Ancestors: your invisible allies

$Women\'s Power$

Ancestors

Your Invisible Allies

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How Ancestors Affect Us
Life is what we make of it, so it is said. It is very much so with ancestors as well. Your ancestors can be a source of inspiration, help and protection or a source of trouble, chaos and obstruction in your life -- it's all up to you! Most people have no idea how powerful the hidden influence of their ancestors is on the life they are living. Many of the problems you are having today might be caused by your ancestors or by your not handling them properly. Many persistent and "unsolvable" problems in your life -- though not necessarily caused by your ancestors -- could easily be overcome with your ancestors' help -- if only you knew how to contact them and harness their power.

It has been said that not feeding one's ancestors is the root cause of poverty! Could it be that we are having global poverty because -- among other things -- we have lost the sacred traditions of communing with and feeding our ancestors?

Have we perhaps been intentionally cut off from our spiritual benefactors, the protectors of our clans?

I fear this is so, not just by coincidence but by design. Otherwise, if ancestors are so important to us, as many ancient traditions from cultures all over the world are telling us, why have we never been told about this? In my opinion this is part of the ongoing intentional discrediting of sacred knowledge with the goal of disempowering humanity through false religions, fear mongering, ridicule and obscuring of all true spiritual knowledge which could lead to empowerment and self-governance.

Ask yourself honestly, how do you feel when you read my words? How do you feel about my suggestion to work with the dead, with spirits? Are you afraid? Do you think that is evil? Does it freak you out because it brings to mind certain trashy Hollywood movies which totally distort the truth about the spiritual realm? Most people are so conditioned by religion and by the brainwash media that anything to do with spirits either is taboo or really scares them. Both death and spirits have been declared "the enemy" by the media and the medical egregore. People whose organs have long given up are artificially kept alive instead of allowing them the mercy of death by switching the machines off. Countless horror movies show evil spirits going after people, even killing them. As a result people have a very distorted view and unreasonable fears of anything to do with death, spirits and the realm of the dead.

The fear mongering by the media and prosecution by the Church has led to people forgetting all the traditional ancestral passing-over rites of their cultures which in turn has created a huge problem in the astral realm. More and more souls are becoming earthbound, due to this gross negligence and ignorance about death, the dead, and the truth about our ancestors. I feel that it is time now for all of us who love freedom and life to reconnect with the power of our ancestors so they can protect us in these difficult and troublesome times, and so that they can get healed, and through healing them we also heal ourselves, our families and ultimately our society. For this reason I am now also conducting workshops to teach people how to establish a good relationship with their ancestors and turn them into their friends, helpers and allies. The workshop is titled Wisdom of the Ancestors and you can find the course dates and information on the Workshops page.

Spiritual and Physical Ancestors
You may think of ancestors as only those members of your family that you knew and who have passed on, but this is not so. Anybody of your family line going back countless generations, is an ancestor and a potential ally. You also need to know that an ancestor has the task of helping you. It is in fact the duty of your ancestors to help and protect you. So why are they not doing their job? We will get to that later.

When I was younger the concept of the ancestors baffled me. I have always believed in reincarnation (and in fact I remember some of my past lives) so I couldn't at first understand why ancestors would stay behind to help their descendants. Why were they not reincarnating in new bodies, I wondered. But as we get more advanced spiritually we begin to understand and embrace the paradox. The greatest truths are always hard to grasp and often paradoxical. And so I learned that while the individual soul reincarnates a small part of it stays on to protect the descendants of its line becoming an ancestor. We are really all part of one singular consciousness that experiences itself as many individual souls. So we are all one, and yet we are many. Here's the paradox again.

According to shamanic beliefs, when a person dies their spirit goes into the Underworld. There the spirit stays for a period of time and then it becomes an ancestral spirit with the ability to freely travel to other regions of the spirit world such as the Middle World, which is the spirit side of the world we are living in. So now we have discussed our physical ancestors, the ancestors of our flesh and blood bodies, those who have passed their DNA on to us. But these are not the only ancestors we have!

Besides the physical ancestors, there are also spiritual ancestors. Those are members of egregores you belonged to in past lives. Let's say for example, that you were a priestess of the Goddess Bast in a past life in Egypt. You would then have Egyptian ancestry, even though your flesh and blood body in this life is Caucasian, with no connection to Egypt whatsoever. Besides having Egyptian ancestry, connected to your past life incarnation, you would also have a connection to the sacred tradition of Bast worship. So you see, we all have an enormous number of ancestors. Therefore whatever your problem, there is certainly an ancestor who knows the answer or has information, knowledge or skills that can help you! All you have to do is make the connection!

