Genetic Genealogy * Grail DNA Project * Hermeneutics * Philosophy * Anthropology * Myth
History * Gnosis * Shamanism * Esoterics * Mysticism * Archetypal Psychology * Semiotics
History * Gnosis * Shamanism * Esoterics * Mysticism * Archetypal Psychology * Semiotics
BLOODLINES * GRAIL * MEROVINGIANS
SANGREALITY NOW
Merovingian Dynasties
(c) Iona Miller, 2013-2016
"Be thy Mind opened unto the Higher, Be thy Heart a Center of Light,
Be thy Body a Temple of the Rose Cross."
"O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my blest beloved and I,
Embrace us well, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky."
SANGREALITY NOW
Merovingian Dynasties
(c) Iona Miller, 2013-2016
"Be thy Mind opened unto the Higher, Be thy Heart a Center of Light,
Be thy Body a Temple of the Rose Cross."
"O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my blest beloved and I,
Embrace us well, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky."
THE LONG DEAD
"Follow in the footsteps of your ancestors, for the mind is trained through knowledge. Behold, their words endure… follow their wise counsel."
-- "The Book of Kheti," The Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient Egypt
In the Beginning
The majority of the human race is descended, according to
the Human Genome project, from about 3,000 people. The evidence from the Toba supereruption, 71,000 years ago, indicates that the world's population of Modern Humans was reduced to a bottleneck total of around 2,000-10,000 adults.
Early humans living about one million years ago were extremely close to extinction. Genetic tests of ancient DNA suggests that the population of early human species was 55,500 individuals, including Homo erectus, H. ergaster and archaic H. sapiens. After much research, estimates of Homo sapiens coalescence all fall around 200,000 years ago (mtDNA), a little earlier (nuclear DNA), or a little later (Y chromosome), with a range of 270,000 to 200,000 years ago.
Researchers estimate that the effective population size of human ancestors living before 1.2 million years ago was 18,500 - 26,000. Genome regions that contain
mobile element insertion events provide unique information about ancient population history because of their deep genealogies. Genetic diversity is greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, also supporting a single origin place.
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/5/2147.full.pdf
Misconceptions include the idea that all modern humans can be traced back to one female, "mitochondrial Eve." The mitochondrial ancestor was not the only female living, or the only one who passed on mtDNA, but part of a population. Low levels of mtDNA diversity may indicate a population bottleneck, when as few as 1500 female humans lived, perhaps due to environmental conditions, or our population size may always have been small.
Somehow our ancestors escaped such local and global near-extinction events, when the earth became a wasteland from volcanoes, climate change, or space debris. Population bottlenecks accelerated the differentiation of isolated human populations and encouraged increased cooperation within tribal groups for survival.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-might-have-faced-extinction/
Carnal, Carnation & Incarnation
Carnal is a related term of carnation. As adjectives the difference between carnal and carnation is that carnal is relating to the physical and especially sexual appetites -- the material, or natural body; connected by birth -- while carnation is of a rosy pink or red color, like human flesh. As nouns the difference between incarnation and rebirth is that incarnation is an incarnate being or form while rebirth is reincarnation; new birth subsequent to one's first.
DEARLY DEPARTED
In The Soul's Code James Hillman explains that, according to (Plotinus 205-270 ACE), "we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belong to its necessity. This suggests that the circumstances, including my body and my parents whom I may curse, are my soul;'s own choice -- and I do not understand this because I have forgotten."
He adds, "so that we do not forget, Plato tells the myth, and in the very last passage, says that by preserving the myth we may better preserve ourselves and prosper. In other words, the myth has a redemptive psychological function, and a psychology derived from it can inspire a life founded on it."
An ancestor is a person from whom you have directly descended. An ancestor or forebear is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth). An 'ancestor chart'
shows a person and all of their ancestors in a graphical format.
Family is viewed as a closely united group of living and dead relatives. The ancestors are not limited to our blood and family lineages, but biological ancestors are most influential and important to engage for personal and family healing. To 'be' is to perceive and be perceived.
Shaman and traditional cultures emphasize active relations between generations. The ancestors weld the community to its origins or roots, assuring a certain individual and collective balance. Today this healing potential has been rediscovered and applied in "Transgenerational Integration."
Ancestral connections correlate with well-being. Even while we 'grow up,' we simultaneously grow down into our roots, where we are entangled with our ancestral 'invisibles.'
The Ancients managed their ancestral inheritance in many ways, including connections to Earth and Sky, and applied artistic intelligence -- signs of a symbolic psyche and self-awareness. Evidence of tools and art as old as 40,000 years, from South Africa to Siberia, have been discovered, and the date keeps getting pushed backwards.
"The ancients brought over some of the beauty of God into this world, and this world became so beautiful that it appeared to the spirit of the time to be fulfillment, and better than the bosom of the Godhead." (Jung, Liber Novus, Page 238.)
Ancestor veneration preserved memories and living family histories. Such rites celebrate the ancestors and moderate intergenerational issues that could affect descendants. Descendants affected can heal through deepening their ancestral connections.
The progenitor is the (sometimes legendary) founder of a family, line of descent, clan or tribe, noble house or people group. In genealogy or family history a progenitor is the earliest recorded ancestor of a consanguineous family group of descendants. Traditionally, progenitors are patrilineal. In a patrilineal dynasty, each such dynasty has only one progenitor. There is a 1-2% rate of "false paternity" per generation, so the genetic root may or may not be transmitted downline.
No Man's Land is All Sacred
In medieval times it was said that 'the King is the land'. One is the other; the King and the land are one -- our transpersonal state of health. In the Arthurian mythos, Arthur falls into despair, so the kingdom falls prey to blight.
Only when the connection is made can the cure -- the Quest for the Holy Grail, the journey of psychological transformation -- begin. Arthur is King by divine right, so more than just a ruler: the King is the land at a deep spiritual level. In psychological terms this represents the union of the conscious self with the unconscious.
But he is not the only one tied to the land. The 'land' is our psychophysical basis. We are all the land in this sense. The transpersonal is immanent to our physical being. Metaphorically, the king is not only tied to the land or matter, the land supports the king, as the body supports the transpersonal.
The king is primordial, neither of this world nor the next. The archetypal couple, the parent images of the unconscious (Sol and Luna), represent the spiritual and chthonic nature of the hierosgamos, the sacred union of unconscious wholeness -- the undiscovered country.
The term "no man's land" expresses a profound truth: the earth does not belong to us -- if anything, we belong to the earth and the sky. In the syzygy, the archetypal couple symbolize the moment when heaven and earth come together, creating the Holy Union. The Sacred Marriage, hierosgamos is consummated.
The Navajo say, "the earth is my mother, and the sky is my father." There is always a mythology behind our personal psychogenealogy. The myth needs to earth to reincarnate, to make our personal mythology alive and real, inviting us to take care of that image and that earth with an ecological preservation.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS
Genealogy is a retrospective analysis of our ancestors and inherited genetic lines. People love finding out that they have a famous relative, or they’re descended from royalty. Thanks to genetic testing it’s easy to get a rundown of your potentially regal DNA. But being related to long-ago kings doesn’t make us special—it just makes us human.
Interregnum
Geneticist Adam Rutherford pointed out that family trees grow backwards exponentially, so the amount of ancestors people should have from the ninth century is larger than the amount of people who were alive during the ninth century. That means anyone with European ancestry is related to King Charlemagne.
Tangled Trees
“Everyone alive in the ninth century who left descendants is the ancestor of every living European today, including Charlemagne,” Rutherford writes, explaining that Europeans alive today are probably related to the long-dead Holy Roman Emperor even if their DNA test doesn’t show it. The new DNA tests make it possible to determine kinship up to 5-7 generations back.
Because of the way the DNA deck is shuffled every time a sperm or egg is made, it doesn’t keep halving perfectly as you meander up through your family tree. If you’re fully outbred (which you aren’t), you should have 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. But their genetic contribution to you is not equal. Before long, you will find ancestors from whom you bear no DNA. They are your family, your blood, but their genes have been diluted out of your bloodline. Even though you are directly descended from Charlemagne, you may well carry none of his DNA.
As fun as it is to find out you’re the direct descendant of an old royal line, it’s pretty meaningless. Often genetic ancestry relies on the Y chromosome, which is inherited only via the paternal line, or mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed on from mothers. These make for persuasive – but often simplistic – analyses of ancestry. These two chunks of DNA make up 2% of your genome. But the other 98% has to come from somewhere too, and that is a pick-and-mix from all the rest of your ancestors. And you have numerous ancestors from whom you have no DNA. They are your family, your blood, but their genes have been diluted out of your bloodline.
"The communication of the dead is tongued with fire
beyond the language of the living." - T. S. Eliot
"If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people."
--Thich Nhat Hanh
"Follow in the footsteps of your ancestors, for the mind is trained through knowledge. Behold, their words endure… follow their wise counsel."
