Dorothy Eady | The Most Compelling Case of Reincarnation?

In 1907, a young girl named Dorothy Edie lived a relatively ordinary life until an accident left her unconscious. Her parents presumed her dead, but thankfully she awoke just an hour later. Though their daughter was alive, she would be forever changed. No longer did she believe she was an everyday girl from London, instead, she claimed she was a reincarnated priestess from ancient Egypt. Today we're discussing the peculiar case of Dorothy Edie. This is Redweb. Welcome back Task Force to another episode of Redweb, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, true crime, and the unknown, I'm your resident mystery enthusiast Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing about this case for the very first time Alfredo Diaz. I'm ready to get into this one like, what is happening here? Because who's to say, right, and this could be so many different levels that's going on here. How many people on this planet have actually come face to face with death, or have been pronounced like legally dead for certain amount of time just for their body to come back? What does that do to the human mind, consciousness, body, etc? We don't know. You know what I mean? It's not. Yeah. Robin, and we even through all these amazing questions that I hope to explore today, absolutely. And so it's like, okay, well, let's get into it, right? Is it something because of the fact that she truly is, what she's saying she is, did the mind shatter with this experience because it's such a, you know, traumatic experience for the body and the mind? Yes. These are great questions. And honestly, I'm going to give you the full rundown of her life because this story, this reincarnated priestess, right, this, this develops over her entire life, her entire life after the age of three, when the accident happens, continues to follow the path of this belief. And so it's really fascinating. And then at the end, you know, we usually discuss theories or suspects. Here it's kind of two things. One, let's explore the case for reincarnation, and two, I don't think this is a hoax. I'm going to play my cards right now, but let's explore the idea that it's not reincarnation. And if not, what does that look like? What could be going on here that maybe helps us understand this very, very unique case? Because as you can imagine, many people point to this as the definitive case that proves the idea of reincarnation because you'll find it is so vivid and detailed. Oh, so this is the one. It seems like it's the one. Okay. You know, loosely over this show's history, we talked about kids that point to fighter pilots and say that was me and I crashed and I died and I had and they had uncanny knowledge of their co-pilots, their fleet, their planes, but not much more than that. And as they grow up, they kind of lose those memories. And so I think the idea of the afterlife, previous life, screen incarnation has always been very, very integral to the human curiosity, just like our nature. What is our true nature? Lots to explore here. So before we do, there's some housekeeping I want to get into because I'm excited about this. Last Friday, we released our movie club of matrix revolutions. And so that closes out the matrix, the trilogy of exploring the matrix trilogy Wednesday. This coming Wednesday, we have a poll. So if you ever want to choose what kind of movies games or topics we explore on this podcast, that is the place to do it. And then Friday, we have our monthly gameplay. We are toying with the idea of doing enter the matrix. I've got it on GameCube. We'll see. Otherwise, it's definitely going to be a horror gameplay or something you're familiar with. But that's happening this Friday. Also, if you didn't know right here in the very RSS feed, you're listening to us right now. We have our bi-weekly scary stories podcast this Thursday, every other Thursday. I walk Fredo through another creepy pasta. And we're starting to get into SCPs now, which everyone's been excited about. So come hang out on Friday, come get terrified with us. Okay. Yes, we've got a lot to explore with Dorothy E.D., I can't believe how much information there is. We've put it off for a while. I can't wait any longer. Let's dive in. So Dorothy, Luis E.D., was born January 16th, 1904 in Black Heath, London, England. Right out the gate, thanks to public domain, we do have an image of Dorothy E.D., so take a look Fredo. Oh, it's very glamorous photo. It's a glamorous photo. Wow. It's like a vintage photo with like studio lighting and absolutely. Yeah. This is like silver screen era glam. It really is. There you go. That nails it. We don't smile. We just smize and smold her. You know, we just look good was not expecting that. No, obviously this isn't her in her youth. This is her as a young woman. But yeah, we're going to explore her through all the different phases of her life. So now you kind of have a face to go with the name. So she was the only child to her father and mother. You have Ruben Ernest Edie and then Caroline Mary Edie and the family just for all intents and purposes, you know, so we have a strong foundation to work off of. They were considered to be lower middle class. Her father was a master tailor. Her mother was a homemaker. The family lived a normal life until, as you can imagine, Dorothy was just three years old. And around this time period, she took a terrible spill down the flight of stairs. And while laying unconscious at the bottom, by all intents and purposes, her parents thought she was absolutely lifeless. I don't know if they checked for a pulse or didn't know to do that. But yeah, I think this is by some accounts, the stairs that went down to their basement. And so she just happened to trip or fall in some way and is now lying at the bottom of the stairs in the basement. And her parents are terrified so they call the family doctor to come examine her. And he too, pronounces her dead, right? We got a doctor on scene within the hour, clock in that body. Now an hour later, okay? This all happens at a very tight hour. I was, I really wanted to figure out the timeline here, but it happens fast. An hour later, as the family is making arrangements for her funeral again, we're moving fast. Dorothy awakes. She sits straight up in her bed and appears happy and calm as if nothing had happened. However, in the time after this accident, Dorothy did start to exhibit strange behaviors. So in the immediate aftermath, it's like nothing ever happened, happy as a clam, right? But as the days go on, it's, you know, it's unclear if these behaviors started immediately, like as soon as she woke up, there are conflicting reports, some say immediately upon waking, some say hours, and some say days later, right? This is one of those stories where the vaguities are going to start to build. Now one of the peculiar new behaviors was that Dorothy would cry and chant that she wanted to be, quote, "brought home," end quote. And this would be when she's literally at the house. She would be inconsolable. No matter how much her parents pleaded with her and insisted you are home, don't worry, you're safe, you're in your bed, you're in your bedroom. She would continue to kind of cry out, no, I want to be brought home. Dorothy would tell her parents of her current dreams she was having. This is something that would follow her through the rest of her life. Dreams about large buildings with tall columns, gardens of fruits and of flowers. And she also developed some time after the accident what's called foreign accent syndrome or FAS. Okay. And she began speaking with what sounded like an accent, but no one could quite determine where she would have learned this accent or exactly what the accent was. We tried to look into it and see if a professional was ever there to diagnose it. But ultimately, foreign accent syndrome is an extremely rare neurological disorder where a person begins to speak in a way that sometimes it is an accent outside of their normal dialect, outside of their native language, but often times it's described as a speech pattern. That's just a typical of how they would have sounded before. So usually it's caused by like a brain injury, such as a fall down a stair. Now according to Cleveland Clinic, FAS was first described in 1907. So pretty much within the year of her incident, right? She's born in 1904, three years old, 1907, that same year a French neurologist Pierre-Marie regarded a patient who, after suffering a stroke, began to speak French with an Alsatian accent for whatever reason. And since then, over the span of like 120 years almost, there have been about 100 confirmed cases. So less than one per year across the world, it's extremely rare, but not impossible. Now her parents are getting quite concerned, right? She's asking to go home. She's starting to speak in an unfamiliar accent, and of course, they're deeply puzzled. But then a random breakthrough in what's going on seems to occur. At the age of four, her family happens to take a trip to the British Museum. They wandered into the New Kingdom Temple exhibit, which was filled with images and artifacts from ancient Egypt. The New Kingdom era of Egypt, just so you know, is from 1550 BC to around 1070 BC. So we're talking about 3,000 to 3,500 years ago, plus some change a long time ago. This is like the golden age of ancient Egypt. This is where all the big names come from, ramsies of the second, tuton common. It's just like, if you have some casual understanding of ancient Egypt, odds are it's from this time period. Now some sources report that it was specifically the Temple of Seti of the First that truly peaked Dorothy's interests and captured her attention here at