In much of the civilized world, the idea of reincarnation, or transmigration of the soul, is the prevailing point of view. More than a third of the world’s people accept reincarnation as a fact of life.

And even in the West, the doctrine of reincarnation has a long list of distinguished adherents.

• Pythagoras (Greek philosopher and mathematician, c.582–c.500 BC)

• Socrates (Greek philosopher, 469–399 BC)

• Plato (Greek philosopher, 427–347 BC)

• Plotinus (Greek philosopher, founder of Neoplatonism, 204–270)

• Giordano Bruno (Italian philosopher, 1548–1600)

• François Voltaire (French philosopher, 1694–1778)

• Benjamin Franklin (US statesman, philosopher and inventor, 1706–1790)

• Gotthold Lessing (German philosopher and dramatist, 1729–1781)

• John Adams (Second president of the United States, 1735–1826)

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German poet and dramatist, 1749–1832)

• August Wilhelm von Schlegel (German poet, critic and translator, 1767–1845)

• William Wordsworth (English poet, 1770–1850)

• Ralph Waldo Emerson (US philosopher and writer, 1803–1882)

• Robert Browning (English poet, 1812–1889)

• Richard Wagner (German composer, 1813–1883)

• Henry David Thoreau (US social critic, writer and philosopher, 1817–1862)

• Walt Whitman (US poet, 1819–1892)

• Thomas Huxley (English biologist and writer, 1825–1895)

• Leo Tolstoy (Russian novelist and social critic, 1828–1910)

• Mark Twain (US writer, 1835–1910)

• George Bernard Shaw (British writer, 1856–1950)

• Gustav Mahler (German composer, 1860–1911)

• Rudolf Steiner (Austrian philosopher, 1861–1925)

• David Lloyd George (British Prime Minister, 1863–1945)

• Henry Ford (US automobile pioneer, 1863–1947)

• Rudyard Kipling (English writer, 1865–1936)

• W. Somerset Maugham (English writer, 1874–1965)

• Carl Jung (Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist, 1875–1961)

• Sir Hugh Dowding (British Air Marshal during the Battle of Britain, 1882–1970)

• George S. Patton (US general, 1885–1945)

• Albert Schewitzer (Alsatian writer, missionary, doctor, and musician. 1875–1965)

• Robert Graves (English poet, 1895–1985)

• Erik Erikson (US psychoanalyst, 1902–1994)

• Isaac Bashevis Singer (US novelist and short-story writer, 1904–1991)