The Cult of Ancestors. The Power of Our Blood

Seven Generations

In many traditions, it is believed that a person should know seven generations of their family – that is, all 126 ancestors back six generations before them. It is believed that every generation of ancestors is responsible for some part of our lives. Therefore, to understand how our family affects us, we need to know what all seven generations of our ancestors were like, what they did and what happened in their lives. Of course, the more distant the ancestor in time, the weaker the person feels the influence. However, one way or another, all of a person’s ancestors influence their fate.

I would like to note that, in any case, we must not condemn our ancestors, even if there were some problems and sins in the family. The condemnation, resentment or malevolence of their descendants further complicates the karma of the family. It must be remembered that all our ancestors are our teachers, through whom the family educates us. Do not rejoice if you have bypassed their problems: after all, it can still manifest itself in later descendants. If there are ‘fallen’ ancestors in the family, you need to be humble, to pray for them and try to ensure that their sin does not become your sin and the sin of your children.

So, how are the seven generations of one family line characterized and how do they affect it?

The first generation is the person themself. He or she is the descendant of the entire family tree, the seed upon which the ancestors pin their hopes to continue the family, the connection between the past and the future. A person is responsible to themselves and to the universe for their will. They bear responsibility for their soul and for all the choices that they make in their life.

The second generation is the parents: father and mother (two people). They are responsible for the direct upbringing of a person: for their behavior in the family, in society, for their habits, their attitude to their physical and emotional health, and to life itself. If a person has a complicated relationship with their father and mother, then their relationships with the whole family, with other people, with their homeland and with the world in general are likely to be tense. They strive to embody the relationships that they learn in their parental home in the family that they create, with their spouse and children, and, therefore, pass on to their descendants.

The third generation is the grandparents (four people). It is known that talents are most often transmitted through skipping a generation, that is – from grandparents. They are responsible for a person’s way of thinking, for their abilities and how they can realize them in their life, for communication, contact with other people, activity, energy and reaction speed. Often this generation is responsible for a person’s profession or hobbies. Communicating with grandparents teaches the child to communicate with the whole family: after all, a child might take their mother and father for granted, and few modern children ever meet their great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers. Therefore, it is grandparents who show a child that their father and mother also have parents so that they see this chain of human destinies, a thing of the past that must be continued.

My talent passed to me directly from the third generation, from my grandmother. Once, at a critical moment in my life, she simply told me: “You are a witch,” and I realized that this was not a joke. And, although for me it was a shock, I accepted this gift and began to develop it. That is, the influence of even such a close generation, the third, can be unclear. Of course, even before my grandmother’s testimony, I had these abilities but I did not use them. Only her words allowed me to understand this and fully realize them. Therefore, it is not necessary to think that the influence of ancestors occurs automatically. To be precise, of course, it does happen automatically, but in order to see this influence, to learn how to manage it and use it positively in your life, you need awareness, at least from one angle.

Most of your ancestors have already died. They cannot come to you in reality and tell you which talents, inclinations and problems you have. You can find out for yourself by studying their stories and turning to the family spirit for help. For example, if one of your distant ancestors was a blacksmith and you do not know anything about them, but their talent was passed on to you, then it is rather unlikely that you will discover this talent just intuitively, at least at a young age. If you have not been brought up in an environment in which blacksmithing is considered something worthy of attention, or even mentioned at all, you probably will not even think about it. Most likely, you would learn about this ancestor, become interested in their life, try to do what they were doing, understand that you have an innate talent for this, and only then you will have a really strong connection with that ancestor from which you can draw energy.

The fourth generation — great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers (eight people). They are responsible for the formation of a person’s attitude to love, intimacy, joy, creativity and material well-being. They teach how to earn money and manage it correctly, to harmonize space and to recognize beauty. Great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers create a person’s energetic protection, the ability to desire and achieve what is desired. Problems in this generation can lead to a person’s isolation, distrust, inability to express feelings and inability to enjoy life.

The fifth generation is the parents of the great-grandparents (sixteen people). This generation is responsible for strength, decisiveness, energy, the ability to act, to achieve success, its goals, to win, for sports and military successes. This generation helps a person achieve results. If there were problems in this generation, then in a person’s life there may be difficulties in obtaining the fruits of their own labour. They may suffer from cruelty or, conversely, cowardice and lack of will (their own or of others).

The sixth generation is the grandparents of the great-grandparents (thirty-two people). This is the sacred generation in which our spiritual guides are located. The grandparents of great-grandparents form a person’s attitude to customs and established laws, including customs and laws of the family. This generation is responsible for the spiritual heritage that a person is able to receive, as well as for their ability to be a spiritual mentor to other people.

The seventh generation is the great-grandparents of the great-grandparents (sixty-four people). This is the foundation of the entire bloodline. One’s life duty is connected with this generation, as well as retribution for the sins of the whole family line, justice, family fate and the possibility of its transformation, magical change and the healing of the entire family. If a person can enlist the help of ancestors from this generation, they can do any job or create their own destiny. This is great if you know something about the ancestors of this generation. Any information about them will make your connection with the family stronger and more fruitful. If you know where they lived, it would be very nice to visit these places or to live there. If you know what they did, it would be useful to also try this activity.

