Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect

Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect by Dr. Ian Stevenson, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT, 1997

Summary

(From book cover) Children who claim to remember a previous life have been found in many parts of the world, particularly in the Buddhist and Hindu countries of South Asia, among the Shiite peoples of Lebanon and Turkey, the tribes of West Africa, and the American northwest. Stevenson has collected over 2,600 reported cases of past-life memories of which 65 detailed reports have been published. Specific information from the children's memories has been collected and matched with the data of their former identity, family, residence, and manner of death. Birthmarks or other physiological manifestations have been found to relate to experiences of the remembered past life, particularly violent death. Writing as a specialist in psychiatry and as a world-renowned scientific investigator of reported paranormal events, Stevenson asks us to suspend our Western tendencies to disbelieve in "reincarnation" and consider the reality of the burgeoning record of cases now available. This book summarizes Stevenson's findings which are presented in full in the multi-volume work entitled Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, also published by Praeger.

This book distills 112 cases of the 225 which are contained in the large parent monograph. The emphasis is placed on children who have recalled past lives and who have birthmarks or birth defects. Most birthmarks are hairless areas of puckered, scarlike tissue, often raised above surrounding tissues or depressed below them. The deaths recalled by these children are for the most part violent. The key evidence found is the close relationship between the nature of wounds causing the death of the previous personality and the presence of birthmarks at the same location on the child who recalls this previous life and how it ended.

Key Results

A set of cases are described whose strong evidence for reincarnation exceeds previous cases reported by Dr. Stevenson.

When birthmarks and wounds experienced in claimed past lives are correlated, the evidence is generally found in the memories of the past life means of death, or through other informants who knowledge of those wounds, or, in the strongest cases, through medical records made at the time of death.

Six cases are described where birthmarks in two places on the child correlate with the entrance and exit wounds associated with the death of the previous personality.

The incorporation of physical biological factors (birthmarks and birth defects) into the set of evidence for reincarnation practically eliminates any possibiliity that fraud, cross-family communication, or extra-sensory perception were responsible for these cases.

A fatal wound occurring shortly before death facilitates its later appearance as a birthmark.

Humans demonstrate the capability to create changes in their own body, as in the case of stigmata or certain hypnotically-induced phenomena.

About 35% of the cases demonstrate a phobia which is almost always related to the mode of death in the previous life.

A quote by Dr. Stevenson indicates a stronger belief in reincarnation than was found in his earlier works: "Reincarnation is the best explanation for many cases".

Primary Reasons to Read this Work

To understand what is the strongest physical evidence published to date which supports the hypothesis of reincarnation, that involving physical manifestations on a child which relate to the experience of death in a remembered past life.

To broaden the understanding of Dr. Stevenson's research into reincarnation.

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