Grief * Person Healing * Family Communication * Family Systems * Multigenerational Issues
Dancing Barefoot
in the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Healing Power of Genealogy
Healing the Family Tree
in the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Healing Power of Genealogy
Healing the Family Tree
Painting of Konagamana Buddha by unknown painter.
Photo taken by Hans A. Rosbach- 2011, Creative Commons
”More especially the threat to one’s inmost self from dragons and serpents points to the danger of the newly acquired consciousness being swallowed up again by the instinctive psyche, the unconscious.” (CW 9i, para. 282)
Photo taken by Hans A. Rosbach- 2011, Creative Commons
”More especially the threat to one’s inmost self from dragons and serpents points to the danger of the newly acquired consciousness being swallowed up again by the instinctive psyche, the unconscious.” (CW 9i, para. 282)
Herbert Gustav Schmalz The Temple of Eros, 1888
Shamanism lies at the root of the genealogy of religion.
Shamanism is a 40,000 year old healing practice in conjunction with the ancestors. The religious invisible agent/agency arose from shamanic placebo healings.
Rituals and drugs use the same biochemical pathways to influence the brain.
''It's the blood of the Ancients that flows through our veins,
the times change, but the circle of life remains''.
Shamanism is a 40,000 year old healing practice in conjunction with the ancestors. The religious invisible agent/agency arose from shamanic placebo healings.
Rituals and drugs use the same biochemical pathways to influence the brain.
''It's the blood of the Ancients that flows through our veins,
the times change, but the circle of life remains''.
Even the best families, including those in the Bible, have secrets. Incest, alcoholism, rage, codependence. And they are passed from generation to generation just as surely as eye color and skin tone. Breaking the chain is not an easy task. Your healing also benefit those around you. Understand the personal history of our ancestors, the challenges they had to deal with, in their times, in their life to understand how a "schema" repeats itself across generations even without any idea. We carry some family secrets, and that we even know them or at least feel them without having ever heard of them, just like there was a hidden memory that can be transmitted from one generation to another.
Genealogy As A Tool For Self-Knowledge And Family Therapy
By Tom Rue (1998)
http://choicesmhc.com/?q=systems
Abstract.
This article discusses the rationale for incorporating genealogy into family therapy, explores related cultural and ethical issues, and gives examples of techniques. A Bowenian systems theoretical framework is assumed. The article touches upon the elements of genetics, culture, spirit, and emotion, as they relate to family narratives. Families are products of the society or societies which weave them, and they transmit the social strengths and frailties of those larger social institutions. While ancestry does not in any sense determine destiny, cognition of collective family experiences shapes development of individual and collective consciousness in crucial ways.
Narratives from the family tree, often grasped only partially or at a deep preconscious or symbolic level, can form the spiritual and social strands which make up the basic building blocks of families and societies much as the double-helix DNA comprises the more tangible building blocks of carbon-based life.
There can be little dispute that persons and family systems carry within them the roots of identity constructed through a multi-generational maturational process which involves genetics, culture, spirit, and emotion. These four core elements, perhaps plus others, but essentially these, are viewed by this writer as keys to self-knowledge and processes of therapy. Information gathered through genealogical research can shed light on each of these areas, to aid in identity clarification and individuation.
The resulting construct of identity, for both families and individuals, is the lens through which human existence and experience is filtered and defined. By attending to and perpetuating family story patterns, honoring rituals and traditions which carry meaning, the bonds of blood and love are strengthened and systems function to perpetuate the species and the divers values which gave them rise, and at a higher level has given rise to societies and human civilization as a whole.
Beginning to learn about one's heritage, even by speaking with available older relatives about their pasts, can help facilitate self-awareness as a member of a group and provide a bridge to a forgotten cultural base, empowering individuals and family systems to confirm or reweave their values, identify patterns, and make changes in personal, family and cultural activities; all of which in turn may give hope for curing present social ills.
Champagne (1990) found that structured genealogical exercises benefited some clients in her clinical mental health practice. "Like most counseling techniques, genealogical search counseling is not for all clients. The client's presenting problems, personality, and motivation all need to be taken into account before encouraging such an effort," she wrote. Champagne added, "With selected populations research into one's family history can serve as a foundation for personal healing, family communications, and personal" (p. 85).
Master family therapist Michael White uses a technique of helping family members "re-author" the manner in which they view and experience a wide range of problems and situations, such as child behavioral problems and fears, grief, separation anxiety, encopresis, anorexia nervosa, intellectual disability, schizophrenia, children in residential care, sexual abuse, and men who are violent (Hart, 1995).
Family patterns of repeated cut-offs, such as divorces, abandonments, or deaths, are significant information to family therapists. Survival themes may also be identified.
Writing about the analysis of society and culture from a Jungian perspective, Vergolias (1996) observed: "Within the family therapy context, Murray Bowen (1966) opened psychology's oedipally blind eyes to the skeletons hiding within the familial closet, skeletons not only of the living souls, but also of the ancestors from generations before. These skeletons remain unreal, unpractical, until we till through the fertile history of our familial past. Words, in the same manner, have a history, an ancestral past, and by uncovering the top-soil and tilling the roots of this etymological earth, we find the myths and meanings hidden within. What appears on
the surface may allow us to convey practical meaning, but it is what lies underneath which provides breadth and depth of understanding."
Gibson (1994) provides an example of using the genealogical search "to solidify my own sense of identity and process of differentiation." Gibson relates her experience and information gathered in a trip to her birthplace in Illinois to locate as many family members as possible. "I went to the area where my parents had met and to where my ancestors had immigrated. I retraced their past and mine by visiting where they lived and the people that they knew to learn where I had come from. I used Bowen's methodology in that I listened and observed 'at least partially outside the emotional field of the family,'" she explains.
In a training aid for library scientists entitled "Helping patrons with genealogy: Understanding genealogists ," staff at the Marguerite deAngeli Library (1998) in Lapeer County, Michigan are given the following information concerning the interest genealogy holds
for family therapists and sociologists in particular:
The use of family history and genograms for the professional development of counselors was first popularized in the 1950s and 1960s by Dr. Murray Bowen; he felt that the family therapist "must have a thorough understanding of his own position in the family; otherwise, his unresolved conflicts would obscure his ability to identify and counsel clients who required his professional objectivity" (Curtis[, 1984, p.] 36). Use of genograms continues to be advocated by many counselor educators, who believe "that persons in counseling will be able to progress to no higher level of psychological and emotional health than the level of their counselor" (Lawson & Gaushell[1988, p.] 162). Genograms have also been used as an educational tool for clinical sociologists "to introduce students to the sociological basis of family therapy and to deepen their awareness of the social transmission of family patterns" (Reed, 1994, p.] 255).
Said one sociology student who created a genogram as part of his education: "I communicated with the dead more surely than had I been in a seacute;ance and saw how their influence still shapes the path that my family is walking" (Reed[, 1994, p.] 259). And family histories have also been used by family nurses in order to examine "how the nurse's personal family background and experiences affect clinical practice" (Green[, 1983, p.] 191). In addition to using genograms in self-exploration as a part of counselor education, genograms are widely used by family therapists, family physicians, chemical dependency counselors, and others in clinical assessment of clients as a graphic tool for organizing the mass of information gathered during a family assessment and exploring patterns in the family system (McGoldrick & Green, 1986). Other authors advise medical patients on use of genealogical research techniques to map inherited diseases, physical traits conducive to disease, mental health problems, and addictive proclivities to alcohol and other drugs (Nelson-Anderson & Waters, 1995).
Entrepreneurs like WonderWare, and perhaps others, have capitalized on the intersecting market segments of genealogists and family therapists, offering special software for sale on the Internet, inviting the public to "explore the interpersonal universe at the speed of enlightenment." But many modern clinicians simply use a blank notepad, a blackboard, or a simple form to record simple or complex family patterns and examine inter-generational and inter-personal trends in clients' family histories on genograms like that portrayed by Gerlack (1997).
The growth of the Internet has greatly expanded public access to information of genealogical value, which was previously only available by writing to or visiting record repositories or centralized libraries. One on-line clearinghouse for amateur and professional genealogists alike is rootsweb.com, which maintains a high-volume e-mail discussion list on the broad topic of genealogy, called ROOTS-L. A database search for the word "genogram" produces few hits, perhaps due to the fact that the list is not heavily traveled by family therapists. However, in response to a question about notation on genealogical charts, Kimber
(1994) replied:
A graphic format that is used in medicine and psychiatry to convey a lot of information visually is a genogram. A starter source is McGoldrick, M., & Gerson, R. (1985). Genograms in Family Assessment (New York: Norton). Computerized versions also exist: see Gerson, R., & McGoldrick, M. (1985) "The computerized genogram." Primary Care, 12, 535-45. (Or search MedLine or PsycLit at a university library for more recent publications.) I doubt the medically oriented version would interface neatly with GEDCOM, unless you're handy at patching things.
A genogram can show who lived in a household at a given time, extramarital liaisons, births in chronological order, births by multiple marriages, who's living (at a cross-sectional point in time) and who's dead, which relationships were close and which conflicted, people's occupations, illnesses, and other relevant data.
There are symbols that can be used for psychiatric, medical, or substance abuse histories, but one warning: in the context of family history recording, it is debatable how appropriate this information is and also it may make your correspondents much less willing to provide you information.
One privacy concern about including psychiatric, medical, or addiction related information with genealogical data is the risk of discrimination. According to The Arc (1996, formerly the Association for Retarded Children in the United States), genetic discrimination is the differential treatment of individuals or their relatives based on their actual or presumed genetic differences as distinguished from discrimination based on having symptoms of a genetic-based disease. For example, of people who carry the gene for fragile X, the most common inherited cause of mental retardation, 20% will never display any form of mental retardation. Yet, because they carry the gene for fragile X, they could be treated as though they had mental retardation even though they do not (Boyle, 1995).
