I was raised an Episcopalian, attending St. Johns Church in North Haven, where Reverend Kierstad was minister, followed by Father Hay, who many of us sort of idolized. I was an altar boy and I even thought of becoming a minister. But after going to Caltech, I never set foot in a church again except for a wedding or a funeral.
    So what do I believe in? Do I believe in God? I find it hard to believe in the Judaeo Christian God, who seems too simplistic to me. To paraphrase Christopher Marlowe, "That which is comprehensible is not God to me."
    To me, God is the purpose for the existence of the universe. If there is no such purpose, then there is no God. But I believe there is a purpose and that we, humanity, have a part in that purpose, a small part. We are no more than one of God's fingernails, something that God would not like to part with but will, if it is necessary. Unlike our own fingernails, however, I believe that we can become something bigger, something more important to God's purpose.
    What about reincarnation? I certainly would like to believe in it but I know of nothing that even approaches proof. If it is my "essence" or soul that is reincarnated then it makes no difference--when I die, Grant Carrington dies, even if some soul-type thing is reincarnated. Because I don't remember being William Shakespeare or a brontosaurus or anything else.
    There have been people who have "relived" previous lives under hypnosis but, as we know, people under hypnosis are very suggestible. One hypnotist believes in reincarnation because he says none of the people he has hypnotized have claimed to be someone famous, although some of them have been very vain. But quite a few people have experienced former lives under hypnosis and, to the best of my knowledge, none of them have claimed to be someone who appears in the historical record. And that's troubling, because we have records for just about everyone who has lived in the western world in the past two centuries. As someone else has said, I will believe in reincarnation when someone who has been regressed to a former life through hypnosis shows us where buried treasure is, i.e., something that no one alive today knows about--a deed or will or other document sealed off in a wall several hundred years ago, for example.
    However, when I was writing A Gentleman of Stratford, a strange thing happened. I had been harboring the fantasy that I was the reincarnation of Shakespeare. I knew it was a fantasy, even at the time. However, it didn't take much writing to disabuse me of even the fantasy. But several times, while writing, I would get the idea of something to put in the play, only to read several days later in my research that something similar may well have happened. Not just once, but at least three times.
    So, if reincarnation is indeed true, it's clear I'm not the reincarnation of William Shakespeare. But perhaps I may be the reincarnation of John Fletcher, who worked with Shakespeare during the last few years of Shakespeare's life, sort of his protege. Perhaps it was John Fletcher who made me write a play about a man who Fletcher probably admired greatly. Who knows? I sure don't.