541: DEEP DIVE: Reincarnation or Obsession? The Puzzling Case of Dorothy Eady and other Past Lives 29:57

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Three-year-old Dorothy was playing, then accidentally fell down a flight of stairs. She hit her head and was knocked unconscious. When her parents found her, she wasn't breathing. They called a doctor who rushed over immediately. He searched the girl for a pulse, but couldn't find any. Dorothy's mother broke down when the doctor said there was nothing he could do. Her little girl was dead.

The doctor left and returned an hour later with Dorothy's death certificate. He was prepared to discuss arrangements for the little girl's body. When the doctor returned, he was shocked. Not only was little Dorothy alive and well, but she was playing happily in her room. Dorothy's parents and the doctor were stunned. It was a miracle. The doctor examined her again. There was no sign of injury. He had no explanation. He said it appeared as if Dorothy had come back from the dead.

He didn't realize how right he was. Dorothy Eadie was born in London in 1904. Until her fall down the stairs and her resurrection, she was a normal little girl. But after the fall, she started having night terrors. Her mother would wake her and Dorothy would tell her about her dreams.

She lived in a huge columned building surrounded by trees and green gardens. It was always the same dream, and Dorothy would tell her mother the same thing, "I want to go home." When her mother would tell her that she was home, Dorothy would become frustrated and depressed. Sometimes Dorothy's parents would find her pouting under the dining room table. They'd ask what was wrong, and it was always the same answer, "I want to go home."

When asked where her home was, Dorothy would say she didn't know, she just knew she wanted to get back there. After her fall, Dorothy would occasionally speak with a heavy foreign accent. This was so unsettling that Dorothy's parents had trouble finding a sitter. When Dorothy was four, her parents planned a day at the British Museum. They couldn't find anyone to watch their daughter, so they brought her along. And that's when things got really strange.

As expected, four-year-old Dorothy was bored in the museum. She moped. She dragged her feet. She acted like most four-year-olds would act. However, Dorothy's mood drastically changed when they reached the Egyptian exhibit.

Dorothy was dazzled by the artifacts, but when she saw the Egyptian statues, she tore herself from her mother's grip and ran wildly through the halls. Dorothy ran from statue to statue, kissing their feet. She yelled at people for wearing shoes in the presence of gods. Dorothy's mother was mortified at her daughter's behavior, but then Dorothy suddenly stopped and became silent. Dorothy's parents found her frozen in front of a glass case.

She was staring at the face of an Egyptian mummy. Dorothy's mother picked her up, but she got upset. Then in a voice that sounded like an old woman, Dorothy said, "These are my people." It took Dorothy's parents a few hours to finally drag her out of the museum. But whenever the family had free time, they would go back to the Egyptian exhibit, the only place where Dorothy felt happy and peaceful. It was obvious Dorothy was different from other kids at school.

She had a hard time fitting in. She just wanted to be left alone to read books on ancient Egypt. In art class, she would draw animal heads on human bodies that looked like hieroglyphics. When Dorothy was seven, her father bought her a children's encyclopedia about ancient Egypt. Dorothy spent hours studying hieroglyphics with a magnifying glass. Her mother asked her what she was doing. Dorothy said, "I'm trying to remember."

While reading a science magazine, Dorothy came across a picture of the temple built for the Pharaoh Seti, father of Ramses the Great, in the town of Abydos. Dorothy was confused. She asked her mother where all the trees were and all the green gardens. Dorothy's mother asked her, what is this place? Dorothy smiled the biggest smile she ever had in her entire life. She pointed at the picture of Seti's temple in Abydos and said, Mama, this is my home.

She recognized the temple from her dreams. Except in her dreams, the temple had lush green gardens and looked new and clean. In the photos, it looked ancient and was in ruins. It pained her to see her beloved temple this way.

She knew that one day she would visit this temple again. This was home. As Dorothy continued to look through the magazine, she came across a photo of a mummy. Its face was incredibly well preserved. She was captivated. The longer she stared, the more clear it became. She knew this man.

Children remembering their past lives is more common than most people think. There are thousands of documented cases, and these are just the cases that parents report. There are certainly thousands more cases where the parents are too confused or too embarrassed to report it.

One interesting story happened in England in 1957. Sisters Joanna and Jacqueline Pollock, aged 11 and 6, were killed when a car lost control and hopped the curb. A year after the accident, the girl's mother, Florence Pollock, gave birth to twin girls.

