''Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect'' is a 1997 book by
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
Ian Stevenson
Ian Pretyman Stevenson (October 31, 1918 – February 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American psychiatrist, the founder and director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
He was a professor at the ...
, published by
Praeger. The book is about
birthmarks
A birthmark is a congenital, benign irregularity on the skin which is present at birth or appears shortly after birth—usually in the first month. They can occur anywhere on the skin. Birthmarks are caused by overgrowth of blood vessels, melanoc ...
and birth defects ostensibly associated with
reincarnation
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrectio ...
. ''Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect'' is written for the general reader and is a condensation of a two-part monograph ''
Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects'' (Praeger, 1997).
Birthmarks and birth defects
Ian Stevenson examined reports of people in different parts of the world who claimed to remember past lives, mostly young children. He explored the idea that "birthmarks and other skin lesions and abnormalities may provide evidence of cutaneous injuries sustained in a previous life, thus supporting the notion of reincarnation".
[Stewart Wolf. Book review: Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, ''Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science'', Vol .35, No. 2, (April 2000), p. 165.]
''Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect'' is "modest in its claims".
[ Stevenson calls some cases investigated "unsolved," where no deceased person has been found to match the birthmarks and memories of the child. Excluding unsolved and questionable cases, about 90 cases remain where there is a "correspondence found between birth marks on the child and similar marks or distinguishing features present on the body of the reincarnated personality during their lifetime, such as wounds, injuries and other stigmata".][William G. Roll]
Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect - Review
''Journal of Parapsychology
The ''Journal of Parapsychology'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on psi phenomena, including telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis, as well as human consciousness in general and anomalous experie ...
'', December 1998. Examples include:
... a girl, born with markedly deformed fingers, who seemed to remember being a man whose fingers were cut off, and a boy, born with stubs for fingers on his right hand, who seemed to remember the life of a boy in another village who lost the fingers of his right hand in a fodder-chopping machine.
''Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect'' contains 35 illustrations, mostly photographs of the birthmarks and birth defects.[
]
Reviews
Book reviews of ''Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect'' have been published in various journals. Joint reviews of ''Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect'' and ''Reincarnation and Biology'' have also appeared in several journals.[The book ''Reincarnation and Biology'' has been reviewed in ''Omega'' 36(3):273-274, 1997-98 and the ''Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research'' 92:286-291, 1999.]
See also
*'' Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives''
*'' Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence For Past Lives''
*''European Cases of the Reincarnation Type
''European Cases of the Reincarnation Type'' is a 2003 book by psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, who conducted research into claims of reincarnation. The work focuses on different reincarnation research case studies in a Western setting. It was Stevens ...
''
References
External links
The Division of Perceptual Studies
at the University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
School of Medicine.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Where Reincarnation And Biology Intersect
Reincarnation research
Books about reincarnation
Parapsychology
1997 books