Rituals

The very concept of ‘the Cult of Ancestors’ suggests that there should be some kind of regular rites and rituals dedicated to the commemoration and veneration of ancestors.

I would like to note that this is not connected with any particular religion. This is a universal situation that is simply interpreted differently by different cultures. Everyone is free to be within the framework of any tradition – one that is inherited (and possesses additional strength because of this) or one that is chosen because it is close in spirit to you or even none. Indeed, even if you are an atheist or a materialist and do not believe in any esotericism, you cannot deny that your ancestors influenced you because you have their genes in you. And if you are aware of this influence, it will be easier for you to work with it and transform it into a direction favorable to you.

The rituals that I propose in this chapter can be performed by anyone.

I do not recommend you to conduct any more complicated magic rituals on your own, without preparation and guidance, because it can be very risky: any magic is dangerous, but that which concerns death, the world of the dead and spirits (even those that are your departed relatives) – doubly so.

Therefore, if you want to learn how to conduct serious magic rituals you have to find a teacher, since doing it yourself and experimenting puts you at serious risk.

The first thing you need to do to work with your bloodline is to make a family tree of your family back seven generations. The more you know about your ancestors, the better. It is advisable to know the names of the ancestors (and also in honor of which ancestors the children were named), surnames (which can tell a lot), dates of births and deaths (it is important to track any patterns and repetitions), the nationalities in the family (which is especially important when there are warring nations or countries that have seen genocide), your ancestors’ occupations (which can tell you your dispositions and talents) and whether there were any problems that were transmitted through generations in your family.

This is the foundation of your work with your bloodline.

Firstly, you need to collect all the available information – from archives, documents and conversations with relatives – and compose your family tree. It will be good if, in the process of working with your family history, you find like-minded people among your current living relatives with whom you can work. By doing so, you increase the strength of your family spirit. It is best to start the work with your family by obtaining objective information. Of course, you need to trust your intuition, but it is important to keep in mind that the human mind tends to simplify and embellish reality. And this can be not only your own consciousness, but also the consciousness of the people on whose stories you will rely. Often they can talk about an ancestor in an enthusiastic or, conversely, condemning manner, simply because there is some general idea of what is right, which can change more than once. So, for example, in Soviet times, someone could be proud of their ancestors who actively participated in the formation of a new governing system, and so were ashamed of and hushed up their noble roots. Now the situation, on the contrary, is the opposite as it is considered prestigious to have a ‘noble’ – i.e. not proletarian – origin. Therefore, when compiling a family tree, you need to remember that you are not doing this in order to build up your pride or to indulge in self-abasement. It is necessary to try to look at your ancestors impartially: not through rose-tinted glasses, hiding any of their problems and sins, but equally not dumping all the heavy family karma onto them. Remember that these were the same people as you. They wished to live happy lives in harmony with themselves, their loved ones and the whole world. If something did not work out for them, it is not a reason for condemnation and contempt. You need to objectively understand what their mistakes and victories were and, based on this experience, try to build your life in a way that seems right for you. Therefore, it really is advisable to find genuine information about what your ancestors were like in reality. It would be very good if you gain this information from objective sources such as historical archives. Of course, in order to do this job efficiently, it is advisable to have some skills in working with archives and historical documents. For those who cannot or do not want to independently search for historical data about their ancestors, there are specialists who can obtain all the necessary information and trace the genetic roots of a person.

Secondly, you need to conduct a ritual of ‘browsing’ the bloodline.

You can conduct this ritual alone or you can do it with relatives, but it is important that all those present take the whole process seriously. Select a time, but keep in mind that this activity can take a lot of time and requires a lot of effort. Take a candle – it is better consecrated, such as from a church, but ensure it is large because it may take a long time to burn – and a sheet of paper on which to write down the seven generations of your family tree with all the names of your ancestors. Think of each of the 126 ancestors in turn, remembering everything you know about all of them. It is very important to keep track of the sensations that occur to you. Maybe at the moment when you think about someone, you feel peace and gratitude. Or maybe, on the contrary, resentment and misunderstanding. All this speaks of the state of your family and the influence that this or that ancestor has on you and on your life. Pay attention to objective things that happen at this moment. If you suddenly feel cold, a candle starts crackling or a thunderclap is heard outside the window, all this should be taken as signs that tell you about something hidden. Also, carefully consider the dreams that you have after this ritual – if the work with your family was very deep, your ancestors may come to you in a dream and tell you something. If there are any tragedies in the family, any difficult cases, you have to ‘live’ them and sort them out so that they take their place in the past that is due to them and will not affect the living. If your family has bright personalities, and most likely you will find them among 126 of your ancestors, feel your connection with them. After all, communication with a bright ancestor is the strongest charm that can provide protection, energy and advice in a difficult situation.

