Ancestral Spirits

Shamanistic, ancient and most indigenous cultures recognize that we are multidimensional beings. We are not just existing in physical reality but simultaneously in other worlds as well, and just as we are not alone in the physical world, there are countless beings also in the other worlds.
 
Most people are familiar with spirit guides and helping beings that reside in these other worlds. Along with these 'higher beings' are also many classifications of 'astral' spirits that are still in need of healing. The most common are Earthbound human spirits that for a variety of reasons have been unable to move on. It is understood that this is not the total soul of any individual but a fragment of their being that remains close to the earth plane. These types of spirits can affect either places or people...or both.

Quite frequently entity attachments are family members who after death still feel compelled to complete their unfinished business with either the living, or by hanging around the family line. An example would be a mother or father who died prematurely still wanting to protect their children. Another example might be a baby who was aborted and stays with its mother because it still desires to be born.

Ancestor attachments can be passed down from the generations, from ancient ancestors that a person never knew. Modern psychology recognizes that family patterning of issues such as addiction, incest, abuse and other psychological complexes can be passed down from generations past and linger in family lines even if the current parents did not have these issues. It has been shown in studies that sometimes issues skip generations; the most common explanation for this is that it is ‘genetic’. The ‘shamanic’ understandings of this is, the spirits of the generations past need healing and are still affecting the living. Working with the Ancestors directly affects the current generations, so that they can live unfettered from these unresolved issues.

The most immediate ‘Ancestors’ we have are our parents. It is not hard to see how we might unconsciously internalize their unresolved issues….


Anna’s father committed suicide when she was young. She never really knew him, nor much about him as the family treated his death and life as a taboo subject. Spirits of past generations that are not allowed their honored place in the family field are often troubled about this - on the other side.


Regardless of what their role was in the family, if they have been ostracized while living or after death, they often need to come forward and be recognized. When asked to focus on her father, she reported feeling his presence. She was guided into dialogue with him and they had a tearful reunion. I then asked to talk to ‘Father’ directly through her. Father was regressed back to the point of his death, which was relived through Anna. Father remembered all the depressive thoughts that drove him to commit suicide. As Anna tapped into his memories she saw many circumstances of his life she never knew. It became apparent that the weight of his suicide was something Anna had been unconsciously carrying since childhood, and had been present in her adult life, as an all pervasive desire to die.

Father was asked if he wanted his child to carry this for him any further, and Anna was asked the same. Both agreed they wanted it resolved. After some further help and healing on the issues that drove him to suicide, helpful spirits came in to assist in lifting the weight of suicide, from him and Anna’s body. Anna reported seeing it as a steel ball of black energy in her right lung being lifted from her chest. 

Father was then asked to check the family line to see if some of his experience had originated from an earlier ancestor. It appeared to go back a few generations to his great grandfather. After working with this spirit I encouraged the ancestors to pass this black ball back down the family line until it could be dispersed. Anna watched this process and reported that it was finally released into a black hole in space. Not surprisingly, Anna told me later that she did some research and found out that the father’s side of the family had a long history of suicides. She also reported that the heaviness in her chest and feelings of despair were gone.

Often ancestral entities simply need to just tell their story. For various reasons they may have been shunned by the family, or never had the chance to tell anyone of their pain. Sometimes they have not yet joined with family members that are on the other side and when they are assisted to do so they find relief and no longer need to linger among the living. Quite often ‘family counseling’ needs to take place among the spirits on the other side so the troubled spirit is welcomed and at peace with them. Spirit releasement can also help complete the grieving process for family members that are still living. Often when a loved one has died, a person may have been unable to express all their thoughts or feelings. The weight of these unspoken words can keep spirits lingering as well as weigh the living down in unresolved grief.


Ancestral work is not meant to replace one’s own personal process of healing issues, and isn’t meant to shift ‘blame’ or place causative factors onto the spirits of the departed. Our own personal karma and complexes can act as magnets for lingering spirits with similar issues. We often choose to incarnate in families that we have unfinished business with or that reflect our own unhealed dynamics. Spirits that attach or hang around us, only add to our own complexes making them more difficult to heal.  In this work, personal issues are worked with alongside any complications caused by spirits. 

Generations Past

Distant generations that one never knew can also affect the family field or individuals in it.

One client was embroiled in a sibling rivalry over money; although she was not the cause of it she had an unexplainable guilt over the issue. The other sibling seemed to have no feelings of remorse and relentlessly tried to seize assets that were meant for all the siblings. When the client explored her own feelings of anger about this, two past ancestors she never knew, that were quite far down the family line came forward.

They were a married couple who lived quite a fine life in their time in the early 1800’s. The husband, who told us his name, Pierre, had a mercantile business that supplied traders both locally and internationally. It seemed that there were either tax evasion issues, or a betrayal by a partner that caused the husband to be arrested and imprisoned. Their entire assets were seized and practically overnight their lives changed dramatically. 



His wife Alice and infant son, were shamed and forced to live marginally on the fringes of a society they once were considered ‘upper class’. Pierre had immense guilt about this and he died in prison full of self-recrimination and guilt… he was the ancestor that was affecting my client. Alice on the other hand became obsessed with her losses and after a year could not stand being an ‘outcast’ and killed herself by running in front of an oncoming train. She died angry and obsessed with regaining what was lost…she was the ancestor that drove the sibling to try to seize what she could. The spirits never reunited in the afterlife and helping them to do so was part of both of their healing. They also both had abandoned their young son, and needed to learn about his life and meet him in the afterlife. Pierre had died feeling so guilty about his son and his wife; this kept him in an isolated bubble, in the spirit world. When he was able to work through this and re-meet them, the inexplicable guilt my client had left her. She was then able to deal with the current life situation with strength and a clear consciousness and it was resolved. 


Shortly after the session, while going through a deceased family member’s belongings, she found a family tree that stretched back many generations. She was stunned to find a Pierre who lived in the 1800’s and who died when his son was only two years old.