My Initiation in Egypt
by Gretchen Douthitt
Recently I went to Egypt with a small group of students of A Course in Miracles. The leaders had prepped us for weeks with online classes, assigned reading, and an invitation to look at our personal histories (especially ages 0-7). They kept calling the trip our “initiation,” and I certainly wanted it to be that. I was hoping that my healing (Reconnective Healing) abilities would be ramped up and my intuition would be heightened. Of course what I really wanted was to get in touch with some past life in Egypt in which I had been a priestess or healer with out-of-this-world abilities! (We did migrate there from Atlantis, after all!)
I can’t say I got in touch with any past lives, at least not on a conscious level, but I did climb some stairs in the Red Pyramid and overlook an area that stunned me. After spending most of two weeks in and out of very impressive temples and pyramids, I was suddenly overcome with a feeling I hadn’t had anywhere else, a feeling that is difficult to describe. What I was looking at was a vaulted ceiling that came to a point above us and a pile of boulders at the bottom. Not a particularly impressive place, but I was absolutely wide-eyed and kept saying, “What is this? What is this?” My soul must have remembered something about it. Our guide Mohamed Fayed (who also goes with the ARE tours) said ceremonies were held there, but it’s unclear to me what kind of ceremonies those were. Here’s what Wikipedia says about that area:
High in the southern wall of the chamber is an entrance, now reached by a large wooden staircase built for the convenience of tourists. This gives (sic) onto a short horizontal passage that leads to the third and final chamber with a corbelled roof 50 feet (15 m) high. The first two chambers have their long axis aligned north-south, but this chamber's long axis is aligned east-west. Unlike the first two chambers, which have fine smooth floors on the same level as the passages, the floor of the third chamber is very rough and sunk below the level of the access passage. It is believed that this is the work of robbers searching for treasure in what is thought to have been the burial chamber of the pyramid.
So, was I buried there? Did I conduct ceremonies there? Or was I just reacting to the tremendous amount of energy in that area. I’ll never know.
But the most amazing experience of the two weeks related to the Great Pyramid. Unlike the experience many others, my most profound experience was not inside the pyramid. We went inside the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, but I was distracted by the guard telling me I couldn’t take pictures (I had snuck two on my phone) and pointedly telling me, “No meditating” when I was leaned against the wall with my eyes shut! He eventually let the 12 of us place our hands on the sarcophagus and have a rushed little ceremony after he realized he’d get some tips, but that was only possible when other tourists weren’t in the chamber. I did notice that my arms got weak when I placed them on the sarcophagus (like the jelly feeling in your legs after too much exertion), but I didn’t have the freedom to tune into that and see what I “got” about it.
However, the strongest feeling I had was sitting on the 3rd-floor balcony of our Giza-area hotel looking out at the pyramids. I was absolutely mesmerized! I was staring dumb-struck at the pyramids when I realized that my whole body was vibrating! I was absolutely buzzing!! My roommate came out and said it felt like “alien energy” to her. I took that to mean other-worldly energy, and it certainly felt that way to me, too. Some people say the pyramid is used as a communication device, like a giant cell phone tower to communicate with space ships, planets, stars, etc., and from my reaction to its energy, I can believe it. I spent quite a bit of time on that balcony while we were there, soaking up as much of that energy as I could!
I know that being in Egypt—and being in the energy of the pyramids particularly— really was an initiation. Not the kind that Jesus and John the Baptist had there, obviously, but an initiation nonetheless. I kept saying that I wouldn’t understand the full impact of the trip until after the fact, and I still don’t know its full impact on me. Since being back (only 2 ½ weeks at this point), I have noticed more intuitive “hits” than before, and two people who experienced my Reconnective Healing both before and after the trip said the energy was much stronger after I got back. I think it’s possible that I’ve changed in ways I don’t even realize yet. In any case, it’s an experience I’ll never forget!
About the author:
Gretchen Douthit currently serves as Arkansas Area Team Leader and organizes the annual conference at DeGray Lake State Park. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and had a private counseling practice until 2012. Two of her books are for middle-grade children (Inside Out: My Book About Who I Am and How I Feel, a workbook, and So Many Secrets, a novel). In 2019 she co-authored a book with Dr. Lisa Weinrib about her intuitive healing practice (Healing the Soul: An Intuitive MD’s Prescription for Health and Wholeness).