Why I Believe in Reincarnation

People often assume I believe in reincarnation because I write novels about it.

The truth is, I didn't always.

I grew up Catholic, praying to saints who had died, believing they could hear prayers and intercede on behalf of those still living. Later, I earned degrees in Christianity, the Bible, and theology. Throughout those years, I never questioned whether life continued after death. The question was never whether we survived death. The question was what happened next.

For most of my life, that was enough.

Last July I wrote about the experience that changed my understanding of life after death.

On the night my mother died, I awoke sensing someone standing in my bedroom doorway. Later that morning I learned she had passed away at that exact time.

Whether you interpret that experience spiritually or not, it convinced me of one thing: death was not the end.

But it also left me with a question that would occupy me for years.

If life continues after death, what happens next?

Over the following years, I began researching. I studied how different religions viewed reincarnation and rebirth. Hinduism and Buddhism embrace the idea openly. Other faith traditions reject it. Some have debated it for centuries.

I also explored research involving children who claimed to remember previous lives. Some of those cases were difficult to dismiss. Young children described people, places, and events they should have had no way of knowing. Skeptics offered explanations. Believers offered others.

I read both sides.

What surprised me was how widespread the belief in reincarnation has been throughout human history. It was not limited to one culture or one religion. People separated by geography, language, and time often arrived at remarkably similar ideas about the soul continuing beyond a single lifetime.

I also discovered researchers who approached the subject scientifically, including those who documented cases of children reporting detailed memories of previous lives. Rather than beginning with a belief, they collected and studied the accounts, looking for patterns and evidence. While not everyone agrees with their conclusions, I found the work thought-provoking and difficult to ignore.

After years of research, reflection, and personal experience, I came to my own conclusion: reincarnation is real.

That belief changed how I viewed relationships, loss, and even love itself. What if the people who matter most to us are not entering our lives for the first time? What if some connections feel familiar because they are familiar? What if death is not the end of a relationship, but simply an interruption?

Those questions eventually became the foundation of my writing.

I didn't write The Option and then become interested in reincarnation.

I became convinced reincarnation was real, and then I wrote The Option.

Without reincarnation, Max never becomes Isaac and finds Zander again.

Without reincarnation, Marcus never becomes Kingston and finds Tommy.

Without reincarnation, Gary and Jon Paul never return as Flint and Zack.

The Prospect Tower series exists because I became fascinated by the idea that souls continue, return, and reconnect. That idea runs through every book in the series, from The Option to Gary's Gift.

Do I expect everyone to agree with me?

No.

But I do believe that death is not the end of our story.

Sometimes, it is simply the beginning of the next chapter.

— M.J.