Modern systems: one question

Tufti the Priestess

Tufti is the central figure of four of Vadim Zeland’s books, the first in 2018, and in it she says she was a priestess of Isis three thousand years ago. The Russian name, Тафти, is also written Tafti, as in the Spanish and Polish editions. The claim is the author’s, made in the book and around it, and this page sets out where each part of it is made, what it rests on and what Egyptology can check.

Which books is Tufti in, and what do they claim?

Tufti is at the centre of four of Vadim Zeland’s books, published by Ves in St Petersburg since 2018, which present her as a real priestess of Isis rather than an invented character; the table gives each book, edition and claim with its evidence and status.

Checked on 1 November 2026, each line at its source; full references are under Sources. English titles in brackets are those of the English editions where one exists, otherwise our translation.

Where does the claim about Tufti come from?

The claim that Tufti was a priestess of Isis comes from the book itself, where she says so in the first person, and the years 970-911 BCE come from the author.

In the opening chapter of Tufti the Priestess she addresses the reader directly, gives the three thousand years and the temple of Isis, and puts off saying who she is now. The years appear in an afterword by Zeland headed “Tufti’s avatar”, published with his interview about the book on the site of the Transurfing Centre, an online school that says it was set up in 2006 with his participation and support; the page was online by August 2019. There he writes that information about her may survive somewhere in ancient manuscripts, but that he has no access to such sources and that all he has is what he calls Tufti’s channel, adding that both Tufti books were written in a trance. In the interview he says he does not know what a channel is and cannot describe it.

The book and the afterword agree with each other, since 970 BCE is about three thousand years ago. The publisher goes further in its description of Priestess Itfat: she is not a fictional character, she really existed and in a sense still exists. The same publisher calls the novel the fictional version of the first book. The novel opens by setting its story roughly 100 million years ago (p. 7 of the Russian edition and p. 5 of the English one, in the publisher’s samples); the samples do not say how that frame fits the priestess’s lifetime.

Is there any historical evidence that Tufti existed?

We found no Egyptian record of a priestess called Tafti, Tufti or Itfat, and Zeland himself says his dates come from what he calls Tufti’s channel rather than from any manuscript.

What Egyptology can check is the frame around the claim, and in outline the frame fits the period. The years 970-911 BCE fall where the 21st Dynasty gave way to the 22nd, conventionally in 945 BCE. The temple of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, at Giza is dated to the 21st Dynasty. Women held temple titles: Henettawy, a Chantress of Amun-Re who died at twenty-one, was buried at Deir el-Bahri in Thebes with a coffin set dated about 1000-945 BCE.

None of this is evidence for Tufti. A documented temple woman of those decades is known from a name with a title, a burial and objects that can be dated; the claim offers a modern name, a goddess and a span of years, with nothing that can be looked up: no Egyptian form of the name to check in Hermann Ranke’s list of Egyptian personal names, Die ägyptischen Personennamen (1935-1977), and no object to find in museum records. That leaves the question formally open, since we did not search the Egyptological literature exhaustively, but nothing settles it in the claim’s favour. A precise span of years with no source is exactly the kind of precision this site exists to question.

Which older pattern does the Tufti claim repeat?

Tufti is the second source outside the author that Zeland’s books name: in the second step of Reality Transurfing, published in 2004, the knowledge was credited to a keeper met in a dream, and Zeland now presents both as channels.

On the publisher’s page for Tufti the Priestess he says that he invents nothing himself but connects to a channel and relays what comes from it: Transurfing came through the keeper’s channel, and what came through Tufti’s seemed so incredible that at first he doubted the channel, until he tested it in practice. So the author does link the keeper and Tufti: he sets them side by side as two channels, though he does not say they are the same figure.

The structure is the one the Kybalion built in 1908: the content is credited to someone who cannot be asked for evidence. With Tufti the source also gains a personal name, a goddess and a span of years, which is what makes this version checkable at all.

How is Tufti related to Reality Transurfing?

Zeland presents the Tufti books as the higher level of Reality Transurfing: in his interview on the Transurfing Centre’s site he calls Transurfing the elementary school and Tufti the higher one.

The publisher describes Tufti’s techniques as a substantial addition to Transurfing and a new, higher level of it. The central technique of the Tufti books, the braid, has its own page. Asked whether readers can start with Tufti, Zeland answers that they can but will not understand everything, and that it is better to learn the basics of Transurfing first; the five core steps are set out volume by volume.

Does it matter where the techniques come from?

Whether the practical content is useful is a separate question from where it is said to come from. Zeland’s own test for the channel is practical: in the interview he says that reliability is simple to establish, because one should believe only what actually works. That test can say something about a technique; it cannot date a priestess. An idea can be worth trying and still have an invented pedigree, and the pedigree is the part we can check.

