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Pionir Riset Reinkarnasi

Pionir Riset Reinkarnasi

Dr. Ian Stevenson
Dr. Ian Stevenson adalah kepala Departemen Psikiatri di Universitas Virginia, dan sekarang Direktur Divisi Studi Persepsi di Universitas Virginia. Ia telah mengabdikan 40 tahun karirnya kepada dokumentasi ilmiah dari ingatan anak tentang hidupnya di masa lalu, dari seluruh penjuru dunia dan mempunyai lebih dari 3000 kasus di dalam filenya. Banyak orang, termasuk yang skeptis dan para sarjana, setuju bahwa kasuskasus ini menawarkan bukti terbaik untuk reinkarnasi

Dr. Stevenson meneliti kemungkinan reinkarnasi mulai dalam 1960 ketika ia mendengar tentang suatu kasus di Sri Lanka di mana seorang anak mengaku mengingat hidupnya yang lampau. Ia secara teliti dan lengkap menanyai anak itu dan orangtuanya, juga orang-orang yang diklaim oleh anak itu sebagai orangtuanya dari hidupnya yang lampau. Ini meyakinkan Dr. Stevenson bahwa reinkarnasi mungkin suatu realitas. Lebih banyak kasus-kasus ia kejar, lebih besar dorongan untuk secara ilmiah membuka dan menaklukkan wilayah tak dikenal di antara misteri-misteri dunia, yang hingga sekarang telah dikeluarkan dari pengamatan ilmiah. Meskipun begitu, ia percaya ia bisa mendekati dan mungkin melengkapi bukti dari realitas reinkarnasi dengan cara-cara ilmiah.


Dalam tahun 1960, Dr. Stevenson menerbitkan dua artikel di Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research tentang anak-anak yang mengingat kehidupannya di masa lampau. Dalam tahun 1974, ia menerbitkan bukunya, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (Dua puluh kasus yang mengisyaratkan Reinkarnasi), dan menjadi terkenal di mana saja buku ini muncul oleh orang-orang yang telah mempunyai minat yang sudah berjalan lama akan subjek ini. Mereka senang akhirnya diperkenalkan dengan riset fundamental mengenai reinkarnasi dari suatu sumber ilmiah. Dalam tahun 1997, Dr. Stevenson menerbitkan karyanya berjudul Reincarnation and Biology. Dalam volume pertama, ia sebagian besar menggambarkan tanda lahir - semua tanda-tanda pembeda di kulit bayi yang baru lahir dan tidak bisa dijelaskan disebabkan oleh keturunan saja. Di dalam volume kedua, Dr. Stevenson memusatkan sebagian besar pada cacat-cacat dan keganjilan- keganjilan yang dibawa lahir oleh anak-anak dan yang tidak bisa ditelusuri kepada warisan, kejadian-kejadian sebelum melahirkan (diciptakan selama kelahiran). Karya monumental ini menampung ratusan gambar-gambar mendokumentasikan bukti-bukti tentang hal itu.

Selama riset aslinya ke dalam berbagai kasus mengenai memori anak-anak dari kehidupan masa lampaunya, Dr. Stevenson mencatat dengan minat fakta bahwa anak-anak ini sering mempunyai tanda lahir yang kekal yang menurut dugaan terkait dengan pembunuhan mereka atau kematian yang mereka derita dalam suatu hidup sebelumnya. Stevenson me-riset tanda-lahir dan cacat-cacat sejak lahir mempunyai arti sangat penting tertentu untuk menjelaskan reinkarnasi, karena ia melengkapi bukti obyektif dan grafis tentang reinkarnasi, lebih superior daripada - sering kali tidak lengkap/terpisah-pisah - memori-memori dan laporan-laporan dari anak-anak dan para orang dewasa yang ditanyai, yang sekalipun diverifikasi setelahnya tidak bisa diberikan nilai yang sama di dalam syarat ilmiah.

Dalam banyak kasus yang dipresentasikan oleh Dr. Stevenson ada juga dokumen medis sebagai bukti lanjutan, yang biasanya dikompilasi setelah kematian orang itu. Dr. Stevenson menambahkan bahwa dalam kasus-kasus yang ia teliti dan ”pecahkan” di mana terdapat tanda-lahir dan cacatcacat bawaan, ia tidak mengandaikan ada penjelasan berlawanan selain reinkarnasi. Hanya 30% -60% dari deformitas- deformitas (cacat-cacat) ini bisa disebabkan oleh cacat-cacat kelahiran yang terkait dengan faktor genetik, infeksi virus atau penyebab-penyebab bahan kimia (seperti yang ditemukan di dalam anak-anak yang dirusakkan oleh obat/racun Thalidomide atau alkohol). Terlepas dari penyebab-penyebab yang dapat dibuktikan ini, profesi medis tidak mempunyai penjelasan lain untuk 40% sampai 70% dari kasus dibandingkan dengan semata-mata suatu kebetulan.