The best solution, clearly, is to be mindful of the possibility that some data can be misused, and to store disease-related data sets separately from genealogical information which might be published. Existing professional ethical codes hold that personally identifiable information contained in clinical records, for example, should not be made public. However, it is may be helpful for family members to review and interpret such data, with professional assistance when indicated, in light of its known or possible bearing to them.
Baker, Kotkin & Yocum (1976) also point out ethical concerns in gathering family folklore:
Because of the personal nature of the folklore that you will be collecting, you should be very careful to protect the privacy and rights of all family members. Be honest about your intent from the very beginning. Explain your reasons for doing the research. Is it a school assignment? Do you simply want to learn more about your family? Do you plan to publish your findings? The ultimate disposition of the collection may affect their willingness to talk about certain subjects (p. 6).
In the spiritual realm, genealogy can strengthen the connective ties to the faith of one's ancestors, be those ties Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Pagan, or other. Some moderns find current spiritual meaning in reconstructions of ancient religions which may have been suppressed for centuries. In conducting Celtic genealogical research, for example, searchers may discover modern relevance in learning the stories (FitzPatrick, 1991) or reverencing the ancient deities worshipped in those lands prior to their military subjugation by Roman armies during the last millennium.
The precise meaning which the student places upon these old stories and the old gods and goddesses will vary between listeners, depending in part upon what other religious influences may have been brought to bear, but some find spiritual meaning in reclaiming non-patriarchal mysteries which came near to being lost to the modern ages.
A searching study of ancestral traditions from any land may lead the student to examine the state present-day gender relations or sex roles (Markale, 1986) are viewed; the nature and place of sexuality and intimate relationships in life (Rue, 1998); current-day race relations in a nation originally predicated upon a slave-based economy (Gettleman, 1968); or the degree of reverence which the person may feel for the earth itself and connection to other life-forms who inhabit the globe (Campbell, 1968).
More conventional world religions, certain Jewish organizations for example, have made great strides in recent decades in collecting and preserving historical records. The Mormon church in Salt Lake City, though relatively modern in its founding, has become the unrivaled collector of genealogical data worldwide. The church's objectives in preserving and interpreting such data are exclusively spiritual and religious, based upon church teachings that the Biblical prophet Elijah directs church members to assemble the records of humanity's ancestors in preparation for a final day of reckoning and to afford those who have died the ability to choose to accept Mormon temple ordinances (baptisms, endowments, and sealing to spouses and parents, pursuant to Mormon priesthood authority) which are performed daily in the names of the world's dead by living proxies. Likewise, Mormon volunteers systematically extract genealogical data from records of all religions and governments which allow it, to the point that the LDS church possesses the largest publicly accessible, and undeniably priceless, collection of genealogical material in the world. The National Archives and Record Administration is another excellent source. Searchers who are uncertain where to begin might do well to commence by contacting the National Genealogical Society, or a local historical association.
Invariably the best place to start a search, when possible, is with living relatives. The simple exercise of visiting or writing to older family members (Baker, Kotkin & Yocum, 1976), and asking them about shared heritage, can be a healing experience in itself which can prove as memorable and valuable as any information gathered.
References.
Baker, Holly-Cutting; Kotkin, Amy; and Yocum, Margaret (1976). Family folklore: Interviewing guide and questionnaire, Smithsonian Institute, Family Folklore Program, Office of American Folklife Studies : Washington, DC.
Bowen, Murray
(1966). The use of family theory in clinical practice. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 7 : 345-374.
Boyle, P.J. (1995). Shaping priorities in genetic medicine. Hastings Center Report, 25 : S2-S8.
Campbell, Joseph (1968). Creative Mythology: The masks of God. Penguin Books : New York.
Champagne, Delight E. (1990). In the Field: The genealogical search as a counseling technique. Journal of Counseling & Development, 69 : Sept./Oct., 85-87.
Curtis, Betty J.L. (1984). "The Role of the Family History in Preventive Medicine: An Introduction for Medical Librarians." Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 3.4 : 35-44.
FitzPatrick, Nina (1991). Fables of the Irish Intelligentsia. Penguin Books : New York.
Gerlack, Peter K. (1997). Using genograms to help fix membership confusions and conflicts, Stepfamily Association of Illinois : Oak Park, IL. htp://members.aol.com/sai27/sum/geno2.htm
Gettleman, Marvin E. [Ed.] (1968). Black Protest: History, Documents, and Analyses, 1619 to the Present, CBS Publications : New York.
Gibson, Richelle (1994). Discovering Your Roots: Extended Family History with Implications for the Systems Therapist. Progress: Family Systems Resarch and Therapy, 1994, 3 : 53-67, Encino, CA : Phillips Graduate Institute. http://www.pgi.edu/gibson.htm
By Tom Rue (1998)
http://choicesmhc.com/?q=systems
Abstract.
This article discusses the rationale for incorporating genealogy into family therapy, explores related cultural and ethical issues, and gives examples of techniques. A Bowenian systems theoretical framework is assumed. The article touches upon the elements of genetics, culture, spirit, and emotion, as they relate to family narratives. Families are products of the society or societies which weave them, and they transmit the social strengths and frailties of those larger social institutions. While ancestry does not in any sense determine destiny, cognition of collective family experiences shapes development of individual and collective consciousness in crucial ways.
Narratives from the family tree, often grasped only partially or at a deep preconscious or symbolic level, can form the spiritual and social strands which make up the basic building blocks of families and societies much as the double-helix DNA comprises the more tangible building blocks of carbon-based life.
There can be little dispute that persons and family systems carry within them the roots of identity constructed through a multi-generational maturational process which involves genetics, culture, spirit, and emotion. These four core elements, perhaps plus others, but essentially these, are viewed by this writer as keys to self-knowledge and processes of therapy. Information gathered through genealogical research can shed light on each of these areas, to aid in identity clarification and individuation.
The resulting construct of identity, for both families and individuals, is the lens through which human existence and experience is filtered and defined. By attending to and perpetuating family story patterns, honoring rituals and traditions which carry meaning, the bonds of blood and love are strengthened and systems function to perpetuate the species and the divers values which gave them rise, and at a higher level has given rise to societies and human civilization as a whole.
Beginning to learn about one's heritage, even by speaking with available older relatives about their pasts, can help facilitate self-awareness as a member of a group and provide a bridge to a forgotten cultural base, empowering individuals and family systems to confirm or reweave their values, identify patterns, and make changes in personal, family and cultural activities; all of which in turn may give hope for curing present social ills.
Champagne (1990) found that structured genealogical exercises benefited some clients in her clinical mental health practice. "Like most counseling techniques, genealogical search counseling is not for all clients. The client's presenting problems, personality, and motivation all need to be taken into account before encouraging such an effort," she wrote. Champagne added, "With selected populations research into one's family history can serve as a foundation for personal healing, family communications, and personal" (p. 85).
Master family therapist Michael White uses a technique of helping family members "re-author" the manner in which they view and experience a wide range of problems and situations, such as child behavioral problems and fears, grief, separation anxiety, encopresis, anorexia nervosa, intellectual disability, schizophrenia, children in residential care, sexual abuse, and men who are violent (Hart, 1995).
Family patterns of repeated cut-offs, such as divorces, abandonments, or deaths, are significant information to family therapists. Survival themes may also be identified.
Writing about the analysis of society and culture from a Jungian perspective, Vergolias (1996) observed: "Within the family therapy context, Murray Bowen (1966) opened psychology's oedipally blind eyes to the skeletons hiding within the familial closet, skeletons not only of the living souls, but also of the ancestors from generations before. These skeletons remain unreal, unpractical, until we till through the fertile history of our familial past. Words, in the same manner, have a history, an ancestral past, and by uncovering the top-soil and tilling the roots of this etymological earth, we find the myths and meanings hidden within. What appears on
the surface may allow us to convey practical meaning, but it is what lies underneath which provides breadth and depth of understanding."
Gibson (1994) provides an example of using the genealogical search "to solidify my own sense of identity and process of differentiation." Gibson relates her experience and information gathered in a trip to her birthplace in Illinois to locate as many family members as possible. "I went to the area where my parents had met and to where my ancestors had immigrated. I retraced their past and mine by visiting where they lived and the people that they knew to learn where I had come from. I used Bowen's methodology in that I listened and observed 'at least partially outside the emotional field of the family,'" she explains.
In a training aid for library scientists entitled "Helping patrons with genealogy: Understanding genealogists ," staff at the Marguerite deAngeli Library (1998) in Lapeer County, Michigan are given the following information concerning the interest genealogy holds
for family therapists and sociologists in particular:
The use of family history and genograms for the professional development of counselors was first popularized in the 1950s and 1960s by Dr. Murray Bowen; he felt that the family therapist "must have a thorough understanding of his own position in the family; otherwise, his unresolved conflicts would obscure his ability to identify and counsel clients who required his professional objectivity" (Curtis[, 1984, p.] 36). Use of genograms continues to be advocated by many counselor educators, who believe "that persons in counseling will be able to progress to no higher level of psychological and emotional health than the level of their counselor" (Lawson & Gaushell[1988, p.] 162). Genograms have also been used as an educational tool for clinical sociologists "to introduce students to the sociological basis of family therapy and to deepen their awareness of the social transmission of family patterns" (Reed, 1994, p.] 255).