Spiritual ancestry can be very important, sometimes even more important than physical ancestry. As power comes down any unbroken spiritual lineage, you can recover your spiritual powers and knowledge of the past simply by reconnecting with those ancestral lines. Your spiritual ancestry can also help you in spiritual matters and speed up spiritual growth. By reconnecting with your past life spiritual ancestors you can begin to reconnect with the gods and goddesses you served in past lives and recover all your powers and knowledge -- which could make the difference in whether or not you going to survive 2012, among other things!

Ancestors with Issues
Most people think too much in terms of black and white. In their limited world view a person is either evil or good with nothing in between. But that is not how nature operates. Our ancestors are seldom evil, but they can be negative, just like living people. Another mistake in thinking is to assume when a family member of yours passes over to the world of spirit they automatically become an "angel" and all their flaws of character, negative thinking and spitefulness are instantly erased just by them becoming spirits. Others assume ancestors automatically become wise, just by passing over to the realm of spirit. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I mentioned in my Middle World article which deals with the astral realm, a spiteful person will be a spiteful spirit, and goodhearted person will be a goodhearted spirit. And a human being with lots of issues will be a spirit with lots of issues. It is as simple as that!

Basically we can divide our ancestry in two groups: the negative and positive ancestors. Let's discuss the negative ancestors first. They are unlikely to be evil, in fact they might have been wonderful people, but they are negative for you, meaning that they are obstructing you in some way, hindering you from moving forward in your life and sabotaging your plans for the future you want to create. This is often due to the ancestors imposing their world view, ambitions and religious conditioning on you! For example, if you have decided to take up the study of magick or Wicca, and among your ancestors were some very devout and probably narrow-minded Christians, they may now put all kinds of stumbling blocks in your way. For instance, after your ritual to get a job you may find that you have a lot of bad luck, and you start wondering whether or not this whole "magick business" may be evil and "God" is punishing you for it etc. Even if you don't believe that magick is evil, if the problem persists you are likely to give it up because it doesn't work for you. Well, it doesn't work for you simply because your ancestors won't let you do it, not because the magick isn't working!

Or you may be an artist and want to earn your living by painting but your ancestors think that artists are lazy louts and obstruct you, so you never have any success. To sum it up: negative ancestors are those who are hindering and obstructing you, even if those were the spirits of your beloved grandmother or grandfather. As a rule, negative ancestors have to be dealt with before we can actually work with our positive ancestors. For all practical purposes even ancestors who were good people, and may have your welfare in mind, but are imposing their views and ideas on you, are considered to be negative ancestors. Always keep in mind, they are not evil, they are not out to get you, but they have an agenda and you have free will, which includes permanently dismissing them, which you can learn in my Wisdom of the Ancestors Workshop.

Now to the positive ancestors. These are the ones that are willing to help you according to how you wish to live your life. They can protect you spiritually and physically from harm. They can open many doors for you, whether you need to get a new job, improve your financial situation or find the perfect partner. Some of your spiritual ancestors can even become your guides and take your spirituality to a higher level. Ancestors can accomplish many things you could not, simply because they are in the Otherworld which gives them access to knowledge that you might not have access to and because they are free from the limitations of the physical body, of time and space.

You will find that your ancestors are usually perfectly willing to help -- if you acknowledge them and give them what they need. To help you they need regular feeding. There are lots of rules and regulations on how and what to feed the ancestors. Generally they like alcoholic beverages. As to food, they may have certain preferences but you don't have to give them anything you don't feel good about. As a vegetarian I won't serve meat to my ancestors, even though some of them would like that. I found other foods that please them. You can "train" your ancestors to accept food which is okay with your lifestyle and affordable for you. In the end is better to give them a little food even if not their favourite than to leave them hungry. And remember, leaving your ancestors hungry means they cannot act on your behalf, which is likely to result in problems for you, such as poverty and other troubles.

According to voudou tradition (the healing tradition of voudou, not sorcery!) it is very important to feed your ancestors, because if you don't, you will remain in poverty! So if money is always a problem, maybe you should consider attending to your ancestors! Obviously you cannot begin feeding your positive ancestors until you have got rid of your negative ancestors or you would be feeding the negatives too which could make things worse for you. Performing ancestral rituals is actually quite easy but you should be taught by somebody who is experienced with ancestral rituals and has learned this within a proper tradition, such as voudou. Once the negative ancestors have been dealt with, and you have made contact with your positive ancestors it makes sense to construct an ancestral shrine in your house, so that your ancestors will have a place in your home where they can reside, and a doorway to your life.