the British Museum. Seti of the First is going to be somebody we talk about quite extensively throughout the end of this episode, but seti of the First was the father of ramsies the Great. aka Ramsey's the second who then ushered in the 19th dynasty of, as a Pharaoh, I think he reigned for like 50 plus years. So a very big name, and that seems as like a sizeable life during that time period. Oh, yeah, totally, totally. Now as the story goes upon entering Dorothy's shouted, this is my home, and she was frantic. She was so excited. Reportedly she began running through the exhibit, kissing the feet of statues, shouting "Where are the trees? Where are the gardens?" And from this point on, as you can imagine, Dorothy became extremely fascinated with ancient Egypt. So this is her first, like, phase of this reincarnation story before I unveil any more details. I'm very curious what stands out to you hearing this for the first time for you. How long after did she visit this whole museum place? It's a good question. Just about a year, give or take. So three when it happened, the accident, and four when she went to this museum. It just seems, man, I mean, the initial thought was like, okay, you know, she had this incident happened to her, and then this is where everything changed. But to have it happen a year later, and at this location, like what would have happened if she didn't visit this location, would anything have ever happened? So it's very, there's a big huge time gap here, which brings so much into question for me, I think. Sure. I mean, it's good to go about it with a skeptical mind, and I think you're asking a very fascinating question. If this moment never happened, would she have discovered who she ended up being? Yep. Exactly. Would something else have filled that gap? Or would this have become a distant memory? I never thought about that. That's a good question. And so that's, that's where my mind is at, and that's the hard thing for me. I'm just like, where is that? Like, what would that have done? And so now looking for pieces to really tie together that this is not just a spur-of-the-moment thing. Right. Right. But something dormant, I guess, was awakened. So I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. And we'll talk about that too, because if it is reincarnation in theory, it would happen at birth, right? But so what is interesting about that accident outside of any sort of injury that might have left? There's some, there's some theories that attempt to explain the metaphysics there. But so that is her like youth, her like toddler era. Now we're in her kind of early life as a child. So these peculiarities did begin to stack up. In fact, they started to disrupt her life in many ways. For example, she was kicked out of class by her Sunday school teacher after she compared Christianity to ancient Egyptian religion, which anybody who has a casual understanding of either religion would definitely understand there are very big overlaps. Symbology and stories, there's a lot of things that feel shared between the two. But of course, in Sunday school, that's not really what a teacher would want to hear. And so I can understand that being a bit blasphemous and off she is sent. In fact, it's not the only time she was kicked out of school. She was expelled from her all-girls school because she refused to sing a hymn that God would quote, curse the Egyptians and quote, as it insulted her ancestors. This is what she's saying now as a young woman or like a young girl. I won't say this because it insults my ancestors. Now there is an adjective before Egyptians that I'm dropping from the quote because I do believe that term is archaic and potentially problematic. It's essentially just a descriptor for the darker skin tone of the Egyptians. But and I say that because I did actually look up this quote. I really wanted to find, okay, well, what is this hymn? I've never heard of a hymn that says these words and every result across Google, when you search Christian hymn and include these words, points to Dorothy Edie. There is no isolated result that doesn't mention Dorothy. And so I don't know, is this some sort of homebrew type of hymn or is this like a main up element of the story? I don't know. I'm very curious. I never went to Sunday school. I don't know how many hymns are kind of brought up or like made up on the spotter in class versus out of the Bible. But it stood out to me and that's kind of something of interest there. So even with this turmoil in her life, people kind of not really understanding where she's coming from saying the Egyptians are her ancestors and stuff. Dorothy is still continuing to visit the exhibit at the British Museum pretty much as often as she can. As far as we can tell, sometimes it's like daily that she's going there, but every time she went, it would be for hours. We know that she went relatively frequently given your average person. And was she causing like a ruckus there like was she going and just like observing peace? I mean, this is like, I don't know, I don't think so. I think she's going maybe kissing the statues again, but like, I've been there. You can definitely touch, I don't know if you're supposed to, but you could definitely touch these ancient stones that we, I mean, our hands are just eroding them down slowly. But like, there's a lot to see and there's a lot behind glass artifacts and things. There's there's so much ancient Egyptian history at the British Museum is overwhelming. So I could see one going back continuously and just doing that, you would learn so much. The osmosis of like information you would get from all these different eras is insane. But I don't think she's causing a ruckus there. I think so far, it's localized to her more intimate relationships like her teachers, her family, her friends, whatever at school and some peaceful, like, observative visits to this place. Seems like it. Okay. She's there often enough that she eventually meets somebody. And she must be a polite visitor in order for this person to engage with her, but a man named EA Wallace Budge, this, I do have an image of him if you want to take a look. Budge was an Egyptologist and philologist who worked there at the British Museum. So for him to kind of take her under his wing, she at least was respectful and interesting and curious at the museum. Not going, I'm from here, you know, like, right. Exactly. Again, I mean, a distinguished looking gentleman with his glasses and his suit and his little bow tie and another great photo. Yeah, absolutely. So I'll break it down. Egyptologist easily, somebody who studies and specializes in ancient Egyptian history, their texture, writings and culture. And so this guy being essentially an expert in this working at the British Museum is a wonderful tutor and teacher to a young Dorothy Edie. Now on top of that, he was also a philologist, somebody who studies language and language throughout historical documents and texts. So this is kind of giving us not only an understanding of her ongoing and developing story of reincarnation, but also the understanding of a young woman and how she's growing fascinated by something and how she's learning about that thing. Both of these two through threads will kind of show up in the theories as we discuss the dichotomy of this situation. Is it reincarnation or is it something else? So some reports state that at age 10, Budge began to teach Dorothy how to read hieroglyphics. However, others report that this was as early as age 6, either way, she does eventually mention that hieroglyphics seem oddly familiar to her and he does end up trying to teach her at some age regardless. Now around this time that she's learning about these hieroglyphics, she also begins to make claims that the Temple of Seti I was the temple that she had been seeing in her dreams when she was younger. So now it's been a handful of years, you know, she mentions these dreams of tall pillars and stone walls and things, seeing gardens and all of that. As she's becoming familiar with these artifacts in the museum, she's starting to look at Seti I, the Temple of Seti I and say that looks really familiar. I think that might be what I've been seeing in my dreams and she also starts to say that she recognizes Seti I personally, like Pharaoh Seti I from 3,500 years ago, she's like, I know that face. It's interesting because when she first visits the museum, it's like, she's kind of over the top, you know. Sure. And then it really does, again, takes another turn where it starts to calm down and then she starts to learn more and then even then that seems like there's things have settled. But after some time it picks up again. Yeah. The pacing here is not, it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just not what I expected. That's a great observation because it's exactly how it feels is like, as we learn more of her as a woman and a young person here, we learn more about the reincarnation story. And they both develop together. And I think that is a fascinating thing that I'm glad you latched onto that because otherwise that face value, I would have also been like, okay, reincarnation story, what's she going to be saying at the age of four? It's going to be bang, bang, bang. It's going to be all these details and how does that come to fruition? How do we analyze that? But it is a slow unfurling of, oh, you know what? Now that I have a name for this temple, I think this is what I was seeing. And now that I know that name, you know what, that person looks familiar. And so this chapter kind of pauses for a little bit too because she narrowly escapes a bombing raid during World War I. I mean, she lives a wild life. Dorothy went on to then live in