-- "The Book of Kheti," The Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient Egypt
In the Beginning
The majority of the human race is descended, according to
the Human Genome project, from about 3,000 people. The evidence from the Toba supereruption, 71,000 years ago, indicates that the world's population of Modern Humans was reduced to a bottleneck total of around 2,000-10,000 adults.
Early humans living about one million years ago were extremely close to extinction. Genetic tests of ancient DNA suggests that the population of early human species was 55,500 individuals, including Homo erectus, H. ergaster and archaic H. sapiens. After much research, estimates of Homo sapiens coalescence all fall around 200,000 years ago (mtDNA), a little earlier (nuclear DNA), or a little later (Y chromosome), with a range of 270,000 to 200,000 years ago.
Researchers estimate that the effective population size of human ancestors living before 1.2 million years ago was 18,500 - 26,000. Genome regions that contain
mobile element insertion events provide unique information about ancient population history because of their deep genealogies. Genetic diversity is greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, also supporting a single origin place.
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/5/2147.full.pdf
Misconceptions include the idea that all modern humans can be traced back to one female, "mitochondrial Eve." The mitochondrial ancestor was not the only female living, or the only one who passed on mtDNA, but part of a population. Low levels of mtDNA diversity may indicate a population bottleneck, when as few as 1500 female humans lived, perhaps due to environmental conditions, or our population size may always have been small.
Somehow our ancestors escaped such local and global near-extinction events, when the earth became a wasteland from volcanoes, climate change, or space debris. Population bottlenecks accelerated the differentiation of isolated human populations and encouraged increased cooperation within tribal groups for survival.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-might-have-faced-extinction/
Carnal, Carnation & Incarnation
Carnal is a related term of carnation. As adjectives the difference between carnal and carnation is that carnal is relating to the physical and especially sexual appetites -- the material, or natural body; connected by birth -- while carnation is of a rosy pink or red color, like human flesh. As nouns the difference between incarnation and rebirth is that incarnation is an incarnate being or form while rebirth is reincarnation; new birth subsequent to one's first.
DEARLY DEPARTED
In The Soul's Code James Hillman explains that, according to (Plotinus 205-270 ACE), "we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belong to its necessity. This suggests that the circumstances, including my body and my parents whom I may curse, are my soul;'s own choice -- and I do not understand this because I have forgotten."
He adds, "so that we do not forget, Plato tells the myth, and in the very last passage, says that by preserving the myth we may better preserve ourselves and prosper. In other words, the myth has a redemptive psychological function, and a psychology derived from it can inspire a life founded on it."
An ancestor is a person from whom you have directly descended. An ancestor or forebear is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth). An 'ancestor chart'
shows a person and all of their ancestors in a graphical format.
Family is viewed as a closely united group of living and dead relatives. The ancestors are not limited to our blood and family lineages, but biological ancestors are most influential and important to engage for personal and family healing. To 'be' is to perceive and be perceived.
Shaman and traditional cultures emphasize active relations between generations. The ancestors weld the community to its origins or roots, assuring a certain individual and collective balance. Today this healing potential has been rediscovered and applied in "Transgenerational Integration."
Ancestral connections correlate with well-being. Even while we 'grow up,' we simultaneously grow down into our roots, where we are entangled with our ancestral 'invisibles.'
The Ancients managed their ancestral inheritance in many ways, including connections to Earth and Sky, and applied artistic intelligence -- signs of a symbolic psyche and self-awareness. Evidence of tools and art as old as 40,000 years, from South Africa to Siberia, have been discovered, and the date keeps getting pushed backwards.
"The ancients brought over some of the beauty of God into this world, and this world became so beautiful that it appeared to the spirit of the time to be fulfillment, and better than the bosom of the Godhead." (Jung, Liber Novus, Page 238.)
Ancestor veneration preserved memories and living family histories. Such rites celebrate the ancestors and moderate intergenerational issues that could affect descendants. Descendants affected can heal through deepening their ancestral connections.
The progenitor is the (sometimes legendary) founder of a family, line of descent, clan or tribe, noble house or people group. In genealogy or family history a progenitor is the earliest recorded ancestor of a consanguineous family group of descendants. Traditionally, progenitors are patrilineal. In a patrilineal dynasty, each such dynasty has only one progenitor. There is a 1-2% rate of "false paternity" per generation, so the genetic root may or may not be transmitted downline.
No Man's Land is All Sacred
In medieval times it was said that 'the King is the land'. One is the other; the King and the land are one -- our transpersonal state of health. In the Arthurian mythos, Arthur falls into despair, so the kingdom falls prey to blight.
Only when the connection is made can the cure -- the Quest for the Holy Grail, the journey of psychological transformation -- begin. Arthur is King by divine right, so more than just a ruler: the King is the land at a deep spiritual level. In psychological terms this represents the union of the conscious self with the unconscious.
But he is not the only one tied to the land. The 'land' is our psychophysical basis. We are all the land in this sense. The transpersonal is immanent to our physical being. Metaphorically, the king is not only tied to the land or matter, the land supports the king, as the body supports the transpersonal.
The king is primordial, neither of this world nor the next. The archetypal couple, the parent images of the unconscious (Sol and Luna), represent the spiritual and chthonic nature of the hierosgamos, the sacred union of unconscious wholeness -- the undiscovered country.
The term "no man's land" expresses a profound truth: the earth does not belong to us -- if anything, we belong to the earth and the sky. In the syzygy, the archetypal couple symbolize the moment when heaven and earth come together, creating the Holy Union. The Sacred Marriage, hierosgamos is consummated.
The Navajo say, "the earth is my mother, and the sky is my father." There is always a mythology behind our personal psychogenealogy. The myth needs to earth to reincarnate, to make our personal mythology alive and real, inviting us to take care of that image and that earth with an ecological preservation.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS
Genealogy is a retrospective analysis of our ancestors and inherited genetic lines. People love finding out that they have a famous relative, or they’re descended from royalty. Thanks to genetic testing it’s easy to get a rundown of your potentially regal DNA. But being related to long-ago kings doesn’t make us special—it just makes us human.
Interregnum
Geneticist Adam Rutherford pointed out that family trees grow backwards exponentially, so the amount of ancestors people should have from the ninth century is larger than the amount of people who were alive during the ninth century. That means anyone with European ancestry is related to King Charlemagne.
Tangled Trees
“Everyone alive in the ninth century who left descendants is the ancestor of every living European today, including Charlemagne,” Rutherford writes, explaining that Europeans alive today are probably related to the long-dead Holy Roman Emperor even if their DNA test doesn’t show it. The new DNA tests make it possible to determine kinship up to 5-7 generations back.
Because of the way the DNA deck is shuffled every time a sperm or egg is made, it doesn’t keep halving perfectly as you meander up through your family tree. If you’re fully outbred (which you aren’t), you should have 256 great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. But their genetic contribution to you is not equal. Before long, you will find ancestors from whom you bear no DNA. They are your family, your blood, but their genes have been diluted out of your bloodline. Even though you are directly descended from Charlemagne, you may well carry none of his DNA.
As fun as it is to find out you’re the direct descendant of an old royal line, it’s pretty meaningless. Often genetic ancestry relies on the Y chromosome, which is inherited only via the paternal line, or mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed on from mothers. These make for persuasive – but often simplistic – analyses of ancestry. These two chunks of DNA make up 2% of your genome. But the other 98% has to come from somewhere too, and that is a pick-and-mix from all the rest of your ancestors. And you have numerous ancestors from whom you have no DNA. They are your family, your blood, but their genes have been diluted out of your bloodline.
"The communication of the dead is tongued with fire
beyond the language of the living." - T. S. Eliot
"If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people."
--Thich Nhat Hanh
OUR INVISIBLE FAMILY
PREMIS
It's All Relative
Carl Jung recounts his own imaginal quest to confront the unconscious in his Red Book (Liber Novus). He claims the dead report that their questions are not answered by those already dead. They appear to be disappointed, and have no recourse but to turn to the living. When we answer the call of our ancestors with psychogenealogy, we must ask along with Jung, "who are the dead, and what does it mean to answer them?"
If we seek wisdom from them, they would also like to expect it of us. Jung marveled that the dead posed questions, since we usually assume greater knowledge for the dead than ourselves, presumably because they are closer to the "ground" of all human knowledge -- as if they could "remember" or access the collective unconscious -- the numinous everything, absolute undifferentiated, ungoverned space. He noticed the dead only knew what they knew when they died, so they continue to intrude into our lives..
Jung regarded death as the fulfillment of life's meaning: "only those remain living who are willing to die with life. Since what happens in the secret hour of the midday of life is the reversal of the parabola, the birth of death."
"We have to learn with effort the negations of our positions, and to grasp the fact that life is a process that takes place between two poles, being only complete when surrounded by death." --Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 86
Spiritual Quantum Field?
