Life Is Strange: A Stunning Encounter with Synchronicity

Shortly after the turn of the millennium, my friend asked me if I would give a talk about Egypt to a small study group of his on the south side of Chicago. I took the train from the western suburbs into the city and then down to the south side, where I described some of my experiences in Egypt, showing some of my photographs from that region, and addressing some of the mysteries surrounding that culture.

The question invariably comes up during such gatherings about the supposed “curse” associated with the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb. It’s a complicated topic but an interesting one. Among the unusual deaths following the opening of that tomb, I explained, was a fellow named Richard Bethell, the personal secretary to Howard Carter, the chief discoverer of Tut’s tomb. Bethell was found dead in his bed one day, suffocated with a pillow; then, his father, Lord Westbury, fell to his death from a seventh floor window. Different theories have been suggested to explain those deaths (including one proposing they were actually murdered by none other than Aleister Crowley). But to date they remain unexplained.

After the talk was over, I got back on the train with my photographs and my notes and headed back to the western suburbs.

But upon arriving home, I realized I had left my photographs on the train; the envelope they were in had slipped out of my satchel and slid off to the side of the seat. Since they were expensive, high-quality prints, I was upset, and made a point of calling the railroad’s lost-and-found office the next morning to find out if they had been turned in by someone. To my relief, they had, and later that day I headed back downtown on the train to retrieve my photos.

On reaching the lost-and-found office, I was greeted by a young-ish man behind the window who said to me, while handing over the folder with my photos, “By the way, I saw your photos, and they were really interesting. I have a family connection to Egypt, you know.”

Oh, really? What is that?

“A couple relatives of mine who were involved with the King Tut discovery died mysterious deaths.”

At that, I looked down at the young clerk’s I.D. badge, and saw that his last name was Bethell. As it turned out, he was directly related to Richard Bethell, the aforementioned secretary to Howard Carter, and to Richard’s father, Lord Westbury—the same figures I had just spoken about on the south side of the city.

And if I hadn’t misplaced my batch of photos on the train that day, I would never have met him.

As they say – life is strange.

This story was originally published on Ray Grasse’s Substack and is used here with permission.