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Volume 19: Number 3: Article 2
Some Bodily Malformations Attributed to Previous Lives
Satwant K. Pasricha, Department of Clinical Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health
and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India
Jurgen Keil, Department of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Jim B. Tucker & Ian Stevenson, Department of Psychiatric Medicine, Division of Personality Studies, University of Virginia Health System, PO Box 800152, Charlottesville, VA 22908-0152
Bodily malformations that are unusually large or otherwise unusual in shape or location occur somewhat rarely. Sometimes a young child having such an abnormality speaks about the life of a deceased individual who suffered
a wound that is said to have corresponded somehow to the abnormality. We aimed at investigating the justification for attributing malformations to wounds in a particular deceased person. Cases of this type occur frequently in Asia, but also in Western countries. The principal method of investigation is interviews with firsthand informants for the subject and concerned deceased person. Medical reports, such as postmortems, are examined when available. In Part I we present three reports of skin anomalies and tabular summaries of an additional five cases. We have obtained evidence of a close correspondence between the skin anomalies and the wounds on the concerned deceased person, although the evidence is not conclusive. In Part II we report four cases of birth
defects attributed to previous lives. We present and discuss some evidence, again not conclusive, that tends to support this attribution.
Keywords: unusual skin anomalies, previous lives, birth defects, malformations
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