Said one sociology student who created a genogram as part of his education: "I communicated with the dead more surely than had I been in a seacute;ance and saw how their influence still shapes the path that my family is walking" (Reed[, 1994, p.] 259). And family histories have also been used by family nurses in order to examine "how the nurse's personal family background and experiences affect clinical practice" (Green[, 1983, p.] 191). In addition to using genograms in self-exploration as a part of counselor education, genograms are widely used by family therapists, family physicians, chemical dependency counselors, and others in clinical assessment of clients as a graphic tool for organizing the mass of information gathered during a family assessment and exploring patterns in the family system (McGoldrick & Green, 1986). Other authors advise medical patients on use of genealogical research techniques to map inherited diseases, physical traits conducive to disease, mental health problems, and addictive proclivities to alcohol and other drugs (Nelson-Anderson & Waters, 1995).
Entrepreneurs like WonderWare, and perhaps others, have capitalized on the intersecting market segments of genealogists and family therapists, offering special software for sale on the Internet, inviting the public to "explore the interpersonal universe at the speed of enlightenment." But many modern clinicians simply use a blank notepad, a blackboard, or a simple form to record simple or complex family patterns and examine inter-generational and inter-personal trends in clients' family histories on genograms like that portrayed by Gerlack (1997).
The growth of the Internet has greatly expanded public access to information of genealogical value, which was previously only available by writing to or visiting record repositories or centralized libraries. One on-line clearinghouse for amateur and professional genealogists alike is rootsweb.com, which maintains a high-volume e-mail discussion list on the broad topic of genealogy, called ROOTS-L. A database search for the word "genogram" produces few hits, perhaps due to the fact that the list is not heavily traveled by family therapists. However, in response to a question about notation on genealogical charts, Kimber
(1994) replied:
A graphic format that is used in medicine and psychiatry to convey a lot of information visually is a genogram. A starter source is McGoldrick, M., & Gerson, R. (1985). Genograms in Family Assessment (New York: Norton). Computerized versions also exist: see Gerson, R., & McGoldrick, M. (1985) "The computerized genogram." Primary Care, 12, 535-45. (Or search MedLine or PsycLit at a university library for more recent publications.) I doubt the medically oriented version would interface neatly with GEDCOM, unless you're handy at patching things.
A genogram can show who lived in a household at a given time, extramarital liaisons, births in chronological order, births by multiple marriages, who's living (at a cross-sectional point in time) and who's dead, which relationships were close and which conflicted, people's occupations, illnesses, and other relevant data.
There are symbols that can be used for psychiatric, medical, or substance abuse histories, but one warning: in the context of family history recording, it is debatable how appropriate this information is and also it may make your correspondents much less willing to provide you information.
One privacy concern about including psychiatric, medical, or addiction related information with genealogical data is the risk of discrimination. According to The Arc (1996, formerly the Association for Retarded Children in the United States), genetic discrimination is the differential treatment of individuals or their relatives based on their actual or presumed genetic differences as distinguished from discrimination based on having symptoms of a genetic-based disease. For example, of people who carry the gene for fragile X, the most common inherited cause of mental retardation, 20% will never display any form of mental retardation. Yet, because they carry the gene for fragile X, they could be treated as though they had mental retardation even though they do not (Boyle, 1995).
The best solution, clearly, is to be mindful of the possibility that some data can be misused, and to store disease-related data sets separately from genealogical information which might be published. Existing professional ethical codes hold that personally identifiable information contained in clinical records, for example, should not be made public. However, it is may be helpful for family members to review and interpret such data, with professional assistance when indicated, in light of its known or possible bearing to them.
Baker, Kotkin & Yocum (1976) also point out ethical concerns in gathering family folklore:
Because of the personal nature of the folklore that you will be collecting, you should be very careful to protect the privacy and rights of all family members. Be honest about your intent from the very beginning. Explain your reasons for doing the research. Is it a school assignment? Do you simply want to learn more about your family? Do you plan to publish your findings? The ultimate disposition of the collection may affect their willingness to talk about certain subjects (p. 6).
In the spiritual realm, genealogy can strengthen the connective ties to the faith of one's ancestors, be those ties Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Pagan, or other. Some moderns find current spiritual meaning in reconstructions of ancient religions which may have been suppressed for centuries. In conducting Celtic genealogical research, for example, searchers may discover modern relevance in learning the stories (FitzPatrick, 1991) or reverencing the ancient deities worshipped in those lands prior to their military subjugation by Roman armies during the last millennium.
The precise meaning which the student places upon these old stories and the old gods and goddesses will vary between listeners, depending in part upon what other religious influences may have been brought to bear, but some find spiritual meaning in reclaiming non-patriarchal mysteries which came near to being lost to the modern ages.
A searching study of ancestral traditions from any land may lead the student to examine the state present-day gender relations or sex roles (Markale, 1986) are viewed; the nature and place of sexuality and intimate relationships in life (Rue, 1998); current-day race relations in a nation originally predicated upon a slave-based economy (Gettleman, 1968); or the degree of reverence which the person may feel for the earth itself and connection to other life-forms who inhabit the globe (Campbell, 1968).
More conventional world religions, certain Jewish organizations for example, have made great strides in recent decades in collecting and preserving historical records. The Mormon church in Salt Lake City, though relatively modern in its founding, has become the unrivaled collector of genealogical data worldwide. The church's objectives in preserving and interpreting such data are exclusively spiritual and religious, based upon church teachings that the Biblical prophet Elijah directs church members to assemble the records of humanity's ancestors in preparation for a final day of reckoning and to afford those who have died the ability to choose to accept Mormon temple ordinances (baptisms, endowments, and sealing to spouses and parents, pursuant to Mormon priesthood authority) which are performed daily in the names of the world's dead by living proxies. Likewise, Mormon volunteers systematically extract genealogical data from records of all religions and governments which allow it, to the point that the LDS church possesses the largest publicly accessible, and undeniably priceless, collection of genealogical material in the world. The National Archives and Record Administration is another excellent source. Searchers who are uncertain where to begin might do well to commence by contacting the National Genealogical Society, or a local historical association.
Invariably the best place to start a search, when possible, is with living relatives. The simple exercise of visiting or writing to older family members (Baker, Kotkin & Yocum, 1976), and asking them about shared heritage, can be a healing experience in itself which can prove as memorable and valuable as any information gathered.
References.
Baker, Holly-Cutting; Kotkin, Amy; and Yocum, Margaret (1976). Family folklore: Interviewing guide and questionnaire, Smithsonian Institute, Family Folklore Program, Office of American Folklife Studies : Washington, DC.
Bowen, Murray
(1966). The use of family theory in clinical practice. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 7 : 345-374.
Boyle, P.J. (1995). Shaping priorities in genetic medicine. Hastings Center Report, 25 : S2-S8.
Campbell, Joseph (1968). Creative Mythology: The masks of God. Penguin Books : New York.
Champagne, Delight E. (1990). In the Field: The genealogical search as a counseling technique. Journal of Counseling & Development, 69 : Sept./Oct., 85-87.
Curtis, Betty J.L. (1984). "The Role of the Family History in Preventive Medicine: An Introduction for Medical Librarians." Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 3.4 : 35-44.
FitzPatrick, Nina (1991). Fables of the Irish Intelligentsia. Penguin Books : New York.
Gerlack, Peter K. (1997). Using genograms to help fix membership confusions and conflicts, Stepfamily Association of Illinois : Oak Park, IL. htp://members.aol.com/sai27/sum/geno2.htm
Gettleman, Marvin E. [Ed.] (1968). Black Protest: History, Documents, and Analyses, 1619 to the Present, CBS Publications : New York.
Gibson, Richelle (1994). Discovering Your Roots: Extended Family History with Implications for the Systems Therapist. Progress: Family Systems Resarch and Therapy, 1994, 3 : 53-67, Encino, CA : Phillips Graduate Institute. http://www.pgi.edu/gibson.htm
Healing Your Family Tree
Biology stands on the brink of a shift in the understanding of inheritance. The discovery of epigenetics – hidden influences upon the genes – could affect every aspect of our lives.
At the heart of this new field is a simple but contentious idea – that genes have a 'memory'. That the lives of your grandparents – the air they breathed, the food they ate, even the things they saw – can directly affect you, decades later, despite your never experiencing these things yourself. And that what you do in your lifetime could in turn affect your grandchildren.
The conventional view is that DNA carries all our heritable information and that nothing an individual does in their lifetime will be biologically passed to their children. To many scientists, epigenetics amounts to a heresy, calling into question the accepted view of the DNA sequence – a cornerstone on which modern biology sits.
Epigenetics adds a whole new layer to genes beyond the DNA. It proposes a control system of 'switches' that turn genes on or off – and suggests that things people experience, like nutrition and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml
Biology stands on the brink of a shift in the understanding of inheritance. The discovery of epigenetics – hidden influences upon the genes – could affect every aspect of our lives.
At the heart of this new field is a simple but contentious idea – that genes have a 'memory'. That the lives of your grandparents – the air they breathed, the food they ate, even the things they saw – can directly affect you, decades later, despite your never experiencing these things yourself. And that what you do in your lifetime could in turn affect your grandchildren.
The conventional view is that DNA carries all our heritable information and that nothing an individual does in their lifetime will be biologically passed to their children. To many scientists, epigenetics amounts to a heresy, calling into question the accepted view of the DNA sequence – a cornerstone on which modern biology sits.
Epigenetics adds a whole new layer to genes beyond the DNA. It proposes a control system of 'switches' that turn genes on or off – and suggests that things people experience, like nutrition and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml
Remembering Causes Forgetting
Genealogy can be healing
First doing the research to find connections to your roots gets the wheels turning and your imagination engaged. It’s better than putting a puzzle together. It gets the creative juices flowing and gets other family members involved in the process. Communication and connection can be healing in itself.
The information that might be found about your ancestors can be very helpful. It certainly gives a greater perspective on the hardships they overcame, the determination and perseverance it took.You might also discover how long people lived, and some clues on illnesses they might have had. http://www.examiner.com/article/genealogy-can-be-healing
First doing the research to find connections to your roots gets the wheels turning and your imagination engaged. It’s better than putting a puzzle together. It gets the creative juices flowing and gets other family members involved in the process. Communication and connection can be healing in itself.