Ancestral Patterns and Healing
Quite often you will notice that there is a certain pattern in your family. Maybe of great financial losses or of violent death, of unhappy relationships, or problems with a particular element such as water or fire, etc. The pattern can be so obvious that even people without spiritual training notice it and draw the conclusion that there is a "curse" on their family or on them. Though ancestral curses are common, this is not the only possible cause of the problem. Sometimes ancestors carry shame and pass this on through many generations and so we effectively curse ourselves. A competent shaman can release such curses, find the root of the ancestral patterns and help the ancestors involved to let go of their guilt and shame so that they and all subsequent generations may be healed. I have had some spectacular successes with ancestral healing. Here is one example:

Once, when I treated a lady who had a persistent back problem I intuitively knew it was due to an energy of shame held in the spine. We tried to locate the source of shame together but it was beyond her conscious knowledge or memory. So I journeyed for her. It turned out that one of her ancestors had been raped and then had cursed the rapist and all his descendants. As the ancestor became pregnant from this encounter she cursed her own line as well. It was a bit tricky unravelling this one, but I found a way to circumvent the curse and lift it from her ancestral line. Immediately after the journey my client's back problem disappeared and hasn't come back so far, to my knowledge. She told me she had that problem for years! Also, when I recounted the journey my client confirmed several patterns in her family that fit with what I had learned.

The Problem of Earthbound Spirits
Due to all the misinformation about what happens prior to and during death many souls become earthbound. This is getting so bad that we can almost talk about an "overpopulation problem" on the astral! of course there is no space problem on the astral, but we are having a built up of negativity due to so many earthbound spirits most of whom are not happy in this temporary realm. All spirits need to draw energy from living beings (mostly humans, but they can draw it from your pets also) to avoid the breaking up of their astral bodies and the so called second death. In effect earthbound spirits are vampires. Therefore it is definitely not healthy to live in a house where earthbound spirits constantly hang around!

A true shaman knows how to deal with earthbound spirits and can help them to pass over to where they belong. This kind of work is called psychopomp work and requires advanced skills, as well as sensitivity. When working with our own ancestry we can help those who wish to move on permanently to do so. The remaining good ancestors will not drain you. They will come at feeding time, and then go about their business of helping you sort your life out. Those that are truly earthbound souls need help though. This happened in my family as well. In fact I had to help two earthbound family members after death. One of them was my grandmother who died in 1993.

When my grandmother died I was devastated. I comforted myself with the thought that her suffering was over and that she would be going to heaven or some wonderful region in the afterlife because she had been a very good person, always helping others selflessly to the point where she gave herself up completely. Looking back I think that was part of her problem. For over a year I did not dream of her at all, which surprised me. I had been sure that she would appear to me in dream, after all we had been close. and I always have magickal dreams. I didn't know then that ancestors usually spend one year and a day in the Underworld, before they can freely travel around on the astral. After about a year I had several disturbing dreams of her. I

n the most horrible one she stood with me beside a big cornfield. All the corn in the field, though fully grown was twisted, black and dried out. She looked at me beseechingly and said, "this is my life. Can you make it right?" I just looked at her in total shock and said, "grandma, nobody can make this right any more!" I woke up feeling very disturbed. For weeks afterwards I was going over the dream in my mind unable to come up with a solution or any plan to help my grandmother. I knew how to journey then, but this was something new that I had never come across before and so I was at a loss what to do.

As usual, solutions and ideas come to me once I have referred the problem to my subconscious mind. And so it was that by "coincidence" when working on a time travel project whilst searching for answers what happened to my grandpa in the second world war, I stumbled over the answer. I finally managed to locate and visit my grandmother in the spirit realm. She was in the Underworld, in a place which was actually very beautiful and serene (I would have loved it) but my grandmother felt lonely and unhappy there. It was not easy getting her out of there, I had to try various things until I found a way to move her on to a place she liked. Ever since I haven't heard of her and I feel she is at peace now.

Is Ancestral Work Evil?
Absolutely not! Quite the contrary, I think it's quite negligent and abusive not to take care of one's ancestors. We are buying them expensive coffins, for what? It would be better to do something for their immortal spirits than for the decaying bodies. The Egyptians had their Book of the Dead and performed rites for the passing and for a happy afterlife of the dead. The Tibetans also have a Book of the Dead. All cultures, including Celtic and Germanic tribes had special rites for the dead. This topic has been declared a taboo and as evil by mainstream religion, because there is power in working with the ancestors. And power has forever been suppressed. For if we, all of mankind, realised our real power we could break free from the enslavement we have been under for thousands of years and finally create a life of beauty and peace on this planet, a life of plenty and prosperity for everyone, not just the elite! If we all, or a good number of us, found our power, it would make an end to all control and manipulation of the powers-that-be -- permanently!

