I always say only that I incline strongly to believe in reincarnation. But if they've been reported accurately, some of the documented cases are compelling. And it seems like the most plausible possibility of survival.

I like this Buddhist concept: that which reincarnates is not an individual being but a wave of being. It can be compared to a wave in the sea. On the one hand, a wave in the sea is made up of constantly changing drops of water; on the other, it's always part of the sea. And yet, there is something we can call a "wave."

Many years ago I consulted a number of psychics by mail. I received some nonsensical past-life readings, but others rang true and/or contained fascinating parallels. The psychics couldn't have been in contact, had never seen me in person, and hadn't been given any hints of what I might expect or hope for. One requested a photo showing the eyes. But the one from whom I received the most interesting readings, a Rev. E. Hessel (a woman, now deceased), asked for only a button from a frequently worn garment. I consulted Rev. Hessel three times, seeking to go further back; I always reminded her of what she'd already told me, didn't try to trap her into giving conflicting readings for the same time period.

Rev. Hessel (in New York) and Sybil Howarth (in England) both told me my last life was a female incarnation in 19th-century England. While they differed on names, dates, and specifics--the more precise psychics try to be, the more likely they are to be wrong--they both mentioned a sea captain as having been important in that life. Rev. Hessel said he was an uncle to whom I was close; Ms. Howarth said that after my first husband's death, I married a retired sea captain. (Note that they could have been picking up the same image and interpreting it differently. A beloved uncle might well have lived with me after he retired.)

While I hadn't mentioned it to the psychics, my longtime favorite film was "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir"--in which an Englishwoman in the late 19th century falls in love with the ghost of a sea captain! I had seen that old film on TV at least five times, and cried my eyes out every time. Did the psychics unconsciously pick that up and weave a fantasy around it, or did the movie have such an effect on me because of similarities to my past life?

This gets stranger. Rev. Hessel said my name in that life (before marriage) was Katrina Moorehead, and my uncle's name was Lewis. It was unclear whether she meant it as his first or last name, but that was the spelling.

I looked up the name "Moorehead," and discovered its original spelling was "Muirhead." It means "end of the moor."

A sign Rev. Hessel was really picking names up psychically rather than inventing: she reached a bit to explain "Katrina," saying I was named for a German grandmother. Maybe so. But the name "Moorehead" is Scottish, and "Katrina" can also be Scottish (it's the correct pronunciation of the Gaelic "Caitriona"). So the names go together very well, and the psychic clearly didn't realize it. I didn't know "Moorehead" was Scottish either, till I looked it up.

More. In my present life, my mother had a first cousin named Kathryn Moore (nee Morrissey), and the two cousins had an uncle whose surname was Lewis. I knew Kathryn (a woman old enough to be my grandmother) only slightly, the long-dead Mike Lewis not at all.

Was the psychic plucking names out of my subconscious and weaving fantasies? Or could some strange synchronicity really lead to this kind of name recurrence? Could the names of our kin be triggers that might wake buried memories, if we were open to the possibility?

What Rev. Hessel saw as my "life before last" was a male incarnation in the U.S., in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She said my name was Harry Brewster. My brother (the only sib she mentioned) was named Charlie. My employer and best friend--who became my brother-in-law when I married his sister--was named Joseph, and my only child was named for him.

In my real, present life, my father was named Joseph. My maternal grandfather was named Harry, and a beloved cousin was named Charlie. ("Harry" and "Charlie," in particular, aren't that common.) My father and grandfather were long dead when I received the reading; I think it was after my cousin's death, too.

"Brewster"? No connection...except for the fact that my mother had told me several family stories having to do with her father's beer drinking! I didn't think of that as a possible connection until recently.

On to something else. I also consulted--by mail--the best-known psychic in my own city, Ann Fisher. Aside from telling me my "aura" was the color I believed and hoped it would be, she gave me only one useful tidbit: that she saw me as "a monk in the 15th century." When an American psychic says that, without more elaboration, I think it's safe to say she means a Christian monk in some part of Europe.

