Singer Isaac Hayes died on [August 10] at the age of 65. Hayes was [a] dedicated Scientologist. According to his religious beliefs, what happens to Hayes now that he’s passed away? His soul will be “born again into the flesh of another body”... [S]ome core beliefs of Scientology are that every human being is really an immortal spiritual being known as a thetan and that the “meat bodies” we inhabit are merely vessels we shed upon death... When a body dies, its thetan forgets the details of the former life, though painful and traumatic images known as engrams remain rooted in its unconscious. In order to move up the path of spiritual progression — known as the Bridge to Total Freedom — one must eradicate these psychic scars, which cause a person to act fearfully and irrationally. Once a Scientologist has purged them through the counselling process known as auditing, he or she is said to be “clear.”  

...Scientologists do not believe in “reincarnation.” Unlike religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, in which reincarnation functions as a kind of justice system — ie, an individual’s behaviour in one life determines the calibre of the next — rebirth in Scientology is a more mechanical process. [Founder L. Ron] Hubbard described it as “simply living time after time, getting a new body, eventually losing it and getting a new one.”

Excerpted from an article in ‘Slate’