Perhaps the most unusual paranormal topic is research into past lives or more commonly known as reincarnation. It is the belief that people who die can come back to life as another person in the next life. Parapsychologists have studied over 2,500 past live cases.

Most of the research into past lives come from case studies investigating children’s claims of past lives (between two and six years of age). Children make a variety of claims about their past lives, including sometimes being able to identify people from their past lives. Usually, the children’s families can locate the deceased person’s family. However, there is a potential for a circular explanation, i.e., families find information to match the children’s claims then say there is a high level of agreement between children’s claims and the past life family. Researcher’s need to avoid this trap.

Also, there is other evidence from children that doesn’t involve claims, such as birthmarks corresponding to how the past life ended, unusual child behavior that is linked to previous life and phobias relating to the previous life. The most persuasive evidence comes from medical records of the child’s birthmarks, and injuries to the deceased past life that caused the death. It is common in past life cases, there is a strong association between the birthmark and past life injury.

Most of the research into past lives comes from children’s families being able to find the deceased family about who the child makes the claims. There are occasions when paranormal investigators can investigate the child’s claims themselves. These cases provide the most compelling evidence for past lives.