The new meme of the afterlife is some sort of quantum or subquantal consciousness that persists after discorporation much like the soul. But when our models match current science, we can be sure we are dealing with metaphor and projection, not ontology. There is much conjecture on the subject of some kind of spiritual quantum field where our information lives on. Some of this research is rooted in reports of the Near Death Experience (NDE).
All that it proves is that we still enjoy our belief in an afterlife but want it described in contemporary or even mathematical terms -- a peculiar consideration for such an irrational concept. It actually shows that death remains the creative edge of our knowledge and so we project our hopes and dreams for immortality into the great beyond. Even scientists are not immune to this conjecture.
Physicist Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton University concluded that if consciousness can exchange information in both directions with the physical environment, then it can be attributed with the same "molecular binding potential" as physical objects, meaning that it must also follow the tenets of quantum mechanics. Quantum physicist David Bohm, a student and friend of Albert Einstein, was of a similar opinion. He stated, "The results of modern natural sciences only make sense if we assume an inner, uniform, transcendent reality that is based on all external data and facts. The very depth of human consciousness is one of them."
http://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/4518-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death
But such speculation is beyond our genealogical approach here. The only math we are concerned with is 'multiplication' and 'subtraction.'
Humans have been burying and preparing their dead for the "Great Beyond" for over 100,000 years. For example, archaic H. sapiens and "early moderns" were carefully buried in Qafzeh, near Nazareth and in the Mt. Carmel, Mugharetes-Skhul caves on the Israeli coast over 90,000 to 98,000 years ago (McCown 1937; Smirnov 1989; Trinkaus 1986). This includes a Qafzeh mother and child who were buried together, and an infant who was buried holding the antlers of a fallow deer across his chest. In a nearby site equally as old (i.e. Skhul), yet another was buried with the mandible of a boar held in his hands, whereas an adult had stone tools placed by his side (Belfer-Cohen and Hovers 1992; McCown 1937). It is thus quite clear that humans have been burying and presumably weeping over their dead, and preparing them for a journey to the Hereafter, for over 100,000 years. Thousands of ivory beads and fox teeth covered the bodies of a girl and a boy buried at Sunghir, Russia, around 28,000 years ago. This was some serious bling, representing years of accumulated work.
These behaviors and beliefs are related to activation of the amygdala, hippocampus, and temporal lobe, which are responsible for religious, spiritual, and mystical trance-like states, dreaming, astral projection, near death and out-of-body experience, and the "hallucination" of ghosts, demons, angels, and gods. Case studies and the evolutionary neurological foundations are presented and it is postulated that these structures evolved in order to make spiritual experience possible, and account for the sexual and violent aspects of religious behavior. Abraham, Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus Christ, and others who've communed with angels or "gods," display limbic system hyperactivity. Patients report religious "hallucinations" or out-of-body experiences when limbic structures are stimulated. As over 96% of human DNA is dormant, whereas 50% of activated DNA is devoted to the brain, these capacities may continue to evolve. (Joseph) http://brainmind.com/BrainReligion.html
Together the patient and I address ourselves to the 2,000,000-year-old man that is in all of us. In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us. ~Carl Jung, NY Times, Oct. 4, 1936.
The libido of man contains the two opposite urges or instincts:
the instinct to live and the instinct to die.
~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 77
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live according to nature."
--Marcus Aurelius [my 61st great grandfather]
"It is only possible to live as we should
if we live according to our own nature."
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, 7 June 1935.
“...put it my way, what we are really , and the reality we live, is our psychic reality, which is nothing but ...the poetic imagination going on day and night.” --James Hillman, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World Is Getting Worse, p. 62
"...by “soul” I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image and fantasy—that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical,...that unknown component, which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, has religious concern [deriving from its special relation with death] (Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology, p. xvi).
The symbol is the word that goes out of the mouth, that one that does not simply speak, but that rises out of the depths of the self as a word of power and great need and places itself unexpectedly on the tongue. It is an astonishing and perhaps seemingly irrational word, but one recognizes it as a symbol since it is alien to the conscious mind.
If one accepts the symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one previously did not know.
But if one does not accept the symbol, it is as if one carelessly went past this door; and since this was the only door leading to the inner chambers, one must pass outside into the streets again, exposed to everything external. But the soul suffers great need, since outer freedom is of no use to it.
Salvation is a long road that leads through many gates.
These gates are symbols. Each new gate is at first invisible; indeed it seems at first that it must be created, for it exists only if one has dug up the spring’s root, the symbol. --Jung, Red Book, Page 311.
I wait, secretly anxious.
I see a tree arise from the sea.
Its crown reaches to Heaven and its roots reach down into Hell.
--Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 300.
The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection,
in which are reflected the mythologems, i.e., the archetypes.
~Jung, CW 8, Page 195, Para 392.
PREMIS
It's All Relative
Carl Jung recounts his own imaginal quest to confront the unconscious in his Red Book (Liber Novus). He claims the dead report that their questions are not answered by those already dead. They appear to be disappointed, and have no recourse but to turn to the living. When we answer the call of our ancestors with psychogenealogy, we must ask along with Jung, "who are the dead, and what does it mean to answer them?"
If we seek wisdom from them, they would also like to expect it of us. Jung marveled that the dead posed questions, since we usually assume greater knowledge for the dead than ourselves, presumably because they are closer to the "ground" of all human knowledge -- as if they could "remember" or access the collective unconscious -- the numinous everything, absolute undifferentiated, ungoverned space. He noticed the dead only knew what they knew when they died, so they continue to intrude into our lives..
Jung regarded death as the fulfillment of life's meaning: "only those remain living who are willing to die with life. Since what happens in the secret hour of the midday of life is the reversal of the parabola, the birth of death."
"We have to learn with effort the negations of our positions, and to grasp the fact that life is a process that takes place between two poles, being only complete when surrounded by death." --Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 86
Spiritual Quantum Field?
The new meme of the afterlife is some sort of quantum or subquantal consciousness that persists after discorporation much like the soul. But when our models match current science, we can be sure we are dealing with metaphor and projection, not ontology. There is much conjecture on the subject of some kind of spiritual quantum field where our information lives on. Some of this research is rooted in reports of the Near Death Experience (NDE).
All that it proves is that we still enjoy our belief in an afterlife but want it described in contemporary or even mathematical terms -- a peculiar consideration for such an irrational concept. It actually shows that death remains the creative edge of our knowledge and so we project our hopes and dreams for immortality into the great beyond. Even scientists are not immune to this conjecture.
Physicist Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton University concluded that if consciousness can exchange information in both directions with the physical environment, then it can be attributed with the same "molecular binding potential" as physical objects, meaning that it must also follow the tenets of quantum mechanics. Quantum physicist David Bohm, a student and friend of Albert Einstein, was of a similar opinion. He stated, "The results of modern natural sciences only make sense if we assume an inner, uniform, transcendent reality that is based on all external data and facts. The very depth of human consciousness is one of them."
http://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/4518-physicists-claim-that-consciousness-lives-in-quantum-state-after-death
But such speculation is beyond our genealogical approach here. The only math we are concerned with is 'multiplication' and 'subtraction.'
Humans have been burying and preparing their dead for the "Great Beyond" for over 100,000 years. For example, archaic H. sapiens and "early moderns" were carefully buried in Qafzeh, near Nazareth and in the Mt. Carmel, Mugharetes-Skhul caves on the Israeli coast over 90,000 to 98,000 years ago (McCown 1937; Smirnov 1989; Trinkaus 1986). This includes a Qafzeh mother and child who were buried together, and an infant who was buried holding the antlers of a fallow deer across his chest. In a nearby site equally as old (i.e. Skhul), yet another was buried with the mandible of a boar held in his hands, whereas an adult had stone tools placed by his side (Belfer-Cohen and Hovers 1992; McCown 1937). It is thus quite clear that humans have been burying and presumably weeping over their dead, and preparing them for a journey to the Hereafter, for over 100,000 years. Thousands of ivory beads and fox teeth covered the bodies of a girl and a boy buried at Sunghir, Russia, around 28,000 years ago. This was some serious bling, representing years of accumulated work.
These behaviors and beliefs are related to activation of the amygdala, hippocampus, and temporal lobe, which are responsible for religious, spiritual, and mystical trance-like states, dreaming, astral projection, near death and out-of-body experience, and the "hallucination" of ghosts, demons, angels, and gods. Case studies and the evolutionary neurological foundations are presented and it is postulated that these structures evolved in order to make spiritual experience possible, and account for the sexual and violent aspects of religious behavior. Abraham, Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus Christ, and others who've communed with angels or "gods," display limbic system hyperactivity. Patients report religious "hallucinations" or out-of-body experiences when limbic structures are stimulated. As over 96% of human DNA is dormant, whereas 50% of activated DNA is devoted to the brain, these capacities may continue to evolve. (Joseph) http://brainmind.com/BrainReligion.html
Together the patient and I address ourselves to the 2,000,000-year-old man that is in all of us. In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us. ~Carl Jung, NY Times, Oct. 4, 1936.
