Dorothy Eady’s tale truly begins after an accident that happened when she was three years old. A tumble down the stairs caused her to hit her head, which changed her life thereafter. Some reports say she experienced a near-death experience where other reports say Eady she only dealt with brain damage, but whatever the case may have been, she notably changed. With all the research I did on Dorothy, many sources mentioned that at the time they believed the brain injury caused her to have foreign accent syndrome.

From speech patterns to the begging of her parents to ‘take her home’ when she was, she never felt the same. When asked where home was she didn’t have an answer, but she did over time give more details of what ‘home’ looked like. She spoke of beautiful gardens. It wasn’t until she took a trip with her parents to the British Museum that her ‘home’ was finally revealed.

The exhibit had a picture of the temple of Seti I, father of Ramses the Great(the Ramses from the Bible). The young Eady ran to it and began talking about it being home. She began asking where the gardens had gone, where the trees had gone, and asking what had happened to it. Dorothy insisted she had lived there. Overjoyed she ran from room to room of the Egyptian exhibit kissing the feet of the statues and remarking ‘she was among her own people’.

Sadly, she could not read the hieroglyphics on the different statues and displays, and this caught the attention an Egyptologist named E.A. Wallace Budge who encouraged her to learn how to read them while her parents tried their best to calm her and discourage her to speak of ‘being amongst her people’, details of the temple, or having lived there.

Eady’s experience led to disturbing behavior. She began getting in trouble at church as she denounced Christianity and for others to embrace Egyptian paganism. They forced her to drop Catholic Mass despite her enjoyment of it. She claimed to enjoy it as it reminded her very much of the ‘old religion’.

As she aged, it behavior forced her parents to put her into a sanatorium when she refused to let go of her ‘delusions’ of this Egyptian life and her tales turned graphic as she spoke of sexual activities she had with Seti I. She also spoke of what some would consider nightmares. One example is a dream she described of having where the mummy of Seti I would engage in adult activities with her. Her time as a patient at the sanatorium would mark the end of her time in school. Despite no change in behavior, Eady’s parents continued trying to help their daughter by committing her over and over in sanatoriums.

Over time, she re-enrolled in school and continued her education. It was during this time she was able to work out clearer details and link her stories properly. Some of these details included her name, Bentreshyt. She told her parents how she had been abandoned at three years of age by her previous parents at the temple of Seti I at Abydos, that that was how she came to live there. She was a priestess of Isis and it was during her time as a priestess that she met Seti I. Eady even detailed how she had died. She claimed to have committed suicide in her past life to protect her lover. Being an Isis priestess, she was to remain a virgin, but had broken this vow.

I do feel it is important to add that during my research some sources I read claimed she had committed suicide after being tried and convicted being given the option of her punishment. Whether tried and convicted or willingly committing suicide to cover up the crimes of the pharaoh, she had died by her own hand.

Dorothy Eady’s story doesn’t end there. She met an Egyptian man named Emam Abdel Meguid and moved to Cairo, Egypt. She had a child with him and named him Sety after her past life’s lover and even changed her own name to Omm Sety. Her behavior became too much for her husband, who tried his best to help her, but when all attempts failed, he left.

She continued her life as a single mother and found work as a draftswoman with the national Department of Antiquities. Eady left this job while in her fifties when she was given the opportunity to work in Abydos, the location of the Seti I’s temple, her ‘home’.

Dorothy proved herself invaluable to the researchers there. She was able to prove many of her claims when the chief investigator took her to the temple to prove herself. He tested her by standing her in darkness, describing murals on different walls, and telling her to go where he described. She passed his test quickly. What made this even more special was these specific murals and locations had never been published. She would have not been able to study them beforehand.

Her life is one of great interest that has left many wondering if her stories were true, if reincarnation is real, and what other explanation could they be for someone having such details from a claimed previous life. Eady is featured in a 1982 National Geographic documentary entitled Egypt: Quest For Eternity.