The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Champions of Reincarnation: Dennis Wheatley & Joan Grant

Egypt revisited - 'Eyes of Horus'

'Eyes of Horus' (1942), its sequel 'Lord of the Horizon' (1943)
and below the book of childrens' stories from the same era,
'The Scarlet Fish and Other Stories' with (right)
the inscription in the Wheatleys' copy.

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Charles Beatty writes to Dennis as 'Eyes of
Horus' is being dictated, and notes the similarities
of one part with a part of 'Strange Conflict'

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Vera Sutherland's copy of 'Lord of the Horizon'
The inscription makes clear that Joan believed
Ra-ab's family and her current family
were one and the same

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Joan's next two books told the story of her life as a Nomarch, or district administrator, in Eleventh / Twelve Dynasty Egypt, circa 1900 B.C.

In brief the story is that the rulers of the Eleventh Dynasty have strayed from the 'true path' and become followers of the evil god and goddess Set and Sekhmet rather than the gods of light - the sun god Ra and his falcon-like son Horus.

The Nomarch, Ra-ab Hotep, is part of a movement which seeks in secret to bring about the return of the 'true' religion and of proper government, which is done by engineering the ushering in of the Twelfth Dynasty.

Ra-ab, who is Joan Grant in this incarnation, is aided by his/her wife-to-be Meri (an earlier incarnation of Charles) and his sister Kiyas (who is in this life Joan and Leslie's daughter Gillian). For those 'in the know', this was pretty clearly spelled out in the book's printed dedication.

As Joan pointed out in the 'Author's Note' that preceded the story, the tombs of the nomarchs of the Oryx from this period can still be seen cut into the cliffs of Middle Egypt at Beni Hasan. More on this later.

The book is quite cheerful ... it certainly lacks much of the grimness of 'Life As Carola', and it is arguably a little less instructional than Winged Pharaoh. Part 6, Chapter 4 'Trial by Magic' contains the description of a battle between black magicians and white magicians that is worthy of Dennis Wheatley himself, and that has indeed a resonance with the epic battle on the astral in Chapter 8 of Strange Conflict, as Charles Beatty himself notes above.

The battle also has a resonance with the supernatural battle at the end of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's final novel, 'The Maracot Deep' (1927), where Professor Maracot confronts and sees off the evil Atlantean God 'The Lord of the Dark Face'.

Provenance: Private collections