The information that might be found about your ancestors can be very helpful. It certainly gives a greater perspective on the hardships they overcame, the determination and perseverance it took.You might also discover how long people lived, and some clues on illnesses they might have had. http://www.examiner.com/article/genealogy-can-be-healing
Preserving Heritage by Healing the Family System
Psycho-genealogy How much free will do we have and how much of the scenario of our lives is our own? Did you know you could entirely modify your life patterns and achieve emotional healing by uncovering the stresses and programs passed on to you by previous generations?
Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger, psychologist, teacher and researcher at the university of Nice (France) is a specialist in Transgenerational therapy. She explains how programs can be passed on from one generation to the next and how our life is often reflecting circumstances, traumas and dates of events belonging to antecedent members of our clan.
It appears we are not as free as we might think and we often express an invisible loyalty to our ancestors. What we call coincidences, such as the repetition of deaths at a certain age, separations, divorces, births, illnesses, and professional failures, are often related to unresolved stresses which reappear in our lives and will reappear in the lives of subsequent generations in order to be addressed and liberated. Freud described a similar phenomenon as “the return of elements that should have been surmounted a long time ago by our ancestors” (Das Unheimlich, 1919), when he interpreted the repetitive nightmares of descendants of war survivors and the horrors they endured.
Biogenealogy permits to identify the transmission of programs which may lead to health disorders. Illness is sometimes the result of a biological expression related to the emotional distress belonging to a member of the clan, such as a parent, grand parent, great grand parent, uncle or aunt (great uncle or great aunt)… If an ancestor could not find a satisfying solution to an emotional conflict during his/her lifetime, the stress created by that specific conflict can circulate from one generation to the next and express itself through the offspring, by way of a health disorder, a behavior, or an event. Illness is often rooted to a conflict that has not been resolved for an ancestor. Fortunately, healing is often possible through the awareness of such unresolved emotional "ancient stress".
Biogenealogy throws a new light on the astonishing coincidences within generations of families, their stories and recurrence of similar events. Through Biogenealogy we can understand that none of our circumstances happen by accident nor luck, but in fact are well programmed by our subconscious brain and the archives it contains.
When an old conflict has been passed down to a clan member, healing is often possible through the awareness of such unresolved emotional stress. We can now understand how illness is often rooted at a more innate level than the personal circumstances of an individual during his or her lifetime. Biogenealogy allows us to see under a different light the predisposition we may have to certain health disorders, and to address them by understanding ancestral stories and the emotional imprints they have created.
It is possible to acquire more freedom in our lives by understanding the root of our limiting subconscious programs and utilizing proper tools to eliminate them. http://bioreprogramming.net/category/psycho-genealogy/
Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger, psychologist, teacher and researcher at the university of Nice (France) is a specialist in Transgenerational therapy. She explains how programs can be passed on from one generation to the next and how our life is often reflecting circumstances, traumas and dates of events belonging to antecedent members of our clan.
It appears we are not as free as we might think and we often express an invisible loyalty to our ancestors. What we call coincidences, such as the repetition of deaths at a certain age, separations, divorces, births, illnesses, and professional failures, are often related to unresolved stresses which reappear in our lives and will reappear in the lives of subsequent generations in order to be addressed and liberated. Freud described a similar phenomenon as “the return of elements that should have been surmounted a long time ago by our ancestors” (Das Unheimlich, 1919), when he interpreted the repetitive nightmares of descendants of war survivors and the horrors they endured.
Biogenealogy permits to identify the transmission of programs which may lead to health disorders. Illness is sometimes the result of a biological expression related to the emotional distress belonging to a member of the clan, such as a parent, grand parent, great grand parent, uncle or aunt (great uncle or great aunt)… If an ancestor could not find a satisfying solution to an emotional conflict during his/her lifetime, the stress created by that specific conflict can circulate from one generation to the next and express itself through the offspring, by way of a health disorder, a behavior, or an event. Illness is often rooted to a conflict that has not been resolved for an ancestor. Fortunately, healing is often possible through the awareness of such unresolved emotional "ancient stress".
Biogenealogy throws a new light on the astonishing coincidences within generations of families, their stories and recurrence of similar events. Through Biogenealogy we can understand that none of our circumstances happen by accident nor luck, but in fact are well programmed by our subconscious brain and the archives it contains.
When an old conflict has been passed down to a clan member, healing is often possible through the awareness of such unresolved emotional stress. We can now understand how illness is often rooted at a more innate level than the personal circumstances of an individual during his or her lifetime. Biogenealogy allows us to see under a different light the predisposition we may have to certain health disorders, and to address them by understanding ancestral stories and the emotional imprints they have created.
It is possible to acquire more freedom in our lives by understanding the root of our limiting subconscious programs and utilizing proper tools to eliminate them. http://bioreprogramming.net/category/psycho-genealogy/
Dream Genealogy & Deep Ancestral Healing
By Amy E. Brucker
“Dream genealogy” is a process that uses sleeping dreams and shamanic journeying to gather ancestral information.
I discovered this process several years ago when my dreams were urging me to explore my British Isles ancestry.
As a result, I unearthed a lineage filled with hope, war, death, and eventually rebirth.
It all began in 2007 at a workshop entitled “Reclaiming the Ancient Dreamways,” led by active dreamer, Robert Moss. During the retreat I had a very real shamanic dream experience, one that engaged my physical senses to an extreme I’d never experienced in the dream realm. It went as follows:
I am on the top deck of a ship that resembles the Mayflower. There is a misty dampness in the air that moistens my skin.
My ancestor, Jonathan Padelford (1628-1669), and an American Indian who identifies himself as Meeshkawa, possibly Wampanoag, are standing before me.
We touch hands and I can feel the warmth of their skin as though they are real flesh and blood. They speak rapidly, anxiously pleading for my assistance to help heal our collective lineages by reclaiming the ancient ways and honoring our ancestors.
We hold arms as a sign of fidelity and I vow to do my best to honor their request.
Their pleas and desperation are full of grief. So many lives were lost in battles, so many deceased souls lost in despair.
I awaken, full of tears.
When I returned home from the workshop I started researching my ancestors and their connection to the American Indians in the 1600s. As I followed the threads of every lead I could imagine, an old dream memory surfaced. The dream felt significant, like a key to my ancestral mystery, so I dug out a box of old dream journals, dusted off the covers and began to search. I was nervous I wouldn’t find the dream amidst my twenty years worth of journals, but as luck had it, I did.
Interestingly, it turns out I had the dream on September 6, 1991. It was the second dream I ever recorded in a journal devoted exclusively to dreams.
Thanksgiving Day Massacre
I am on a paddlewheel boat with a swing stage. White men are shooting American Indians who wear red face and body paint. Dead Indian bodies are lying everywhere on shore. From the boat I yell in despair, “What are you doing? These are people, too!”
I am devastated by the loss of lives.
In the next scene it is Thanksgiving. The Indians are now dressed like the white people, but when it comes time to eat they are sent to a basement that is dank and gloomy. I go to the basement with them and we sit on the floor while we share a meal together. The white people remain upstairs.
In the last scene it is a year later and Thanksgiving again. The Indians are sent to the basement, but this time it is bright and warm with carpeting and furniture. We eat together again and I try to assure them that it will get progressively better. “Next year we will have a table,” I say.
Still in the dream, I have a vision of the future. I see everyone eating together, upstairs, at the same table. We are equals now, living in harmony as brothers and sisters. I hold the vision and know that I am instrumental in helping it come to pass.
After waking from the dream I was not certain if my dream self was a white girl or Indian. Of course, dreams are often full of paradox and oddities so it’s entirely possible I was both.
Regardless, the dream helped anchor my “dream genealogy” into waking life reality, giving me imagery I could use in my research. There were three aspects of the dream that felt significant:
As I researched my dream images, I discovered a clan of American Indians, the Wampanoag, who were known to early settlers as the “red men” because they painted their faces and bodies with a red pigment. This was exactly the image I had in my dream.
Not only did the Wampanoag live near my colonial ancestors in Massachusetts, the two lineages are intertwined with each other in deeply unsettling ways.
The Wampanoag, as you may remember from grammar school history class, are famous for the hospitality they bestowed upon the Pilgrims. The Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims survive their first harsh New England winter. According to legend, the two groups shared a harvest festival together, a feast of corn and other foods the Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims cultivate. It is said that this festival eventually became Thanksgiving.
In 1991, when I had the Thanksgiving Massacre dream, I was completely unaware of my ancestors’ involvement in the plight of the Pilgrims. In fact, it was only a few months ago that I discovered I am very likely a direct descendent of the Pilgrims who set sail on the Mayflower in 1620. Not only that, but if the lineage proves to be true, my 12th great grandmother, Susanna White, whose family married into the Padelford line, was one of only four adult women who survived the first winter and subsequently experienced the famous Thanksgiving feast.
Susanna’s son Resolved was only a child of 4 or 5 when they landed in Plymouth, and he has the distinct honor of being the older brother of Pelegrine, the first white child to be born on this continent.
As I write this I feel an overwhelming surge of emotion welling up in me. It’s a mix of sorrow and awe that stirs my blood.
But sadly, Thanksgiving is not the only common history my ancestors share with the Wampanoag.
The following events would probably not be very interesting if it were not for what happened in 1675: My ancestor Jonathan Padelford died in 1660 leaving behind several children and his wife Mary. Mary remarried Thomas Ames and together they had several children.
When Jonathan’s eldest son, Jonathan Padelford the II, was a young man of 19, the trust between the Wampanoag and the colonists finally crumbled. The King Phillip’s War, named after the English nickname bestowed upon the Wampanoag Sachem (chief) Metacom, began in 1675 and lasted over a year.