Stevenson sekarang telah berhasil dalam memberi kita satu penjelasan tentang mengapa seorang dilahirkan dengan cacat-cacat ini dan mengapa mereka kelihatan tepat dalam bagian badan mereka dan bukan di bagian lain.

Kebanyakan dari kasus-kasus di mana tanda lahir dan deformitas-deformitas sejak lahir hadir untuk mana tidak ada penjelasan-penjelasan medis mempunyai satu sampai lima karakteristik umum.

(1) Di dalam skenario paling tidak biasa, adalah mungkin seseorang yang percaya kepada reinkarnasi menyatakan keinginan untuk dilahirkan kembali pada sepasang suami istri atau satu mitra dari sepasang suami istri. Ini biasanya karena mereka diyakinkan bahwa mereka telah sungguh-sungguh dijaga oleh orang-orang tertentu. Permintaan-permintaan pendahuluan seperti itu sering kali dinyatakan oleh orang-orang Indian Tlingit dari Alaska dan oleh orang-orang Tibet

(2) Lebih sering dibanding yang ini adalah kejadian-kejadian dari mimpimimpi yang bersifat ramalan (profetik). Seseorang yang telah mati kelihatan kepada seorang yang hamil atau wanita yang tidak hamil hingga kini dan mengatakan kepadanya bahwa ia akan dilahirkan kembali padanya. Kadangkadang sanak atau para sahabat mempunyai mimpi-mimpi seperti ini dan kemudian menyampaikan mimpi ini kepada perempuan yang akan menjadi ibu. Dr. Stevenson menemukan mimpi-mimpi profetik sangat subur di Myanmar dan di antara orang-orang Indian di Alaska.

(3) Di dalam budaya ini badan seorang anak yang baru lahir dicek untuk melihat tanda-tanda yang dapat dikenal, untuk mengetahui apakah orangorang yang telah meninggal yang mereka kenal telah dilahirkan kembali pada mereka. Pencarian ciri khusus sangat umum di dalam budaya-budaya yang percaya akan reinkarnasi, dan terutama di antara orang-orang Indian Tlingit dan orang-orang Igbo dari Nigeria. Berbagai suku Afrika Barat membuat tanda-tanda di badan orang yang baru saja meninggal untuk dapat mengidentifikasi orang itu ketika ia dilahirkan kembali.

(4) Peristiwa yang paling sering terjadi atau bilangan pembagi berkenaan dengan kelahiran kembali mungkin seorang anak yang mengingat hidupnya yang lampau. Anak-anak biasanya mulai berbicara tentang memori-memori mereka antara usia dua dan empat. Memori-memori bersifat kekanakan seperti itu secara berangsur-angsur berkurang ketika anak berumur antara empat sampai tujuh tahun. Tentu saja selalu ada beberapa perkecualian, seperti seorang anak terus mengingat hidup sebelumnya tetapi tidak membicarakannya karena berbagai alasan.

Kebanyakan dari anak-anak itu berbicara tentang identitas mereka sebelumnya dengan intensitas dan perasaan besar. Sering kali mereka tidak bisa memutuskan bagi diri mereka dunia mana yang nyata dan yang mana tidak. Mereka sering kali mengalami semacam keberadaan ganda di mana kadang- kadang satu hidup lebih terkemuka, dan kadang-kadang hidup yang lain mengambil alih. Inilah sebabnya mereka biasanya berbicara tentang hidup mereka yang lampau dengan kalimat- kalimat masa sekarang (present tense) seperti, ”aku mempunyai seorang suami dan dua anak yang tinggal di Jaipur.” Hampir semua dari mereka mampu mengatakan kepada kita tentang kejadian-kejadian yang menyebabkan kematian mereka dalam hidup sebelumnya.

Anak-anak seperti itu cenderung untuk mempertimbangkan para orangtua mereka sebelumnya menjadi orangtua mereka yang nyata dibanding orang tua mereka sekarang, dan biasanya mengungkapkan keinginan untuk kembali kepada mereka. Ketika keluarga sebelumnya telah ditemukan dan keterangan rinci mengenai orang dalam hidup lampau itu telah menjadi jelas, kemudian asal-muasal dari bilangan pembagi yang ke lima - tingkah laku tidak biasa atau menarik perhatian dari anak itu menjadi jelas sekali.

(5) Dalam 35% dari kasus yang ia teliti, anak-anak yang mati secara tidak wajar mengembangkan ketakutan tak berdasar (fobia). Sebagai contoh, jika mereka telah tenggelam dalam satu hidup lampau kemudian mereka sering mengembangkan suatu fobia masuk ke dalam air. Jika mereka meninggal karena ditembak, mereka sering kali takut akan senjata api dan kadang-kadang dentuman nyaring secara umum. Jika mereka mati dalam suatu kecelakaan di jalan raya mereka kadang-kadang mengembangkan suatu fobia bepergian di dalam mobil, bus atau truk.

