Make It Scream, Make It Burn

by Leslie Jamison

But I felt defensive of reincarnation from the start. It wasn’t that I necessarily believed in it. It was more that I’d grown deeply skeptical of skepticism itself. It seemed much easier to poke holes in things—people, programs, systems of belief—than to construct them, stand behind them, or at least take them seriously. That ready-made dismissiveness banished too much mystery and wonder.

A 2018 Pew study found that 33 percent of Americans believe in reincarnation, and a 2013 Harris Poll estimated that 64 percent believe in the more loosely defined “survival of the soul after death.”

He chose his words carefully but unapologetically as he explained how mediums channeled the spirits of the dead and birthmarks could testify to injuries sustained during prior lives. It was a bit like listening to a geologist on acid matter-of-factly describe the composition of the soil.