Spiritual Meaning of Birthmarks

Birthmarks, sometimes called Angel Kisses, Stork Bites or Marks of the Devil, are quite common on people. They are present when a baby is born – hence the name. There are various different forms of birthmark, many of which will go away on their own (NHS Choices, 2019).

The most common type of birthmark that doesn’t usually go away on its own is the pigmented lesion, or pigmented birthmark which often last into adulthood. Around 4% of babies are affected by pigmented birthmarks (Jacobs & Walton, 1976).

The reason birthmarks form is unknown, and they’re not considered to be hereditary according to healthline.com (Whelan, 2018). So, could there be a spiritual meaning of birthmarks?

Birthmarks and Previous Lives

We at Mystical Spiritual Pathfinder clearly believe in the possibility of previous lives and reincarnation and have a number of articles on the subject. One of the most interesting aspects of research into previous lives and reincarnation has been that which has looked into birthmarks on allegedly reincarnated subjects.

Ian Stevenson is one of the predominant researchers into this area and has published many papers, including Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons (Stevenson, 1993) which makes fascinating reading. In his 1993 paper Stevenson states that of 895 cases of children who claimed, or were believed by adults to have had a previous life, 35% of them had birth marks or birth defects that could be correlated with the previous life.

Stevenson goes on to say that in some of these cases, the children also exhibit phobias that or behaviours that aren’t present in the current family or have no explanation from circumstances of the current family – but when investigated, the deceased person that the child is claiming to be reincarnated from would have some form of explanation (either by exhibiting those behaviours themselves according to living family members, or by virtue of the living child exhibiting phobias as a result of the way the deceased person died).

Stevensons research methods seem relatively robust with confounding cases being ruled out of his studies where possible (such as mothers who had viral infections while pregnant, or where mothers were using known chemical causes of birth defects during pregnancy). We won’t go into too much more detail about the specific study – the PDF is linked in the reference section below if you’d like to read more. It’s an interesting read and certainly gives, to us at least, a sense that at least one spiritual meaning of birthmarks is that they are a physical reaction to the spiritual event of reincarnation.

The fact though that birthmarks could be caused by physical trauma from a previous lifetime gives us perhaps more questions than it answers though. For example, although the birthmark location meanings may be related to what happened to the person in a previous life, could they be carried from one life to the next if the issues relating to the birthmark aren’t dealt with in this lifetime. In other words, it may not be the most recent life that is the cause of the mole or birthmark on your body, but could potentially be from many lifetimes ago. More notably perhaps, how can trauma from a previous life manifest itself as a birthmark? And maybe more importantly, why?

How Incidents From Past Lives Cause Birthmarks and Why

It is our belief that, if an injury is sufficient to cause death, it can also cause a spiritual injury which is carried into the next life. This may simply be a cause and effect of the significant amount of energy that has been expended to create the injury in the first place, though this is not our preferred reason. It’s our opinion that these birthmarks are carried across as a reminder for the new life that issues need to be resolved. Perhaps lessons need to be learned or people need to be forgiven. The birthmark could have been placed by the spirit as a ‘roadmarker’ or navigation beacon to help remind the soul in the new body to undertake this work when it is ready.

An interesting, albeit very anecdotal, story appears on Quora in 2021 in answer to the very question of whether birthmarks have spiritual meaning. It’s composed by a Shawn Murphy who reveals that a close friend of his was born with a birthmark in the middle of her chest and suffered for many years with spinal pain. She also had a significant phobia of handguns – not shotguns or rifles, just handguns. Eventually, after visiting a spiritual healer, the person Shawn talks of received spiritual healing for wounds inflicted upon her in a previous lifetime – that is to say, the spiritual healer recognised the chest birthmark as an entry wound and the spinal pain representing the bullet that lodged in the person’s spine in the previous life. Allegedly, after receiving the healing the pain was healed (Do Birthmarks Have a Spiritual Meaning?, n.d.).