The libido of man contains the two opposite urges or instincts:
the instinct to live and the instinct to die.
~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 77
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live according to nature."
--Marcus Aurelius [my 61st great grandfather]
"It is only possible to live as we should
if we live according to our own nature."
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, 7 June 1935.
“...put it my way, what we are really , and the reality we live, is our psychic reality, which is nothing but ...the poetic imagination going on day and night.” --James Hillman, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World Is Getting Worse, p. 62
"...by “soul” I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image and fantasy—that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical,...that unknown component, which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, has religious concern [deriving from its special relation with death] (Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology, p. xvi).
The symbol is the word that goes out of the mouth, that one that does not simply speak, but that rises out of the depths of the self as a word of power and great need and places itself unexpectedly on the tongue. It is an astonishing and perhaps seemingly irrational word, but one recognizes it as a symbol since it is alien to the conscious mind.
If one accepts the symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one previously did not know.
But if one does not accept the symbol, it is as if one carelessly went past this door; and since this was the only door leading to the inner chambers, one must pass outside into the streets again, exposed to everything external. But the soul suffers great need, since outer freedom is of no use to it.
Salvation is a long road that leads through many gates.
These gates are symbols. Each new gate is at first invisible; indeed it seems at first that it must be created, for it exists only if one has dug up the spring’s root, the symbol. --Jung, Red Book, Page 311.
I wait, secretly anxious.
I see a tree arise from the sea.
Its crown reaches to Heaven and its roots reach down into Hell.
--Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 300.
The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection,
in which are reflected the mythologems, i.e., the archetypes.
~Jung, CW 8, Page 195, Para 392.
To Know Thyself, Know Thy Ancestors
Your Kin Await
...who are the dead and what does it mean to answer them?
What matters is not what you say, but what they say back.
Ancestors, from the archetypal to the personal, influence us in the present and implicate us in lives of subsequent generations. The known and unknown stories of our ancestors are present in our personal symptoms, disposition, aspirations, and the questions which inform our lives. Our ancestral and cultural legacies continue living in our bodies, through our relationships, in both matter and the timelessness of psyche. These legacies root us in the past and implicate us in the lives of the generations that will follow.
--Sandra Easter, Jung & the Ancestors
Moreover, my ancestors' souls are sustained by the atmosphere of the house, since I answer for them the questions that their lives once left behind. I carve out rough answers as best I can. I have even drawn them on the walls. It is as if a silent, greater family, stretching down the centuries, were peopling the house.
-- Jung, The Earth Has a Soul: The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung
Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead. Reflect in good heart upon evil, this is the way to the ascent. But before the ascent, everything is night and Hell. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 244.
[The incorporeal spirits lie] beyond our empirical present. [He continues] There is a spiritual world from which the soul receives knowledge of spiritual things whose origins cannot be discovered in this visible world. ~Carl Jung; CW 8.
From that time on, the dead have become ever more distinct for me as the voices of the Unanswered, Unresolved, and Unredeemed. . . . These conversations with the dead formed a kind of prelude to what I had to communicate to the world about the unconscious. . . .
It was then that I ceased to belong to myself alone, ceased to have the right to do so.
From then on, my life belonged to the generality. ~Jung, MDR, Page 191f.
In the Red Book, Jung writes: “When something long since passed . . . comes back again in a changed world, it is new. To give birth to the ancient in a new time is creation.” The ancient ancestors are now coming back into the world through dreams, bringing a new energy – a revitalization of the psyche both individually and collectively. Jung deeply valued the archaic levels of human consciousness and often encouraged his patients to make contact with the “the two-million-year-old” man or woman within. He believed that “most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us”. --Marea Claassen
When we know about our ancestors, when we sense them as living and as supporting us, then we feel connected to the genetic life-stream, and we draw strength and nourishment from this. --Philip Carr-Gomm
If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people. --Thich Nhat Hanh
In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, - seven or eight ancestors at least, and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Over the course of the millennia, all these ancestors in your tree, generation upon generation, have come down to this moment in time -- to give birth to you. There has never been, nor will ever be, another like you. You have been given a tremendous responsibility. You carry the hopes and dreams of all those who have gone before. Hopes and dreams for a better world. What will you do with your time on this Earth? How will you contribute to the ongoing story of humankind? History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all. --Laurence Overmire
I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished. --Carl Jung
The Collective Unconscious (Friedman& Shustask, 2006), is the last element in the psyche and is made up of archetypes emotional symbols which are common to all individuals “transpersonal than personal” from the beginning of time, in (Pervin & Cervone, 2010) “this psychic life is the mind of our ancient ancestors, the way in which they thought and felt, the way in which they conceived of life and the world, of gods and humans beings. The existence of these historical layers is presumably the source of belief in reincarnation and in memories of past lives” (Jung, 1939, p.24). knowledge we are all born with, Psychic inheritance which influences all our experiences and behaviors as in symbols and the meanings of certain myths we recognize instantly on first visual record, furthermore artists and musicians all have shared experiences i.e. religions, corresponding dreams, fairy tales literature from all over world a universal meaning and understanding like near death experiences from several cultural backgrounds had parallel accounts (Personality theories, 2006). http://carlgustavjung.wikispaces.com/The+ego,+the+Personal+and+the+Collective+Unconscious
According to Jung, the collective unconscious consists of implicit beliefs and thoughts had by our ancestors. While we are not aware of the collective unconscious, it can influence how we act. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201302/remembering-things-you-were-born
“There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists.” — Derrick Jensen, from A Language Older Than Words (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2000)
If I am bound to men and things, I can neither go on with my life to its destination nor can I arrive at my very own and deepest nature. Nor can death begin in me as a new life, since I can only fear death. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 356.
A good many will admit that self-knowledge and reflection are needed, but very few indeed will consider such necessities binding upon themselves. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 465-466
Your Kin Await
...who are the dead and what does it mean to answer them?
What matters is not what you say, but what they say back.
Ancestors, from the archetypal to the personal, influence us in the present and implicate us in lives of subsequent generations. The known and unknown stories of our ancestors are present in our personal symptoms, disposition, aspirations, and the questions which inform our lives. Our ancestral and cultural legacies continue living in our bodies, through our relationships, in both matter and the timelessness of psyche. These legacies root us in the past and implicate us in the lives of the generations that will follow.
--Sandra Easter, Jung & the Ancestors
Moreover, my ancestors' souls are sustained by the atmosphere of the house, since I answer for them the questions that their lives once left behind. I carve out rough answers as best I can. I have even drawn them on the walls. It is as if a silent, greater family, stretching down the centuries, were peopling the house.
-- Jung, The Earth Has a Soul: The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung
Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead. Reflect in good heart upon evil, this is the way to the ascent. But before the ascent, everything is night and Hell. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 244.
[The incorporeal spirits lie] beyond our empirical present. [He continues] There is a spiritual world from which the soul receives knowledge of spiritual things whose origins cannot be discovered in this visible world. ~Carl Jung; CW 8.
From that time on, the dead have become ever more distinct for me as the voices of the Unanswered, Unresolved, and Unredeemed. . . . These conversations with the dead formed a kind of prelude to what I had to communicate to the world about the unconscious. . . .
It was then that I ceased to belong to myself alone, ceased to have the right to do so.
From then on, my life belonged to the generality. ~Jung, MDR, Page 191f.
In the Red Book, Jung writes: “When something long since passed . . . comes back again in a changed world, it is new. To give birth to the ancient in a new time is creation.” The ancient ancestors are now coming back into the world through dreams, bringing a new energy – a revitalization of the psyche both individually and collectively. Jung deeply valued the archaic levels of human consciousness and often encouraged his patients to make contact with the “the two-million-year-old” man or woman within. He believed that “most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us”. --Marea Claassen
When we know about our ancestors, when we sense them as living and as supporting us, then we feel connected to the genetic life-stream, and we draw strength and nourishment from this. --Philip Carr-Gomm
If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people. --Thich Nhat Hanh
In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, - seven or eight ancestors at least, and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Over the course of the millennia, all these ancestors in your tree, generation upon generation, have come down to this moment in time -- to give birth to you. There has never been, nor will ever be, another like you. You have been given a tremendous responsibility. You carry the hopes and dreams of all those who have gone before. Hopes and dreams for a better world. What will you do with your time on this Earth? How will you contribute to the ongoing story of humankind? History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all. --Laurence Overmire
I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished. --Carl Jung
The Collective Unconscious (Friedman& Shustask, 2006), is the last element in the psyche and is made up of archetypes emotional symbols which are common to all individuals “transpersonal than personal” from the beginning of time, in (Pervin & Cervone, 2010) “this psychic life is the mind of our ancient ancestors, the way in which they thought and felt, the way in which they conceived of life and the world, of gods and humans beings. The existence of these historical layers is presumably the source of belief in reincarnation and in memories of past lives” (Jung, 1939, p.24). knowledge we are all born with, Psychic inheritance which influences all our experiences and behaviors as in symbols and the meanings of certain myths we recognize instantly on first visual record, furthermore artists and musicians all have shared experiences i.e. religions, corresponding dreams, fairy tales literature from all over world a universal meaning and understanding like near death experiences from several cultural backgrounds had parallel accounts (Personality theories, 2006). http://carlgustavjung.wikispaces.com/The+ego,+the+Personal+and+the+Collective+Unconscious
According to Jung, the collective unconscious consists of implicit beliefs and thoughts had by our ancestors. While we are not aware of the collective unconscious, it can influence how we act. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201302/remembering-things-you-were-born
“There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists.” — Derrick Jensen, from A Language Older Than Words (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2000)
If I am bound to men and things, I can neither go on with my life to its destination nor can I arrive at my very own and deepest nature. Nor can death begin in me as a new life, since I can only fear death. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 356.
