Now having read just this thread you people are making me want to read the book.

The themes I am picking up on here are about the Platonic idea of the transmigration of souls. What this old idea suggests is that human energy is vastly more complex and mysterious than our current neurological understanding. Science is constantly discovering deep invisible secrets of the universe, and the nature of consciousness seems to be the most complex mystery of all.

So I think that survival of individual spiritual energy after death and rebirth in a new body could be possible, although my default belief is that personal character dissolves at death and the only way we continue to exist after death is through our influence on the world and the memory that others have of us.

But accepting the premise of transmigration, I would like to throw another wacky idea into the mix, namely the role of astrology as a signature identifier. I have a friend who is an astrologist, and we share an interest in the scientific analysis of evidence for astrology. One of the themes investigated by the great astrological statistician Michel Gauquelin was the inheritance of astrological patterns. My friend Greg mentioned to me that one of his personal signatures in his birth chart is that the planet Uranus was at the nadir, the position of the sun at midnight. What is interesting to him is that both of his children share this 1% trait, an event with random probability of about one in a million. Gauquelin maintained that such inherited planetary positions are common, something that seems to invite the hypothesis that the soul of the foetus chooses the time of day at which birth will most match its character, exhibiting a deep intuitive cosmic attunement.

The point here is that the positions of the planets at birth present a deeply personal signature. So if I wished to enter a new body after death in a way that would enable my soul to evolve further than its current state, I would choose a baby instinctively on the basis of planetary positions that best reflect my personality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metempsychosis states “Metempsychosis (Greek: μετεμψύχωσις) is a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. Generally, the term is only used within the context of Ancient Greek philosophy, but has also been used by modern philosophers such as Schopenhauer[2] and Kurt Gödel;[3] otherwise, the term "transmigration" is more appropriate. The word plays a prominent role in James Joyce's Ulysses, and is also associated with Nietzsche.[4] Another term sometimes used synonymously is palingenesia.”

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7178/7178-h/7178-h.htm opens “For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say "I'm going to sleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a quartet, the rivalry between François I and Charles V. This impression would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no; and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed.”

Robert, definitely join us in the book, it will be interesting to see your thoughts on various parts of this story. I can assure you it is a fast read, so it won't take up too much of your time.

I don't know that I can comment on any of that because we are then double dipping into areas I don't find believable, and my suspension just isn't that good