It was the Wampanoag my ancestors fought against in a brutal battle that nearly decimated all involved. The King Philips war of 1675-6 was a bloody war, leaving few behind to tell the tale.
Of the several Padelfords who lived in the area, only two survived the war. Of the two surviving Padelford brothers, only Jonathan had children. I am his direct descendant.
The pain, the deep seated grief, was real and true for all people involved – Pilgrims, Wampanoag, Pequot, Nipmuc. And even though it was hundreds of years ago, the memory lives still in our bones, in our dreams, and can revisit us as though it was yesterday.
What this experience has taught me is that dreams are not only symbols hoping to be decoded. They can carry with them a legacy of pain and suffering that extends generations deep, living and sitting in our blood and bones until someone is born who is called to heal the ancestral lineage.
I honor all the ancestors, whether they were blood relatives or joined my destiny through bloody battles. I grieve deeply for my Pilgrim ancestors whose one dream was to find a place of their own to call home, and for the First Nations people whose home was destroyed in the process.
May their souls find peace.
http://thedreamtribe.com/dream-genealogy/
http://ancestralechoes.com/category/articles/
By Amy E. Brucker
“Dream genealogy” is a process that uses sleeping dreams and shamanic journeying to gather ancestral information.
I discovered this process several years ago when my dreams were urging me to explore my British Isles ancestry.
As a result, I unearthed a lineage filled with hope, war, death, and eventually rebirth.
It all began in 2007 at a workshop entitled “Reclaiming the Ancient Dreamways,” led by active dreamer, Robert Moss. During the retreat I had a very real shamanic dream experience, one that engaged my physical senses to an extreme I’d never experienced in the dream realm. It went as follows:
I am on the top deck of a ship that resembles the Mayflower. There is a misty dampness in the air that moistens my skin.
My ancestor, Jonathan Padelford (1628-1669), and an American Indian who identifies himself as Meeshkawa, possibly Wampanoag, are standing before me.
We touch hands and I can feel the warmth of their skin as though they are real flesh and blood. They speak rapidly, anxiously pleading for my assistance to help heal our collective lineages by reclaiming the ancient ways and honoring our ancestors.
We hold arms as a sign of fidelity and I vow to do my best to honor their request.
Their pleas and desperation are full of grief. So many lives were lost in battles, so many deceased souls lost in despair.
I awaken, full of tears.
When I returned home from the workshop I started researching my ancestors and their connection to the American Indians in the 1600s. As I followed the threads of every lead I could imagine, an old dream memory surfaced. The dream felt significant, like a key to my ancestral mystery, so I dug out a box of old dream journals, dusted off the covers and began to search. I was nervous I wouldn’t find the dream amidst my twenty years worth of journals, but as luck had it, I did.
Interestingly, it turns out I had the dream on September 6, 1991. It was the second dream I ever recorded in a journal devoted exclusively to dreams.
Thanksgiving Day Massacre
I am on a paddlewheel boat with a swing stage. White men are shooting American Indians who wear red face and body paint. Dead Indian bodies are lying everywhere on shore. From the boat I yell in despair, “What are you doing? These are people, too!”
I am devastated by the loss of lives.
In the next scene it is Thanksgiving. The Indians are now dressed like the white people, but when it comes time to eat they are sent to a basement that is dank and gloomy. I go to the basement with them and we sit on the floor while we share a meal together. The white people remain upstairs.
In the last scene it is a year later and Thanksgiving again. The Indians are sent to the basement, but this time it is bright and warm with carpeting and furniture. We eat together again and I try to assure them that it will get progressively better. “Next year we will have a table,” I say.
Still in the dream, I have a vision of the future. I see everyone eating together, upstairs, at the same table. We are equals now, living in harmony as brothers and sisters. I hold the vision and know that I am instrumental in helping it come to pass.
After waking from the dream I was not certain if my dream self was a white girl or Indian. Of course, dreams are often full of paradox and oddities so it’s entirely possible I was both.
Regardless, the dream helped anchor my “dream genealogy” into waking life reality, giving me imagery I could use in my research. There were three aspects of the dream that felt significant:
- The Indians had distinct red face and body paint
- The white people were on a paddlewheel boat with a swing stage
- Thanksgiving was a central theme
As I researched my dream images, I discovered a clan of American Indians, the Wampanoag, who were known to early settlers as the “red men” because they painted their faces and bodies with a red pigment. This was exactly the image I had in my dream.
Not only did the Wampanoag live near my colonial ancestors in Massachusetts, the two lineages are intertwined with each other in deeply unsettling ways.
The Wampanoag, as you may remember from grammar school history class, are famous for the hospitality they bestowed upon the Pilgrims. The Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims survive their first harsh New England winter. According to legend, the two groups shared a harvest festival together, a feast of corn and other foods the Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims cultivate. It is said that this festival eventually became Thanksgiving.
In 1991, when I had the Thanksgiving Massacre dream, I was completely unaware of my ancestors’ involvement in the plight of the Pilgrims. In fact, it was only a few months ago that I discovered I am very likely a direct descendent of the Pilgrims who set sail on the Mayflower in 1620. Not only that, but if the lineage proves to be true, my 12th great grandmother, Susanna White, whose family married into the Padelford line, was one of only four adult women who survived the first winter and subsequently experienced the famous Thanksgiving feast.
Susanna’s son Resolved was only a child of 4 or 5 when they landed in Plymouth, and he has the distinct honor of being the older brother of Pelegrine, the first white child to be born on this continent.
As I write this I feel an overwhelming surge of emotion welling up in me. It’s a mix of sorrow and awe that stirs my blood.
But sadly, Thanksgiving is not the only common history my ancestors share with the Wampanoag.
The following events would probably not be very interesting if it were not for what happened in 1675: My ancestor Jonathan Padelford died in 1660 leaving behind several children and his wife Mary. Mary remarried Thomas Ames and together they had several children.
When Jonathan’s eldest son, Jonathan Padelford the II, was a young man of 19, the trust between the Wampanoag and the colonists finally crumbled. The King Phillip’s War, named after the English nickname bestowed upon the Wampanoag Sachem (chief) Metacom, began in 1675 and lasted over a year.
It was the Wampanoag my ancestors fought against in a brutal battle that nearly decimated all involved. The King Philips war of 1675-6 was a bloody war, leaving few behind to tell the tale.
Of the several Padelfords who lived in the area, only two survived the war. Of the two surviving Padelford brothers, only Jonathan had children. I am his direct descendant.
The pain, the deep seated grief, was real and true for all people involved – Pilgrims, Wampanoag, Pequot, Nipmuc. And even though it was hundreds of years ago, the memory lives still in our bones, in our dreams, and can revisit us as though it was yesterday.
What this experience has taught me is that dreams are not only symbols hoping to be decoded. They can carry with them a legacy of pain and suffering that extends generations deep, living and sitting in our blood and bones until someone is born who is called to heal the ancestral lineage.
I honor all the ancestors, whether they were blood relatives or joined my destiny through bloody battles. I grieve deeply for my Pilgrim ancestors whose one dream was to find a place of their own to call home, and for the First Nations people whose home was destroyed in the process.
May their souls find peace.
http://thedreamtribe.com/dream-genealogy/
http://ancestralechoes.com/category/articles/
Catholic Prayer for Healing the Family Tree
Heavenly Father, I come before You as Your child, in great need of Your help. I
have physical health needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs, and interpersonal
needs. Many of my problems have been caused by my own failures, neglect and
sinfulness, for which I humbly beg Your forgiveness, Lord. But I also ask You to
forgive the sins of my ancestors whose failures have left their effects on me in the
form of unwanted tendencies, behavior patterns and defects in body, mind and
spirit. Heal me, Lord, of all these disorders.
With Your help I sincerely forgive everyone, especially living or dead members of
my family tree, who have directly offended me or my loved ones in any way, or
those whose sins have resulted in our present sufferings and disorders. In the
name of Your divine Son Jesus, and in the power of His Holy Spirit, I ask You,
Father, to deliver me and my entire family tree from the influence of the evil one.
Free all living and dead members of my family tree, including those in adoptive
relationships, and those in extended family relationships, from every
contaminating form of bondage. By Your loving concern for us, heavenly Father,
and by the shed blood of your Precious Son Jesus, I beg You to extend Your
blessing to me and all my living and deceased relatives. Heal every negative effect
transmitted through all past generations, and prevent such negative effects in
future generations of my family tree.
I symbolically place the Cross of Jesus over the head of each person in my family
tree, and between each generation; I ask You to let the cleansing blood of Jesus
purify the blood lines in my family lineage. Set Your protective angels to encamp
around us, and permit Archangel Raphael, the patron of healing, to administer
Your divine healing power to all of us, even in areas of genetic disability. Give
special power to our family members' guardian angels to heal, protect, guide and
encourage each of us in all our needs. Let Your healing power be released at this
very moment and let it continue as long as Your sovereignty permits.
In our family tree, Lord, replace all bondage with a holy bonding in family love.
And let there be an ever deeper bonding with You, Lord, by the Holy Spirit, to
Your Son Jesus. Let the family of the Holy Trinity pervade our family with its
tender, warm, loving presence, so that our family may recognize and manifest
that love in all our relationships. All of our unknown needs we include with this
petition that we pray in Jesus precious Name.
http://www.scborromeo.org/prayers/familytree.pdf
Heavenly Father, I come before You as Your child, in great need of Your help. I
have physical health needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs, and interpersonal
needs. Many of my problems have been caused by my own failures, neglect and
sinfulness, for which I humbly beg Your forgiveness, Lord. But I also ask You to
forgive the sins of my ancestors whose failures have left their effects on me in the
form of unwanted tendencies, behavior patterns and defects in body, mind and
spirit. Heal me, Lord, of all these disorders.