A good many will admit that self-knowledge and reflection are needed, but very few indeed will consider such necessities binding upon themselves. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 465-466
Self Initiation
Hillman said, “the community of the dead …. are already there, like presences waiting for you.” Like the ancient Egyptians, we can open the mouth of the dead. And you can reunite through genealogical practice without dying. Ritual initiation requires a formal symbolic ego-death and rebirth but this occurs as a natural effect of engagement with our depths.
Jung said transpersonal psychic life "is the mind of our ancient ancestors, the way in which they thought and felt, the way in which they conceived of life and the world, of gods and humans beings. The existence of these historical layers is presumably the source of belief in reincarnation and in memories of past lives,” (Jung, 1939, p.24).
In 'Extending the Family' (1985), Hillman says, "With the passing of time a sense of its power grows within one's psyche, like the movements of its skeleton inside one's flesh, which keeps one in servitude to patterns entombed in our closest attitudes and habits. From this interior family we are never free. This service keeps us bonded to the ancestors." Some report a sort of "calling illness" until they respond to the ancestors calling them to do the work. So, why think about your ancestors at all? It is life-enhancing.
He also suggests we “turn the trap of entanglement in the personal family into an archetypal recognition of family as the supreme metaphor for sustaining the human condition,” (pg. 6). In this sense, our genealogical work signifies a Homecoming. Like the homecoming quest of Odysseus, it extends beyond meaningful connections of the nuclear family into our vast archetypal family with its full imagistic panoply.
Such family therapy isn’t restricted to standard theories and practices but to the epistemology that informs them. It is not an investigation of historical causality, but a circular, synchronistic, non-linear epistemology with archetypal considerations. The influence is interactional with the positive teleological functions of the symptoms. Within the pedigree we encounter representations of the actual forces of epoch-making political, economic, philosophical, and religious collectives.
A 2011 study appearing the European Journal of Social Psychology hypothesizes that thinking about one's genetic origin (i.e. ancestors) provides people with a positive psychological resource that increases their intellectual performance. They tested this by manipulating whether participants thought about their ancestors or not (manipulation of ancestor salience). Then, they measured their expected as well as actual intellectual performance in a variety of intelligence tasks.
“Four studies supported our assumptions: participants show higher expected (Study 1) and actual intellectual performance (Studies 2–4) when they are reminded about their ancestors. We also have initial evidence that this effect may be fuelled by increased levels of perceived control and promotion orientation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors. (Plutarch 46–120 AD)” (Fischer, et al).
Psychogenealogy is a process of self-initiation – a vital part of the Great Work, much like alchemy or meditation. Initiation simply means “beginning,” a dedication to a sacred practice. Once you get the ball rolling, it rolls of its own momentum. You make the first gesture, an explicit commitment to realize your potential within the method. The meaning of this commitment unfolds slowly over a lifetime.
The World Tree contains ample opportunities for both self-realization and the experience of chaos, multiplicity, and disintegration. In this sense, psychogenealogy reflects the nature of the soul: 1) makes all meanings possible, 2) turns events into experiences, 3) involves a deepening of experiences, 4) is communicated in love, 5) and has a special relation with death, (Hillman, 1977, p. xvi, Hillman, 1976, pp. 44-47).
We can apply much of what we learn in this process. The recollection of feelings, experiences, places or pleasurable events and well-being stimulates the senses and guides us toward living into our psychophysical potential. Tangible, symbolic, and imaginal experience of our ancestors and progeny can have real effects on our attitudes and compassion, and the main effect is Transgenerational Integration. By embracing the World Tree we find transgenerational healing
Hillman said, “the community of the dead …. are already there, like presences waiting for you.” Like the ancient Egyptians, we can open the mouth of the dead. And you can reunite through genealogical practice without dying. Ritual initiation requires a formal symbolic ego-death and rebirth but this occurs as a natural effect of engagement with our depths.
Jung said transpersonal psychic life "is the mind of our ancient ancestors, the way in which they thought and felt, the way in which they conceived of life and the world, of gods and humans beings. The existence of these historical layers is presumably the source of belief in reincarnation and in memories of past lives,” (Jung, 1939, p.24).
In 'Extending the Family' (1985), Hillman says, "With the passing of time a sense of its power grows within one's psyche, like the movements of its skeleton inside one's flesh, which keeps one in servitude to patterns entombed in our closest attitudes and habits. From this interior family we are never free. This service keeps us bonded to the ancestors." Some report a sort of "calling illness" until they respond to the ancestors calling them to do the work. So, why think about your ancestors at all? It is life-enhancing.
He also suggests we “turn the trap of entanglement in the personal family into an archetypal recognition of family as the supreme metaphor for sustaining the human condition,” (pg. 6). In this sense, our genealogical work signifies a Homecoming. Like the homecoming quest of Odysseus, it extends beyond meaningful connections of the nuclear family into our vast archetypal family with its full imagistic panoply.
Such family therapy isn’t restricted to standard theories and practices but to the epistemology that informs them. It is not an investigation of historical causality, but a circular, synchronistic, non-linear epistemology with archetypal considerations. The influence is interactional with the positive teleological functions of the symptoms. Within the pedigree we encounter representations of the actual forces of epoch-making political, economic, philosophical, and religious collectives.
A 2011 study appearing the European Journal of Social Psychology hypothesizes that thinking about one's genetic origin (i.e. ancestors) provides people with a positive psychological resource that increases their intellectual performance. They tested this by manipulating whether participants thought about their ancestors or not (manipulation of ancestor salience). Then, they measured their expected as well as actual intellectual performance in a variety of intelligence tasks.
“Four studies supported our assumptions: participants show higher expected (Study 1) and actual intellectual performance (Studies 2–4) when they are reminded about their ancestors. We also have initial evidence that this effect may be fuelled by increased levels of perceived control and promotion orientation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors. (Plutarch 46–120 AD)” (Fischer, et al).
Psychogenealogy is a process of self-initiation – a vital part of the Great Work, much like alchemy or meditation. Initiation simply means “beginning,” a dedication to a sacred practice. Once you get the ball rolling, it rolls of its own momentum. You make the first gesture, an explicit commitment to realize your potential within the method. The meaning of this commitment unfolds slowly over a lifetime.
The World Tree contains ample opportunities for both self-realization and the experience of chaos, multiplicity, and disintegration. In this sense, psychogenealogy reflects the nature of the soul: 1) makes all meanings possible, 2) turns events into experiences, 3) involves a deepening of experiences, 4) is communicated in love, 5) and has a special relation with death, (Hillman, 1977, p. xvi, Hillman, 1976, pp. 44-47).
We can apply much of what we learn in this process. The recollection of feelings, experiences, places or pleasurable events and well-being stimulates the senses and guides us toward living into our psychophysical potential. Tangible, symbolic, and imaginal experience of our ancestors and progeny can have real effects on our attitudes and compassion, and the main effect is Transgenerational Integration. By embracing the World Tree we find transgenerational healing
The Grail, says Jung, is the principle of individuation available within each person. “As threads of fabric are woven into a pattern, so the Self as a living garment of divinity is woven out of the many decisions and crises, in themselves possibly insignificant, by which we are affected in the course of our lives.” Individuation comes one person at a time, not to the collective, “for only in the individual are opposites reconciled and united.” I take from this that I, personally, cannot wait for the collective to come to an awareness of what is important to heal our earth, to come to consciousness, to discover the truth behind the illusions we worship....“Individuation, when seen from the ‘other’ (archetypal) side actually depicts the process of the incarnation of the divine.” To ask the question, “Whom does the Grail serve?” is to ask, perhaps, Whom does the Self serve? Does the Self serve that ultimate Wholeness of which we each participate? Does the Self come in the service of that numinous experience we each encounter once or twice in a lifetime that feeds our hunger for deeper connection with life? Is the Self available to continue the incarnation of the divine in whatever form it happens to be evolving in the universe? Encountering the Grail imposes a question on the beholder, say our authors, it does not impart direct knowledge. The Grail “gives us an emotional readiness to receive,” a numinous experience of our inner center, the Self.
http://www.jungatlanta.com/articles/winter06-the-grail-legend.pdf
http://www.jungatlanta.com/articles/winter06-the-grail-legend.pdf
For those we love most, both in time and beyond...
