Socialite Carla Dean and her husband Stewart are holding a lavish dinner party for Stewart's rich brother Charles Dean and Charles' wife Jessie. The party is going well until Stewart suggests to hypnotize someone and get them to remember their previous lives. Carla loves the idea and Jessie agrees to be the subject of this party trick. However, she apparently does actually remember one of her previous lives when she was a woman called Martine San Pierre living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1846. This personality seemingly takes over Jessie and claiming that her husband is cheating on her with a black female slave, she takes a knife from the table and stabs Charles to death. The guests try to stop her but it's too late. She reverts back to her old self and is arrested for murder. Stewart is convinced that she can't be held responsible since she wasn't herself at the time of the murder but their old acquaintance and prosecutor Walter Lang, who was also at the party, believes that she was faking not being herself in order to kill her husband and get his money. The trial begins with Lang as the prosecutor. Jessie's lawyer asks that they try to hypnotize her again and see what happens.