Jillian and Jennifer were identical twins, but they had different birthmarks. Jennifer had a birthmark on her waist that matched a birthmark that Jacqueline had before she died. Coincidence? She also had a scar on her forehead, just like Jacqueline did. When the twins were about two years old, they started asking for toys that belonged to their sisters, though they had never seen them before. They'd also become frightened at moving cars, yelling how the car is coming to get them.

And the coincidences go on and on.

During the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Japanese shot down American fighter pilot James Houston Jr. He died in the cockpit of the plane on March 3rd, 1945. Over 50 years later, two-year-old James Leninger started having nightmares about being a fighter pilot crashing into the ocean and dying. When James was shown photos, he was able to name the kind of aircraft he flew. He knew the name of the aircraft carrier he was on.

He could even name the other men who served with him at two years old. All this information was verified to be true. One of my favorite cases of reincarnation is Ryan Hammonds. When Ryan was about four years old and playing by himself, he would pretend to direct movies. Ryan told his mother that he used to be a man who lived in Hollywood. Ryan's parents were Christian and serious about their faith. They didn't believe in reincarnation. But Ryan would often talk about his former life.

Whenever Ryan saw the Hollywood sign on television, he would cry that that was his home and he wanted to go back.

Ryan would tell stories about meeting Rita Hayworth, about vacations in Paris, and working at an agency where people would change their names. This is not the typical banter of a four-year-old. Ryan's mother brought home a book about old Hollywood, and they flipped through the pictures. They came across a photo, and Ryan recognized it. That's George. We did a picture together, and that guy right there, that's me.

The other man in the picture was Marty Martin. Marty Martin did know Rita Hayworth. He did vacation in Paris, and he did work at an agency where people would change their name.

Ryan was right about all of it. Ryan even know Marty used to dance on Broadway. How many sisters he had, how many children. He even said his house was on a street with the word rock in it. Marty Martin lived on Roxbury Drive. Marty's family was able to confirm 55 separate facts that Ryan got correct at four years old.

And in these three cases, like in almost every case, past life memories start around age two or three and end around age five. Not so with Dorothy Eadie. As she got older, her memories became more clear. It was just a matter of time before Dorothy Eadie would find out who she really was 3,000 years ago.

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Dorothy Eadie was very outspoken about being reincarnated. She spoke about it openly and didn't care what anybody thought. This was a problem for a teenage girl in the 1920s. Her parents tolerated what they thought was just an eccentricity, but other people weren't so forgiving. One Sunday afternoon, a priest showed up at Eadie's door. The priest said that Dorothy was no longer welcome at Sunday school. She'd refused to sing a hymn that spoke poorly about Egypt.

But the last straw was when Dorothy argued with the Sunday school teacher that Christianity was based on the old religion of Egypt. Dorothy had been spending so much time in the British Museum that Egyptologist Sir E.A. Wallace Budge got to know her. One day he noticed young Dorothy at the museum and he wondered what she was doing out of school, so he struck up a conversation with her. Dorothy matter-of-factly told him that she wasn't interested in what they taught.

When he asked what she would like to study, she simply said hieroglyphics. So Dr. Budge took Dorothy under his wing and started to teach her. Unsurprisingly, she picked it up very quickly. Like, freakishly quickly. Soon she was copying and translating chapters from the Book of the Dead on her own. Dorothy and Dr. Budge became good friends. He was my first and most earnest tutor.

He once said to me, "My child, Egypt taught us everything. I follow all the Egyptian teachings, and when you go there one day I am sure you will do the same." In 1916, Dorothy was sent to live with her grandmother. The Great War made living in the city too dangerous for a child, but she promised Dr. Budge she would keep up with her studies. He wanted to know why Egypt fascinated her so much. Because I used to know, and now I must remember it all again.

Living with her grandmother in Sussex was lonely and isolating, but it was a great opportunity to continue her studies. She would often visit the local library and read every book on ancient Egypt she could find. Dorothy's dreams of ancient Egypt continued this whole time, though now that she knew it was happening, she wasn't frightened anymore. She looked forward to the dreams of Egypt and the mysterious temple. It was as if it called to her. But around this time, she started having a new type of dream.

And these were terrifying. She saw in vivid detail the horrors of the Western Front. In one dream, she saw a young man she knew from the village, Robert, lose his leg. A few weeks later, Robert returned from the war. He was missing a leg. These dreams had profound meaning. It was clear to Dorothy that not only could she see into her past life, but she could witness events from her own time. But the dreams were about to get worse. A lot worse.