Through those who came before...
and those who are not yet born...
There is no need for us today to give up the relational, to forego meaningful connection and traditional language, even when we move beyond the supernatural belief systems of our ancestors.
The Portuguese word "SAUDADE" has no English Equivalent: it describes the feeling of missing something very intensively. The Portuguese also say: "To Yearn for the Future" - Feeling for the connection to a destiny in time that is NOT YET, may be a particular genetic skill of the helical serpent... inhabiting time itself..
Ways of Knowing
They come in dreams, in revere, in ritual, with the gentle assist of a "library angel" or other surprise clues, and they inform our being literally and figuratively. They carry mystery in their wake, often with cryptic messages or information that can later be verified or found in the physical world. They inspire our spiritual studies and humanitarian efforts, our self-expression, proclivities and desires. They compel our loves and help create our children, perpetuating the line. We are theirs and they are ours. We are family; we are Blood. We feel their experience from their point of view. As we collect them in name, we collect their experiences, integrating them into our own meaning.
Ancestor worship has been a vital part of Chinese life since prehistoric times. Ancestor worship is expressed in numerous ways, some of them very practical and physical, as well as ethereal. Cultivating rows of graves resonates with cultivating relationships and providing boons for the dead in the afterlife -- cultivating kinship meant cultivating virtue as well as communication and reverence. Most believe that ancestors can help in difficult times. In China, ancient human sacrifice has given way to modern tomb-tending ceremonies, but the dead still make demands. The practice of ancestor worship has existed since ancient times, and it emphasized continuity of family lines and filial piety.
Tending RESTLESS SPIRITS is described by Peter Hessler for National Geographic:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2010/01/chinese-afterlife/hessler-text
There was only one day each year when they looked backward, in April, during the festival of Qingming. The Chinese name translates as "day of clear brightness," and for more than a millennium it's been celebrated in various regional forms across China. Ancestor worship goes back even further.
More than 5,000 years ago, the cultures of northern China were venerating the dead through highly systematized ceremonies. Echoes of these traditions still survive today, and during my first year in the village, when the holiday came around, I accompanied my neighbors on their ritual journey to the cemetery.
Only men were allowed to participate. All of them were named Wei, and a dozen members of this extended clan left before dawn, hiking up the steep mountain behind the village. They wore simple work clothes and carried flat wicker baskets and shovels on their shoulders.
They didn't make small talk, and they didn't stop to rest. They had the determined air of a work crew—tools at the ready, trudging past apricot trees whose fresh buds glowed like stars in the morning half-light. After 20 minutes we reached the village cemetery. It was located high on the mountain, where simple piles of dirt had been arranged in neat rows.
Each row represented a distinct generation, and the men began their work on the front line, tending the graves of the most recently dead—the fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts. They weeded the mounds and piled fresh dirt atop. They left special gifts, such as bottles of alcohol or packs of cigarettes. And they burned paper grave money for use in the afterlife, the bills bearing a watermark that said, "The Bank of Heaven Co., Ltd."
Each villager pays special attention to his own close relatives, working through the rows from father to grandfather to great-grandfather. Almost none of the graves had markers, and as the men moved back in time, from row to row, they became less certain of identities. At last the work was communal, everybody pitching in for every mound, and nobody knowing who was buried beneath. The final grave stood alone, the sole representative of the fourth generation. "Lao zu," one villager said. "The ancestor." There was no other name for the original clan member, whose details had been lost over the years.
Genealogy
We cultivate our own rows or lines of ancestors through genealogy, the pedigree of our origins. Genealogy and even genetic genealogy are pursuits that require interpretation of assembled data, not literal interpretation, due to hidden variables and a variety of other factors, including the interpretive bias of the researcher. Thus, they are essentially Hermetic pursuits and should be approached as such, seeking both their wisdom and their subtle misdirection, outright lies of the past and present, misrepresentations, and other Trickster elements.
Even today, grandiose speculation often passes for science. Those unfamiliar with either subject are most likely to misinterpret their own family's functional relation to others, and likewise to misinterpret the evidence of their alleles in relation to antic origins and their meaning. Identifying SNPs from deep common ancestry, or rare SNPs related to shared characteristics helps us recognize one another as kin.
Genetic Genealogy
Genetic genealogy is the application of genetics to traditional genealogy. Genetic genealogy involves the use of genealogical DNA testing to determine the level of genetic relationship between individuals. Genetic genealogy is a science in great flux. In April 2000, Family Tree DNA began offering the first Y chromosome tests outside of an academic study. Additionally, Sykes’ concept of a surname study, which by this time had been adopted by several other academic researchers outside of Oxford, was expanded into online Surname Projects (an early form of social network) and the effort helped spread knowledge gained through testing to interested genealogists worldwide.
In 2001, Sykes went on to write the controversial but popular book The Seven Daughters of Eve, which described the seven major haplogroups of European ancestors. This work has been superseded, by in the wake of the book's success, and with the growing availability and affordability of genealogical DNA testing, genetic genealogy as a field began growing rapidly. By 2003, the field of DNA testing of surnames was declared officially to have “arrived” in an article by Jobling and Tyler-Smith in Nature Reviews Genetics. The number of firms offering tests, and the number of consumers ordering them, had risen dramatically.
Another milestone in the acceptance of genetic genealogy is the Genographic Project. The Genographic Project is a five-year research study launched in 2005 by the National Geographic Society and IBM, in partnership with the University of Arizona and Family Tree DNA. Although its goals are primarily anthropological, not genealogical, the project's sale by April 2010 of more than 350,000 of its public participation testing kits, which test the general public for either twelve STR markers on the Y chromosome or mutations on the HVR1 region of the mtDNA, has helped increase the visibility of genetic genealogy. Such tests show biogeographical and ethnic origins and revealed vast patterns of human migration.
Even with scientific linkage to specific ancestral groups, self-discovery should not be confounded with personal mythology though both necessarily overlap. There is what the evidence shows or suggests, then the narrative which we construct from that limited evidence, which suggests certain things about our families, current and former cultures, and the future of society.
Hermeneutics is the study of theories and methods of the interpretation of systems of meaning, including interpretations of experience, or human behavior generally, including language and patterns of speech, social institutions, and ritual behaviors. It is a specific method or theory of interpretation, such as Freud or Jung's depth psychologies, for example.
The word hermeneutics is a term derived from 'Ερμηνεýς, the Greek word for interpreter. This is related to the name of the Greek god Hermes in his role as the interpreter of the messages of the gods. Hermes was believed to play tricks on those he was supposed to give messages to, often changing the messages and influencing the interpretation thereof.
The Greek word thus has the basic meaning of one who makes the meaning clear. A DECODER. DNA still manages to preserve its deepest secrets about who and what we are. The bounds of fact and fancy blur in an incoherent reading -- creative misreading of SNP mutations, much like a dream interpretation.
Most people with a lot of New England ancestry descend from one or more ‘gateway’ ancestors – i.e., early colonists who descend, themselves, from English kings, primarily the Plantagenets. The latter, in turn, have their own gateway ancestors, through whom we derive our longest possible ‘ancestral lines’ – into the Dark Ages (roughly A.D. 450-750),
and perhaps (though far more conjecturally) even the Classical (Greco-Roman) and Ancient (Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian) worlds.
ALL such descents are hypothetical – that is, all entail many filiative links that are not, in fact, attested in writing, but postulated by scholars on the basis of an assessment of the known chronology, ethno-political situation, and onomastic patterns of the relevant era, locale, and race. In short, ‘ancient’ pedigrees have many ‘dotted lines,’ which are plausible, even likely, but NOT susceptible to proof.
Unfortunately, popular American genealogical literature is rife with supposed ‘ancient’ pedigrees which are neither likely nor plausible, and in some cases provably bogus, passing, as they do, through long chains of supposed personages who never existed. How, short of acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of many phases of world and national history, half a dozen ancient and modern languages, the various branches of philology, and an immense (and highly specialized) research literature (surely a job for several lifetimes!), is the ‘lay’ reader to tell the plausible from the preposterous, the reasonable from the ridiculous?
We can identify the major geographic areas, ethnicities, and pre-Plantagenet ‘gateway’ ancestors through whom we MIGHT descend from Dark Age, Classical, or Ancient kings, warlords, consuls, emperors, and pharaohs, and can outline the major sources of data and forms of reasoning upon which such descents are predicated. It will also draw your attention to proposed ‘ancient’ descents which are known to be false, or have been seriously questioned, and identify the absolute historical limits beyond which it will never be possible to go.