Sussex with her grandmother. Here she was actually able to continue learning about ancient Egypt. This time through books that she would borrow from the library. So a little less hands on, but it broadened her horizons now into literature, which offers way more visuals than just a limited pool of artifacts. that I didn't think that she would have such like deep access to all the Egyptian cultured stuff. - Mm-hmm. And so now it becomes a potential issue of is this something that was in her mind or did she pull from this because she's been learning, you know? - Yeah, yeah, totally. - Yeah. - Catch 22 is this the chicken or the egg. And I have this later in my notes as part of the theories conversation, but I feel like you just earned that here and now. Why is she maybe obsessed with Egypt? I don't wanna answer that, but I will say that we're at a unique time in British history. Especially the late Victorian era, we have now moved out of that. We're in the teens to pushing 1920, I believe. So we're kind of out of the Egyptomania phase, but Britain went through kind of an Egyptomania kind of moment where there was a lot of attention on Egyptian culture, ancient Egyptian religion, artifacts, all sorts of things. It's just a very fascinating thing. I think all of us in our youths also go through that. Me personally, I was wildly obsessed with the religion of ancient Egypt, the idea of the pyramids, how they were built, the layout of culture and just like, it was such an impressive civilization so long ago, how could you not be fascinated by it? - Yep, I agree. But it was something happening in the zeitgeist, you've clocked that for sure. So is this an interest out of a genuine reincarnation story or is it an interest earned because of the osmosis through what's around her? It's a question I want to hold on to, you know? So now she's about 15 years old and she begins to describe being visited at night by the mummy of Pharaoh, Sety the First. We'll talk more about this later and we'll talk more about Sety the First in general, but I do have an image of Sety the First, at least his face, if you want to take a look at this. It is a mummy, so maybe some minor viewer discretion is advised, but. - Whoa, it's wild how preserved it is. - It's wild, isn't it? - Yeah, it looks almost like fake and plastic. - Right, like I feel like if I soaked it in water, it would come back to life a little bit. - Yeah, no, I agree with that. It's a weird thing to say, but. - That's a little, yeah, the preservation is astounding. - Yeah, dude, mummification process as gnarly as it is, is deeply impressive how some of these bodies have held up for this long. - Also this man's jawline isn't sane. - That's the thing is he's a handsome fella, you know what I'm saying? Like I can see. - What the heck? - He's got a cut jaw. - Yeah, he does. - He's smiling in these photos just like the other two. (laughing) But you will see that she has a growing obsession with Sety the First. This becomes the person that she's seen through her dreams. And what's interesting about a lot of these revelations is that a lot of these things, her talking about seeing the pharaoh in her dreams, seeing a mummy, et cetera. A lot of these come post-mortem from her journals. And so not a lot of this made it into her immediate family or friend's circle when she was alive. And so maybe that's why some of this unfurled behind the scenes for her, but she wasn't so loud and out about it because in her youth she was kind of punished about it. You know, people thought it was weird. - True. - So it makes it kind of hard to tell heads or tails. What's real? What's storytelling? What's embellished when developments happen? Like when did she first see the mummy, pharaoh said he the first in her dreams? Was it 15 or was that just when she first journaled it? All of those things remain questions. But despite that, it seems true that these vivid dreams continued throughout her life. From four years old, now to 15. And they were so vivid, they were often coupled with nightmares and she was a well-documented sleep walker. You know, through these night terrors, she would almost get up and perhaps act it out, you know? And we'll talk a little bit more about that too because it dovetails in with the idea of sleep paralysis. We did a whole episode on that and like, the demons people have seen over time, your experience, Christian, our producers experience. But all of this, as you can imagine for a young woman, led her to being admitted to mental hospitals several times. You know, she would be admitted, but they would kind of question if she needed to be there because by all intents and purposes, she's just a regular person that deeply believes a few of these otherwise strange things, right? But her mental faculties are still about her. Now, eventually she left school in 1920. So there's your timeline. She's 16 in 1920. And she continues to study and visit museums, archaeological sites all across Britain. And it's unclear why she dropped out, although one source states that it was to work with her father at the movie theater that he had recently purchased. To me, just as somebody who has hyperfixation sometimes, I can see somebody who has this level of an interest saying school is kind of getting in the way of me just learning everything I can about ancient civilizations or Egypt. Especially because like school itself is so broad. It's like, let's teach you a little bit everything. It's like, oh, I kind of know what my focus is now, so. - Yeah, and some people just don't thrive in that omnidirectional school system, right? At just seven classes at once, I'm distracted. So at this point in her life, things seem to continue on as normal. She was a part-time student at Plymouth Art School of Plymouth, UK, and collected ancient Egyptian antiquities. As you could imagine, it just continues to build her fascination. So not much is known about Dorothy during her late teens and early 20s. We kinda go dark again until we hit her young adulthood and her kind of marriage life. So she comes back on the radar at 27 when she moves back to London. She had accepted a job at an Egyptian public relations magazine where she was a writer and a cartoonist. It was also during this time that she met her future husband, Imam Abdul Megid. Now, Megid was Egyptian himself, and in 1933, the pair moved to Cairo in order to be married. Once the two were married, she then took on the name Bulbul Abdul Megid for herself. The pair had one son whom she named Seti in honor of the late Pharaoh. However, kind of jumping to the end here, the marriage, well, immediately suffered. Dorothy acted like she was living in ancient Egypt rather than modern day. And so many believe that her move to Cairo further exacerbated these underlying feelings, these beliefs, and the marriage kind of suffered because it was super not the priority. She was way more obsessed with Seti the first and this idea of who she once was rather than who she is now in this current Egypt. - See, again, there's this huge jump in time. You know, even to the fact where, you know, she dated somebody else and they got married and there he liked that. And so you would think that, okay, there is a sense of normalcy for some time, which is things I'm not expecting here, 'cause you expect this shift to happen and then the shift to be consistent, but there's these subtle gaps in between. And so I'm just so curious as to how that plays out. And so if it is something like reincarnation or if it's more of the mind, you know, and someone that's something's going on there deep in their brain. - Absolutely, you know, I don't want to pretend to even come close to diagnosing anybody, but is this truly an obsession based on something very, very interesting going on? And being in Cairo lights up that fire like she did when she was four and walking to the museum. Did it just continue to ignite something real and fascinating underneath it all? Or this is where I'm talking about diagnosing or does it kind of feed a delusion or like a false reality and make her fall more into what she believes is going on versus who she is? I don't know, you know, it is, it's very interesting and unfortunate, I would say heartbreaking. You know, there is a child in the mix, but the fact that the marriage suffered for the idea of who she once was, it's smarter folks than I could, I'm sure, weigh in on that. But it is, you're right, it seems to come in bursts at key moments in her life and just looking back, 27, I feel like that's when I was stepping into my final form and I'm sure I'll become 40 and go, no, no, no, no, you weren't final form yet, but like it was an integral moment in my life. I would say toddler becoming a teen like 16, 15 to 18 and then around 27 and these are all moments that she is having almost DLC, right? She's got more lore dropping in this reincarnation scenario, you know, and it's becoming more vivid, I can't help but see that pattern. But we haven't even gotten to the good stuff and why people are so convinced about this being a reincarnation story. That comes here now that she's in Egypt, it's about to happen. According to Dorothy, around 1300 BC, there was a girl named Ben Tresheet. Ben Tresheet was 14 years old and the daughter of a soldier and a vegetable seller. The girl had been chosen to be an apprentice virgin priestess in her words and an ancient Egypt priestesses were young women who were trained in instruments, traditions, religious texts, things like that. All with the goal of appeasing deities and with some cynicism, I have to imagine the wealthy of some kind. It's a bit odd, but we have Ben Tresheet who is a 14 year old who she describes in her memory here. This is Dorothy speaking. There's this woman named Ben Treschi, it was 14 years old, very very beautiful, uniquely beautiful. In fact, she caught the attention of Pharaoh setting the first while she was studying to become this priestess. The pair then would get pregnant, but the act would have to be secret as Ben Tresheat was off limits as a temple priestess. I don't want to be crass, but this kind of reminds me of the mummy. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - Emotep, kind of like getting busy with the priestess and then the Pharaoh's like, you know, who's touched you kind of thing. Actually, he was a priest. Was Anoxinamune, was she a priestess? - I don't know, she was a priestess, but she was definitely like-- - Royal, right, a daughter. - I think it was the daughter. I think it was like, I think it was a daughter. I think it was just like-- - Oh, it was like a love interest, right? - A love interest, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - Like the Pharaoh and so like that. And so it was like, it was like a whole affair thing and he was so jealous that he painted her body, so then you could tell if someone laid hands on her. - Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it was. So, parallels here. But again, so they got pregnant and secret and in order to save the Pharaoh, who would have been implicated, had any of this news broke, Ben Tresheat committed suicide in order to save his reputation and kind of hide this sturdy secret away. So heartbroken now, Pharaoh said he vowed to never forget her and that he would be with her again sometime in the future. Again, very mummy coded. Continuing this story, Dorothy reveals that she is the reincarnation of Ben Tresheat and began to call herself not Ben Tresheat, but Omsedi, which translates to mother of Sedi. What's interesting is that she is literally the mother of Sedi because she has a son named Sedi. But I was kind of like, this is my little like, well, technically if this is a reincarnation story and you were in love with Sedi, I don't know if you would be the mother of, but I guess if you died while pregnant, you would have been a mother with Sedi. So I don't know, I'm splitting hairs here, but that's kind of the story now, is that she's kind of landed on and that's why the temple is familiar, it's why Sedi's familiar, but we'll talk more about Ben Tresheat here in a little bit. This episode of Redweb is sponsored by Ridge. Let me tell you something task force. I am not a big fan of a chunky brick of a wallet, shoved up in my back pocket, ruining my back when I'm driving. I love a sleek, low profile RFID blocking wallet, but I also love their power brick because it attaches to the back of my phone and charges it wirelessly when I'm on the go, but task force, they have so much more than that. Phone cases, watch straps, power adapters, rings, wedding bands, backpacks, duffel bags, carry-on suitcases, they got a lot for you, and we all know Father's Day is coming up. So this year, yet dad's something he's gonna use every single day, like a Ridge wallet. And go ahead and get yourself up to 40% off at Ridge.com/RedWeb. Ridge wallet has a unique slim, modern design that holds up to 12 cards plus cash. We all know Dad's love cash. Ridge wallets are made with premium materials like aluminum, titanium, and carbon fiber, which makes them reliable. They're durable, they're guaranteed for life, baby. And let me tell you something, Dad's. Ridge was built by a Father and Son. It's designed to meet the same standards Dad set every day. All Ridge products come with a lifetime warranty. This is literally the last wallet you or your Dad will ever buy. Like I said, I love Ridge. I love their RFID blocking wallets. I love the key case. So if you want a slim, low profile way to carry your keys around, they got you covered there. And they've really broadened what else they offer. So if you're looking for something sleek and modern, all of their stuff fits this really cool vibe. For a limited time, Ridge is running their huge Father's Day sale where you can get up to 40% off their best gear. Just head to ridge.com/RedWeb. And don't miss out on one of their biggest discounts all year. That's ridge.com/RedWeb for up to 40% off. And after you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you. Ridge.com/RedWeb. So that's the story now that she has for her reincarnation and who she was and why she had this familiarity. But remember I said something about the journals before. Well, I want to dive into the revelations of those journals because she kept those throughout her life. And some of the revelations include like at 14. She experienced numerous dream visits with Pharaoh Sidi the first. She noted that one night she had relations with the mummy of Sidi the first, which she believed to be his astral body. I'm softening the language by saying relations, but maybe you can infer further. But she believed Sidi had come back for her just as he had promised, right? And so that's why now that she's having these memories, Sidi is coming to her in her dreams to once again reunite them. She noted that he continued to visit her and the visits increased over the years rather than diminishing, which is interesting. A lot of reincarnation cases kind of dwindle. She wrote of the encounters often and in present tense, right? So she's in her personal journals, not expecting anyone to read this. And she writes something quote, "His majesty drops in for a moment, but couldn't stay. "He was hosting a banquet in a mentee," end quote. And a mentee being a type of heaven or like the afterlife, the underworld. I believe if I remember correctly, a mentee might be the iteration of the afterlife that is in the west where the sunsets, where the souls go, but there are a few different iterations of the underworld in Egyptian religion there. But it is interesting. She's basically blogging and saying like, he came again tonight, but he had to go. He had a party in heaven, you know? Again, it jumps all over the place. It's so subtle that it ramps up. But then now it seems like we're really like full blown committed to it. - Well yeah, and if you believe it, right? These journals are from her teenage years. And so we're going backwards to add more color in. But can you believe that I don't know? Like I'm not staring right at the journals. I wasn't, you know, there are, it's the game of telephone a little bit, but you're right. We are getting a lot more context in like massive drops. Now, there's a few other stories throughout her journals where she receives nighttime visitations, people providing context to her for like about her previous life. And so this is how she makes sense of the details building over her life because she's having these visits from SETI and others from her previous life who are kind of telling her more about herself. And so instead of all of it coming at once at the beginning, the spirits are telling her more. And so that's why you're getting more lower drops as she ages is why it seems. - Right. - She also believed that she was visited by an entity named Hoorah, like Horace and Ra combined, Hoorah, who she claimed was also the spirit of SETI the first. She said that over a year long period, SETI would visit her and detail the story of her past. She would write everything down and her journal ended up being 70 pages of hieroglyphic text, but not all the time as she's sitting there intentionally writing. In fact, her husband actually witnessed this. He recounts seeing her one time enter a translike state. She would rise from her bed, walk over to the journal and then begin writing in hieroglyphics. This is sometimes referred to as automatic writing, a practice where a person produces written records or written words without conscious thought. It's also called psychography, where in a psychic might use this ability to kind of try to talk to the other side right unconsciously, so that way they become kind of a conduit of somebody else's words. But yeah, so like she's basically getting up out of bed and writing almost like while she's sleepwalking is what it sounds like, but in a trans. - So there's a lot of different forms of communication and seems like it's going on here. - Mostly through dreams, which I think is really interesting. - Really interesting. Now this piece is fascinating because it's the only external witness outside of Dorothy's own perspective. So there was one occasion where Dorothy's father-in-law, this would be Imam's father. He said that he saw a Pharaoh sitting on the edge of Dorothy's bed and this terrified him so much that he ran out of the house. This is the only known encounter like this, but it's one external party actually validating this idea of an ancient Egyptian presence. - So like I kind of hinted at earlier, her husband becomes distressed by this behavior. They're now living in Cairo. She's very much head over heels with this setting the first and this idea of who she once was. And so. - This is wild. It's just like the now thing, like you said, they're now in Cairo. So this is like kind of going deeper, almost enabling it a little bit. - Yeah, maybe that's the right word. Not intentionally or anything. I mean, he is an Egyptian man, but I'm sure that also brings its own complications to the table. - You ever been, you ever been cucked by a ghost? - Very much what's going on here, man. - I'm like, this is over the top stop. This is, I don't know. But then again, it's a marriage. And so I'm sure he's like fighting to keep it together. - Oh, totally, oh, totally. They got a son. I'm sure this is unenviably complicated, but ultimately though, they make the decision in 1936 to divorce. Though she seemed relatively unbothered by this development, as