One night, Dorothy suddenly woke up. It felt as if she was being watched. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the silhouette of a man came into view. He was standing next to her bed, looking down at her. As she squinted in the darkness, trying to make out any features, a horrifying image came into focus.

The figure was actually a mummified corpse. It was covered in wrappings, but the eyes burned through the darkness. They appeared alive and were looking right at her. She recognized the face. It was the mummified pharaoh she'd seen in the magazine as a child. This was the Pharaoh Seti I.

Setti grabbed and tore her nightgown. Her grandmother rushed into the room when she heard Dorothy's screams, but all her grandmother found was Dorothy alone in bed. The mummy had vanished, but Dorothy's nightgown was torn. Even though this vision was terrifying, Dorothy felt a love for this man she could not explain. She knew him in her past life. They must have been lovers. As the days went on, she even missed him.

Every night she prayed for his return, yet he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually, she returned to London. The next few years, she worked various jobs at a theater owned by her parents. But then she got her big break in 1931. A position opened up in London, writing for an Egyptian public relations magazine. Against her parents' wishes, she traveled to London.

The 30s were a tricky time in Egypt. Though it was officially declared independent from the United Kingdom in 1922, the UK was still heavily involved in the governing of Egypt. Dorothy used her new position at the magazine to advocate for Egyptian nationalism and full independence. While working for the magazine, she began corresponding with a wealthy Egyptian man named Imam Abdul Meghwad. In 1933, Meghwad proposed, and she accepted.

She finally traveled to Egypt for the first time in her life. She only told her parents about the marriage once travel had been arranged. Needless to say, they were not happy.

When she stepped off the boat in Cairo, she fell to her knees and kissed the ground. She wept and said, I'm finally home. Passersby looked on in confusion. She was creating a scene and her new husband was embarrassed. Swept up in the emotions of arriving at what felt like home, for a moment she forgot Imam was there. He silently wondered what he had gotten himself into.

Dorothy's marriage was off to a rocky start. She was used to her freedom in London and wanted to explore the streets of old Cairo. There was so much she wanted to learn about the old ways of life. But a mom and his family were firmly against this. This immediately caused friction. Three months into the marriage, Dorothy was pregnant.

It was then the spirit of Seti reappeared to Dorothy for the first time in 15 years. Dorothy was thrilled to see him again. It felt as if she was reunited with an old lover, which made her current marriage awkward. Seti started to visit night after night, and incredibly, other family members saw him. Her mom's father reported seeing the spirit of a pharaoh kneeling at Dorothy's bed. And when Dorothy's mother visited, she saw a shadowy figure standing over Dorothy at night.

Dorothy kept these nighttime visits from Setti's secret. She tried her best to fit the image of a good wife for a mom and his family. This meant not talking about her past life, halting her studies, and cooking for a mom. She was a terrible cook and truly hated this responsibility.

When their baby was born, she insisted on naming him Seti. The family protested. This was an ancient name. No one would ever name their child that. But Dorothy held her ground. Eventually, the family relented. After the baby was born, Dorothy woke one night to an unfamiliar voice whispering in her ear. The voice was that of a man named Hora, who instructed her to write down everything he said.

She would enter a trance, neither sleeping nor awake, and scribble notes and hieroglyphics. When she woke up, she had no idea what she'd written. It wasn't even her handwriting. In fact, it was a form of hieroglyphic writing called demotic writing that she didn't know how to read, let alone write. After a year of this, she had 70 handwritten pages. She was eager to get to work translating, but she knew her husband would not like this, so she kept the pages tucked away.

In a surprising turn of events, Imam was offered a well-paying job in Iraq. He decided to take it and left Dorothy and the baby with his parents in Cairo. To Dorothy, this felt like a sign. She could return to her studies, determined to translate the writing she transcribed while in trance. Eventually, she was able to translate the texts. It was a story that felt familiar. It was a detailed account of her past life in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago.

She was an Egyptian woman named Bentrashit, born in the town of Abdos. She came from a humble background. Her father was a soldier who served during Sedi I's reign, and her mother was a vegetable seller. When Bentrashit was two years old, her mother died.

Unable to care for her, Ben-Rashid's father placed her in the Temple of Qam al-Sultan, where she could be raised to become a priestess. When she was 12 years old, Ben-Rashid was given two choices: she could either leave the temple and go out into the world on her own, or become a consecrated virgin and stay at the temple. Ben-Rashid decided to take the vows and became a priestess of Isis.