At about 360 years, or just short of 15 generations an individual living today would carry only three thousands of 1% (00.003052%) of the DNA of an ancestor who was “pure” anything 15 generations ago. So even if one ancestor was indeed Mediterranean 15 generations ago, unless they continuously intermarried within a pure Mediterranean population, the amount would drop by 50% with each generation to the miniscule amount that would be found in today’s current generation. With today’s technology, this is simply untraceable in autosomal DNA.
Through those who came before...
and those who are not yet born...
There is no need for us today to give up the relational, to forego meaningful connection and traditional language, even when we move beyond the supernatural belief systems of our ancestors.
The Portuguese word "SAUDADE" has no English Equivalent: it describes the feeling of missing something very intensively. The Portuguese also say: "To Yearn for the Future" - Feeling for the connection to a destiny in time that is NOT YET, may be a particular genetic skill of the helical serpent... inhabiting time itself..
Ways of Knowing
They come in dreams, in revere, in ritual, with the gentle assist of a "library angel" or other surprise clues, and they inform our being literally and figuratively. They carry mystery in their wake, often with cryptic messages or information that can later be verified or found in the physical world. They inspire our spiritual studies and humanitarian efforts, our self-expression, proclivities and desires. They compel our loves and help create our children, perpetuating the line. We are theirs and they are ours. We are family; we are Blood. We feel their experience from their point of view. As we collect them in name, we collect their experiences, integrating them into our own meaning.
Ancestor worship has been a vital part of Chinese life since prehistoric times. Ancestor worship is expressed in numerous ways, some of them very practical and physical, as well as ethereal. Cultivating rows of graves resonates with cultivating relationships and providing boons for the dead in the afterlife -- cultivating kinship meant cultivating virtue as well as communication and reverence. Most believe that ancestors can help in difficult times. In China, ancient human sacrifice has given way to modern tomb-tending ceremonies, but the dead still make demands. The practice of ancestor worship has existed since ancient times, and it emphasized continuity of family lines and filial piety.
Tending RESTLESS SPIRITS is described by Peter Hessler for National Geographic:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2010/01/chinese-afterlife/hessler-text
There was only one day each year when they looked backward, in April, during the festival of Qingming. The Chinese name translates as "day of clear brightness," and for more than a millennium it's been celebrated in various regional forms across China. Ancestor worship goes back even further.
More than 5,000 years ago, the cultures of northern China were venerating the dead through highly systematized ceremonies. Echoes of these traditions still survive today, and during my first year in the village, when the holiday came around, I accompanied my neighbors on their ritual journey to the cemetery.
Only men were allowed to participate. All of them were named Wei, and a dozen members of this extended clan left before dawn, hiking up the steep mountain behind the village. They wore simple work clothes and carried flat wicker baskets and shovels on their shoulders.
They didn't make small talk, and they didn't stop to rest. They had the determined air of a work crew—tools at the ready, trudging past apricot trees whose fresh buds glowed like stars in the morning half-light. After 20 minutes we reached the village cemetery. It was located high on the mountain, where simple piles of dirt had been arranged in neat rows.
Each row represented a distinct generation, and the men began their work on the front line, tending the graves of the most recently dead—the fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts. They weeded the mounds and piled fresh dirt atop. They left special gifts, such as bottles of alcohol or packs of cigarettes. And they burned paper grave money for use in the afterlife, the bills bearing a watermark that said, "The Bank of Heaven Co., Ltd."
Each villager pays special attention to his own close relatives, working through the rows from father to grandfather to great-grandfather. Almost none of the graves had markers, and as the men moved back in time, from row to row, they became less certain of identities. At last the work was communal, everybody pitching in for every mound, and nobody knowing who was buried beneath. The final grave stood alone, the sole representative of the fourth generation. "Lao zu," one villager said. "The ancestor." There was no other name for the original clan member, whose details had been lost over the years.
Genealogy
We cultivate our own rows or lines of ancestors through genealogy, the pedigree of our origins. Genealogy and even genetic genealogy are pursuits that require interpretation of assembled data, not literal interpretation, due to hidden variables and a variety of other factors, including the interpretive bias of the researcher. Thus, they are essentially Hermetic pursuits and should be approached as such, seeking both their wisdom and their subtle misdirection, outright lies of the past and present, misrepresentations, and other Trickster elements.
Even today, grandiose speculation often passes for science. Those unfamiliar with either subject are most likely to misinterpret their own family's functional relation to others, and likewise to misinterpret the evidence of their alleles in relation to antic origins and their meaning. Identifying SNPs from deep common ancestry, or rare SNPs related to shared characteristics helps us recognize one another as kin.
Genetic Genealogy
Genetic genealogy is the application of genetics to traditional genealogy. Genetic genealogy involves the use of genealogical DNA testing to determine the level of genetic relationship between individuals. Genetic genealogy is a science in great flux. In April 2000, Family Tree DNA began offering the first Y chromosome tests outside of an academic study. Additionally, Sykes’ concept of a surname study, which by this time had been adopted by several other academic researchers outside of Oxford, was expanded into online Surname Projects (an early form of social network) and the effort helped spread knowledge gained through testing to interested genealogists worldwide.
In 2001, Sykes went on to write the controversial but popular book The Seven Daughters of Eve, which described the seven major haplogroups of European ancestors. This work has been superseded, by in the wake of the book's success, and with the growing availability and affordability of genealogical DNA testing, genetic genealogy as a field began growing rapidly. By 2003, the field of DNA testing of surnames was declared officially to have “arrived” in an article by Jobling and Tyler-Smith in Nature Reviews Genetics. The number of firms offering tests, and the number of consumers ordering them, had risen dramatically.
Another milestone in the acceptance of genetic genealogy is the Genographic Project. The Genographic Project is a five-year research study launched in 2005 by the National Geographic Society and IBM, in partnership with the University of Arizona and Family Tree DNA. Although its goals are primarily anthropological, not genealogical, the project's sale by April 2010 of more than 350,000 of its public participation testing kits, which test the general public for either twelve STR markers on the Y chromosome or mutations on the HVR1 region of the mtDNA, has helped increase the visibility of genetic genealogy. Such tests show biogeographical and ethnic origins and revealed vast patterns of human migration.
Even with scientific linkage to specific ancestral groups, self-discovery should not be confounded with personal mythology though both necessarily overlap. There is what the evidence shows or suggests, then the narrative which we construct from that limited evidence, which suggests certain things about our families, current and former cultures, and the future of society.
Hermeneutics is the study of theories and methods of the interpretation of systems of meaning, including interpretations of experience, or human behavior generally, including language and patterns of speech, social institutions, and ritual behaviors. It is a specific method or theory of interpretation, such as Freud or Jung's depth psychologies, for example.
The word hermeneutics is a term derived from 'Ερμηνεýς, the Greek word for interpreter. This is related to the name of the Greek god Hermes in his role as the interpreter of the messages of the gods. Hermes was believed to play tricks on those he was supposed to give messages to, often changing the messages and influencing the interpretation thereof.
The Greek word thus has the basic meaning of one who makes the meaning clear. A DECODER. DNA still manages to preserve its deepest secrets about who and what we are. The bounds of fact and fancy blur in an incoherent reading -- creative misreading of SNP mutations, much like a dream interpretation.
Most people with a lot of New England ancestry descend from one or more ‘gateway’ ancestors – i.e., early colonists who descend, themselves, from English kings, primarily the Plantagenets. The latter, in turn, have their own gateway ancestors, through whom we derive our longest possible ‘ancestral lines’ – into the Dark Ages (roughly A.D. 450-750),
and perhaps (though far more conjecturally) even the Classical (Greco-Roman) and Ancient (Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian) worlds.
ALL such descents are hypothetical – that is, all entail many filiative links that are not, in fact, attested in writing, but postulated by scholars on the basis of an assessment of the known chronology, ethno-political situation, and onomastic patterns of the relevant era, locale, and race. In short, ‘ancient’ pedigrees have many ‘dotted lines,’ which are plausible, even likely, but NOT susceptible to proof.
Unfortunately, popular American genealogical literature is rife with supposed ‘ancient’ pedigrees which are neither likely nor plausible, and in some cases provably bogus, passing, as they do, through long chains of supposed personages who never existed. How, short of acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of many phases of world and national history, half a dozen ancient and modern languages, the various branches of philology, and an immense (and highly specialized) research literature (surely a job for several lifetimes!), is the ‘lay’ reader to tell the plausible from the preposterous, the reasonable from the ridiculous?
We can identify the major geographic areas, ethnicities, and pre-Plantagenet ‘gateway’ ancestors through whom we MIGHT descend from Dark Age, Classical, or Ancient kings, warlords, consuls, emperors, and pharaohs, and can outline the major sources of data and forms of reasoning upon which such descents are predicated. It will also draw your attention to proposed ‘ancient’ descents which are known to be false, or have been seriously questioned, and identify the absolute historical limits beyond which it will never be possible to go.