Wujud tidak biasa dari tingkah laku lain yang sering diamati, yang disebut Dr. Stevenson philias, berhubungan dengan anak-anak yang mengungkapkan keinginan untuk makan macammacam makanan berbeda atau untuk memakai pakaian yang berbeda dari budaya mereka. Jika seorang anak telah mengembangkan kecanduan alkohol, tembakau atau obat sebagai seorang dewasa dalam satu inkarnasi sebelumnya, ia mungkin mengungkapkan suatu kebutuhan akan barang-barang ini dan mengembangkan keinginan kuat pada usia muda.

Banyak dari anak-anak dengan memori-memori hidup lampau ini menunjukkan kemampuan atau talenta- talenta yang mereka punyai di dalam kehidupan mereka sebelumnya. Sering kali anak-anak yang adalah anggota dari lawan jenis di dalam hidup mereka sebelumnya menunjukkan kesukaran dalam menyesuaikan kepada seks yang baru. Permasalahan berkenaan dengan ’perubahan seks’ ini dapat menjurus kepada homoseksualitas di dalam kehidupan mereka kemudian. Gadis terdahulu yang dilahirkan kembali sebagai anak-anak lelaki mungkin ingin berpakaian seperti gadis atau menyukai untuk bermain-main dengan para gadis dibanding anak-anak lelaki.

Hingga sekarang semua keanehan manusia ini menjadi suatu misteri bagi para psikiater konvensional - bagaimana pun, para orangtua tidak bisa disalahkan untuk tingkah laku anakanak mereka di dalam kasus-kasus ini. Akhirnya, riset mengenai reinkarnasi menumpahkan cahaya terang atas subyek ini. Di masa lalu, para dokter menyalahkan keanehan-keanehan seperti itu pada kekurangan atau kelebihan hormon-hormon tertentu, namun sekarang mereka harus melakukan beberapa pemikiran ulang.

11-13 Juni 1992 Dr. Stevenson menyampaikan makalah “Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons” (Tanda lahir dan cacat bawaan yang cocok dengan luka pada orang-orang meninggal) pada Pertemuan Tahunan Kesebelas dari Society for Scientific Exploration (Masyarakat untuk Eksplorasi Ilmiah) yang diadakan di Princeton University. Makalah ini menyediakan bukti yang mungkin paling ilmiah tentang reinkarnasi. Makalah Dr. Stevenson menyajikan bukti karakteristik-karakteristik fisik, seperti tandalahir dan cacat (deformitas) bawaan, mungkin dibawa dari suatu hidup yang lampau kepada hidup sekarang

berikut ini berita tentang beliau:

Dr. Ian Stevenson's Reincarnation Research 

Ian Stevenson (1918-2007) was a psychiatrist who worked for the University of Virginia School of Medicine for 50 years. He was Chair of the Department of Psychiatry from 1957 to 1967, the Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and a Research Professor of Psychiatry from 2002 until his death. He was also the founder and Director of the University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies investigating parapsychological phenomena such as reincarnation, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, after-death communications, deathbed visions, altered states of consciousness and psi. He became internationally recognized for his research into reincarnation by discovering evidence suggesting that memories and physical injuries can be transferred from one lifetime to another. He traveled extensively over a period of 40 years, investigating 3,000 cases of children around the world who recalled having past lives. His meticulous research presented evidence that such children had unusual abilities, illnesses, phobias and philias which could not be explained by the environment or heredity. 

1. Introduction to Dr. Ian Stevenson's Research

Dr. Stevenson's reincarnation research began in 1960 when he learned of a case in Sri Lanka where a child reported remembering a past life. He thoroughly questioned the child and the child's parents, including the people whom the child recalled were his parents from his past life. This led to Dr. Stevenson's conviction that reincarnation was possibly a reality. That same year, Dr. Stevenson published two articles in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research about this child who remembered having a past life. The more such cases he discovered, the greater became his ambition to scientifically quantify the possibility of reincarnation - one of the world's greatest mysteries - which had been virtually ignored by science in the past.
In 1982, Dr. Stevenson co-founded theSociety for Scientific Exploration. He authored around 300 papers and 14 books on the subject of reincarnation. His 1966 book, "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation," became a classic in the annals of reincarnation research. In 2003, Dr. Stevenson published his second book on reincarnation, "European Cases of the Reincarnation Type". In 1997 he published his major classic: the 2,268-page, two-volume book, "Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects," which focused mostly on deformities and other anomalies children are born with which cannot be traced back to inheritance, prenatal or perinatal (created during birth) occurrences. This monumental classic contains hundreds of pictures presenting the evidence he discovered. It documents 200 cases of children having memories and birthmarks which corresponded with the lives and wounds of deceased people whom these children recalled as having lived in a past-life. In 1997, Dr. Stevenson published a condensed version of this book for the general public entitled, "Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect." Dr. Stevenson's research into reincarnation also became the subject of two important works, "Old Souls: Compelling Evidence from Children Who Remember Past Lives" authored by Tom Shroder (a Washington Post journalist) and "Life Before Life: Children's Memories of Previous Lives" authored byDr. Jim B. Tucker (www.jimbtucker.com) a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia. Many people, including skeptics and scholars, agree that the cases presented by Dr. Stevenson offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation.