Fair questions

Who is Tufti the Priestess?

The narrator of Vadim Zeland’s Tufti the Priestess (Ves, 2018) and the heroine of his novel Priestess Itfat (2018). The author presents her as a priestess of Isis in Egypt who lived from 970 to 911 BCE; that is his claim, and we found no historical record of her.

Was Tufti a real historical person?

Nothing shows that she was. We found no Egyptian record of a priestess called Tafti, Tufti or Itfat, and Zeland says the dates reached him through what he calls Tufti’s channel, not from any ancient manuscript. We did not search the Egyptological literature exhaustively, but the claim gives no Egyptian name, temple or object that could be looked up.

Who wrote Tufti the Priestess, and when was it published?

Vadim Zeland, the author of Reality Transurfing. The Russian original, Тафти жрица. Гуляние живьем в кинокартине, was published by Ves in St Petersburg in 2018; English, Spanish and Polish editions followed from 2020. Zeland says he did not invent the content but received it through what he calls Tufti’s channel.

Which Tufti books are there, and in what order?

Tufti the Priestess (2018); the novel Priestess Itfat (2018); What Tufti Didn’t Say (2019), answers to readers’ questions; and a sequel, Tufti the Priestess 2, in the publisher’s catalogue by March 2023. Zeland himself advises learning the basics of Transurfing before starting on Tufti.

How is Tufti related to Reality Transurfing?

Zeland calls Transurfing the elementary school and Tufti the higher one. The Tufti books keep the earlier ideas, add techniques such as the braid, and change the claimed source of the knowledge, from a keeper met in a dream in the 2004 second step to a named priestess with ancient dates.

Sources & further reading

• Vadim Zeland, Тафти жрица. Гуляние живьем в кинокартине (St Petersburg: Ves, 2018), 239 pp., ISBN 978-5-9573-2707-3: Russian State Library record. The opening chapter is read in the publisher’s sample of the current edition, p. 7; the author’s remark on channels is in the description on the same page.
• Vadim Zeland, Жрица Итфат (Ves, 2018), 451 pp., ISBN 978-5-9573-3075-2, record; О чем не сказала Тафти (Ves, 2019), ISBN 978-5-9573-3466-8, record; publisher’s pages for Priestess Itfat, What Tufti Didn’t Say and Tufti the Priestess 2 (the last also in an Internet Archive copy of 23 March 2023). The opening of Priestess Itfat is read in the publisher’s samples: p. 7 of the Russian edition and p. 5 of the English edition.
• Vadim Zeland, interview about the new book Tufti and the afterword “Tufti’s avatar”, Transurfing Centre (tserf.ru), online by 18 August 2019 (Internet Archive), read on 1 November 2026.
• English editions: publisher’s pages for Tufti the Priestess. Live Stroll Through A Movie and Priestess Itfat; year and translator from the Labirint records (1, 2).
• Spanish editions: National Library of Spain records for Tafti, la sacerdotisa (2020, ISBN 978-84-17230-88-3), Lo que Tafti no dijo (2021, ISBN 978-84-123677-5-1) and La sacerdotisa Itfat (2023, ISBN 978-84-19619-20-4); the publisher’s name as in the Spanish ISBN agency database.
• Polish editions: National Library of Poland records for Kapłanka Tafti: spacer w filmie (2022) and O czym nie powiedziała Tafti (2023).
• J. Allen and M. Hill, ‘Egypt in the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1070-664 B.C.)’, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004, revised March 2018.
• Isis Temple, Digital Giza (Giza Project, Harvard University), with the Porter and Moss date.
• Coffin Set of the Chantress of Amun-Re Henettawy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 25.3.182-184, ca. 1000-945 BCE.
• Hermann Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen (Glückstadt: Augustin, 1935-1977), German National Library records for vol. 1 (1935), vol. 2 (1952) and vol. 3 (1977). The claim gives no Egyptian form of the name, so there was nothing to look up in Ranke’s list.
• The keeper in the second step: N. N. Pluzhnikova, ‘“Трансерфинг реальности” и магические практики в культуре’, Izvestiya VGPU 9 (63), 2011, pp. 28-32 (CyberLeninka); on p. 29 she notes that in Шелест утренних звезд, the second step, Zeland says the technique was not his own invention but was passed to him by a keeper of ancient knowledge who once appeared to him in a dream. The second step itself: Vadim Zeland, Трансерфинг реальности. Ступень 2: Шелест утренних звезд (St Petersburg: Ves, 2004), 211 pp., ISBN 5-9573-0305-4, Russian State Library record.
• We do not reproduce text from Vadim Zeland’s books, which are in copyright.