Good morning! At least, it is morning where I am. We begin. In last week's lesson we learned that the space-time continuum is shaped like a pretzel, and that we are merely the salty bits. This week we shall consider the secret of reincarnation.

It isn't a secret. Indeed, it's pretty banal; and, like all my other lessons, you can learn it right where you are.

So where are you? Are you in this present earthly life: avoiding working, perhaps; or hoping your baby won't wake before you finish today's lesson; or in a café, trying to remember why you ordered green tea and a pretzel; or in the catacombs, reading this in a text message sent by one of your fellow revolutionaries?

Or are you in the afterlife: reading this in the demon-infested examination room for souls that is the Bardo; or hearing this on the breeze as you sit under an apple tree in the Summer Country; or chancing on this in Hell, for I believe—correct me if I am wrong—that Hell has Internet access these days, though very slow; or in a lecture hall on Purgatory Mount; or listening to shabti-servant read this aloud in the Duat as you help Amen-Ra dress for dinner?

In all these places the secret is close at hand. For the secret, my dear students, is:—boredom.

Yes, boredom! For when the day comes that you are sick of apples in the Summer Country, or tired of Amen-Ra’s diva hissy fits, or you decide you're not going to let one more demon roast your privates, on that day you will start searching for the backdoor to the afterlife. You will find it. You will step through that door and go into a womb.

So. If you are in this present earthly life, where you occasionally order the wrong thing, the chances are that you have a soul that thirsts to know more than the taste of paradise or the suffering of hell—a soul that is easily bored.

All the souls around you long for more, too.

So chew on that along with your apple or your Purga-Pretzel (I understand that in Purgatory, all pretzels are rubbery). Let me know what you think, for I too am longing. Thank you for the honor of teaching you, and I hope to see you next week.