During his original research into various cases involving children's memories of past lives, Dr. Stevenson did note with interest the fact that these children frequently bore lasting birthmarks which supposedly related to their murder or the death they suffered in a previous life. Stevenson's research into birthmarks and congenital defects has such particular importance for the demonstration of reincarnation, since it furnishes objective and graphic proof of reincarnation, superior to the - often fragmentary - memories and reports of the children and adults questioned, which even if verified afterwards cannot be assigned the same value in scientific terms.

In many cases presented by Dr. Stevenson there are also medical documents available as further proof, which are usually compiled after the death of the person. Dr. Stevenson adds that in the cases he researched and "solved" in which birthmarks and deformities were present, he didn't suppose there was any other apposite explanation than that of reincarnation. Only 30% - 60% of these deformities can be put down to birth defects which related to genetic factors, virus infections or chemical causes (like those found in children damaged by the drug Thalidomide or alcohol). Apart from these demonstrable causes, the medical profession has no other explanation for the other 40% to 70% of cases than that of mere chance. Stevenson has now succeeded in giving us an explanation of why a person is born with these deformities and why they appear precisely in that part of their body and not in another.

2. The Five Common Characteristics in Most of Dr. Stevenson's Study

Most of the cases, where birthmarks and congenital deformities are present for which no medical explanations exist, have one to five characteristics in common.
The Five Common Characteristics in Most of Dr. Stevenson's Study
1.
In the most unusual scenario, it is possible that someone who believed in reincarnation expressed a wish to be reborn to a couple or one partner of a couple. This is usually because they are convinced that they would be well cared for by those particular people. Such preliminary requests are often expressed by the Tlingit Indians of Alaska and by the Tibetans.
2.
More frequent than this are the occurrences of prophetic dreams. Someone who has died appears to a pregnant or not as yet pregnant woman and tells her that he or she will be reborn to her. Sometimes relatives or friends have dreams like this and will then relate the dream to the mother to be. Dr. Stevenson found these prophetic dreams to be particularly prolific in Burma and among the Indians in Alaska.
3.
In these cultures the body of a newborn child is checked for recognizable marks to establish whether the deceased person they had once known has been reborn to them. This searching for marks of identification is very common among cultures that believe in reincarnation, and especially among the Tlingit Indians and the Igbos of Nigeria. Various tribes of West Africa make marks on the body of the recently deceased in order to be able to identify the person when he or she is reborn.
4.
The most frequently occurring event or common denominator relating to rebirth is probably that of a child remembering a past life. Children usually begin to talk about their memories between the ages of two and four. Such infantile memories gradually dwindle when the child is between four and seven years old. There are of course always some exceptions, such as a child continuing to remember its previous life but not speaking about it for various reasons.

Most of the children talk about their previous identity with great intensity and feeling. Often they cannot decide for themselves which world is real and which one is not. They often experience a kind of double existence where at times one life is more prominent, and at times the other life takes over. This is why they usually speak of their past life in the present tense saying things like, "I have a husband and two children who live in Jaipur." Almost all of them are able to tell us about the events leading up to their death.

Such children tend to consider their previous parents to be their real parents rather than their present ones, and usually express a wish to return to them. When the previous family has been found and details about the person in that past life have come to light, then the origin of the fifth common denominator – the conspicuous or unusual behavior of the child - is becoming obvious.
5.
For instance, if the child is born in India to a very low-class family and was a member of a higher caste in its previous life, it may feel uncomfortable in its new family. The child may ask to be served or waited on hand and foot and may refuse to wear cheap clothes. Stevenson gives us several examples of these unusual behavior patterns.

In 35% of cases he investigated, children who died an unnatural death developed phobias. For example, if they had drowned in a past life then they frequently developed a phobia about going out of their depth in water. If they had been shot, they were often afraid of guns and sometimes loud bangs in general. If they died in a road accident they would sometimes develop a phobia of traveling in cars, buses or lorries.

Another frequently observed unusual form of behavior, which Dr. Stevenson called philias, concerns children who express the wish to eat different kinds of food or to wear clothes that were different from those of their culture. If a child had developed an alcohol, tobacco or drug addiction as an adult in a previous incarnation he may express a need for these substances and develop cravings at an early age.