With Your help I sincerely forgive everyone, especially living or dead members of
my family tree, who have directly offended me or my loved ones in any way, or
those whose sins have resulted in our present sufferings and disorders. In the
name of Your divine Son Jesus, and in the power of His Holy Spirit, I ask You,
Father, to deliver me and my entire family tree from the influence of the evil one.
Free all living and dead members of my family tree, including those in adoptive
relationships, and those in extended family relationships, from every
contaminating form of bondage. By Your loving concern for us, heavenly Father,
and by the shed blood of your Precious Son Jesus, I beg You to extend Your
blessing to me and all my living and deceased relatives. Heal every negative effect
transmitted through all past generations, and prevent such negative effects in
future generations of my family tree.
I symbolically place the Cross of Jesus over the head of each person in my family
tree, and between each generation; I ask You to let the cleansing blood of Jesus
purify the blood lines in my family lineage. Set Your protective angels to encamp
around us, and permit Archangel Raphael, the patron of healing, to administer
Your divine healing power to all of us, even in areas of genetic disability. Give
special power to our family members' guardian angels to heal, protect, guide and
encourage each of us in all our needs. Let Your healing power be released at this
very moment and let it continue as long as Your sovereignty permits.
In our family tree, Lord, replace all bondage with a holy bonding in family love.
And let there be an ever deeper bonding with You, Lord, by the Holy Spirit, to
Your Son Jesus. Let the family of the Holy Trinity pervade our family with its
tender, warm, loving presence, so that our family may recognize and manifest
that love in all our relationships. All of our unknown needs we include with this
petition that we pray in Jesus precious Name.
http://www.scborromeo.org/prayers/familytree.pdf
Healing the Family Tree
The Family Tree is recognized mostly as a genealogy report of ancestors in a family blood line.
It shows who is is related to whom way back as many generations as one can document.
It is quite difficult to obtain proof of blood relationship with certainty all suspected or reported relations. DNA and other lab tests now help prove what the paper trail might not reveal.
What we are looking at is related. Rather than a blood history based solely on marriages and births, numerous authors are advocating our looking at the spiritual history of those same people. The recommendation is for each person to create his own family tree (or tree of origin) and list in code the sins and diseases of each relative plus our own sins and diseases (which are believed to be inherited or passed down). Each human is 3 parts - body, mind/soul, AND spirit! God is a Spirit. Satan is a spirit. Man has a spirit. Doctors try to help the body. Psychiatrists try to help the mind. Pastors try to help the spirit.
What do we do with this list? There are many suggestions. There can be individual or group prayers for deliverance. The list can be taken to church and lifted up to God during communion or when we say the Lord's prayer. This is the time when we ask God's forgiveness of us, after having first forgiven each person on the list. If the person is deceased, we offer that person up to God. We confess his sins. We cover his sins with the blood of Christ. We break the curse from that person's sins. We break the consequences of that person's sins down through the generations.
We do NOT pray to that person. This is forbidden in scripture. (The Catholic church teaches that this prayer can release souls from purgatory into heaven and away from earth where they may bother us. This Catholic teaching has NO scriptural basis!) These Eucharist prayers DO release many of the living on earth from being tormented by the same things that tormented their ancestors.
Many Protestants advocate the same prayers with the same results, but on a different theological basis. They believe that evil spirits are the root cause of the curses, diseases, and maladies.
The key is to know that we can be delivered from our troubles. We, through the blood of Jesus Christ, can be set free from sins originating from relatives or ourselves. Through the body of Jesus Christ we can be set free from physical and mental maladies, inherited or not.
Many books discuss family curses that are passed on from generation to generation in the form of medical diseases or personality disorders. Scripture attributes many of these to familiar or familial evil spirits. Many of the following sources touch on this issue.
Jesus is called the Tree of Life. When we ask Jesus to forgive our sins and be our savior, we are grafted into God's family tree.
At communion, when we, as spiritual relatives of God, drink the blood of Christ, we do a transfusion, taking out the bad blood and putting in the good blood, using Jesus' antibodies to kill off the enemy in our family bloodline. We appropriate what Jesus did for us on the cross 2,000 years ago.
Christians recognize that "sin" began with Adam and ended with Jesus, our confessor/savior/forgiver. What many fail to recognize is that "disease/defects/infirmity" began with Adam and ended with Jesus, our doctor/surgeon. Actually for Christians, the real culprit is NOT man but the devil, the author of all harm. However, regarding inheritance, Adam brought sin AND disease into the blood line, and is the father of all sin AND disease in the same way that Abraham is the father of all those who receive salvation or health by believing in God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit. Being saved/healed/rescued by God is an act of our tenacious faith in Him in spite of all medical or intelligent evidence to the contrary. God and Satan are invisible spirits competing for the same body. Only one will win. Let us choose the most powerful One, Dr Jesus.
Once we understand and believe that Jesus Christ did it ALL on the cross, it is like a baby who for the first time recognizes his parent and speaks dada or mama! When God becomes our dada/papa, he is our parent, protector, and guardian of body, mind AND spirit. Because of what Jesus Christ did for us (if we accept what he did for us), we are adopted into God's family and are legal heirs of Dad's assets. We can lay claim to ALL God's blessings and according to scripture, they can belong to us for a 1,000 generations! We are thus NOW spiritual descendants of Abraham, because of our faith in his God and in God's son Jesus. It is the blood of Jesus that unites us all as siblings in God's family.
PRAYER for REMOVING GENERATIONAL CURSES
Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that You are the Son of God, the only way to God, and that You died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead.
I give up all my rebellion and all my sin. I submit myself to You as my Lord.
I confess all my sins before You and ask for Your forgiveness, especially for any sins that exposed me to a curse.
Release me also from the consequences of my ancestors' sins.
By a decision of my will, I forgive all who have harmed me or wronged me, just as I want God to forgive me.
In particular, I forgive ________, ________, ________.
I renounce all contact with anything occult or satanic.
If I have any "contact objects", I commit myself to destroy them. I cancel all Satan's claims against me.
Lord Jesus, I believe that on the cross You took on Yourself every curse that could ever come upon me.
I ask You now to release me from every curse over my line, in Your name, Lord Jesus Christ.
By faith I now receive my release and I thank Your for it.
I thank You today, tomorrow, and every day - for the rest of my life. (In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.)
The Family Tree is recognized mostly as a genealogy report of ancestors in a family blood line.
It shows who is is related to whom way back as many generations as one can document.
It is quite difficult to obtain proof of blood relationship with certainty all suspected or reported relations. DNA and other lab tests now help prove what the paper trail might not reveal.
What we are looking at is related. Rather than a blood history based solely on marriages and births, numerous authors are advocating our looking at the spiritual history of those same people. The recommendation is for each person to create his own family tree (or tree of origin) and list in code the sins and diseases of each relative plus our own sins and diseases (which are believed to be inherited or passed down). Each human is 3 parts - body, mind/soul, AND spirit! God is a Spirit. Satan is a spirit. Man has a spirit. Doctors try to help the body. Psychiatrists try to help the mind. Pastors try to help the spirit.
What do we do with this list? There are many suggestions. There can be individual or group prayers for deliverance. The list can be taken to church and lifted up to God during communion or when we say the Lord's prayer. This is the time when we ask God's forgiveness of us, after having first forgiven each person on the list. If the person is deceased, we offer that person up to God. We confess his sins. We cover his sins with the blood of Christ. We break the curse from that person's sins. We break the consequences of that person's sins down through the generations.
We do NOT pray to that person. This is forbidden in scripture. (The Catholic church teaches that this prayer can release souls from purgatory into heaven and away from earth where they may bother us. This Catholic teaching has NO scriptural basis!) These Eucharist prayers DO release many of the living on earth from being tormented by the same things that tormented their ancestors.
Many Protestants advocate the same prayers with the same results, but on a different theological basis. They believe that evil spirits are the root cause of the curses, diseases, and maladies.
The key is to know that we can be delivered from our troubles. We, through the blood of Jesus Christ, can be set free from sins originating from relatives or ourselves. Through the body of Jesus Christ we can be set free from physical and mental maladies, inherited or not.
Many books discuss family curses that are passed on from generation to generation in the form of medical diseases or personality disorders. Scripture attributes many of these to familiar or familial evil spirits. Many of the following sources touch on this issue.
Jesus is called the Tree of Life. When we ask Jesus to forgive our sins and be our savior, we are grafted into God's family tree.
At communion, when we, as spiritual relatives of God, drink the blood of Christ, we do a transfusion, taking out the bad blood and putting in the good blood, using Jesus' antibodies to kill off the enemy in our family bloodline. We appropriate what Jesus did for us on the cross 2,000 years ago.
Christians recognize that "sin" began with Adam and ended with Jesus, our confessor/savior/forgiver. What many fail to recognize is that "disease/defects/infirmity" began with Adam and ended with Jesus, our doctor/surgeon. Actually for Christians, the real culprit is NOT man but the devil, the author of all harm. However, regarding inheritance, Adam brought sin AND disease into the blood line, and is the father of all sin AND disease in the same way that Abraham is the father of all those who receive salvation or health by believing in God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit. Being saved/healed/rescued by God is an act of our tenacious faith in Him in spite of all medical or intelligent evidence to the contrary. God and Satan are invisible spirits competing for the same body. Only one will win. Let us choose the most powerful One, Dr Jesus.
Once we understand and believe that Jesus Christ did it ALL on the cross, it is like a baby who for the first time recognizes his parent and speaks dada or mama! When God becomes our dada/papa, he is our parent, protector, and guardian of body, mind AND spirit. Because of what Jesus Christ did for us (if we accept what he did for us), we are adopted into God's family and are legal heirs of Dad's assets. We can lay claim to ALL God's blessings and according to scripture, they can belong to us for a 1,000 generations! We are thus NOW spiritual descendants of Abraham, because of our faith in his God and in God's son Jesus. It is the blood of Jesus that unites us all as siblings in God's family.
