Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Paranormal & Fortean : Deja Vu An Unusual Case

The French expression Deja Vu means "already seen." It describes experiences that people have with some frequency. Some cases of deja vu seem to 'hit' the person experiencing it lightly, and some like my experience discussed in my 3 January 2009 post hit you over the head like the proverbial ton of bricks. The following case is one of those and is of a higher degree than most instances of deja vu.

The story appeared in a four column article written by Christopher Wren in the New York Times on 17 April 1979. Wren was in Egypt when he wrote the article entitled, "Briton with a Sense of Deja Vu Calls Ruins 'Home'. It all started when Dorothy Eady, at the age of three, fell down a flight of stairs in her home in Plymouth, England. She had been pronounced dead by the local doctor. "When he came back with the death certificate, the body was sitting on the bed playing', she revealed. Then she began to cry. "They asked why I was crying, and I said, 'I want to go home.' They assured me I was home." Wren wrote : From then on she was convinced that she belonged in another, dimly remembered time. She played hooky from school and hung around the Egyptology Room of the British Museum in London. When she first saw a magazine photograph of the magnificent temple at Abydos, she told her parents: 'Here is my home, but why is it in ruins and where are the gardens?' "

It was not until 1933, when she was in her late twenties that she was able to go to Egypt. " I never left; I never wanted to." She took a job with the Egyptian Antiquities Service and acquired experience in field excavations, but it was some years before she had time to travel to Abydos. 'As soon as I saw the mountain, I knew where I was. The train stopped, and I got off.... There was no other place for me to be." The Times article continued: "In 1956 she managed to get transferred to help with the excavation and restoration of Abydos, which has some of the finest bas-reliefs of pharanonic art. Her colleagues were surprised by her immediate familiarity with the temple. 'In the pitch dark I went to each place they told me to.' " She would then describe the scene. "Every time I was right."

Dorothy had mentioned gardens being at the place as a child. No discovery of this was made by any archaeologists. However, when Dorothy got to the scene she was able to give the exact location. The tree roots, vines and even the old, dry water canals were there too. The Times article continued: "She also correctly estimated the height of damaged columns where the temple roof was missing and she translated some of the more enigmatic hieroglyphics. In a previous incarnation, she believes she was the orphaned daughter of a common soldier and a vegetable seller and she was adopted by the temple, where the spring resurrection rituals to the god Osiris were conducted. " I can't remember an ordinary life, so I think I must have been stuck in the temple. I have a vague memory of possessions. I can remember an awful killjoy of a high priest."

The period of history that Dorothy believes she had previously lived in was 3,200 years ago in the nineteenth dynasty under Seti I and his successor Ramses II. Dorothy Eady named her son Seti. She had married an Egyptian, but the marriage had lasted only two years. In the village where she lived, Dorothy was known as Om Seti, which means mother of Seti. Dorothy admits that "her Odyssey from the middle-class gentility of Plymouth to the rural poverty of a remote Egyptian village (where she was living in at the time of the article and living on a modest pension) sounds bizarre." Some people say that when "I fell downstairs it knocked a screw loose." Whatever the truth behind this story, there is no question of her abilities as an archaeologist. "Her grasp of ancient Egypt is formidable", writes Wren. "Egyptologists still visit her sparsely furnished house in Abydos to benefit from her knowledge and her lively self-deprecating wit. James P. Allen of the American Research Center in Cairo has described her as a patron saint of the profession. ' I don't know of an American archaeologist in Egypt who doesn't respect her."

Note to reader: There are other cases where bodily trauma has triggered what people feel are past-life memories. In a German newspaper, Rheinischer Merkur, from 31 May 1947, a similar story is told. The story involved a girl in Ihansi, India, who fell out of a third story window. Fortunately she did not suffer lasting bodily harm, but suddenly began to speak in several languages. Scholars later found these languages to be old Indian dialects that had not been used for centuries. Dorothy Eady died in 1981 and is buried in the desert near Shunet el-Zebib. I wanted to do this post because I thought it related to my continuing study of reincarnation and different theories and experiences of it. The major source for this post was, Reincarnation A New Horizon In Science, Religion And Society by Sylvia Cranston and Carey Williams. The book was published by Julian Press in 1984, pp 80-82. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Eady

15 comments:

aferrismoon said...

Nice series on the faces in Spain.
I noticed that just recently the Pope 'has declared holy war' on the seeing of images like this, and other apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
Story or link at the Daily Behemoth

CiaO4Now

James Starlight, PhD said...