Many of these children with past-life memories show abilities or talents that they had in their previous lives. Often children who were members of the opposite sex in their previous life show difficulty in adjusting to the new sex. These problems relating to the 'sex change' can lead to homosexuality later on in their lives. Former girls who were reborn as boys may wish to dress as girls or prefer to play with girls rather than boys.
Until now all these human oddities have been a mystery to conventional psychiatrists - after all, the parents could not be blamed for their children's behavior in these cases. At long last research into reincarnation is shedding some light on the subject. In the past, doctors blamed such peculiarities on a lack or a surplus of certain hormones, but now they will have to do some rethinking.

The following paper by Dr. Stevenson was presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration held at Princeton University. June 11-13, 1992. The title of the paper is "Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons" and provides perhaps the most compelling scientific evidence suggestive of reincarnation. Dr. Stevenson's paper presents evidence that physical characteristics, such as birthmarks and deformities, may be carried over from a past life to a present life. 

3. Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons

SOURCE: Dr. Ian StevensonDepartment of Psychiatric Medicine, University of VirginiaSchool of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908

ABSTRACT: Almost nothing is known about why pigmented birthmarks (moles or nevi) occur in particular locations of the skin. The causes of most birth defects are also unknown. About 35% of children who claim to remember previous lives have birthmarks and/or birth defects that they (or adult informants) attribute to wounds on a person whose life the child remembers. The cases of 210 such children have been investigated. The birthmarks were usually areas of hairless, puckered skin; some were areas of little or no pigmentation (hypopigmented macules); others were areas of increased pigmentation (hyperpigmented nevi). The birth defects were nearly always of rare types. In cases in which a deceased person was identified the details of whose life unmistakably matched the child's statements, a close correspondence was nearly always found between the birthmarks and/or birth defects on the child and the wounds on the deceased person. In 43 of 49 cases in which a medical document (usually a postmortem report) was obtained, it confirmed the correspondence between wounds and birthmarks (or birth defects). There is little evidence that parents and other informants imposed a false identity on the child in order to explain the child's birthmark or birth defect. Some paranormal process seems required to account for at least some of the details of these cases, including the birthmarks and birth defects.

Figure 1. Hypopigmented macule on chest
of an Indian youth who, as a child,
said he remembered the life of a man,
Maha Ram, who was killed
with a shotgun fired at close range
INTRODUCTION: Although counts of moles (hyperpigmented nevi) have shown that the average adult has between 15 and IX of them (Pack and Davis, 1956), little is known about their cause -- except for those associated with the genetic disease neurofibromatosis -- and even less is known about why birthmarks occur in one location of the body instead of in another. In a few instances a genetic factor has been plausibly suggested for the location of nevi (Cockayne, 1933; Denaro, 1944; Maruri, 1961); but the cause of the location of most birthmarks remains unknown. The causes of many, perhaps most, birth defects remain similarly unknown. In large series of birth defects in which investigators have searched for the known causes, such as chemical teratogens (like thalidomide), viral infections, and genetic factors, between 430/0 (Nelson and Holmes, 1989) and 65 -- 70% (Wilson, 1973) of cases have finally been assigned to the category of "unknown causes."

Figure 2. The circles show the principal
shotgun wounds on Maha Ram,
for comparison with Figure 1.
[This drawing is from the
autopsy report of the deceased.]
Among 895 cases of children who claimed to remember a previous life (or were thought by adults to have had a previous life), birthmarks and/or birth defects attributed to the previous life were reported in 309 (35%) of the subjects. The birthmark or birth defect of the child was said to correspond to a wound (usually fatal) or other mark on the deceased person whose life the child said it remembered. This paper reports an inquiry into the validity of such claims. With my associates I have now carried the investigation of 210 such cases to a stage where I can report their details in a forthcoming book (Stevenson, forthcoming). This article summarizes our findings.

Children who claim to remember previous lives have been found in every part of the world where they have been looked for (Stevenson, 1983; 1987), but they are found most easily in the countries of South Asia. Typically, such a child begins to speak about a previous life almost as soon as it can speak, usually between the ages of two and three; and typically it stops doing so between the ages of five and seven (Cook, Pasricha, Samararatne, Win Maung, and Stevenson, 1983). Although some of the children make only vague statements, others give details of names and events that permit identifying a person whose life and death corresponds to the child's statements. In some instances the person identified is already known to the child's family, but in many cases this is not so. In addition to making verifiable statements about a deceased person, many of the children show behavior (such as a phobia) that is unusual in their family but found to correspond to behavior shown by the deceased person concerned or conjecturable for him (Stevenson, 1987; 1990).

