What is reincarnation?

Reincarnation, or the transmigration of souls (from Latin re, ‘again’, in, ‘in’, and carnis, ‘flesh’, meaning embodiment again), also called metempsychosis (from the ancient Greek metempsyhosis, ‘transmigration of souls’), is a belief about existence after death in which the soul returns to the world in different bodily incarnations. This idea belongs to a number of religious traditions and also exists independently of any particular belief system. The succession of incarnations is usually understood to have a purpose: the soul, or more precisely the spirit, evolves. Within this understanding, regression imagery is associated with a search for personal meaning.