In this context I am going to write an article about a witch hunt and what it really was about. Truly, the witch hunt was all about control and the oppression of power and to keep mankind in servitude. Remember this: those who shout the loudest that working with spirits is evil are the very ones who are doing it themselves and really using it for evil. Have you ever noticed that the Pope is using an upside-down cross on his throne and in many decorations? Isn't that the same upside-down cross that satanists use? Did you know that the words on his mitre, which translated mean the "Vicar of Christ" add up to 666 in numerology? Isn't 666 the number of the beast? Did you know that 666 is also hidden on every bar code? Church and politics always go hand in hand. They are two systems of oppression that covertly work together. In the end it's all about power. The powers-that-be want to have all of it and they don't want you or anybody else to have any of it. And if you truly treasure freedom, then you must do everything to get your full power now and then use it for good -- or against evil, which is the same thing. Don't postpone getting your power until next year. It will be over for mankind, unless we are acting now to empower ourselves and reclaim our world!

Conditioning to Keep You Down
So get this whole idea of good and evil out of your head. It is mainly manipulation by mainstream religion to keep you powerless and ignorant. Yes, true evil exists, and when you see it you will know it without doubt. You do not need any authority to tell you what evil is. Your conscience, your heart, your soul, your Higher Self, your intuition will tell you clearly enough. It is the conditioning of the mind that gets in the way and makes people confused. The brain getting in the way of the heart is the problem of our society. We have been taught to think with the limited rigid instrument of our left brain, our rational mind, discounting intuition and the voice of the soul as silly or unscientific. Removing this conditioning is a great part of shamanic groundwork. You can't go far in shamanism or in any spiritual tradition until you have freed yourself from all false conditioning! People get so attached to their conditioning, it is like a slave getting attached to his chains! This conditioning is not a good thing, it is a prison for your mind and spirit and prevents real growth. If the Goddess had wanted you to have this conditioning it would have been there from birth. But you were born free and endowed with free will -- and a mind capable of thinking for yourself, I would like to add! All conditioning was placed upon you to bind you, to make you believe that you are the physical body, that material reality is the only reality there is, etc, -- in short to make you into a better slave! It is only when all conditioning is removed that one can see clearly. Until you have completely de-conditioned yourself, you may still fear working with the ancestors, or spirits or doing magick, etc. All I can do is assure you, as one who has experienced Oneness with All-That-Is, that working with your ancestors is definitely not evil. It is in fact natural, as death is a natural progression of life.

Benefits of Ancestral Work
Working with one's ancestors really is good and desirable. It is mutually beneficial both for you and your ancestors. It doesn't harm another being, and it certainly isn't a sin. It establishes a strong cohesion in the family and a bond of love that goes beyond death. It reconnects you with your ancestral roots and true cultural tradition -- not the couch potato - TV addict - Mindless Lemming mentality that is being promoted by the powers-that-be. Our ancestors, actually had values, such as hospitality to guests, courage, honouring one's word, love of freedom. When I think of what the ancient tribes of Germany were like for example, their sacred traditions, and what the German nation has become today I could sit down and cry. We have become a nation of sissies, and few have any hounour and noble values. I really advise you to research the ancient Pagan traditions of your own people. You will find much beauty there, and much we can learn from. I feel we all need to reconnect to the Wisdom of our Ancestors, be it for empowerment, for knowledge, for protection or even for values.

What could possibly be evil about working with the ancestors? I believe if we all took better care of our ancestors and established a good relationship with them we would be a lot healthier, more prosperous and more balanced. During my five years in Hong Kong I was honoured to take part in ancestral rituals of my (now ex) partner's family. It was an incredible experience. Most people in Hong Kong have ancestral shrines in their homes, where they regularly burn incense and make offerings. Once a year the whole family gets together and makes offerings to the ancestors. Afterwards they all feast at the burial place, not far from the urns with the bones and ashes. Initially I had some apprehensions about this but I allowed myself to go with the flow and found that the ceremony actually felt very sacred, beautiful and appropriate. I could also feel that all family members who took part felt a great satisfaction, a sense of having done their duty to their ancestors. They were convinced that now their ancestors would protect them and look after them for another year. Even the children enjoyed this day without any prejudice.

And last not least, I feel it is very healing for the soul to know that the ones that you have loved and who have passed on aren't lost forever but that they keep on watching over you. And isn't it nice to think that when you one day pass over your descendants will keep on thinking of you with love regularly, sending you their blessings and even "feed" you in the afterlife? To me this seems the most natural thing to do! And now my friends I am closing, because I have not fed my ancestors for a week and a better attend to them now! If you want to start this rewarding practice too, come and join me at my ancestral workshop!

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