Although some of the birthmarks occurring on these children are "ordinary" hyperpigmented nevi (moles) of which every adult has some (Pack and Davis, 1956), most are not. Instead, they are more likely to be puckered and scarlike, sometimes depressed a little below the surrounding skin, areas of hairlessness, areas of markedly diminished pigmentation (hypopigmented macules), or port-wine stains (nevipammri). When a relevant birthmark is a hyperpigmented nevus, it is nearly always larger in area than the "ordinary" hyperpigmented nevus. Similarly, the birth defects in these cases are of unusual types and rarely correspond to any of the "recognizable patterns of human malformation" (Smith, 1982)

METHODS: My investigations of these cases included interviews, often repeated, with the subject and with several or many other informants for both families. With rare exceptions, only firsthand informants were interviewed. All pertinent written records that existed, particularly death certificates and postmortem reports, were sought and examined. In the cases in which the informants said that the two families had no previous acquaintance, I made every effort to exclude all possibility that some information might nevertheless have passed normally to the child, perhaps through a half-forgotten mutual acquaintance of the two families. I have published elsewhere full details about methods (Stevenson, 1975; 1987).

I did not accept any indicated mark as a birthmark unless a firsthand witness assured me that it had been noticed immediately after the child's birth or, at most, within a few weeks. I enquired about the occurrence of similar birth marks in other members of the family; in nearly every instance this was denied, but in seven cases a genetic factor could not be excluded.

Birth defects of the kind in question here would be noticed immediately after the child's birth. Inquiries in these cases excluded (again with rare exceptions) the known causes of birth defects, such as close biological relationship of the parents (consanguinity), viral infections in the subject's mother during her pregnancy, and chemical causes of birth defects like alcohol.

4. Correspondences Between Wounds and Birthmarks

A correspondence between birthmark and wound was judged satisfactory if the birthmark and wound were both within an area of 10 square centimeters at the same anatomical location; in fact, many of the birthmarks and wounds were much closer to the same location than this. A medical document, usually a postmortem report, was obtained in 49 cases. The correspondence between wound and birthmark was judged satisfactory or better by the mentioned criterion in 43 (88%) of these cases and not satisfactory in 6 cases. Several different explanations seem to be required to account for the discrepant cases, and I discuss these elsewhere (Stevenson. forthcoming). Figure 1 shows a birthmark (an urea of hypopigmentation) on an Indian child who said he remembered the life of a man who had been killed with a shotgun fired at close range. Figure 2 shows the location of the wounds recorded by the pathologist. (The circles were drawn by an Indian physician who studied the postmortem report with me.)

The high proportion (88%) of concordance between wounds and birthmarks in the cases for which we obtained postmortem reports (or other confirming documents) increases confidence in the accuracy of informants' memories concerning the wounds on the deceased person in those more numerous cases for which we could obtain no medical document. Not all errors of informants memories would have resulted in attributing a correspondence between birth marks and wounds that did nor exist; in four cases (possibly five) reliance on an informant's memory would have resulted in missing a correspondence to which a medical document attested.

Figure 3. Large verrucous epidermal nevus on head 
of a Thai man who as a child said he remembered 
the life of his paternal uncle, who was killed 
with a blow on the head from a heavy knife.

5. Cases with Two or More Birthmarks


The argument of chance as accounting for the correspondence between birthmarks and wounds becomes much reduced when the child has two or more birthmarks each corresponding to a wound on the deceased person whose life he claims to remember. Figure 3 shows a major abnormality of the skin (verrucous epidermal nevus) on the back of the head of a Thai man who, as a child, recalled the life of his uncle, who had been struck on the head with a heavy knife and killed almost instantly. The subject also had a deformed toenail of the right great toe (Figure 4). This corresponded to a chronic infection of the same toe from which the subject's uncle had suffered for some years before he died.

Figure 4. Congenital malformation of nail on right great toe 
of the Thai subject shown in Figure 3. This malformation 
corresponded to a chronic ulcer of the right great toe from 
which the subject's uncle had suffered.
The series includes 18 cases in which two birthmarks on a subject corresponded to gunshot wounds of entry and exit. In 14 of these one birthmark was larger than the other, and in 9 of these 14 the evidence clearly showed that the smaller birthmark (usually round) corresponded to the wound of entry and the larger one (usually irregular in shape) corresponded to the wound of exit. These observations accord with the fact that bullet wounds of exit are nearly always larger than wounds of entry (Fatteh, 1976; Gordon and Shapiro, 1982). Figure 5 shows a small round birthmark on the back of the head of a Thai boy, and Figure 6 shows a larger, irregularly shaped birthmark at the front of his head. The boy said that he remembered the life of a man who was shot in the head from behind. (The mode of death was verified, but no medical document was obtainable.) In addition to the 9 cases I have investigated myself, Mills reported another case having the feature of a small round birthmark (corresponding to the wound of entry) and a larger birthmark corresponding to the wound of exit (both verified by a postmortem report) (Mills, 1989).