far as we can tell through these various sources. And with regards to Cairo, she didn't want to leave because she of course believed that this was her true home. And so she did, in fact, stay in Egypt. And I think that's for the best because she then worked at the Department of Antiquities. This was to support her son. And she was seen as, yes, highly eccentric, But there was no doubt that she provided a wealth of knowledge. about ancient Egyptian culture and history. She kind of had this quirk of belief. She thought she was a woman from 1300 BC, but of course, her whole life is dedicated to ancient Egypt, and so she's very smart. She proved to be particularly useful on excavations, able to provide inexplicable details that puzzled her colleagues. We'll talk about those in a second, but this is why people believe the reincarnation story. She has knowledge that make people ask, how did you know that without having an actual memory of this place? - Yeah, sounds about the same. It does validate to an extent, you know, when you're sitting there and you have these other colleagues and they're kind of vouching for information that she knows. - These are other experts too. I mean, you imagine being at an excavation site. You know, you've stumbled into some hard stone and so you're like, oh my gosh, there's a foundation here. Let's start digging, let's look. And then door at the ED walks up. And I'm not trying to make this sound like exaggerated. This is kind of how it went. She was there at one of the excavation sites and using what she says was memories of her past life, she would delegate teams. She would say, literally, quote, dig here. I remember the ancient garden was here, end quote. And so one of the teams would go to dig where she told them to and sure enough, upon digging where she had indicated they did find the remains of a long gone garden. - And she called out their garden being there? - She called out the garden. And then she also pointed out, I don't know if she called this one out, but I, she might have. I think she indicated to the north side of the temple. She said, dig around here. I believe this is where SETI had his underground passage. And yes, that is where an underground tunnel was excavated and discovered and having nobody else knew about this. It is her ancient memory is what she says, this past life that told her I've been here, I know this place, dig there and they find stuff. What do you say? - I mean, even if she's like one for three, that's still pretty crazy because of the detail that she gave, right? Or it's like, there's a garden here. And then so it was like, there's something here and then there was something there and then the other ones, not necessarily, then sure. But to be like, there's specifically a garden here and then that's discovered, man. - I think it'd be wildly different if she was like, there's something here. And I'm like, well, you're excavating around a temple. Odds are, you're gonna find something even if it's a coin or a piece of a pot. - Exactly. - But when you go, I remember the gardens being here. I think this is where we should look and the gardens show up. That's pretty baller. - Pretty baller, that's, there's, oh man, so I could see how a lot of people hang their head on that one. 'Cause there's a lot there. And it's something, it's something pretty big too. - And I think like the hidden tunnel is even more interesting. We'll talk about the pragmatic side as to, you know, is this reincarnation proof or is this something else? We'll talk about both of those spots. But while considered eccentric, her contributions were so great and undeniable. She had earned the utmost respect from her colleagues who obviously largely benefited from her past life recollections. You know, this is what they're there to do. They're making large discoveries and she is helping speed up that process, right? She's helping you make these discoveries. This is wonderful. So Dorothy also worked with several archaeologists to organize the discoveries made. She provided important information and editorial experience that aided these archaeologists with their written reports of their findings. In 1952 and in 1954, Dorothy made visits to the Great Temple, Abados. This was also known as the Temple of Setty the First. I do have a picture of it. It's wider than this picture, but I liked the details of this one. So this is the one I chose. But-- - Oh, that's beautiful. - It's gorgeous. But this is the entrance way to the Temple of Setty the First Nabidos. - Like a movie set. - It really is that warm sandstone. Mm, gorgeous. - That's cool. - And you think of this like, I don't know what it actually would have looked like in those times, you know, well lit with fires and torches and maybe painted, you know, like glitzed out perhaps, but with plants and other things. Like imagine the life, any sort of tapestry or like fabrics and people walking around. I can't imagine what it would look like. - Oh yeah, I could not. I absolutely could not imagine that. That's so cool. - Yeah, it's just, again, ancient Egypt is I think much like Titanic. One of those things that at least for me was a big phase of my life. How do you not have that phase? Okay, so regarding this temple, Pharaoh said he the first did not live in this temple. He did die before its completion, but it was still built under his supervision and the designs were definitely under his nose, right? It was also intended to be a memorial temple made to honor the god Osiris and worship earlier Pharaohs. Quince Denali, Osiris was the ancient Egyptian god for the underworld, afterlife, resurrection, fertility, a few things like that. Now, after her visits to the temple, Dorothy was even more convinced, right? You're now seeing this unfurling of the story mixed with a growing confidence in this past life. At this point, she was dead certain. I mean, she always was, but she was very convinced, like uncanny valley, deja vu. I've been here, I lived here, I know this place. In 1956 Dorothy begged to be transferred back to Abados for work, a transfer which was then granted. She stated that she had, quote, "one aim in life." And that was to go to Abados, to live in Abados, and to be buried in Abados and, quote. - She's all in at this point. - She's all in. - Over everything. I mean, the marriage is completely shattered at this point. And she's, yeah, she's committed. - Yeah, this is now almost 20 years on at this point. So she's well and truly on her own path, chasing after the things. I think her son at this point has moved to Kuwait for work purposes. We don't really know much more than that. So yeah, she's really kicking it now in Abados. I believe either lived in Abados or one town over, but ultimately she was scheduled to retire at 60 in 1964. But at her request, she did continue to work for an additional five years. She did finally retire in 1969 and lived in a small, impoverished village just outside of Abados. And in fact, I do actually, I forgot I put this in here. We have an image of elderly Dorothy here right out of the front of the temple here at Abados. - Oh yeah, she's got layers on and she looks like she's having a great time out here. - She's thriving. - Even then, it's just like, you don't really get too much of the involving the children and stuff, you know? Just simply because she was just so invested into all this. - Yep, so in her last few years, she lived on a pension of only $30 per month in a string of houses that she shared with cats, donkeys, and pet vipers, which I didn't know was a thing. She earned extra income by selling needle point embroideries to tourists. And in the end, she did get her wish as she lived within walking distance of the temple where she spent many of her aging years telling her stories to all who would listen, including archaeologists. And I think the fact that now in her twilight years of her life, the story has developed over her life. She has the most details she's ever going to have. This is I think when the intrigue really started to spread and ripple out. It's how people like you and I now talk about it. And that's why I think you see like bursts of detail throughout her life, but otherwise, it's not until these later years that we really have the full context of this reincarnation story. To build on this image of her, we've talked casually about some of the opinions surrounding her. Well, there was one archaeologist that she talked to, named James P. Allen, who worked at the American Research Center there in Cairo. He described her as the patron saint of Egyptology, saying essentially quote, "I don't know of an American archaeologist in Egypt who doesn't respect her," end quote. And so I do like that, despite the eccentricities, despite what you may or may not believe about this reincarnation story, the fact that she has brought so much to the Egyptology arena with her knowledge and her discoveries, I think that will be her true legacy ultimately. And it's nice to see that. It's not like her whole life is thrown out as like, oh, who is this person making up this story and then completely disrespected at the end of life? It's nice to see that. Yeah, I think that's one of the wildest things about this is that she did have legitimacy in the field. Right. And again, I'll say this, you think it's like, OK, she's going to have this incident. And then the personality is going to change. Or she's seen stuff and it's off to the races. But no, she lived a life. And even one where people respected her authority or her expertise on the situation. And it's just like, that's not what I expected. But then the deep details, you know, people that I'm known her during that time was like, oh, she was also very heavily