Birthmarks and birth defects in the head and neck region and claims of past-life memories: Cases in Ian Stevenson's Reincarnation and Biology

In his massive two-volume monograph Reincarnation and Biology, Ian Stevenson included 75 cases with birthmarks and birth defects affecting the head and neck region of the human body. The present paper provides details of these 75 cases and compares them to 19 similar cases Laura Borges Kirschnick and colleagues found in a systematic review of journal publications. The reports in Stevenson's book are shown to be considerably longer (with a mean of 9 pages vs. 2.1 pages) and more detailed than those considered by Kirschnick et al. Moreover, the cases reported in journals were found not to be representative of those reported in Reincarnation and Biology on several variables. Reincarnation research is unusual among scientific disciplines in its use of book publications and Stevenson's books remain essential resources for the field. Literature reviews in this domain would therefore do well to take into account scholarly books as well as journals. A trustworthiness scale for reincarnation case studies is proposed as an assist to researchers in the construction of study samples.

Birthmarks and birth defects in the head and neck region and claims of past-life memories: A systematic review

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review compiles published information on subjects with head or neck birth defects or birthmarks in which past-life memories were alleged.

DATA SOURCES

Electronic searches were done in April 2022 in the following bibliographic databases: MEDLINE/PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE, and PsycINFO.

STUDY SELECTION

References of the included studies and the gray literature were searched. Our sample included six studies reporting 19 cases of birthmarks and birth defects in the head and neck region with alleged past-life memories.

DATA EXTRACTION

The features of the lesions varied, and their size ranged between 0.5 to 12 cm. All the cases had interviews with the family of the deceased person and the family of the child with the birthmarks, and nine of them included some type of verified official report.

DATA SYNTHESIS

The strength of the evidence in the cases was analyzed using the strength-of-evidence scale.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that birthmarks and birth defects in the head and neck region occurred mostly in male children, with the possibility of these marks being caused by the fatal injury of the alleged personality. The literature lacks new cases with high strength of evidence, emphasizing the need for further primary studies.

A Japanese case of the reincarnation type with written records made before verifications: A child claiming to have fought on the battleship Yamato

This paper reports a case of the reincarnation type in which a child claims to have past-life memories and exhibits behaviors appropriate to the person he appears to be referring to as his past-life personality. The case has the following three interesting characteristics. First, it is a fairly strong Japanese case in the sense that it has many of the characteristic features of cases of the reincarnation type. Second, the child's statements were recorded and the investigation started before the possible identification of the previous personality was made. Third, in a number of ways, it is comparable to the case of James Leininger, one of the best-known American cases: The child claimed to have fought in the Second World War and have been killed in a battle; had unusual knowledge about a battleship with which he claimed to have been affiliated; and repeated in a play the crucial scene of the battle in which he claimed to have died.