A past life is a life a person's soul has lived before this one, part of the broader belief in reincarnation, the idea that a soul returns to the physical world repeatedly to grow or work through unfinished experiences. Past lives differ across traditions, but in a typical psychic reading, a past life is usually brought up to help explain a present-day fear, talent, pattern, or connection to someone in a person's current life.

A past-life reading is meant to reveal one or more of these earlier lives and how they relate to what a client is currently going through, often surfacing as images, feelings, or a strong unexplained familiarity with a particular time or place.