For some five hundred million of the world’s people, reincarnation is more than a theory—it is a fact, a given, a part of their everyday understanding. It’s what they’ve learned from their scriptures, and what generations of their forefathers have believed for thousands of years.

Aside from people in the East, Western philosophers at least as far back as Plato have found it reasonable to believe that our souls have lived before, in other bodies, other lives, and will live again in new ones.

If we have lived other lives, you might ask, why don’t we remember them? But memory is a tricky thing. We’re lucky if we can remember where we’ve put our car keys. So even if past lives are a fact, it’s not surprising we can’t remember them.

But at least a few of us apparently can.