involved in terms of what she mentally thought was going on. And she was experiencing and everything like that. That's something. It is something, you know, not to, again, not to be blunt about it because she did have times where she was under psychiatric evaluation when she was younger in and out of health care and things. But I do appreciate that there was more going on to the store. than someone being like, "Oh, grandma's losing it. "Let's just throw her in some assisted living "and forget about her." Like, because they don't believe this deep story that has now guided her entire life, you know? So like, I know that that's gonna be the conversation at the end of this, whether we believe or not. But again, like, it's nice to see there's a level of respect maintained and earned. So at the end of her life, you know, her health starts to decline quite a bit. She suffers a heart attack, she has a broken knee, she suffers from dysentery, among other ailments and illnesses. In fact, her son even invites her to come live with him up in Kuwait, but she does decline because she says she's determined to, once again, die and be buried in Obados. And she does pass away on April 21, 1981, at the age of 77 in the village, neighboring Obados. And now it's not lost on me that we are recording this on her death day, so happy death day, Dorothy Edie. So she was buried with a tomb in the western side of her garden, which was in line with ancient Egyptian ritual. And at the head of this tomb sits a carving of the God Isis with her wings outspread. This is the goddess of magic, motherhood, healing and fertility. Now here at the end of her life, as she kind of rests now forever, despite the peculiarity of her beliefs and the circumstances, you know, like we were talking about, there isn't a lot of widespread disbelief in her teachings. Like no one's really out here thinking that she's some sort of con artist, or that there's any sort of hoax here. And you know, that usually is the conversation. Was this a real X, Y, or Z, or was it a hoax? I don't think that that's our conversation here at all. I think that this is a true case of reincarnation, or this isn't reincarnation, but something much more complex. And that's going to guide the conversation I think that we have here. But before we dive into those, any thoughts, before I kind of unfurl some other, other thinking's at ya. - No, I kind of wanna get like a moral picture and keep going and see what's going on here. - Yeah, so let's analyze this from the perspective that this is a true case of reincarnation. That would be groundbreaking. Because again, there's been a few past life memories, a few, like there's many people out there that have memories of near death experiences, but really it's hard to evaluate those. This is of all of those things, the most vivid of its kind. And of course, leading the conversation are her discoveries and her wealth of unexplained knowledge about Abados. How did she know about that yet to be uncovered temple features like the Garden or the Underground Tunnel? There were no modern maps pointing out these ruins. There was no other reason why other experts wouldn't have known about that. Like, it's not like she went, oh well, because of the layout here, I think that, yes, she was smart and she knew her stuff, but like, nobody else would have thought to dig here is the kind of understanding. - Yeah, like again, that brings legitimacy to it. But I think overall though, I do, you know, we didn't really get anything too hardcore in terms of evidence, you know? - Sure. - You think maybe that'd be the snowball effect there? - How do you mean? - In terms of like, you know, she pointed out a place and there was legitimacy to it and then it'd be more more information and she'd be like, I don't know, just bring more legitimacy in terms of more things brought to the surface that only she knew and no one else really knew and strengthen that whole theory of like, reincarnation and the connection that she has. - It's interesting. I definitely want to re-approach this. I kind of wanted to go tit for tat. Like, did I want to go through each item and then say yes and no? I have thoughts on this from the skeptical side, but for the sake of organization, I'll hold it for that to be more organized because it is very, very interesting. I mean, that is just hard to deny. I have my thoughts and I'll share them, but another thing that I almost wanted to mention earlier, Egyptologist EA Wallace Budge, the guy who worked at the British Museum and kind of took her under his wing, he notices that she's there almost daily for hours. And so he's like, all right, let me help teach you what I know, let me teach you about hieroglyphics. And he's on record as indicating that she learned hieroglyphics faster than he thought was possible. He said, like this is kind of his recollection, he's saying like her absorption of hieroglyphics seemed to be less a product of learning from a smart child and more of the product of memory as if someone was recalling that they knew how to read hieroglyphics. And I don't know if that is colored by his knowledge of this reincarnation story or if that's just, she was such a good student that this is evidence for the reincarnation story 'cause like if he said this in isolation, that's strong evidence, right? That's interesting evidence. - Yeah, and we'll never know like the intricate details of the conversation behind closed doors. But there'd be things like, oh, you know, I'm teaching you this and she'd be like, oh, like this and like that, you know what I mean? Like things are just like, oh, this is someone clearly reaching back into the depths of their mind. - I mean, nice, we say it all the time for like either right away or more specifically a movie club and we make references to older things like why you pulled that out of my brain, you know? - Right, yeah. - And then, but then it's like, you'll say something it pulls out of my mind and then I'll give more context and detail to it. So it's like, was that the rhythm and the nuance that was going on behind closed doors because yeah, at that point, I get why he's saying. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like, oh, you reminded me of this thing. It's like, well, do you know that? - Right, like they enter this flow state where he's filling in gaps that she says and she says things and he goes, oh, yeah, that. And so maybe you can't tell who is remembering and who's learning and whatever because you enter that flow state. But if he said this in isolation and he's like, it's almost like she's remembering these rather than learning, that's a really strong consideration, a little piece to consider. But again, I don't know. She also could just be ravenous for this kind of thing and to find out that they had their own language or written language, come on. Child's got that brain plasticity. She's coming after it. Now talking about the foreign accent syndrome, this was very new as of the case and the injury itself, 1907. But many believe that this was actually the past life bleeding through impacting her language that, and I'm kind of blending in the next point I have in my outline here. But some believe that when she fell unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, that she truly did die. This is like what her parents say. This is supposedly what the doctor diagnosed that she died and that when she came back, maybe that opened up an arena for ventresheats, this spirit to enter in. And it's a reincarnation not at birth, but at a moment when someone, oh, my God, this sounds so silly, but I'm gonna point to Marvel, okay? WandaVision, she's got kids from another universe and then like in order for one of them to take hold in this universe, his spirit jumps into a young boy who had just passed away. You know what I'm talking about? Wicken? - Yep. - And so maybe that's kind of partially what happened here is kind of the idea and that's why the accent appeared during that moment is that this ancient Egyptian spirit jumped into this dead child, came to, and now has the accent that she would have had because she was an ancient spirit. - Interesting. - I know. - That's a leap. - It's a leap. - It's a leap. I'm not against it, but it's just like what else do we have? - Right, that's where we start to move into metaphysical and less tangible, you know. - Back this one up. - The thing that would really help me with this, right? The foreign accent syndrome is sometimes yes. Like a Frenchman speaking with an Alsatian accent makes sense because that is of the region. You can know Alsatian, which is a wildly interesting language. It's like dare I say Spanish mixed with French to truncate it to distill it. So he would have known of that accent. I don't think Dorothy would have known at all at the age of four what an accent, an Egyptian accent would have sounded like. Nor did they ever get an expert to come listen to her to diagnose what this accent was. So we don't know if it was an ancient Egyptian accent, a European accent of any kind, or just a change in speech, you know what I mean? - True, that's true. - So that's where we start to get a little less tangible and a little bit more into the just like firm belief of it. Now, what is interesting, and it does enter that more tangible realm, cynical realm a little bit, is oftentimes when we talk about something not being real, certainly being a hoax that there's some sort of financial gain to be had. And the fact that she died in poverty and never really like sought fame and fortune from this, it does lend some credence to her actual firm belief. I do think there was a firm belief in who she once was or thought she was. - So I completely agree. And it