Congenital physical anomalies associated with deceased persons in reincarnation cases with intermissions of less than nine months.

A literature review of reincarnation cases with identified previous persons found 36 cases in which the "intermission" between lives was less than 9 months. In 9 cases, it was 7 days or fewer. In 32 cases, subjects had birthmarks or birth defects matching the previous person's wounds or other scars in location and appearance. Multiple anomalies appeared in 20 (62.5%) of the 32 cases with physical anomalies. There were 9 natural-death cases and 27 violent-death cases. In 15 (55.5%) of the violent-death cases, there was written documentation of wounds to the previous person. The most extreme birth defects occurred in cases with intermissions of 7 months or more. Interpretations of the data alternative to reincarnation are considered but found inadequate as explanatory models. If examples of reincarnation, these cases raise issues related to when exactly reincarnation occurs and the nature of the process that are important considerations for biology and medicine, as well as for philosophy. One purpose of this paper is to alert the research community to these findings in the hopes of encouraging additional research in this area.