Lewis understand how burning questions like, “Why are we are?” often hold an extraordinary grip over people who are earnestly searching for the truth.
            Since this book is about reincarnation, he notes how people who come on this doctrine- or other doctrines about immortality- often dismiss it easily without even bothering to try and understand it.  Often there appears to be more of an interest if the doctrine is a popular one with other people than its actual truth. Lewis rightly says that the truth of an idea should be our first concern.
            He also notes that people sometimes confuse a doctrine like reincarnation with a doctrine of transmigration which states that human beings can sometimes have a past or future life from a dog or a cat or sometimes an animal. These people only think they know what the doctrine of reincarnation is about, which deals exclusively with people emerging from or being transformed from another person in a past or future lifetime. He also says not to dismiss it out of turn since 3/4 of the world believe in reincarnation.  And it is reasonable for men to wonder, with all they go through, why are we are? Why do I have to suffer? What is the purpose of life?
            I am very OK with asking these questions and I think, as I have pointed out before, it is a very strong reason for me getting involved with AMORC. I wanted to answer these questions- and conventional Catholicism, which I grew up- and the many philosophic and theological books I looked at- did not answer my questions. And Lewis rightly says- not only do we have the right to ask our religions these questions but also science? Both traditional religion and science try to define that we have some kind of place in the universe- and describe- and both should have some kind of clear answer but, for people like us, perhaps they don’t.  I agree with Lewis’s premise, that no matter what we think of the doctrine, if we are truly interested in getting some answers, we must at least look at the facts.

            In today’s world, we have some profound questions raised by the work of the deceased writer and psychiatrist, Dr. Ian Stevenson, M.D., former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry – and Dr. Jim Turner, M.D., his associate and later his successor- at the University of Virginia, where they have been endowed for many years with a grant for finding the truth about reincarnation.
            One can get an interesting peak at their work and many other people’s stories about reincarnation on YouTube, where there are lodged some very riveting examples of reincarnation facts- people who have some quite interesting stories to tell. One can look for instance on a case study located in a Supernatural Investigator video called Evidence of Reincarnation where Jim Tucker and Walter Semkiw, both medical doctors, discuss Ian Stevenson’s work along with Jim Harpur, author of, There is Life After Death. In fact, this video is a good introduction to a longer version of the story of author, Barbro Karlen, an account of reincarnation that might be some real food for thought. Information like this did not exist publicly when Spencer Lewis wrote this book. There is, in fact, a very great more accounts and scientific explorations about reincarnation than was written in his time.