FOX’s new TV series Past Life is based on M.J.’s Reincarnationist novels. You can learn more about the series by clicking here to visit the Past Life Information Archive.

Also, for a limited time, people who sign up for M.J. Rose’s personal newsletter can download a free 100-page sampler – over 100 pages of excerpts from all of M.J.’s reincarnationist books.

Book about reincarnation inspires creator of ‘Past Life’

By Robert Philpot, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Dallas-bred writer-producer David Hudgins hadn’t given the idea of reincarnation much thought when The Reincarnationist, a book by M.J. Rose, crossed his desk. He says he was immediately intrigued, and saw the potential for a TV series.

Then fate sent him a message. Well, Oprah Winfrey did, anyway.

“She was doing a series on [reincarnation], with Dr. Oz and this guy named Brian Weiss, who’s probably the foremost expert in past-life regression,” Hudgins says. “And she did a couple of shows where she brought people on and regressed them, and the way people responded to it really struck me. [I thought] ‘This is absolutely fascinating. I don’t know if I believe in it or not, but there is a world here and there are a ton of stories you can tell.'”

That epiphany led to Past Life, a new Fox show about a team of past-life regression investigators who help clients such as, say, a teenage boy whose strange behavior leads to the revelation that he’s actually the reincarnation of someone who died before he was born. The team is led by Dr. Kate McGinn (the believer, played by Kelli Giddish) and former New York police detective Price Whatley (the skeptic, played by Nicholas Bishop).

Although the set-up is immediately reminiscent of Fox shows ranging from The X-Files to Bones, Fringe and Lie to Me, Hudgins says he hopes to make the show — which he calls a very loose adaptation of Rose’s book — more than just a crime-solving procedural.

“We’re going to constantly ask the question ‘What if?,'” Hudgins says. Regardless of whether you believe in reincarnation, Hudgins’ life has plenty of “pasts” in it, in the resume sense. A look at a few of his “past lives.”…

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David Hudgins and Kelli Giddish Discover Their Past Life

The new Fox series, Past Life, created by Friday Night Lights writer David Hudgins stars Kelli Giddish and Nick Bishop as an unlikely pair of past-life detectives who investigate whether what is happening to you today is the result of who you were before? The series premieres this Tuesday, February 9th at 9 PM before it moves to its regular timeslot, Thursday nights at 9 PM starting February 11th. We had a chance to speak with the show’s creator, Hudgins, and it’s star, Giddish, to discuss the series, the premise, the cast and reincarnation. This is what they had to say:

For starters, Kelli could you tell us a little bit about how you first became involved with the series and maybe some of the acting challenges you found stepping into the role of Dr. McGinn?

Kelli Giddish: Well, there is a pilot season every year and this is actually one of the first projects I went out on probably about a year ago, last January. I really loved the character and went right in for it. Actually David and Deran Sarafian, the director of the pilot, and Lou Pitt, were all down in Baltimore and I was living in New York at the time. I went in and tested and it went from there. They had found Nick Bishop and so it kind of just rolled into a project from there…

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