A few years later, she met Pharaoh Seti I in the temple gardens at Abydos, and they had an affair. When she became pregnant with the child of the pharaoh, she had no choice but to tell the high priest about her relationship with Seti I. The high priest told her that her sin against Isis was so severe that she would be tried and likely sentenced to death. In order to protect the pharaoh from a scandal, Bantraschit avoided trial by taking her own life.

When Seti learned of Bentrasheet's death, he was beyond distraught. He was seen weeping in the gardens where they first met. He swore never to return to the temple. It was too painful for him to remember her. Dorothy finally understood everything that was happening. With her husband away, Dorothy enjoyed her newfound freedom. She was ready to explore old Cairo and all its secrets.

With baby Seti strapped to her back, she marched down to the Pyramid Plateau in Giza and looked for work among archaeologists. Her extensive knowledge of ancient Egypt landed her a job. She would help record artifacts found at the digs. It's about this time she changed her name to Om Seti, which means Mother of Seti. This is how women were known in ancient Egypt.

While many archaeologists didn't believe she was reincarnated, they couldn't deny she brought many valuable insights to their research. Her knowledge of ancient Egypt was called uncanny.

Even with her hard-to-believe story, she was well-regarded by her colleagues. In 1935, she took a job with Egypt's Department of Antiquities. She was the first woman ever hired, but she quickly made a name for herself as a respected scholar. She published essays and articles about ancient Egypt. She translated documents and hieroglyphics. Though Dorothy had no formal training, she became known as an expert in the field.

When her mom returned in 1936, he wasn't as impressed with her accomplishments as her new colleagues. He was upset that Dorothy brought their newborn baby to the harsh desert for her studies. It was the beginning of the end of the relationship, not long after they were divorced. But this meant Dorothy and the ghost of the Faro Sete could take their relationship to the next level. She claimed to have had a physical intimate relationship with the dead Faro for years.

He would manifest himself in physical form each night, allowing them to touch and hold each other and... Well, you get the idea. According to Dorothy, it was no different than any husband-wife relationship.

She lived a very non-materialistic life. She would even sometimes sleep in tombs to be close to her work. When a mom found this out, he filed for sole custody of their child. Dorothy's visits to her son became less and less frequent until she stopped visiting altogether. Her research completely consumed her.

Finally, in 1956, Dorothy was offered a job in Abydos, the town where she believed she'd lived in her past life. She was excited to be closer to Abydos and the temple from her dreams, but she also knew it meant she had to resume her work as a priestess to Isis. She had to make up for her sins in the past life.

This would mean no more physical nighttime visits from Seti. While saddened she could no longer be close to her lover, she found peace in the presence of the temple. When she first arrived in Abenos and walked the temple, she knew she'd come home. She was determined to spend the rest of her life here.

She became known as an eccentric by the locals. She observed ancient Egyptian religion. She even created her own calendar, which marked the proper prayers and offerings to the gods for each day of the year. She walked barefoot everywhere, and she would spend her nights praying and sleeping in the ancient temples.

In 1957, the new chief of antiquities wanted to test Dorothy. He admitted that she had an uncanny understanding of ancient Egyptian culture, but he didn't really believe she lived in the Temple of Seti thousands of years ago. One night, he escorted her to the temple, where the only light was a torch. He then asked her to take him to different parts of the temple. At this point, nothing had been published about the temple's layout, and Dorothy had never been there before.

Dorothy was able to guide him anywhere he asked to go. With no map and no light, she knew every inch of the temple. After his sixth attempt to stump her, he gave up. One of her recurring dreams, or memories depending on what you believe, was of the garden of the Temple of Seti. But the garden had not yet been discovered by archaeologists.

Dorothy told scientists where to find the garden. They excavated and they found it. She gave them a detailed layout for the garden, including placement of trees and wells, and this was all confirmed. This was also the same garden she says she met Seti for the first time and where he mourned her passing. She said if they dug on the north side of the temple in a specific spot, they would find a hidden tunnel. Sure enough, the tunnel was there.

In 1964, she turned 60 years old. By Egyptian law, she was required to retire. Not only was she the first woman hired from the Department of Antiquities, she was given special permission to keep working. She was too valuable of a resource to let go.

Egyptologists couldn't explain how, but she was able to help make countless discoveries. She always said she wasn't discovering, she was remembering. Though her specialty was the Temple of Seti I in Abdos, she did claim to have knowledge of other ancient Egyptian sites. For example, she said the lost tomb of Nefertiti was underneath the tomb of her stepson Tutankhamun.

