Our Biggest Investigation: Our Past Life Story
This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer, one half of Two Halves of a Soul.
I only picked up a Tarot deck a few years ago. The deck was my sister’s Biddy Tarot deck and it read “Everyday Tarot” across the top. It was gifted to Katie by a friend online for Christmas, but she hadn’t really touched it much since she’d received it. So, I fiddled with them one night after coincidentally coming across them cleaning her apartment. Was it really a coincidence though?
Everything felt so natural when the cards were in my hands, and the emotions that overcame me were inexplicable. I felt like I’ve done this before. Days would go by, and I’d be hidden away in my room playing with this deck of cards. It got to the point where my sister looked at me and said, “Dude, just keep them. Obviously, they like you more than me. I’m kind of jealous, really.”
I kept the deck and performed readings on myself and others, thinking nothing of my instantaneous connection with this form of divination. I started bringing it up in conversations outside of my friend group, even bringing it to the attention of my trainer at my former job. That was when she had suggested I should purchase my own deck next, choosing the first one that truly called to me from the shelf.
With her suggestion of a store in mind, Swan, my cousin Nicole, and I headed to a metaphysical shop located in Appleton, WI. At Windows of Light Angels Forever, there was an entire wall taken up with Tarot cards. I didn’t know how I was supposed to pick just one.
After what felt like a century, I started to feel defeated because nothing seemed to be calling my name. The owner was even chiming in from time to time, asking if I wanted to look at any of the decks I might be interested in. I just kept shaking my head, hoping my eyes would rest upon the chosen one. And that was when they finally did.
I locked eyes with a deck and immediately thought, “that’s the one.” Without even giving myself a moment to think, I sputtered out loud, “I’ll take that Thoth Tarot Deck right there.”
The owner pulled the deck from the shelf and set it down in my hands. I read the “Aleister Crowley” on the front of the deck without the slightest clue what that name would mean to me later. A deck WAS actually calling my name the whole time. It was just a different name.
Months would pass and I would begin to have strange dreams. I was down a rabbit hole of spirituality already, so I was at the time using mugwort to practice dream magick. The dreams were always set in Egypt, as I vaguely remember the pyramids being in the background of each dream. Sometimes I felt like I was in a hotel, other times I was walking through an old museum filled with plaques of ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses. I always remembered a man and a woman in the dreams, but I never saw myself.
One night I woke up and made the conscious decision to search Egypt in my Zillow app. I often look at expensive homes in my free time, so I already had the app installed on my phone. I saw places like Alexandria, Egypt generating under the search bar, so I decided to click on that first. My dreams seemed like they were from a long time ago, so I knew the area would look different looking at these pictures. Still, I was hoping something would stand out or that I would feel familiarity looking through the images of homes, apartments, and businesses in that area. In Alexandria, I felt and recognized nothing.
I went back to the search bar and typed in Egypt again. This time, I clicked on Cairo. When a list of homes and apartments loaded, there were images of an apartment building and an overlook of the city in the background. It looked familiar.
I immediately go to google and search Cairo, Egypt. I hit images and feel a rush overcome my entire body. Why do I feel like I’ve been here before?
With no connection to be made, I once again kept ignoring the little puzzle pieces being handed to me by the Universe, especially with writing. It was around this time I became consciously aware the way I wrote was different from others. I found I had a natural born talent with automatic writing. I can’t say I was aware I was channeling spirit for most of the writings, but I always felt like I was vibrating when I wrote. Afterwards, I would have to chug a glass of water just to cure the dizzy spell I’d find myself in. I didn’t realize it wasn’t common for others to experience this. I only assumed I was concentrating too hard. Not only that, but I could and still can see multiple moving images in my mind while communicating with others. It’s like I’m watching 30-50 see-through televisions playing while talking to friends. I just didn’t know this special gift of mine was connected to the past life I had, which again, will all connect later at the end.
In May of 2020, I decided to go to a friend’s cookout at their former home. I sprawled out on a blanket in the grass and pulled my cards out of the backpack. Yes, the Thoth ones. Others were arriving and making their rounds before sitting down beside me, drinks in hand. That was when Anna’s friend Helen also showed up.
Helen pulled up in her old, white van and had been introduced to us shortly thereafter. She took a glance down at my deck and said, “No way! I have the book on that deck in my van! Want me to grab it?” From there, a friendship had blossomed, and she actually let me borrow the book for a few months. I just somehow couldn't wrap my head around someone I've never met showing up to a cookout with the book to the deck I had just bought.