Unfortunately, very few modern people can accurately trace their genealogy back seven generations. In this case, you cannot name all the ancestors by name, but can still consider each individually – as ‘the father of the great-grandmother of my father,’ for example – and try to feel what this ancestor was like and what effect he now has on you.

This ritual can be done as often as you feel the need for it. Each time you will feel how the darkness of time gradually clears and your ancestors become closer and more understandable to you. After all, the strength of a family spirit depends on the remembrance of its descendants and on the attention they give back to their family.

You can do it during special periods (which will be discussed later) or simply at some time during the year (in which case it is better on Saturdays, which are symbolically associated with ancestors).

After you have carefully looked at your entire family and felt which of your ancestors are closest to you and from which of them you can expect protection and help, you can put the figures of these ancestors in your home.

It was customary for Slavs (as well as for many other peoples) to install in a special part of the house – the ‘red corner’ – a deity. This is a shelf where wooden figures of bearded ‘Dedy’ (‘grandpas’) were located, that is – the ancestors of a family. (I will tell you more about ritual dolls depicting dead ancestors in the chapter ‘Disappearing Blood’).

Once you know about your family, you can hold funeral rites – symbolic meetings that pay tribute to ancestors, strengthen the family spirit and introduce children to their ancestors. Memorial rites can be for families, to which they do not invite any strangers (and all of their ‘own’ must be assembled), or public, which are celebrated in common festivities.

Memorial rituals are associated, firstly, with food, and, secondly, with memories of ancestors.

Traditional Slavic memorial rites (which can be carried out with minor changes today), ‘Dedy’, went as follows.

On the given day, they would carefully clean the house, but did not engage in active work. It was believed that on ritual days the spirits of ancestors were invisibly around, and with active work – cutting firewood, for example – you might accidentally hurt an invisible spirit. They heated the bathhouse and before sunset all living family members had to have time to wash themselves, because after dark the spirits of their ancestors could come to the bathhouse. The funeral meal itself began in the late afternoon, when it was already necessary to light a fire. In the house they laid the table and invited the souls of their ancestors to join them, to be treated. The head of the family would walk around the table three times, naming the names of all deceased relatives. At this time, on the table were special dishes relating to the mourning ritual: ‘kutya’ (funeral ritual cereal made from whole grains with dried fruits, nuts and honey), pancakes, fried eggs, kvass^[5], milk and dishes that ancestors loved during their lifetimes. Moreover, they would put a spoonful of each dish on a separate plate for ancestors, as well as the ‘firsts’ – the first pancake, the first piece of bread and so on. During the meal, stories were told about the ancestors (but at this moment of the ritual commemoration – ‘either good or nothing’). After dinner, young people could not get up first, since it was believed that anyone who got up early could die earlier. After dinner, they opened windows and doors and escorted out the souls of their ancestors. They did not clean the table, leaving it for the souls that might come at night. That night family members were attentive to dreams, because the souls of their ancestors could appear in them and offer some advice.

If you decide to have such a memorial meal, keep in mind that the food left in the morning cannot be eaten by living family members, nor can it be thrown away. Instead, you can give it to animals or insects (for example, put it near an anthill or under a piece of turf). If the animals do not eat the food, it means that the karma of the family is heavy. But there is no need to worry much about this: if you work with the bloodline, the energy of the family will gradually improve.

It is good to combine a memorial meal with a visit to the graves of deceased relatives, either on the same day or as near as possible.

This is, naturally, a good opportunity to introduce children to the family history, tell them about their ancestors and draw a family tree together. You can also bring photos of the ancestors and bow to them. If you bow sincerely, without resentment or indignation but with a feeling of gratitude for what you have, you will feel a kind response. This answer may come as a feeling of security, enthusiasm or inspiration, or as a real-life event, somehow related to your family. For example, a distant relative may call suddenly or relationships in your family improve.

During the commemoration, usually only good stories are told, without focusing on complex or tragic moments in the life of the family. But if the history of the family is not the most rosy, you can take on some obligations that atone for sins that were committed by ancestors. For example, if the family had any infanticide (that includes abortions), you can help orphans or sick children. If there was any theft in your family, donate money to a good cause. It is also excellent to plant plants in honor of ancestors, especially trees. And, indeed, the Cult of Ancestors is very supportive of rituals that are associated with the natural world. The desire for personal spiritual growth, meditation and so on are, of course, wonderful, but it can be fraught with the dangers of growing selfish and too proud. So, sometimes the best spiritual practice is just to collect rubbish in the nearest forest.

The Cult of Ancestors itself is based on the idea that what you have is not only your personal merit. Rather, many generations of your ancestors lived by accumulating strength so that you can possess it in your lifetime. And you can express your respect for them through helping the world around you and those who come after you.

If you plant a tree (which is a symbol of family in many cultures, by the way) that will outlive you and bear fruit after you leave this world, you begin a new cycle of life.