at as a toddler. Later, she would happen upon Seti the First in the gardens of that temple whilst he oversaw the construction of his own building. After a long period of time that the pair spent secretly getting to know each other, Bentreshyt would find herself part of an illicit affair with the pharaoh. She fell pregnant, word quickly spread throughout the temple. When the High Priest Antef (the man who had originally taken her in) got word of the pregnancy, he forced her down to the tombs and aggressively questioned her; using violence in attempts to get a name of the father. The affair was of a very serious nature at the temples, an offence punishable by death.

When Bentreshyt refused to give a name, her faith was put into question and her hand was forced. She admitted to her relationship with Seti and was sentenced to death. However, in order to be sentenced properly, she would have had to be put through a criminal trial first which would have most definitely exposed the pharaoh – something she wanted to avoid at all costs. Not seeing any other way to save the man she thought she loved, Bentreshyt ended her own life.

Dorothy’s discovery of these lost memories alongside her complete devotion to the ancient life, ultimately took a toll on her marriage to Imam and they eventually split. Dorothy moved to Giza with her son and continued her lifelong work. She nabbed a job with the Egyptian Department of Antiquities and, until her death at the age of 77, she wrote countless essays, took part in a multitude of research opportunities with esteemed Egyptologists and even became famous enough that tourists would travel to Egypt to see her more than anything else. There are a plethora of records from friends, family, and people she worked with which marvel at the woman’s extensive knowledge of Ancient Egyptian times; including knowledge of the details and locations of information and sites that were never published! She even helped a team of researchers find the ruins of the gardens in the Temple of Seti which she had dreamed about all those years ago.

Sounds too good to be true... right?

Historical mysteries like this can be a real headscratcher; especially due to the struggle to piece together one coherent story from a ton of opposing narratives. Learning more in the 21st century about ancient times, psychology and the effects of head trauma, have at times left us with more questions than answers.

A Washington Post article, written in 1987 by E. F. Bleiler, criticises the book called A Story of Eternal Love by Jonathan Cott and Hanny El Zeini for their account of Dorothy Eady’s life. The writer brands the work as disorganised, repetitive and unanalytical. Although the language initially used in this Washington Post article can be read as a little forthright (if not aggressive), further on the author makes some good points.

Such points discuss the time period in which Dorothy herself grew up in. For the first few decades of the 1900s there was a lot of focus on Ancient Egyptian culture with grand exhibits in the British Museum and a lot of heated debate (for and against) whether or not Egypt should become independent from British rule. She clearly had parents who were interested in and avidly learnt about culture, given the magazines young Dorothy was able to discover about her house. Around the 1920s there were also various romance novels published, centring around handsome Arabic men, who would sweep young English women off their feet, often engaging in forbidden illicit activities. Bleiler also notes just how common reincarnated princesses/priestesses are in certain occult circles.

When things go bump in the night...

Of course, in the present day we are also very aware of how head trauma can affect a whole range of things with a person. In some cases, particularly nasty injuries could result in personality changes within the individual. This could account for Dorothy’s consistent struggle to regulate her emotions. Dr Alina Fong tells us that,

‘The location of the injury can contribute, too. Brain injuries can damage connections that go from the cerebral cortex (the part of the brain that has a role in memory, attention, perception, cognition, and awareness) to the limbic system (the part of the brain that supports functions like emotions, behavior, and motivation).

These connections allow us to evaluate our emotional reactions, understand how important events are, and decide on a response appropriate for the situation.’ (Source: Cognitivefx)

It has also been suggested by various sources that the woman may have suffered from something similar to Foreign Accent Syndrome as her speech patterns had noticeably altered. Another suggestion was that the woman was experiencing Cryptomnesia; a phenomenon which leads the subject to interpret temporarily forgotten memories about things they have learnt as new or original ideas – although no actual diagnoses were concluded.

Questions questions questions!

How did Dorothy Eady, or Omm Sety, know extensive knowledge from unpublished works about Ancient Egypt? If she was initially lying or acting out, why would she keep this up for the entirety of her life? In the number of times her parents submitted her for psychiatric evaluations, how did none of the doctors find anything off about her or these beliefs? Is the story of Dorothy Eady a cautionary tale about how unreliable accounts of history can be?

Whilst it’s not always clear when we look back at the past exactly what happened, and the idea that the legend of Omm Sety has been exaggerated is most likely true… There’s still so much we don’t know about ourselves, the world, and the universe. This lack of knowledge makes potential mysteries, or even just events which temporarily shake our worldview, incredibly fascinating to explore! In any respect, delusion or not, Dorothy managed to live a wondrously meaningful life; helping to greatly expand what we know about Ancient Egypt through her work. At the end of the day, a life filled with memories and experiences that are meaningful is everything we could hope for, and certainly something that Omm Sety seemed to have in abundance.