Because I still couldn’t make a solid connection between all of these events, Swan and I brought this to the attention of our friend and psychic mentor, Muriel. After we finished telling our side of the story, she sat silent for a moment before asking me to perform a reading on myself. When I asked her, “On what?” she replied, “Well, to ask if you’re Aleister.”
I did end up pulling cards regarding the situation, and the card that prominently stood out was The Sun. Tarot can be associated with yes or no questions, and The Sun was the first turned over as a definite “YES!”
This was when everything started to fall into place.
Not even a week later, while Swan was working from home, her team had an exercise going in their group meeting where everyone asked each other what name they would choose for themselves if not for their current name. Swan answered, “I think I would pick Rose. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always loved the name,” to which a coworker responded, “Maybe it was your name in a past life!”
Swan brought this to my attention of course, considering she really did love the name and has a rose tattooed on her hip. Once I heard that, I went back to google and typed “Aleister Crowley Spouse” just for the hell of it. To my surprise, the first thing I came across was “Edward Alexander (Aleister) Crowley” but this time next to his name was “Rose Edith Kelly.” To make this even more interesting, not only was her name Rose, but the two got married on August 12, 1903, the same day Swan was born, and the same day we became friends 93 years later. After they got married, guess where they honeymooned for a year? Cairo fucking Egypt.
Anyone who knows Swan and I’s relationship knows that it’s very special. Our mothers were best friends who got pregnant around the same time while living together, and when Swan was born, my mother was there with me. We’ve been in each other’s lives ever since, and together have developed a strong, telepathic bond. People even used to tease us (including Muriel) about our relationship resembling a married couple. Now it seemed to make more sense.
Looking further into Crowley, I discovered that he had saved Rose from an arranged marriage, and they wedded August 12, 1903. They then spent a year in Cairo, where they began a whole new spiritual journey together. They took an evening to perform an invocation one night in the Great Pyramid. Another night, they had invoked sylphs in their flat.
While invoking, Rose was channeling a spirit. She practiced magick a little differently than Aleister, as she hears voices in her head and repeats it aloud. So, when she said one night, “The one who waits for Horus,” Aleister took her to the Cairo Museum to prove what she said to be true. When asking her to point to Horus, she pointed at the Stele of Revealing, with Horus in the image.
For weeks after, Rose would remind Crowley of needing to take dictation soon, meaning words would be said aloud to be written down. They ended up writing a book together for three days straight titled The Book of the Law. Rose said the spirit she had been communicating with wasn’t actually Horus, but Aiwass speaking of Horus. Aleister performed an automatic writing channeling the spirit Aiwass while Rose continued to channel by repeating aloud the things she heard in her head. These events are what led to the foundation of Thelema, and later in time, the creation of the Thoth Tarot Deck.
The connections made from learning all of this were our supernatural gifts. Swan’s form of channeling is always done by her saying things out loud after hearing a spirit talk in her head. More often than not, what Swan hears aligns with what I see as the tv screens in my mind or whatever it is I’m writing during an automatic writing session. It is a part of our telepathic gifts in our friendship, so this would make sense if our talents carried into this lifetime from the last.
Another connection we made were the Egyptian Gods. Swan’s Egyptian God is Horus, which connects her to Rose and her bringing Aleister to the Slete of Revealing with Horus in it. My Egyptian God is Thoth, so this would explain the Thoth Tarot Deck Aleister Crowley created and my natural ability to read Tarot cards now.
The other solidifying connection we made was with my dreams. I was dreaming of being in a hotel and a museum for weeks, and as it turned out, I was dreaming of a flat in Cairo and the Cairo Museum. The man and woman I would see was Aleister and Rose looking for validation on Horus.
It took a full year and a half for Swan and I to put all the clues together for our past life story, and it’s one that cannot be expressed with only a few words. While we didn’t go into spirituality searching for our past lives, our past selves were very spiritual people. So, once we started our spiritual journeys, it all came to us at the right time. While past life regression exercises or past life readings can be a steppingstone in the right direction, your best bet is to pay close attention to your weird quirks, your fears, and live your life as your true, authentic self. Following your soul’s purpose may bring you back to the lives you’ve lived before this one, and you’ll uncover more about yourself than you could ever imagine you would. I thank all who have taken the time out of their day to hear this story, and we hope one day, maybe you can share your own story with us.
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