The above paragraph shows how the placement of a birthmark onto a person in a new body could have acted as a navigation beacon to find the answer to pain today from a previous life. It’s unclear from Shawn’s story exactly what healing took place, and whether this involved past life regressions and/or forgiveness to the original perpetrator. But it does show that injuries from previous lives can manifest in a current living body, and can be cured when the spirit itself is healed.

Spiritual Meaning of Birthmarks as a Sign

Other Signs from a Previous Life

There are people who believe that birthmarks can be carried across from previous lives even without the kinds of injuries we’ve looked at above. In the above paragraphs we looked at the spiritual meaning of birthmarks from the context of a violent injury, but it’s possible that birthmarks could be placed on our bodies deliberately by our souls simply as a reminder of something.

In a similar way to the navigation marker above, if something significant was achieved in a previous life, it’s possible that our soul chose to highlight that achievment on our bodies – almost like a tatoo – as a way of reminding us we already achieved this. Or went through a particular lesson. The birthmark could help trigger us to remember that lesson and what we learned from it, perhaps through past life regression or simply remembering. The birthmark could help us avoid going through the same lesson again and wasting time.

Birthmarks as a Sign of Protection

Many cultures and people from those cultures believe we can be spiritually protected from evil by certain animals or symbols. Indeed, some cultures will tatoo spiritual protection symbols onto their skin specifically for this purpose as it’s believed the symbol offers great protection from negative energies.

Birthmarks that resemble cats, snakes, fish or other symbols can signify a special connection to that animal or symbol. Some believe that the birthmark has been placed their by our soul as we’re born, or placed by our spirit guides as we’re born in order to help protect us and to show us that the symbols or creatures can help us throughout our lifetime.

Spiritual Recognition Through Birthmarks

One final possible explanation for the spiritual meaning of birthmarks is that of recognition. It’s believed that birthmarks can be placed deliberately by our soul as we enter the new body and that these birthmarks can be used as a form of identification. Some people believe that it can help twin flames to recognise each other and provide some form of confirmation for this. Of course not all twin flames will necessarily share birthmarks – but they may. Others say that soul mates may also emboss a certain birthmark onto their body before entering the new life for the same reason.

Certainly if one knows what spirit shape they are looking for on their twin flame or soul mate then this could provide further confirmation when they find the person.

Summary

There are a number of possible spiritual meanings of birthmarks and since there’s no scientific answer for them a spiritual reason is certainly possible. In this post we’ve explored the injuries from past lives as a spiritual meaning of birthmarks, along with them being used by twin flames to recognise each other or to provide some form of spiritual protection.

There certainly seems to be some relatively good evidence from Ian Stevenson on the theory that some birthmarks occur as a result of past life trauma and this seems like one of the most reasonable and feasible explanations for the phenomenon to us.

We hope you’ve found this post helpful and if you’ve enjoyed it please feel free to share it with your mystical or spiritual friends using the buttons below. If you have any comments, questions or other feedback please let us know using the comment form below.

Thanks for reading!

Important reminder: This site is general in nature and does not know your individual circumstances. If you are struggling with a health condition, such as a birthmark that is affecting your daily life, we strongly recommend you seek professional medical help. This site and its authors should not be considered substitutes for qualified medical advice.

References

Do birthmarks have a spiritual meaning? (n.d.). Quora. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from https://www.quora.com/Do-birthmarks-have-a-spiritual-meaning

Jacobs, A. H., & Walton, R. G. (1976). The incidence of birthmarks in the neonate. Pediatrics, 58(2), 218–222. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/951136/

NHS Choices. (2019). Overview – Birthmarks. NHS. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Birthmarks/

Stevenson, I. (1993). Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 7(4), 403–410. https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2016/12/STE39stevenson-1.pdf

Whelan, C. (2018, July 30). Birthmark Types, Causes, Risks and Pictures (C. Wightman, Ed.). Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/birthmark