Where it started
It was around 2017 when I came across a video on YouTube by Dr Ian Stevenson. I had never heard of his name before, however I had become more familiar with the idea of reincarnation after watching a movie the weekend before. It was a fiction film called I Origins in which the main character loses his wife and tries to find her reincarnated self by meeting a child with the same iris pattern as hers.
I watched the trailer again on YouTube since the movie had impressed me and the algorithm must have figured that I would be interested in watching Scientific Reincarnation Evidence by Dr Ian Stevenson as well. The 30 minute recorded lecture was given by an older man supported with a PowerPoint. At first I wasn’t sure if I could sit it through until I read the description of the video.
Some children can remember exact & verifiable details of their prior life they never could have come to know in their current child life. These details can be objectively and independently confirmed. Remarkably & quite biologically enigmatic: Some of them have birth marks and birth defects at very same locations as the lethal injury causing their often abrupt and violent past life death
Until this video, I had always believed that spiritual believes had to be accepted without any evidence and that the search for proof was rather wishful thinking. But this time it was different because it was personal.
I was born on the 23rd of May, the year 2000, in my grandparents’ house. I was a healthy and heavy 9 pound baby, born without any complications except from a broken collarbone. It wasn’t until my red newborn skin cleared up that the birthmark on my cheek was starting to show. At first there was mostly fear surrounding it until the doctor confirmed that it was simply a pigmentation spot. I was always encouraged by my parents to accept them. Yes, they made my face different. Some kids will see the spots before they see me. Some of them might find them ugly and yes, some of them might even tell me. But at the end of the day, I was the one who decided whether I would like them or not.
It was also made very clear to me that there were options to get them removed if I would really want to. My grandmother even offered to pay for the treatment. I’ve played with the idea a couple of times but never for too long. It’s kind of like David Bowie’s unequal pupils or Whoopi Goldberg’s missing eyebrows. They were part of what made me myself. They were my logo and I liked the questions and remarks that they would bring my way.
Sometimes in the form of a nervous smile and a soft spoken words: ‘Do you mind if I ask you what’s on your cheek?’. Other times with a sudden concern: ‘Did you fall on your face?’ or a snarky comment: ‘It looks like poop!’. Balanced out by a helping hand: ‘Oh you’ve got something there!’ or ‘I can cut them off for you’.
But after seeing the video of Dr Ian Stevenson I had to wonder whether they were mine or whether they are someone else. Maybe it’s not that much about what’s on my cheek.
Maybe it’s about who.
