In the traditions that teach reincarnation, the answer is yes: every soul has lived many past lives, and every person here now has a long history behind them. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all describe the soul or consciousness moving through a cycle of births, deaths, and rebirths called samsara, with each life shaped by karma from the ones before. Modern spiritual teachers add a caveat: some speak of “new souls” who are at the beginning of their journey, which means the question deserves a fuller answer. This guide looks at what the great traditions say, what researchers have found, and why most of us remember so little.
The claim that everyone has a past life rests on a simple idea: the soul is eternal, and one human lifetime is not enough for it to learn everything it came here to learn. Each incarnation is one chapter in a much longer story, with the soul carrying forward its lessons, its attachments, and its karma.
If you accept that premise, then every person you meet is an old soul in the literal sense of having lived before. There is no such thing as a first lifetime, just as there is no such thing as a first day of school for a teacher who has taught for decades. This is the universal view of reincarnation, and it is the standard teaching of the world’s major rebirth traditions.
To understand where this idea comes from and how it works, start with our introduction to what a past life is.
The belief that everyone has past lives is not a modern invention. It has been the mainstream teaching of entire civilizations for thousands of years.
These traditions have shaped the cultures of billions of people. For most of Asia, the question “does everyone have a past life?” would be answered with a calm yes, because rebirth is simply how reality works. A Pew Research Center survey found that roughly one in five Europeans also believe in reincarnation, a sign that the idea travels well beyond its birthplace.
Here is where modern spiritual teaching complicates the simple yes. Many contemporary teachers describe souls as being at different stages of development. In this framework, a “young soul” might be living only its first few human lifetimes, while an “old soul” has lived hundreds. A small minority of teachers go further and say some souls are entirely new, incarnating for the first time.
This is a genuinely different answer from the classical one. Traditional Hinduism and Buddhism have no category for a soul with no past lives; every soul has been in the cycle since beginningless time. The “new soul” idea comes mainly from modern and Western spiritual thought, and it is a minority position even there.
What most modern teachers agree on is this: regardless of whether a soul is young or old, every person carries forward tendencies, talents, and patterns that did not come from this lifetime alone. You can see those patterns even without knowing their history, which is the practical side of past life work.
The most serious research into past lives does not assume everyone has them, but it offers a window into how past life memory works. The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies, founded on the work of psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, has documented more than 2,500 cases of children who spontaneously reported memories of a previous life.
Several features of these cases are relevant to the “everyone” question:
The research proves neither universal reincarnation nor its absence. But it does show that past life memory is possible, and that forgetting is the norm. If you want the full picture of what this research does and does not prove, read our honest guide to whether past lives are real.
This is the question people ask most often, and the traditions have thoughtful answers.
Seen this way, forgetting is not evidence against past lives; it is a design feature. The question then becomes how to access what lies underneath, which is where meditation, regression, and readings come in.
Not every tradition teaches that everyone has a past life. The mainstream of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism teaches a single earthly life followed by judgement or an afterlife, with no return to this world. For believers in those faiths, the answer to our question is simply no, there are no past lives, for anyone.
Mainstream science takes a similar position from a different direction: there is no verified mechanism by which a memory or consciousness could transfer between bodies, and no experiment has reliably demonstrated one. Scientists do not claim the experiences people have in regression are lies; they treat them as real psychological events that can be explained by imagination, suggestion, and forgotten memories.
These views deserve respect, and they are why the honest answer to “does everyone have a past life?” must begin with “it depends on your framework.” What is striking is how many people, even in one-life cultures, feel drawn to the question at all. That pull is part of the evidence, even if it is not proof.
The answer matters because it changes how you read your own life. If everyone has past lives, then:
None of this requires you to abandon reason. You can hold the belief lightly and still use it: the past life frame is a map, and maps can be useful even when they are not literal.
If you want to find out for yourself, these steps will take you from curiosity to direct experience:
Whatever method you choose, approach the material with curiosity rather than certainty. The goal is insight, not biography.
You do not need to settle the philosophical question before you begin. At Ppure Energy Gurukul, Sshreevidhyaa offers 1:1 psychic readings that include past life insight, helping you see the patterns that repeat across your life and where they may come from. If you would rather start with your own observation, read our guide to who you were in your past life or the signs covered in signs of past life memories. Questions about your own experiences? Contact us here, or browse our shop for tools that support meditation and inner work.
In the traditions that teach reincarnation, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, yes: every soul has lived many lives and will live more. Modern spiritual teachers sometimes add that some souls are young or new, but the classical traditions describe every soul as being in the cycle since beginningless time.
Some modern teachers describe “new souls” who are living their first human lifetimes, but this is a minority view. The classical reincarnation traditions have no category for a soul with no past lives at all. Most teachers agree that everyone carries forward patterns that did not begin in this lifetime.
Traditions teach that souls forget their past lives by design, so that each life can be lived freshly. This is sometimes called the veil of forgetting. What crosses over is not a full biography but tendencies, talents, fears, and karmic patterns, which is why past life material surfaces selectively rather than as a continuous memory.
Jainism explicitly teaches that animal souls have lived countless lives, and Hindu tradition also describes souls moving through many forms of existence. In these frameworks the soul’s journey is not limited to human bodies.
In the classical traditions, reincarnation is universal: every soul continues in the cycle until it reaches liberation, called moksha in Hinduism or nirvana in Buddhism. There is no category of soul that simply ends at death.
No. Science has no verified mechanism for consciousness or memory transferring between bodies, and no experiment has reliably demonstrated one. The most studied evidence is the University of Virginia research into children’s past life memories, which is intriguing but does not settle the question.
The most common paths are guided past life meditation, a regression session with a trained practitioner, dream journaling, and a psychic past life reading. Most people find that the material surfaces when they relax, stop forcing it, and start paying attention to their patterns.
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