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lb_leeRogan: We first heard about Dorothy Eady/Omm Sety (1904-1981) while digging around in writings about Ida Craddock (1857-1902). The two women have some things in common: they both married a dead man (Craddock an old acquaintance of hers, Omm Sety the pharaoh Sety I), were considered smart but strange, and had some skill in committing their ideas to writing (and also, in Omm Sety’s case, art), some of which still survive.
However, there are a couple major differences: Ida Craddock was American and got harassed to death for her ideas, while Omm Sety was born in England, moved to her beloved Egypt, and devoted her life and career to Egyptology and performing religious service to Osiris and Isis. She was determined to resume her reincarnated role as temple priestess, and by gods, she did it!
I grabbed a book about her (The Search for Omm Sety, by Jonathan Cott) from the library, and it’s been watering my heartflowers, reading about this woman who lived her dream and was so defiantly (and successfully!) herself. And she was a part of her worlds! She had relationships with her colleagues and neighbors, she had friends and a menagerie of animals, she had a long career working with Egyptologists. In the book, when surviving friends and colleagues are pressed about “but didn’t she think she was a reincarnated temple priestess?” are all like, “she was a nice, smart lady, she gets to have her beliefs, they didn’t harm anybody and she didn’t try to convert anybody.”
And that’s inspiring to me. I feel like it’s hard to find stories about people who’re weird like us who get to experience success and love in the worlds they straddle. Conventionally, we are either treated as isolated hermits (either Too Good For This World or just too socially incompetent to be anything else), tragic figures who die early, or laughingstocks. Even Heaven’s Bride, the biography of Craddock, seems super squeamish about the whole spirit marriage bit and tries to avoid it most of the time. The Omm Sety biography does not, and while I was dubious at first because of the cover copy being all “it’s proof of reincarnation!” I am finding it perfectly satisfactory as a biography, which is what I care about.
Omm Sety lived a humble life. She was never rich, never famous, worked as draftsman and secretary, lived in mud shacks. But she looks so happy and content in her photos. She was living in her beloved town of Abydos, in her beloved adopted country where she had citizenship, and she lived honestly and was loved by her friends and her pharaoh (who she calls H.M. for “His Majesty”). She reminds me of an Australian woman I knew who married one of France’s King Louises. (I forget which one; I only knew him as Louis and he seemed much happier as a regular guy, not a king. Nice guy. Hope they’re well.)
And that’s how I hope to live. I will never be a Will Eisner or an Isaac Asimov, but I don’t want to be. I just want to be a part of my communities, doing the service that calls me, and be loved by my people, and I think I’m succeeding at that.
However, there are a couple major differences: Ida Craddock was American and got harassed to death for her ideas, while Omm Sety was born in England, moved to her beloved Egypt, and devoted her life and career to Egyptology and performing religious service to Osiris and Isis. She was determined to resume her reincarnated role as temple priestess, and by gods, she did it!
I grabbed a book about her (The Search for Omm Sety, by Jonathan Cott) from the library, and it’s been watering my heartflowers, reading about this woman who lived her dream and was so defiantly (and successfully!) herself. And she was a part of her worlds! She had relationships with her colleagues and neighbors, she had friends and a menagerie of animals, she had a long career working with Egyptologists. In the book, when surviving friends and colleagues are pressed about “but didn’t she think she was a reincarnated temple priestess?” are all like, “she was a nice, smart lady, she gets to have her beliefs, they didn’t harm anybody and she didn’t try to convert anybody.”
And that’s inspiring to me. I feel like it’s hard to find stories about people who’re weird like us who get to experience success and love in the worlds they straddle. Conventionally, we are either treated as isolated hermits (either Too Good For This World or just too socially incompetent to be anything else), tragic figures who die early, or laughingstocks. Even Heaven’s Bride, the biography of Craddock, seems super squeamish about the whole spirit marriage bit and tries to avoid it most of the time. The Omm Sety biography does not, and while I was dubious at first because of the cover copy being all “it’s proof of reincarnation!” I am finding it perfectly satisfactory as a biography, which is what I care about.
Omm Sety lived a humble life. She was never rich, never famous, worked as draftsman and secretary, lived in mud shacks. But she looks so happy and content in her photos. She was living in her beloved town of Abydos, in her beloved adopted country where she had citizenship, and she lived honestly and was loved by her friends and her pharaoh (who she calls H.M. for “His Majesty”). She reminds me of an Australian woman I knew who married one of France’s King Louises. (I forget which one; I only knew him as Louis and he seemed much happier as a regular guy, not a king. Nice guy. Hope they’re well.)
And that’s how I hope to live. I will never be a Will Eisner or an Isaac Asimov, but I don’t want to be. I just want to be a part of my communities, doing the service that calls me, and be loved by my people, and I think I’m succeeding at that.
