Short answers, pulled from the story.
Reincarnation refers to the belief that a nonmaterial essence of a living being begins a new lifespan in a different physical form after death. The word derives from a Latin term meaning "entering the flesh again."
Reincarnation is a central tenet of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. It also appears as an esoteric belief in Kabbalistic Judaism, among Druze communities, in the Yoruba religion, and in some streams of Gnostic and Hermetic thought. Most mainstream Christian and Islamic denominations reject it.
Pherecydes of Syros, who flourished around 540 BCE, is among the earliest Greek thinkers known to have held the idea. Pythagoras became its first famous exponent and founded societies to spread it. Plato presented accounts of reincarnation in multiple dialogues, including the Myth of Er and the Timaeus, where he argued reincarnation itself serves as reward or punishment between lives.
Gilgul, meaning "cycle," is the Kabbalistic concept of the transmigration of souls. The most comprehensive work on it, Shaar HaGilgulim, was compiled by Chaim Vital from the teachings of the sixteenth-century kabbalist Isaac Luria. In Lurianic Kabbalah, reincarnation is understood as an expression of divine compassion rather than punishment.
Buddhism teaches the doctrine of anatta, meaning no permanent self or soul, yet asserts that rebirth occurs through a stream of consciousness that continues as a causal chain. One Buddhist theory compares this to a dying candle flame lighting a new one: the new consciousness is neither identical to nor entirely separate from the previous one.
Demographic survey data from 1999 to 2002 found that roughly 22 percent of Europeans and 20 percent of Americans believe in rebirth into a physical body. Lithuania recorded the highest figure in Europe at 44 percent, while East Germany recorded the lowest at 12 percent. A quarter of American Christians, including 10 percent of born-again Christians, also hold the belief.