Born Again

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes when I saw *Born Again* categorized under ‘Spirituality.’ I expected either airy platitudes or sensationalist ghost-story schlock. What I got instead was something far more unsettling: a clinical, almost *legalistic* examination of three women whose past-life memories upended their present lives. Holzer’s approach is relentlessly methodical—he cross-references historical records, consults linguists, even drags a subject to a Virginia battlefield to verify her claims. The effect is less ‘woo-woo’ and more *Serial*-meets-*The X-Files*, with Pierce’s narration selling the gravitas. His delivery is perfectly pitched: skeptical but not dismissive, empathetic but never mawkish. When Pamela Wollenberg’s voice breaks as she describes drowning in a previous life, Pierce doesn’t ham it up—he lets the silence hang, and it’s *devastating*. That said, this isn’t a flawless listen. The pacing drags in the middle during Holzer’s dense historical deep-dives (do we *really* need a 20-minute dissection of 18th-century Prussian military uniforms?), and the lack of counterarguments feels like a missed opportunity. At times, the audio production’s minimalism works against it—some of the hypnosis sessions are nearly inaudible, forcing me to rewind. But the raw humanity of the subjects’ stories cuts through the academic clutter. June Volpe’s account of her past-life phobias manifesting in crippling panic attacks is the standout, a heartbreaking exploration of how memory—real or imagined—can hijack a life. If you’re looking for soothing spiritual affirmations, walk on. But if you want reincarnation treated like a *crime scene*, this is your audiobook.