Dorothy made this claim in 1972. Tutankhamen's tomb was found in 1922. And though the tomb had been studied for 50 years, there was no evidence of a chamber there. But in 2015, radar imaging technology showed there actually was a chamber right where she said it would be. Dorothy also said she grew up in a village a few hundred yards east of Chouinette-el-Zib in her past life.

Archaeologists didn't know of a village called this, not during her lifetime anyway. But 16 years after her death, a village was found exactly where she said it was, her village. They found Dorothy's home. About 30% of Americans, including almost 25% of Christians, believe in reincarnation.

Reincarnation might be fringe science or pseudoscience in the Western world, but in the East, reincarnation is viewed differently. It's a central part of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and several other religions. For about a quarter of the world's population, almost 2 billion people, reincarnation is a central belief. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is said to be the reincarnation of Pema Dorje, the first Dalai Lama who died in 1474.

The current Dalai Lama, who was born in 1935, is the 14th incarnation of Pamedorji. When the Dalai Lama dies, senior Tibetan monks conduct an elaborate search to find his next incarnation. The search involves consulting oracles, interpreting visions and reading spiritual signs.

The senior monks may find clues in the Dalai Lama's deceased body, such as the direction it faces. If the body is cremated, the direction of the smoke is monitored as a potential indicator of the direction of rebirth. The current Dalai Lama was found at the age of two after a senior monk saw his village and house in a vision. The boy, then named Lama Thondup, could identify items that belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, including a drum used for rituals and a walking stick.

Even though I consider myself an open-minded skeptic of the topics we cover, reincarnation is a subject I've always been drawn to. There is comfort in the thought that death is not the end, that our physical life is just a temporary experience meant to teach us lessons to prepare us for our next life, or to prepare us for what comes after. Dorothy Eadie is one of the most compelling cases for reincarnation that I've ever seen. But is this really evidence?

Skeptics will point out that while Dorothy Eadie was able to identify many hidden Egyptian tombs, tunnels and rooms, she also got plenty of things wrong. Some believe that when Dorothy hit her head falling down the stairs, she injured her brain.

This injury caused her to have foreign accent syndrome, which is a real thing. The injury also caused her to develop obsessive compulsive disorder, with her obsession being ancient Egypt. She even admitted that her fall down the stairs could have knocked a screw loose. Those are her words. Well, I wonder either the fall down the stairs knocked a screw loose, when yet everything was so much more safe.

There's no question that if she developed this obsession at three or four years old, she'd become very skilled and knowledgeable about the subject. We do know that Dorothy Eadie was institutionalized multiple times for mental health issues when she was young.

But after Dorothy was about 16 or so, her parents stopped trying to fix her. They didn't believe her story, and they didn't like being associated with it, but they still supported their daughter. Also, all the stories about Dorothy's early life come from Dorothy herself. The fall, her experience in the museum, the trance writing, the time she was tested in the darkness of the temple. There's no evidence any of it happened. We have to take her at her word.

But that's the skeptics' point of view. Even famous Egyptologists, who notoriously dislike anything mystical, said that Dorothy's knowledge of Egypt was beyond simple intuition. It was uncanny. They stopped short of saying she was reincarnated, but nobody denies her contributions to the study of ancient Egypt. She's still highly revered by archaeologists. Dorothy Eady has been called the patron saint of Egyptology.

She lived out her remaining years near Abydos in a mud hut which she called the Om Sedi Hilton. Yes, she had a sense of humor. Her mud hut, the Om Sedi Hilton, was walking distance to Sedi's temple, the place since childhood that she considered home.

She finally passed away in her sleep in 1981. When her body was discovered, the room was full of cats, and they were crying over her body. Cats were considered sacred in ancient Egypt. She was buried in Abydos near the temple she loved so much. When her close friend, Hani El-Zaini, read through her diary, he was moved by how much she loved the pharaoh Seti. When I open the pages of her diaries, I find evidence of a love that is beyond our normal definition of it.

If Dorothy's memories are true, it's evidence love is not bound by time or space. Perhaps the relationships we build in this life don't end when we do. It's a good reminder to not treat others like they're a means to an end. Who knows what's on the other side? But I can't help but wonder, is there a child out there somewhere right now having dreams and visions she can't explain? Visions of an oasis, a green garden in the desert, once again calling her home.

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