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.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Psychology
Research Group:	Applied and developmental psychology
Research Field:	Applied and developmental psychology not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in human society
UTAS Author:	Keil, HHJ (Dr H Keil)
ID Code:	36418
Year Published:	2005
Deposited By:	Psychology
Deposited On:	2005-08-01
Last Modified:	2006-04-08
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