{"id":8134,"date":"2016-07-22T15:17:11","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T21:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8134"},"modified":"2016-07-23T15:57:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-23T21:57:58","slug":"can-you-help-your-ancestors-instead-of-rejecting-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8134","title":{"rendered":"Can You Help Your Ancestors Instead of Rejecting Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I was asked to write a cover blurb for a Llewellyn<\/a> book, something that does not happen very often.<\/p>\n

It was a pretty good book. Some people might have found the title obscure, but that was not my decision. But one thing stopped me in my tracks. The writer tried to use the language of “colonist” and “decolonized”\u00a0 and “colonialist cultures” in a clumsy way that came across as “You should hate your ancestors because they were bad people.”<\/p>\n

I don’t if that was necessarily intended, but it was easy to read a key passage in such a way.<\/p>\n

Underneath the language was a message about connecting with the Old Ways (or what we think they were), but the cultural-Marxist thought-template got in the way. For a Llewellyn book, I would phrase things differently. (Or for any book.)<\/p>\n

Even a scholar using “colonization” as a psychic metaphor has to tread carefully. Anne Ferlat put her\u00a0 Pomegranate <\/em>article on “Conversion as Colonization: Pagan Reconstructionism and Ethnopsychiatry<\/a>” through multiple drafts, and still some reviewers were nervous about its implications.<\/p>\n

Certainly we don’t approve of everything our ancestors did. In the mid-1870s, my great-great uncle Frederick was a commercial buffalo hunter in western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle, dropping them with his “Big 50<\/a>.” Do I applaud him for that? Hell no.((He did get a couple of line in some 19th-century history books for a separate act of heroism.)) Do I wish that we as a culture had taken a different approach? Absolutely.((We shudder at the piles of buffalo bones in the old photos, but the Comanche and Kiowa were reducing the Southern Herd quite well themselves, both through their own commercial hunting and because their huge horse herds competed with the bison for winter grazing in the river bottoms. The Indians thought that bison were inexhaustible, with new ones coming up through a hole connecting to the Lower World. It’s a complicated story.))<\/p>\n

In my early days of esoteric studies, I was told that in reality, time did not move in one direction; consequently, not only could my ancestors influence me, but I could influence them.((This might have been in one of Jane Roberts’ “Seth”<\/a> books.)) Perhaps this is the real secret of “ancestor worship” so-called.<\/p>\n

Some psychotherapists think that we not only carry in our bodies our own traumas, but also certain ancestors’ traumas.<\/a><\/p>\n

Jesse revealed that his mother had only recently told him about the tragic death of his father\u2019s older brother\u2014an uncle he never knew he had. Uncle Colin was only nineteen when he froze to death checking power lines in a storm just north of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Tracks in the snow revealed that he had been struggling to hang on. Eventually, he was found facedown in a blizzard, having lost consciousness from hypothermia. His death was such a tragic loss that the family never spoke his name again. Now, three decades later, Jesse was unconsciously reliving aspects of Colin\u2019s death\u2014specifically, the terror of letting go into unconsciousness. For Colin, letting go meant death. For Jesse, falling asleep must have felt the same.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In such a case, would “healing” the ancestor help the living?<\/p>\n

Some of today’s new shamans, like Sandra Ingerman, teach that this magical work can be done on a collective level as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

M. and I have a sort of Ancestors Wall of framed photos in our house, now that we have room for it. I look, for instance, at a maternal great-grandfather in his little SE Kansas newspaper office\u2014he is at the desk (editor! community leader!) while the compositor and the press crew cluster further back. What is our relationship? How does the energy flow?((I did go through a period of fascination with letterpress technology and could have operated\u2014 with a little coaching\u2014every piece of equipment in that room.))<\/p>\n

And great-great uncle Frederick, did he ever in his next line of work \u2014 saloon-keeper, Miles City, Montana \u2014 look into a scrying glass of whiskey and wonder what he had done?<\/p>\n

These are complicated questions. My modest amount of Other Side contact has been with immediate kin\u2014parents, a sister\u2014not with those further back. They seem closer \u2014 at times I feel my father in my body, so to speak, in some mundane action like putting on a coat.<\/p>\n

Quantum mechanics offers fascinating ideas, as this article suggests<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Yet none of [the]\u00a0 one-way flow of time is apparent when you look at the fundamental laws of physics: the laws, say, that describe how atoms bounce off each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the same time, I don’t feel qualified to proclaim, “Quantum mechanics proves magic works!” There are of plenty of other people who will, and they’ll write books and give workshops about it.<\/p>\n

But if we can somehow heal the past, there is plenty of work to do. It beats rejecting our ancestors \u2014 even if they did wrong by our standards, they made us <\/em>possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I was asked to write a cover blurb for a Llewellyn book, something that does not happen very often. It was a pretty good book. Some people might have found the title obscure, but that was not my decision. But one thing stopped me in my tracks. The writer tried to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[204,72],"class_list":["post-8134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ancestors","tag-magick"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-27c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6","url_meta":{"origin":8134,"position":0},"title":"Reprinting "Crafting the Art of Magic"","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"A round of discussion on the Nature Religions Scholars Network e-mail list about the desirability of reprinting Aidan Kelly's book on the origins of Gardnerian witchcraft, Crafting the Art of Magick Book 1 (there was no Book 2), which came out a decade ago from Llewellyn Publications. Although primarily based\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7581,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7581","url_meta":{"origin":8134,"position":1},"title":"The Passing of Carl Weschcke","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"First, the official announcement from Llewellyn, then my comments. It is with profound sadness we share the news of Carl Llewellyn Weschcke\u2019s passing. He passed peacefully on Saturday, November 7 surrounded by family. He was 85. Carl Llewellyn Weschcke was Chairman and the driving force behind Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"weschcke","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/weschcke-219x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10966,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10966","url_meta":{"origin":8134,"position":2},"title":"Interview with Carl Weschcke’s Biographer","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I once stayed a couple of nights at Carl Weschcke's house, when he lived out in Marine on St. Croix, and on the drive back and forth to the old Llewellyn Publications office in St. Paul I heard a lot of his stories \u2014 but I am sure there are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/melanie-marquis.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":941,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=941","url_meta":{"origin":8134,"position":3},"title":"A Manufactured Conspiracy in Wiccan Publishing","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I have started reading Aidan Kelly's Inventing Witchcraft: A Case Study in the Creation of a New Religion, published by Thoth Publications but also available from Amazon. In simplest terms, it's an enlargement and reworking of Crafting the Art of Magic, Book 1, which Llewellyn published in 1991--Kelly's study of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9877,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9877","url_meta":{"origin":8134,"position":4},"title":"“The Importance of Rituals to the Hunt”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I have written a little about the intersection of hunting and ritual, but today I would ask you to read Jeremy Climer's blog post \"The Importance of Rituals to the Hunt.\" Before we go any further, we should define both \u201ctradition\u201d and \u201critual\u201d because people often use them interchangeably.\u00a0\u00a0Although traditions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/bull-8-16-2015.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":334,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=334","url_meta":{"origin":8134,"position":5},"title":"Llewellyn George, Patent Medicine, and\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Llewellyn George, Patent Medicine, and Pagan Publishing In 1993, when I was editing the Witchcraft Today series for Llewellyn Publications, I few up to Minnesota to spend a couple of days conferring with Carl and Sandra Weschcke, who own the company. Driving me around St. Paul in his black Cadillac,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8134"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8150,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8134\/revisions\/8150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}