A reflection positive Hilbert space is a triple (E , E+, θ), where E is a Hilbert space, θ a unitary involution and E+ a closed subspace on which the hermitian form v, w θ := θv, w is positive semidefinite. From this data one obtains a Hilbert space E by completing a suitable quotient of E+ with respect to ·, · θ on E+. To obtain compatible unitary representations of Lie groups, we start with triples (G, S, τ ), where G is a Lie group, τ an involutive automorphism of G and S a subsemigroup invariant under the involution) and π(S)E+ ⊆ E+. Motivated by the passage from the euclidean motion group to the Poincaré group in quantum field theory, one expects a duality between reflection positive representations and unitary representations of the dual symmetric Lie group G c on E. We propose a new approach to a reflection positive representations based on reflection positive distributions and reflection positive distribution vectors. In particular, we generalize the Bochner-Schwartz Theorem to positive definite distributions on open convex cones and apply our techniques to complementary series representations of the conformal group O + 1,n+1 (R) of the sphere S n .