Spiritual Meaning of Birthmarks

If you’re reading this post, you probably already know what a birthmark is, so we won’t go into that here – but what you may not know is why birthmarks exist.

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

Birthmarks and Previous Lives

At Inspirited Nudges, we believe in the possibility of previous lives and reincarnation. One of the most interesting aspects of research into these beliefs 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”. This paper makes fascinating reading.

In it, Stevenson states that of eight hundred and ninety-five 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 or behaviours that aren’t present in the current family or have no explanation from circumstances of them.

We won’t go into any more detail about the specific study – the PDF is linked at the bottom of the post 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 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 past life that is the cause of the birthmark on your body, but could potentially be from many lifetimes ago.

Another big question this leaves us with is how can trauma from a previous life manifest itself as a birthmark? And maybe more importantly, why?

How Incidents From Past Lives Could Cause Birthmarks and Why

It’s our belief that, if a physical injury is sufficient to cause death, it can also cause a spiritual injury which can be 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 in 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 soul, or our spirit guides 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 spiritual treatment, the pain was healed.

This 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 perhaps show that injuries from previous lives can manifest in a current living body, and can be cured when the spirit itself is healed.

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 I’ve just talked about. Is it possible then, that birthmarks could be placed on our bodies deliberately by our souls simply as a reminder of something.

Perhaps if something significant was achieved in a previous life, it’s possible that our soul chose to highlight that achievement on our bodies, almost like a tattoo, as a way of reminding us we already achieved this.

Or perhaps it could be a reminder that we went through a particular lesson. The birthmark could help trigger us to remember that lesson and what we learned from it. 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 tattoo spiritual protection symbols onto their skin specifically for this purpose. 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 there by our soul or 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.

To Summarize

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 injuries from past lives as a spiritual meaning of birthmarks, or as a reminder or sign from previous lives, as well as providing some form of spiritual protection, and finally they may be used by twin flames or soulmates to recognise each other.

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 to back up this explanation of the phenomenon.

But, it’s quite likely in fact that each one of these meanings applies to different people, so there isn’t one single definitive answer. You may have a birthmark as a result of a past-life trauma, whilst I have a birthmark as a lesson carried over. This one is truly unique to each individual.

I hope you’ve found this post useful. If you did, please share it using the buttons below – we’d very much appreciate it.

Thanks for reading. Keep looking for the signs, stay connected and stay humble.