I have long felt that I was a soldier in the Roman Army. The feeling is a hazy one in which I try to grasp some memory, but am unable to.

Anonymous said...

How fascinating. Whatever the cause, it lead her back to a place she loved and a fine career. How many of us are ever that blessed.

Alex Robinson said...

Lovely Devin
For some reason that really resonated with me. Also strangely the ideas of 'killjoys' have been on my mind over the last day - so a kind of deja-vu for me to see the word in your article :)

Also when I came here to leave a comment, I had the word & feeling 'lovely' in mind & the word veri was "luvessi"

Thanks so much for that :)

Devin said...

Hi there so wonderful to see you all! aferris-thanks so much for the compliment and the heads up on Daily B will go there after comment! I do owe that series to FT article Ciao and Meow for now as my cat tries to take over here while I am commenting:-)

Devin said...

James -so glad you stopped by and took the time to comment! I hope with your memory as with mine maybe things will become a little less hazy over time-although I do not think memory normally works this way! :-)

Devin said...

Aggie as always so very great to see you here-i agree with your thoughts completely-I wish there had been more i could research into-best to you as always!

Devin said...

wise as always I am so glad you were able to stop by-hehe I kinda-sorta on an inutitional level think I know were you are going with 'killjoys':-) I was very happy this article resonated with you and was delighted to get comments on it! interesting on the word veri-best to you as always and hope you and yours are having a fantastic week!

X. Dell said...

Interesting. Xome scientists explain deja vu as a mis-timing of our stereoscopic vision. The brain processes the data collected by one eye slightly earlier than it does the other one.

Okay, that's their explanation. I've sometimes thought, though that if time wasn't something that simply vanished, then we possibly live our lives over and over again. Perhaps we sometimes have a memory from the last go around, it feels familiar.

Okay. Sillly thought. Still, I don't quite buy the "scientific" explanation.

Nina said...

devin-your blog reminds me of experiences and thoughts that i remember at times and think "i should blog about this".

i had a past-life recall in 2001after reading a passage in a book. it was as though i was suddenly back in the time--like my awareness of my current reality was suddenly put aside and as such i relived the experience (that happened to lead to my death). it was very upsetting--i was shaking and crying to the point of hyperventilating--but i released/processed the trauma. the recall itself answered knowings about the time period plus a strong longing for the period i had had since i was a child.

i took a class on past life regression and had a few other fairly vague experiences--certainly none came close to the intensity and "realness" as this one. maybe it really does take a trigger--an event--to bring about these recalls--like perhaps we need not be focused on the wanting to know--need not be consciously searching for it. maybe they just find us when the ego's quiet.

cool stuff indeed!

Devin said...

Nina and Xdell so happy to see you both here! Thanks so very much for your sharing your thoughts both of you! I agree X-i do not buy the scientific explanation in a lot of cases and Nina thanks so much for sharing your past life recall! X if I do not get to rest of your comments do not worry just means I am offline-having connection probs again-I really appreciate you leaving them!and everyone else too!It kinda sucks because i have a huge post ready to go at other blog and also a new short series to start here-i do not know if i dare try it tonight-maybe should wait and see if tomorrow is better. Best to both of you and so appreciate you stopping by and commenting!

Unknown said...

Brain trauma can do many amazing things like this. There are several other stories very much like this that I have read. It makes me wonder was the knowledge there all alone and the trauma freed it? I don't know but it an amazing thing.

Devin said...

Ricardo-thanks so very much for stopping by-you must have been commenting as I was posting-you are very correct-this does happen-and I love how you put 'Was the knowledge there all along and the trauma freed it'-wouldn't that be great to know! I think that would also solve a lot of things if science could figure out how this happens-of course I am hoping for the more esoteric explanations-but will always go with the more 'real' one -whatever 'real' is:-) best to you as always!

Unknown said...

I just saw a film called "youth Without Youth" starring Tim Roth and directed by Francis Ford Coppela. Deal exactly with this kind of stuff. Tim Roth's character is struck by lightning and and begins to gain superior intellect and begins to revert to his younger self. He's 80 at the time of the lightning strike. 2nd half of the film he meets a woman who was once from India in a past life but she begins speaking in languages that got back to ancient Egypt. Film is a little uneven but you'll love it for the subject matter.

Devin said...

Ricardo-thanks so much for stopping by! that does sound like an interesting film-i will have to look into it-at library now-hope to be able to get online from home tonight and see other blogs-I love your blog and I hope you are doing great-best as always!