Rev. Hessel told me I was a priest, in Italy, in the 1500s (16th century). An Italian priest assigned to clerical (i.e., "monklike") duties at the Vatican. And I was influenced by an uncle who was also a priest. (Another sign she was really giving me what she "picked up," sensible or not: she told me my name was Tony Pepperoni! I chose to interpret that as Antonio Petreonni--I'm not sure whether "Petreonni" is a real name.)

Sybil Howarth described a life as a happily married woman--in Italy, in the 1600s. And she said my father was a painter of church frescoes.

In other words: In the same rough time period, two of three psychics saw me as a European cleric performing monklike duties. At the same time, two of three psychics placed me in Italy and mentioned an older male relative connected with the Church.

This only occurred to me recently. I received Sybil Howarth's "Italy" reading before Rev. Hessel's. I never thought in any detail about those church frescoes my father was supposedly painting. Later, Rev. Hessel told me that in my life as a priest, my uncle--and I myself--experienced deathbed visions of Jesus. I've realized now that both psychics may have picked up the image of an older man face to face with a conventional representation of Jesus; one thought the man was painting Jesus, the other that he was having a vision. And the second psychic can hardly have plucked the image from my memory of the first reading, because I'd never thought of it in that way.

Here's another small oddity. In the "Harry Brewster" reading, which she intended as my "life before last," Rev. Hessel said my wife's name was Theresa. She also saw the name "Joseph" as important in that life. In the supposed Italian female incarnation she saw as my "life before last," Sybil Howarth said my name was Teresa and my husband's name was Giuseppe (Joseph)!

And now for something completely different...

One psychic I consulted was Rev. Noel Street. Crabby and self-important--ugh! But he mentioned two interesting lives.

First, he said I had a male incarnation in a specific province of China in the 10th century A.D. I no longer remember the name of the province, but I looked it up at the time and learned it's on the coast.

Going further back, he saw me as "the wife of a Carthaginian statesman" at the time of the fall of Carthage, which he wrongly placed in the "first century B.C." (It was actually the second century B.C., though I didn't know that till I looked it up.) He also said I was "fluent in a number of languages" in that lifetime.

I consulted yet another psychic, someone calling himself or herself "Trifon." This person had just heard about the concept of genetic memory and fallen in love with it--seemed to think he was dealing with genetic memories rather than past lives, when I couldn't possibly have had ancestors where he claimed. But he described two lives--going back in rough thousand-year jumps, which was also what Rev. Street had evidently tried to do.

First, a life in "a seacoast region of Asia, a thousand years ago."

Then, in the "first years A.D.," a life in "a coastal region of North Africa" during which my people, whom he described as a "nomad tribe," suffered a "major military defeat." He mentioned that "the lot of women was difficult," seeming to imply that I was a woman. And in a very brief reading, he included something that might have been taken for granted: that I "spoke a language no longer spoken today." Rev. Street had also felt it necessary to mention the concept of language.

Despite the whopping difference between a "nomad tribe" and Carthage, I think the parallels here are startling.

At the very least, the readings I've received prove the reality of telepathy. If the psychics were not accessing past lives, they must have been plucking ideas from my mind, including my memories of other readings.

A final note: my own personal evidence. When I was a small child, I had a little ritual with my mother. She'd tell me, "You're my pettyskin." That sounds like routine, made-up baby talk on her part. But what I'd say to her was, "You're my heart of gold." That sounds strange. We may say someone has a "heart of gold," but I can't recall ever hearing anyone else say another person was their "heart of gold." In later years, Mom said she had no idea where I could have picked up that phrase.

When I was in my thirties, I heard the original lyrics of the old English song "Greensleeves" for the first time. It includes the phrase "Greensleeves [a woman's name] was my heart of gold"--using it as a term of endearment, just as I had! I'm American, and I don't think that usage is still current even in England.