Figure 5. Small, round puckered birthmark on a Thai boy that corresponded 
to the bullet wound of entry in a man whose life he said he remembered 
and who had been shot with a rifle from behind.
I have calculated the odds against chance of two birthmarks correctly corresponding to two wounds. The surface area of the skin of the average adult male is 1.6 meters (Spalteholz, 1943). If we were to imagine this area square and spread on a fiat surface, its dimensions would be approximately 127 centimeters by 127 centimeters. Into this area would fit approximately 160 squares of the size 10 centimeters square that I mentioned above. The probability that a single birthmark on a person would correspond in location to a wound within the area of any of the 160 smaller squares is only 1/160. However, the probability of correspondences between two birthmarks and two wounds would be (1/160)2 i.e. 1 in 25,600. (This calculation assumes that birthmarks are uniformly distributed over all regions of the skin. This is incorrect [Pack, Lenson, and Gerber, 1952], but I believe the variation can be ignored for the present purpose.)

Figure 6. Larger, irregularly shaped birthmark on the frontal area 
of the head of the Thai boy shown in Figure 5. This birthmark corresponded 
to the bullet wound of exit on the Thai man whose life the boy said he remembered.

6. Examples of Other Correspondences of Detail between Wounds and Birthmarks

A Thai woman had three separate linear hypopigmented scarlike birthmarks near the midline of her back; as a child she had remembered the life of a woman who was killed when struck three times in the back with an ax. (Informants verified this mode of death, but no medical record was obtainable.) A woman of Burma was born with two perfectly round birthmarks in her left chest; they slightly overlapped, and one was about half the size of the other. As a child she said that she remembered the life of a woman who was accidentally shot and killed with a shotgun. A responsible informant said the shotgun cartridge had contained shot of two different sizes. (No medical record was obtainable in this case.)

Figure 8. Severely malformed ear (microtia) in a Turkish boy
who said that he remembered the life of a man who was fatally wounded 
on the right side of the head by a shotgun discharged at close range.
Another Burmese child said that she remembered the life of her deceased aunt, who had died during surgery for congenital heart disease. This child had a long, vertical linear hypopigmented birthmark close to the midline of her lower chest and upper abdomen; this birthmark corresponded to the surgical incision for the repair of the aunt's heart. (I obtained a medical record in this case.) In contrast, a child of Turkey had a horizontal linear birthmark across the right upper quadrant of his abdomen. It resembled the scar of a surgeon's transverse abdominal incision. The child said that he remembered the life of his paternal grandfather, who had become jaundiced and was operated on before he died. He may have had a cancer of the head of the pancreas, but I could not learn a precise medical diagnosis.

Two Burmese subjects remembered as children the lives of persons who had died after being bitten by venomous snakes, and the birthmarks of each corresponded to therapeutic incisions made at the sites of the snakebites on the persons whose lives they remembered. Another Burmese subject also said as a child that she remembered the life of a child who had been bitten on the foot by a snake and died. In this case, however, the child's uncle had applied a burning cheroot to the site of the bite -- a folk remedy for snakebite in parts of Burma; and the subject's birthmark was round and located at the site on the foot where the bitten child's uncle had applied the cheroot.

7. Three Examples of Birth Defects

Figure 9. Almost absent fingers (brachydactyly) on one hand in a boy of India 
who said he remembered the life of a boy of another village who had put his hand 
into the blades of a fodder chopping machine and had its fingers amputated.
Figure 8. below, shows the right side of the head of a Turkish boy with a diminished and malformed ear (unilateral microtia). He also had underdevelopment of the right side of his face (hemifacial microsomia). He said that he remembered the life of a man who had been shot (with a shotgun) at point-blank range. The wounded man was taken to a hospital where he died 6 days later -- of injuries to the brain caused by shot that had penetrated the right side of the skull. (I obtained a copy of the hospital record.)

Figure 9. shows fingers almost absent congenitally on one hand (unilateral brachydactyly) in a child of India who said he remembered the life of another child who had put his right hand into the blades of a fodder-chopping machine and lost his fingers. Most cases of brachydactyly involve only a shortening of the middle phalanges. In the present case there were no phalangeal bones, and the fingers were represented by mere stubs. Unilateral brachydactyly is exceedingly rare, and I have not found a published report of a case, although a colleague (plastic surgeon) has shown me a photograph of one case that came under his care.

Figure 10. Small, round puckered birthmark on a Thai boy 
that corresponded to the bullet wound of entry in a man whose life 
he said he remembered and who had been shot with a rifle from behind.
Figure 10. shows congenital absence of the lower right leg (unilateral hemimelia) in a Burmese girl. She said that she remembered the life of a girl who was run over by a train. Eyewitnesses said that the train severed the girl's right leg first, before running over the trunk. Lower hemimelia is an extremely rare condition, and Frantz and O'Rahilly (1961) found it in only 12 (4.0%) of 300 cases of all congenital skeletal deficiencies that they examined.