also, I do like the fact that there wasn't, I mean, I don't like the fact that she passed away in poverty, even though she seemed like she was happy and things like that, but there's something about like she wasn't out here trying it 'cause we've seen in other very stories, right? And it's like, where's the book? Where's the movie? - Where's the movie? - The movie deal, you know what I mean? Reaching out to all kinds of like newspaper outlets, whatnot. And a lot of times, too. It's like, look, if you're going through this trauma, hell, yeah, I get that back. You don't know what I mean? - Sure. - All kinds of therapy and medical. - It's all case by case, baby. - Right, exactly. But no, I truly believe that this is what she believed. She wasn't trying to monetize in any way she performed, but she strengthened my theory that she truly believed this. Totally. Totally. She used her powers for good. She went off and helped discover and uncover and broaden our horizons of understanding of the ancient world. Come on. That's incredible. And that's why I can't subscribe to the idea that this is a hoax or a con of any kind. But it does move us into the conversation of, okay, if this isn't reincarnation, it's something much more complex, something much more psychological that I would never be able to properly pinpoint or diagnose, and I won't attempt to do so, but I at least want to conversate around what those reasons for this belief might be, right? So let's talk about the garden. We'll talk about the hidden tunnel as well, but the garden, it's possible she could have deduced as a brilliant amateur Egyptologist where this garden was, because she spent her entire life essentially from four all the way up now to 65 working age, studying, learning, ravenously consuming everything she could. It is possible that she had a level of understanding that maybe she didn't even give herself credit for. She doesn't have the the doctorate in all of the diplomas, but she's got the knowledge. And so it's possible that looking at the layout of this temple, being familiar, especially studying, steady the first for over 20 years by this point, that she could know his layouts. You could know the architectural elements that go into a temple like this. Maybe she's seen a temple that had a garden in a similar place or house with a garden in a similar place. The same could be said for the hidden tunnel, because I think steady the first had a proclivity to have hidden tunnels somewhere. And maybe just looking at what she did know about the place that logic from her passive understanding would dictate where it would be and that she was right, you know? I agree, because she had such intimate access. And so really, it could have just been like, hey, you just had a knack for consuming information. And this is something that you were passionate about, so you absorbed way more than you thought you did. And you didn't just, this wasn't just a job for you, like you lived, you engrossed yourself in it, you really lived it. And so that's just an extra layer of education that, and education that her colleagues might not have been privy to, you know what I mean? And so from there, she's like, oh, well, yeah, and that's why you're able to look at these things. Like you are built different. And your experiences are different. Yeah, dude. I mean, there is something to be said about a rigid curriculum that everyone goes through in studies. You kind of get a similar lens and point of view. The fact that she, from her very first days as a child, went to the British Museum, surrounded herself by history and artifacts and Egyptologists like BUDGE. She surrounded, and the books that she read, she surrounded herself with all of it, absorbed it. And so there wasn't really, she had, like you said, built different, had a different perspective on the same information. So maybe this helped her bust down some barriers that otherwise people might not have thought of. It reminds me of the movie Limitless, rather Cooper takes a little pill. And he suddenly remembers the book that he glimpsed in the elevator from earlier in the day. And then he's fluent on that book, you know? Good point. Yeah, I mean, maybe she just had that ability, right? But she was just so, like just a sponge and she absorbed all that knowledge of it. It's like, dude, this happened to me the other day, I listened to a song from the 90s. I wish I could remember which song it was. But like, suddenly I sang the entire chorus without the song even playing and I go, I haven't even heard that song in like 15 years. I didn't know I knew all the words until I just started singing it and it all came out. Because you just have latent knowledge that you've forgotten about and her hyper fixation on ancient Egypt, I guarantee you she had some of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, that is a bit of a leap of faith, but so is believing that she just remembered it from a past life. I think there's a very interesting conversation about how, yeah, how she found these two spots. Now this is where I want to come back to the hymn that we discussed earlier, the one that she got thrown out of Sunday school for. It's not referenced anywhere and the only articles discussing this hymn are specifically about this case. As soon as you remove Dorothy from the equation, these words don't exist on the internet in that order, right? So it could mean that this and various other elements of the story have been filled in. You could say that they're lies, but there's also room here to be called what's confabulation, right? Confabulation, I think, will become a word of the moment in our real lives. Confabulation is the act of filling in the gaps in one's memories with made up stories, false realities, but one where the speaker actually believes them. It is a product usually of various types of dementia or even trauma, but ultimately it seems that whether she is telling stories that make sense of these memories she's having and she's believing these stories because they fall in line with this story that is so firmly true in her mind, she might not realize that she's air quotes lying or filling in the gaps, but it makes you start to wonder, okay, well, if that's the case of this element, what about all the other elements, you know, and how do you square that against her actual archeological discoveries? It's, it's very fascinating, right? Yeah, it gets very difficult and it's very intricate because then you kind of get to the realm of picking and choosing and there's not quite anything that can likely do down the path of like, oh, hey, like this, you know, she was reincarnated, even though it's a nice pantsable story and you feel like, okay, like, there's not enough there too. So I had foreign accent syndrome here in my notes again. I believe I kind of addressed this. We don't know if she had a bona fide ancient Egyptian accent here. It would be a shift in the way of her speaking, not, and if it's unfamiliar to her parents during a moment when the country surrounding you is kind of obsessed with ancient Egypt, you might maybe, I don't know, think it is, but I don't know. I don't know if this really falls into the idea of the past lives or if it's just a symptom of traumatic brain injury, which is another thing I wanted to talk about because TBI could be what brought on changes in personality, could have been what brought in changes of interests. She is still a child, right, it happened when she was three. So we don't have much to go on in the earlier days because we're all kind of blobs, but soon after the injury, that's when she became hyperfixated with Egyptian history. Again, during a time when England is also hyperfixated on it. True. I mean, we are products of our environment. So the traumatic experience along with her environment could just hyperfixated. You know, it's possible this interest and her growing knowledge of Egypt was built by the habitual trips to the British Museum could have also helped build a story where maybe her parents first planted this idea by saying that this strange foreign accent air quotes was Egyptian and then going to the museum. Maybe she overheard that as a child and then going to the museum. She like put two and two together and says, this is where I'm home. I don't know how it starts or where it starts, but I can't help but feel similarly to you that like over the course of her life, she's retroactively drawing connections to make things make sense. She's like, oh, well, maybe this is why I had foreign accent syndrome. This is my home. Oh, maybe this is my home because I'm having these dreams and I'm having these dreams because like, they all kind of begin the next phase. True. And so it's this crescendoing of a story where I don't exactly know where the first seed is, you know, it could have been planted there. It could have been a symptom of a brain injury or it could just be like, I don't know, it's so hard to say. Yeah, that's the thing. It could have been something that was undiagnosed, right? There's a lot of trauma that they went through and so. Oh, yeah. It really just could have been that. Right. And then this is perfect conconction of like, you know, it creates hyperfixation and there were just a very skilled person. I mean, even it seemed like personality wise, you know, they're challenging, they're schooling and everything like that. And it's like, oh, it could have just been an individual that was just different. And then from there, there was just perfect environment to create this wild tail and the thoughts that she had and how she felt about who she was. Yes. I think, again, I can't put my finger exactly on it. But that's what makes sense to me the most is that it's this really complicated situation where I mean, part of me is like, is the re-incarnation element kind of a coping mechanism for her or her family? I can't imagine what her family must have thought when they thought she had died, when the doctor said she was dead. And then an hour later, she springs up, you know, seemingly normal, but then a few things seem off or different, like, you know, this whole thing might help those new differences make sense. And so it feels easier to say, maybe she was reincarnated and everything else in her life somehow supported that. But what was supporting that was her innate interest in this and so is this cyclical thing that feeds on itself and you're right, she's uniquely intelligent so she can absorb all of this stuff. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. I don't know that but that itself is just as fascinating. In fact, I might say that that's more interesting than reincarnation. Just like the mind is so interesting and powerful. Yes, it is. Another element I had in here that kind of goes into the mix broadly is this concept of crypto amnesia. I think this could have been at play when she discovered the garden or the hidden tunnel but ultimately crypto amnesia is when you have forgotten information that you bring up in your own mind, but you're falsely believing it to be an original story. I've heard this in the context of stand-up comedy. So this will make it easier when a comic tells a joke and then someone goes, oh, I told that joke five years ago. Right. That comic who is kind of infringing on that joke might not actually remember that they heard it. So when they wrote it down, they might have thought that they were conjuring up a fresh thought. But in fact, they're remembering. Because we pull from our experiences in our mind and what we know, we think and everything like that. So it could literally just been like, yeah, I thought this was funny. I bought this in my mind, but didn't know that my mind was pulling from something that I had once heard before. So she's surrounded through osmosis with ancient Egyptian artifacts and pictures and things. And so I don't know how exactly that might plug in except for maybe how she discovered things or how she knew things uncannily. But also, I don't want to get away from this either. We talked about auto writing and kind of her being in a trans and writing things down. You know, she talks about these things as hallucinations. We talked about sleep paralysis and how even when you're kind of up and awake, you had a very vivid encounter where you're seeing reality completely different because you're still kind of asleep. But when you finally came to you saw reality as it was. And it's hard. I mean, there is a documented history of her sleepwalking here. And it's hard to say like how much that might have been at play for all of her dream insights. Because that's where she got a lot of her reincarnation history was visits from Setty at night telling her who she was. The thing is that the mind plays, we were talking about earlier, it's a powerful thing. There's so many different layers. We fully don't understand how the human mind works in some respects. Yeah, they could have been like some kind of chemical imbalance that was causing what, you know, was sleep paralysis and possibly hallucinations, kind of lucid dreaming or whatnot. Creating these things and pulling from her mind or combination of what, and then also the trauma of what you went through. And so a number of things could have taken shape here. Yeah. And the last element I had here is ultimately there is no historical record of a person named Ben Tresheet around 1300 BC. We don't have a priestess who at the, even at 14 you wouldn't have much of a history, but there's no record. So again, as we kind of conclude here in my humble opinion, I wouldn't call this a hoax in any way, but the question remains task force. Frado, what do you think? Is this the most convincing case of reincarnation? Or is this a fascinating combination of new interests colliding with the various nuanced symptoms of a traumatic brain injury in a child? It's a lot. It's a lot to unpack. It's a lot by kind of lean towards it being like, you know, a traumatic brain injury. And then this is what comes of it in an individual that was just very gifted. I mean, I would love to know what our IQ is. Yeah, right. You know, I was just wildly intelligent as the combination of her experiences. But yeah, yeah. It could also be that the accident and other things could be red herrings, not to minimize the the concept of having such a big impact as a child falling down stairs and getting hurt. But like if you removed some of the elements, what you could see is a woman who had a deep fascination with ancient Egypt had a proclivity for learning it because much like me, my learning is accelerated greatly if I'm interested. And so the fact that she is obsessed with it through her whole life is like, that's one element. I think the backstory of her kind of falling in love with the ancient world through a more personal touch, you can almost just see that like you're believing your dreams, right? Like if she's having sleep paralysis or lucid dreaming or anything like that, you know, it's just the the the TBI comes to play with the accident and it offers a lot more nuanced conversation that I'm just not, you know, I'm just not an expert to have. But like I can I can just see that. I just see somebody who is really interested in Egypt and also believed this past life that they had. There are logical ways to kind of connect them all together, but I can't help it if part of me isn't like really fascinated by the idea of reincarnation though, like the idea of past lives and, you know, like if I pass, do I come back in the far future as somebody else, it's wildly interesting. Yeah, it definitely is. And you know, a lot of people want to believe in reincarnation, you know what I mean? Sure, yeah. And even there's people that are just hopeless romantic like, oh, we must have known each other in the past life with how deeply we connect and how well we know each other and understand each other. So, you know, there's a romantic aspect to it too. Yeah, absolutely. And even in like her story, she's like, well, my past life happened because of love. And now that's why it's happening to me now. That said, if there's ever a time where I become somebody else and I'm inserted into the mind of a young three-year-old after an incident, my wife Barbara, if you're listening, please don't haunt my dreams as a mummy. Find yourself another body and let's actually be back together. I don't know if I need to chase down your old house. Now that you're a mummy from three thousand years ago, but that's just me. That's my. Yeah, and put a lifetime searching for you. Yeah, but this has been the very fascinating case of Dorothy Edie. You can see so vividly why this has become such an interesting case for reincarnation, why it's captured the imagination of many because the details and the unfurling over her life. I'm so glad you pointed that out as we went along. It's a fascinating one for sure that definitely pace itself differently than I thought it would be. So it definitely changed my expectations. And again, this was a life that was lived. She was an adult that lived an adult life, but just had this almost subtle thing in terms of like reincarnation. It wasn't necessarily, I mean, granted we're pulling all that to the forefront, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it was the forefront of most of her life, which is why because you think that would be the all-encompassing thing that is her as a person and her and her life. But she made her marks in other ways, got married, and children. Yeah, lived, discovered, and also lived according to her vivid belief, like I'm Egyptian, I will die here in an apodose. There's romance all across this story no matter how you slice it. But I did, I forgot to shout this out at the top of the episode. But thank you to Chess Force member, Callan J Taylor for submitting this one. I'm glad we were able to finally put this one on the docket because it's one we've been thinking about for quite some time. And we put some off, right? Oh, because we're like, Ah, you know, it seems as pretty simple, open-closed case, not a lot of details. Man, this one, as you could tell by the runtime, there's a lot going on in this case. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot to cover here in unpack. And then a whole, someone's whole entire life. So totally a lot of fan submission and task force submitted episodes to come in the next couple of weeks. If you want to be one of those, I owe a proper post on Patreon where you can literally read and find the form. But if you go to our Patreon page at redwebpod.com and poke around, you should be able to find the form. I put it at least in one of the tier benefits as a link up there. So you can find it there for now. But I will make a post at some point here to to spell it out easier. But with that said, I want to shout out a couple of the other task force members over at redwebpod.com. We've got Umar A, who is the newest elite member of the task force. Welcome aboard. We've got Jeffrey Nguyen as our buff scientist of the week. And then of course, our squunks Fred, who's still hunting you down. But you have evaded him thus far. Locke, Holster, Jordan Chase and Neo Trickster, just to name a few. Thank you all so much for your support. And thanks again to Callan for submitting this topic. This was a wild and twisty turn that we could dissect Dorothy E's life. What a ride? What a ride. But with that said, Fredo, I'll see you right back here next Monday. Forget another mystery.