PRAYER for REMOVING GENERATIONAL CURSES
Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that You are the Son of God, the only way to God, and that You died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead.
I give up all my rebellion and all my sin. I submit myself to You as my Lord.
I confess all my sins before You and ask for Your forgiveness, especially for any sins that exposed me to a curse.
Release me also from the consequences of my ancestors' sins.
By a decision of my will, I forgive all who have harmed me or wronged me, just as I want God to forgive me.
In particular, I forgive ________, ________, ________.
I renounce all contact with anything occult or satanic.
If I have any "contact objects", I commit myself to destroy them. I cancel all Satan's claims against me.
Lord Jesus, I believe that on the cross You took on Yourself every curse that could ever come upon me.
I ask You now to release me from every curse over my line, in Your name, Lord Jesus Christ.
By faith I now receive my release and I thank Your for it.
I thank You today, tomorrow, and every day - for the rest of my life. (In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.)
PRAYER FOR THE HEALING OF THE FAMILY TREE
Loving Father, we come before You with grateful hearts praising and thanking You for having called us to pray for the healing of our family and relationships. We come with humble and contrite hearts for ourselves, and for all the people we bring with us in spirit for vicarious healing, pleading to be set free of inter-generational bondage to sin, sickness, and weaknesses that continue to destroy our families, that block the flow of Your graces to our family bloodlines and keep us away from You. Today and all the days in our future, we place ourselves under Your Divine Protection and we cover ourselves with Your Most Precious Blood. We also ask for the intercession of Mary, our Blessed Mother, and all the angels and saints to pray for us and with us as we lift up to You all our special petitions. Let the cleansing waters of our baptism flow back through all the roots of our family tree and bloodlines. Let the life giving blood of Your Son, Jesus, flow through every generation through all our parents, grandparents and ancestors, to all our children and their descendants, touching, healing and making each member whole.
We ask for Your grace and strength to rebuke all sin and forces of evil that lead us t sin. We ask for Your spirit of revelation to work within us to help reveal all our hidden sins and sins in our family bloodlines. We beg for Your mercy and forgiveness as we repent for all our past and present sins and those of our fathers, forefathers and ancestors. We now place the cross of Jesus Christ between ourselves and every generation in our bloodline and we break the transfer of all life-suppressing forces working against us, in us and through us.
We now take authority in the name of Jesus Christ, over all familial spirits, all generational bondage and their manifestations within our lives, all hereditary defects, genetic or of blood, and all wrong inclinations and destructive patterns that may have been transmitted to us from within our family tree or within spiritual families to which we belong, including the defects within our Church that have personally affected us. Transform us and all our family members, Lord, so that we may seek, know and follow Your will in our lives. Strengthen us to remain faithful to you always.
In the Holy Name of Your son, Jesus, by His power and for His love, we break the power of evil over ourselves and our families and destroy what otherwise might be transmitted to our descendants. We claim Your complete victory in our lives and all our family bloodlines. We claim Your total and permanent healing and deliverance of our family members and our ancestors from all ancestral bondage and destructive patterns. All these we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Loving Father, we come before You with grateful hearts praising and thanking You for having called us to pray for the healing of our family and relationships. We come with humble and contrite hearts for ourselves, and for all the people we bring with us in spirit for vicarious healing, pleading to be set free of inter-generational bondage to sin, sickness, and weaknesses that continue to destroy our families, that block the flow of Your graces to our family bloodlines and keep us away from You. Today and all the days in our future, we place ourselves under Your Divine Protection and we cover ourselves with Your Most Precious Blood. We also ask for the intercession of Mary, our Blessed Mother, and all the angels and saints to pray for us and with us as we lift up to You all our special petitions. Let the cleansing waters of our baptism flow back through all the roots of our family tree and bloodlines. Let the life giving blood of Your Son, Jesus, flow through every generation through all our parents, grandparents and ancestors, to all our children and their descendants, touching, healing and making each member whole.
We ask for Your grace and strength to rebuke all sin and forces of evil that lead us t sin. We ask for Your spirit of revelation to work within us to help reveal all our hidden sins and sins in our family bloodlines. We beg for Your mercy and forgiveness as we repent for all our past and present sins and those of our fathers, forefathers and ancestors. We now place the cross of Jesus Christ between ourselves and every generation in our bloodline and we break the transfer of all life-suppressing forces working against us, in us and through us.
We now take authority in the name of Jesus Christ, over all familial spirits, all generational bondage and their manifestations within our lives, all hereditary defects, genetic or of blood, and all wrong inclinations and destructive patterns that may have been transmitted to us from within our family tree or within spiritual families to which we belong, including the defects within our Church that have personally affected us. Transform us and all our family members, Lord, so that we may seek, know and follow Your will in our lives. Strengthen us to remain faithful to you always.
In the Holy Name of Your son, Jesus, by His power and for His love, we break the power of evil over ourselves and our families and destroy what otherwise might be transmitted to our descendants. We claim Your complete victory in our lives and all our family bloodlines. We claim Your total and permanent healing and deliverance of our family members and our ancestors from all ancestral bondage and destructive patterns. All these we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Communion and Healing the Generations
By Rev. Marsh Hudson-Knapp
One of the great joys of communion is the opportunity to bring people into Jesus’ presence for healing and blessing. We regularly mention friends or family in prayer, and sometimes we image bringing them to Jesus. Using our prayer imagination is a powerful way to focus the power of prayer. We may envision Jesus laying on hands touching our friend, and we may sense his love and light pouring through them. Sometimes at communion we ask Jesus to heal our relationships with people, envisioning Jesus bringing us together with people, and helping us to talk out hurts. Sometimes we need to confess and ask forgiveness. Sometimes we need to offer forgiveness. Going through this in prayer before we do it in flesh and blood can help to prepare our inner self to truly embrace the other.
Some hurts in our lives go back generations. Like the Hatfields and the McCoys, there have been jealousies, resentments, mutual anger or hatred that has taken a life of its own. In communion we have the opportunity to go with Jesus in prayer to these people and claim Jesus’ power to forgive, to love, and embrace. Bringing your family’s enemies or alienated friends – both those in the present and and others through the generations – into the presence of Jesus, and finding his strength to love them, releases tremendous power in the life of a family and in the soul of the person praying.
Unresolved family situations often leave a scar in your family life or in your heart. If someone dies in upsetting circumstances, at communion we can bring them into Jesus presence to make things better. You see Jesus can reach across time and space. He is not stuck in one place or in one time like we are. So he can go back to times past and bring healing. One friend of mine learned that his father had died in terrible poverty and his body had been thrown on a garbage pile. It always left my friend feeling so horribly upset. So we celebrated communion and included time to commit his father into God’s care, as should have happened long ago. We imaged Jesus welcoming him home to heaven, and it was a gift of profound peace to my friend who had been unsettled for many years.
Many times families are so upset at a still birth, miscarriage or abortion that they fail to care for the child who has died. This often leaves the family with a deep wound. As with my friend, at communion, where Jesus bonds us with the saints, we can commit the little ones to Jesus, picture them with the Lord, and ask Jesus if he will allow us to see our loved one. Sometimes a name will be given to us if the child was never named. I was once in a meditation and Jesus took me to see someone. It was my brother who had been born dead. We talked and played and had such a delightful time. Then I came back home into the present. The experience brought the most profound healing to my life – healing my fears of death and doubts about eternal life, and giving me the opportunity to grieve my brother, which I had never done.
In similar ways, people who have undergone abortions have often been told, "It is nothing." Years later, the post-traumatic stress brings back the painful reality of the loss, the guilt, the hurt. In communion Jesus gives us opportunities to find healing with those who have gone before us – to send them our love and to receive back theirs. We are able to release love and healing on earth and, I believe, in heaven.
Dr. Kenneth McAll of England has written of many medical cases where people have suffered from incurable physical and psychiatric illnesses. McAll and family members have celebrated communion, bringing to Jesus people in the family’s past, folks who have suffered a violent death, abortions, or conflicts within or between families. As these family relationships are healed sometimes the sick person will undergo a dramatic healing themselves, even if they are unaware of the communion and other prayers. (See Healing the Family Tree.)
We can celebrate a communion to intentionally bring troubled family members to Jesus. McAll suggests somewhat different prayers for parts of communion. For example, the confession brings our sins and those of our family members. If we know their sins we can confess with and for them. We also give forgiveness to our family members and ask it from them. At intercession time we take substantial times of silence to allow each person to pray asking Jesus who in their family may need healing. Sometimes one or many people will come to mind.
When it comes time to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we invite each person to come up to Christ’s table and spend as long as they need bringing their family to Jesus. Sometimes we make several spaces at the table so that several people can be there in prayer at once. We invite people to stay as long as they need. Some people will prepare in advance of communion, talking with family members, exploring their genealogy and family tree, some making a genogram to map the strengths and wounds within their family. Just bringing these people and stories to light starts healing families. The secrets start to dissipate along with their power when the truth and light of Jesus starts shining within your family history. All of these preparations can empower us to identify and bless our family members and in communion to release health and wholeness through the generations. (See McAll’s book for the other elements in a special communion order for healing the generations.)
One need not wait for a special generational communion service, however. Every time you celebrate communion you may invite the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind members of your family past and present who need forgiveness or whom you need to forgive, and those who need healing of the spirit, body or mind. Then as you sit in your pew or go forward to Jesus’ table, bring those people to Jesus in your prayer imagination. Let yourself be a channel of Christ’s healing love into the heart of your family!