8. Discussion

Because most (but not all) of these cases develop among persons who believe in reincarnation, we should expect that the informants for the cases would interpret them as examples according with their belief; and they usually do. It is necessary, however, for scientists to think of alternative explanations.

The most obvious explanation of these cases attributes the birthmark or birth defect on the child to chance, and the reports of the child's statements and unusual behavior then become a parental fiction intended to account for the birthmark (or birth defect) in terms of the culturally accepted belief in reincarnation. There are, however, important objections to this explanation. First, the parents (and other adults concerned in a case) have no need to invent and narrate details of a previous life in order to explain their child's lesion. Believing in reincarnation, as most of them do, they are nearly always content to attribute the lesion to some event of a previous life without searching for a particular life with matching details. Second, the lives of the deceased persons figuring in the cases were of uneven quality both as to social status and commendable conduct. A few of them provided models of heroism or some other enviable quality; but many of them lived in poverty or were otherwise unexemplary. Few parents would impose an identification with such persons on their children. Third, although in most cases the two families concerned were acquainted (or even related), I am confident that in at least 13 cases (among 210 carefully examined with regard to this matter) the two families concerned had never even heard about each other before the case developed. The subject's family in these cases can have had no information with which to build up an imaginary previous life which, it later turned out, closely matched a real one. In another 12 cases the child's parents had heard about the death of the person concerned, but had no knowledge of the wounds on that person. Limitations of space for this article oblige me to ask readers to accept my appraisal of these 25 cases for this matter; but in my forthcoming work I give a list of the cases from which readers can find the detailed reports of the cases and from reading them judge this important question for themselves. Fourth, I think I have shown that chance is an improbable interpretation for the correspondences in location between two or more birthmarks on the subject of a case and wounds on a deceased person.

Persons who reject the explanation of chance combined with a secondarily confected history may consider other interpretations that include paranormal processes, but fall short of proposing a life after death. One of these supposes that the birthmark or birth defect occurs by chance and the subject then by telepathy learns about a deceased person who had a similar lesion and develops an identification with that person. The children subjects of these cases, however, never show paranormal powers of the magnitude required to explain the apparent memories in contexts outside of their seeming memories.

Another explanation, which would leave less to chance in the production of the child's lesion, attributes it to a maternal impression on the part of the child's mother. According to this idea, a pregnant woman, having a knowledge of the deceased person's wounds, might influence a gestating embryo and fetus so that its form corresponded to the wounds on the deceased person. The idea of maternal impressions, popular in preceding centuries and up to the first decades of this one, has fallen into disrepute. Until my own recent article (Stevenson, 1992) there had been no review of series of cases since 1890 (Dabney, 1890); and cases are rarely published now (Williams and Pembroke, 1988). Nevertheless, some of the published cases -- old and new -- show a remarkable correspondence between an unusual stimulus in the mind of a pregnant woman and an unusual birthmark or birth defect in her later-born child. Also, in an analysis of 113 published cases I found that the stimulus occurred to the mother in the first trimester in 80 cases (Stevenson, 1992). The first trimester is well known to be the one of greatest sensitivity of the embryo/fetus to recognized teratogens, such as thalidomide (Nowack, 1965) and rubella (Hill, Doll, Galloway, and Hughes, 1958). Applied to the present cases, however, the theory of maternal impression has obstacles as great as the normal explanation appears to have. First, in the 25 cases mentioned above, the subject's mother, although she may have heard of the death of the concerned deceased person, had no knowledge of that person's wounds. Second, this interpretation supposes that the mother not only modified the body of her unborn child with her thoughts, but after the child's birth influenced it to make statements and show behavior that it otherwise would not have done. No motive for such conduct can be discerned in most of the mothers (or fathers) of these subjects.

It is not my purpose to impose any interpretation of these cases on the readers of this article. Nor would I expect any reader to reach even a preliminary conclusion from the short summaries of cases that the brevity of this report entails. Instead, I hope that I have stimulated readers to examine the detailed reports of many cases that I am now in the process of publishing (Stevenson, forthcoming). "Originality and truth are found only in the details" (Stendhal, 1926).

9. Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Drs. Antonia Mills and Emily W. Cook for critical comments on drafts of this paper. Thanks are also due to the Bernstein Brothers Parapsychology and Health Foundation for the support of my research.

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to: Ian Stevenson, M.D., Division of Perceptual Studies, Box 152, Health Sciences Center, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908

10. References


11. Articles on Reincarnation by Researchers of the Division of Perceptual Studies

All articles below are in PDF format. To download, right-click on the link and select "Save As". Related articles can be downloaded at the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia.

"As the moon dies and comes to life again, so we also, having to die, will rise again." - San Juan Capistrano Indians

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