Why, in their past lives, was everybody a princess or mighty warrior? Didn't anybody dig ditches in the ancient world? Who took out the garbage? Who fed the elephants? Despite these quibbles, reincarnation has many attractions as an idea: it offers us another spin of the wheel; it puts punishment or reward for our deeds into a more credible landscape than the flames or the clouds; it simplifies the question of where all this consciousness goes to or comes from. It's tidy and sensible, like r...