-Marsh Hudson-Knapp, October 5, 1999
Resources on healing the generations:
House blessing service with generational communion and readings & 24 Biblical References to Generational Healing. Healing Prayer of Light - Free, free to duplicate with credit.
Armor of God - Free, free to duplicate with credit.
Prayer with the Sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17) to cut us free.
There is power in the SWORD OF THE SPIRIT to cut us free from all kinds of entanglements and unhealthy bonds.
Steps: 1. Get permission to pray this prayer with the person who is entangled.
2. Name the bonds that are to be severed.
3. Take your hand like a sword and cut all around the person declaring boldly:
In the Name of Jesus Christ and with the Sword of the Spirit
I cut all the bonds of (name them) and set you completely free.
4. Seal the person in Jesus' blood.
I now seal you body mind and soul in the blood of Jesus and enfold you in the strong protections of his love. No longer can any bonds attach to you!
5. The person gives thanks and praise to Jesus in faith!
Often people feel a physical sensation of lightness or freedom after this prayer is prayed for them.
Scriptures about Healing the Family Tree
A. Sin and Problems pass through generations.
Exodus 20: 5
You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the LORD your God am a jealous God,
punishing children for the iniquity of parents,
to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
Exodus 34:7
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children's children,
to the third and the fourth generation."
and parallel reading:
Deuteronomy 5:9
You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the LORD your God am a jealous God,
punishing children for the iniquity of parents,
to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me,
Sin can skip a generation:
Genesis 31:19, 34; 35:2
As Jacob prepared to leave his uncle Laban and return home, Jacob's wife feared losing their inherited riches.
19 Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep,
and Rachel stole her father's household gods.
34 Now Rachel had taken the household gods
and put them in the camel's saddle, and sat on them.
Laban felt all about in the tent, but did not find them.
35:2 So Jacob said to his household
and to all who were with him,
"Put away the foreign gods that are among you,
and purify yourselves, and change your clothes;
The next generation was free from worshipping false gods.
The sin skipped Joseph's generation, but returned with his son Ephraim as we hear from the prophet Hosea.
Hosea 4:17
Ephraim is joined to idols--let him alone.
Sin can travel through generations within religious or political groups as well as families.
Matthew 23:29-36
29 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you build the tombs of the prophets
and decorate the graves of the righteous,
30 and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors,
we would not have taken part with them
in shedding the blood of the prophets.'
31 Thus you testify against yourselves
that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors.
33 You snakes, you brood of vipers!
How can you escape being sentenced to hell?
34 Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes,
some of whom you will kill and crucify,
and some you will flog in your synagogues
and pursue from town to town,
35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood
shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel
to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah,
whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
36 Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.
Our connections with the dead are truly deep:
Lamentations 3:6
he has made me sit in darkness with the dead of long ago. JBT
B. Human faithfulness & God's blessings also pass down:
Psalm 103:17-18
But the steadfast love of the LORD
is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children's children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
Isaac passes down the family blessing to Jacob
Genesis 27:28-29
27 So he came near and kissed him;
and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him,
and said, "Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.
28 May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine.
29 Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!"
Israel (Jacob) blesses Joseph's sons:
Genesis 48:15-16
15 He blessed Joseph, and said,
"The God before whom my ancestors Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,
16 the angel who has redeemed me from all harm,
bless the boys; and in them let my name be perpetuated,
and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac;
and let them grow into a multitude on the earth."
C. If we face and confess the sins of our ancestors we can be reconciled with God:
Leviticus 26:39-40
And those of you who survive shall languish
in the land of your enemies because of their iniquities;
also they shall languish
because of the iniquities of their ancestors.
40 But if they confess their iniquity
and the iniquity of their ancestors,
in that they committed treachery against me
and, moreover, that they continued hostile to me--
41 so that I, in turn, continued hostile to them
and brought them into the land of their enemies;
if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled
and they make amends for their iniquity,
42 then will I remember my covenant with Jacob;
I will remember also my covenant with Isaac
and also my covenant with Abraham,
and I will remember the land.
Jesus Christ can heal the living and the dead:
John 5:25-28
25 "Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here,
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,
and those who hear will live.
26 For just as the Father has life in himself,
so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself;
27 and he has given him authority to execute judgment,
because he is the Son of Man.
28 Do not be astonished at this;
for the hour is coming when
all who are in their graves
will hear his voice
Jesus defeated death:
Matthew 27:51-54
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple
was torn in two, from top to bottom.
The earth shook, and the rocks were split.
52 The tombs also were opened,
and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
53 After his resurrection they came out of the tombs
and entered the holy city and appeared to many.
54 Now when the centurion and those with him,
who were keeping watch over Jesus,
saw the earthquake and what took place,
they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son!"
Jesus overcame death's power:
1Corinthians 15:6
Then he [the risen Christ] appeared
to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time,
most of whom are still alive, though some have died.
Death cannot stop Jesus from ministering to a person:
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus has authority over the dead:
Romans 14:7-10
7 We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.
8 If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again,
so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?
Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister?
For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
Jesus went to hell after his death to minister to the dead:
1Peter 3:18-19
18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,
the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,
19 in which also he went and made a proclamation
to the spirits in prison, [that is the dead]
1Peter 4:6
For this is the reason
the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead,
so that, though they had been judged in the flesh
as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.
D. God Promises Generational Healing
Prophets promise to break generational bondage:
Jeremiah 31:29-30
God will send the people exiled in Babylon back to their land.
29 In those days they shall no longer say:
"The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge."
30 But all shall die for their own sins;
the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.
Ezekiel 18:1-3, 14, 17
1 The word of the LORD came to me:
2 What do you mean by repeating this proverb
concerning the land of Israel,
"The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge"?
3 As I live, says the Lord GOD,
this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel.
14 But if this man has a son who sees all the sins that his father has done, considers, and does not do likewise...
17 withholds his hand from iniquity... and follows my statutes;
he shall not die for his father's iniquity;
he shall surely live.
God promises the healing of many generations:
Isaiah 61:4
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
If we move in the direction of the Holy Spirit, we do not need to fear
1Corinthians 15:32a
If with merely human hopes
I fought with wild animals at Ephesus,
what would I have gained by it?
The dead will come back to life.
1Corinthians 15:35
But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised?
With what kind of body do they come?"
A faithful person brings their sins
and the sins of others to God:
Daniel 9:20
While I was speaking,
and was praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel,
and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God
on behalf of the holy mountain of my God--
A prayer of confession for one's dead parents' sins and for sins of the living:
Baruch 3:1-4
1 O Lord Almighty, God of Israel,
the soul in anguish and the wearied spirit cry out to you.
2 Hear, O Lord, and have mercy, for we have sinned before you.
3 For you are enthroned forever, and we are perishing forever.
4 O Lord Almighty, God of Israel,
hear now the prayer of the people of Israel,
the children of those who sinned before you,
who did not heed the voice of the Lord their God,
so that calamities have clung to us.
E. Prayer for our family tree
can make a difference to them and to us
Paul accepts as a fact
that the dead receive benefit from baptisms
1 Corinthians 15:29
29 Otherwise, what will those people do
who receive baptism on behalf of the dead?
If the dead are not raised at all,
why are people baptized on their behalf?
Faithful people prayed for the dead
and made atonement for their sins.
2 Macabees 12:38-45
38 Then Judas assembled his army
and went to the city of Adullam.
As the seventh day was coming on,
they purified themselves according to the custom,
and kept the sabbath there.
39 On the next day, as had now become necessary,
Judas and his men went to take up the bodies of the fallen
and to bring them back to lie with their kindred
in the sepulchres of their ancestors.
40 Then under the tunic of each one of the dead
they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia,
which the law forbids the Jews to wear.
And it became clear to all
that this was the reason these men had fallen.
41 So they all blessed the ways of the Lord,
the righteous judge, who reveals the things that are hidden;
42 and they turned to supplication,
praying that the sin that had been committed
might be wholly blotted out.
The noble Judas exhorted the people
to keep themselves free from sin,
for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened
as the result of the sin of those who had fallen.
43 He also took up a collection, man by man,
to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver,
and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering.
In doing this he acted very well and honorably,
taking account of the resurrection.
44 For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen
would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish
to pray for the dead.
45 But if he was looking to the splendid reward
that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness,
it was a holy and pious thought.
Therefore he made atonement for the dead,
so that they might be delivered from their sin.
We are to proceed with care, keeping Jesus,
not the dead themselves, at the center of our focus:
Deuteronomy 18:10-11
10 No one shall be found among you
who makes a son or daughter pass through fire,
or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer,
or an augur, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who casts spells,
or who consults ghosts or spirits,
or who seeks oracles from the dead.
Our forebearers continue to bless us as well:
Hebrews 12:1
Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us also lay aside every weight
and the sin that clings so closely,
and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
God wants to unite all of us in this world and in heaven through Jesus
Ephesians 1:9-10
9 he [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will,
according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,
10 as a plan for the fullness of time,
to gather up all things in him,
things in heaven and things on earth.
All translations are the New Revised Standard Version
except those marked JBT: Jerusalem Bible Translation.
Printed Resources:
Linn, Dennis, Matt & Sheila. Healing the Greatest Hurt. (New York: Paulist Press, 1985) A very understandable introduction to healing the generations with biblical background, a history of the practices, and particular focus on healing for miscarried and other children.
McAll, Kenneth, M.D. Healing the Family Tree. (London: Sheldon Press, 1982) Amazing true stories of physical and emotional healings, relief for haunted houses, and the elements of communion for generational healing.
A number of resources on Family Systems Therapy explore generational bonds in our family emotional systems and ways to free them. Rabbi Ed Friedman's Generation to Generation (Guilford Press) offers a wide overview of generational potentials and problems in families churches and synagogues. Completing genograms of your family can be a great help in identifying people and events that would benefit by prayer.