At about 360 years, or just short of 15 generations an individual living today would carry only three thousands of 1% (00.003052%) of the DNA of an ancestor who was “pure” anything 15 generations ago. So even if one ancestor was indeed Mediterranean 15 generations ago, unless they continuously intermarried within a pure Mediterranean population, the amount would drop by 50% with each generation to the miniscule amount that would be found in today’s current generation. With today’s technology, this is simply untraceable in autosomal DNA.
The Rosy Cross is a symbol of the human process of reproduction elevated to the spiritual: The fundamental symbols are the female rose and the male cross. As generation is the key to material existence, those symbols exemplify the reproductive processes. As regeneration is the key to spiritual existence, the symbolism of the rose and the cross typifies redemption through the union of our lower temporal nature with our higher eternal nature. It is equivalent to the Philosopher's Stone or Holy Grail.
JUNGIAN GENEALOGY
Opening the Mouth of the Dead
Genealogy is a Way of Individuation
JUNGIAN GENEALOGY
Opening the Mouth of the Dead
Genealogy is a Way of Individuation
THE GREENING OF THE TREE
Your Ancestors Make It Matter
The growing one is the TREE OF LIFE. It greens by heaping up growing living matter.
Good and evil unite in the growth of the tree. In their divinity life and love stand opposed. ~Diahmon, Liber Novus, Page 351.
Genealogy is our map of the unconscious -- the Land of the Dead. The Red Thread, the thread of destiny, connects to the Source. It shows us the way, igniting imagination with the alchemy of 'seeing', awakening the soul. The red threads of your blood link you and your Tree to the World Tree, your history to world history and mythology. The bloodline is also called the "underground stream," a transmission of cultural influences of ancestors. Knowing who our ancestors were is fundamental to our sense of who we are.
Genealogical Embeddedness
We often feel nostalgic about the long-lost time “when place, identity, culture and ancestry coincided.” "Standing on the land that ancestors knew” can thus produce a sense of genealogical connection that is sometimes explained as an inexpressible sense of spiritual affinity, and often experienced bodily in “shivers down the spine” and “goosebumps.” It is easy to imagine a shared physical experience that links ancestors to their descendants across time.
Charles Darwin first realized the entire natural system is actually “founded on descent” and is thereby “genealogical in its arrangement.” Genealogical connectedness is, in fact, “the linchpin of evolution,” which is “first and foremost
a genealogical process.”
Genealogies are more than mere reflections of nature or mere records of history. Rather than simply passively documenting who our ancestors were, they are the narratives we construct to actually make them our ancestors.
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/08/why_do_we_care_about_our_ancestors/
https://books.google.com/books?id=tVjuzNPfLcgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rethinking Our Ancestry
Are we really alive if we remain 'dead' to the true nature of Reality? Without a deep visceral understanding of our own embodiment, kith and kin, without knowledge of our family tree, and without the personal story of who we are and where we come from, we remain rootless without a living connection.
Every single one of our ancestors is indispensable to our existence. Without genealogical context within which to “make sense of themselves” identity problems can arise in those who experience such a “genealogical void,” or existential vacuum, feeling cut off from the life giving forces of nature. Nature itself is sacred and holds the promise of eternal life.
Psychic dissociation is desacralization -- loss of soul. Psychological integrity is linked to genealogical roots. You have to bring your experience to the process to make that connection with a new perspective and a new way to hear old wisdom. But, we are connected to the ancestors like long forgotten dreams, even when they remain unconscious. Like an artist, we simply need to engage. The unconscious runs through everything. Phenomena simply show themselves to us as revelations of psyche's nature.
Thierry Gaillard frames it succinctly: "At birth, we unconsciously inherit unfinished stories of our parents, our ancestors and our society. Like open circuits, the charges of this heritage influence our lives for we cannot cut ourselves off from our roots without losing an essential part of ourselves. These histories replay themselves in some of the difficulties we encounter in our own lives, often programming the same outcomes again and again."
Generally, we only remember our ancestors for a few generations unless there is a historical reason for records and stories to be preserved. But the cultural practice and rituals of genealogy have served individuals, tribes and nations throughout the history of mankind. The ancestors are like 'living fossils' in our our psyche, which we can differentiate out from the pointless forest of an undelineated Tree. We may descend from several undelineated families.
From Europe to Asia, genealogy is a “blueprint for action.” Historically genealogical records have been lost and recreated many times, and there have been several periods of genealogical reconstruction and confabulation with legends and myth, produced as politically compelling narratives of descent and right to rulership. Also, historically, writing genealogies only vaguely depends on records.
From Belle Epoch America to modern China, if they don’t have the records, they just make it up. It may be a fraudulent genealogist, social climbers, or an inexperienced family member copying from inaccurate trees. Even with accurate records, some try to embellish their family history, making it grander than it really was.
Those writing a new genealogy can easily borrow pieces of any story from extant records and claim it. It’s easy to claim that your ancestors have an important name, or were important officials. But, to knowingly do so would indicate some kind of shadow problem, and persona issues -- blocks to true meaning, which can be as disabling as inflations from pure fantasies or superstitions about noble lines.
Branching Out
Genealogical narrative has its own power. Most people know it has its own fictional conventions. The fictions of our family are a source of metaphors delineating relationships in familial terms. It opens ground into the further unknown. In a group of their contemporaries and peers an individual loses uniqueness. But that same person, as the latest member of a lineage of forebears, automatically assumes a certain status.
The narration of a genealogy inevitably highlights the last member. Not only do the achievements of the ancestors accrue to the most recent descendant, but the ancestors themselves appear to be more forerunners pointing to what is yet to come. Arguably, length of genealogy confers prestige on an individual; likewise, length of history confers prestige on a nation.
Ritual, a way to perform genealogies, invokes the 'spirits' -- ordered relationships between human beings in the here-and-now and non-immediate sources of power, authority, and value. The fundamental efficacy of ritual lies in its ability to have people embody assumptions about their place in the larger order of things.
Generational analysis is one such ritual. But even more than trying to make the unconscious conscious, genealogy is about looking for routes into the unconscious areas. As genealogists, we know this is where we will find the gods at the roots of our longest lines -- the god inside each of us.
Ancestral Linkage
We can build our Family Tree as an aspirational framework with genealogy and psychogenealogy, and our paths through the Tree of Life. Heraclitus observed that we can never discover the extent of the soul, no matter how many paths we travel, because of its profound nature.
"Walking the path" of our various branches step-by-step, we discover precisely which ancestors connect us and how to older common ancestors. This is the first step in revealing hidden truth and differentiating ourselves from our unconscious collective - the prima materia or massa confusa.
Jung thought, "A tree is not a bad analogy, because we do not understand how a tree functions either, how it raises up to its crown the huge volume of water that circulates in its system, for example, yet the tree is an indisputable fact, a natural process." Jung thought individuation was such a natural process, like an oak growing from an acorn.
'Raising to consciousness' formerly unknown ancestors is a metaphorical 'resurrection,' that increases our self-knowledge and leads toward assimilation or transgenerational integration. Consciousness can also block individuation through resistance by not allowing what is in the unconscious to develop.
Complexes may be related to environmental traumatic experience, or internal conflicts. The core of any complex is a universal pattern of experience, or archetype. Complexes originate in the archetypal depths of the psyche -- deep structures, patterns and ways of living that represent an inherited memory of the history of human culture. The primordial psyche is magical and archaic, and may be a source for much of is interpreted as past lives, which might be 'passed' lives.
Complexes and repetition compulsions can be associated with unconscious ancestral effects. Important groups of unconscious associations, conflicting beliefs that stand on their own like a splinter identity, or a strong unconscious impulse can be embodied as ancestors. We encounter them embodied as images that self-present themselves in their own imaginal, precise detail. Hillman claimed that imagination itself provides grounding and body.
We raise patterns and images to consciousness from the psychoid depths, finding our purpose in the universe and give expression to what we realize. Such gnosis and healing potential is derived from knowledge of the unconscious -- represented unconscious contents. Patterns of unfolding consciousness reveal archetypal structure, promoting wholeness and balance between wholesale identification with myth and outright rejection of it, restoring the free flow of consciousness.
We share unconscious contents through participation mystique - a symbiosis where contents of one's personal unconscious are experienced in another or through another person. Jung claimed, "The participation mystique by which society contains the individual may be understood as a statement of the fact that individuals are still undifferentiated from each other, that is to say, they have not yet been self-consciously broken up into individual personalities." (C.G. Jung Speaking; Interviews and Encounters).
Projection and archaic identification are often mythological motifs surrounding situations and objects, including other persons, dead or alive. In an unconscious process we 'meet our projections' rather than make them. Ancestors are 'hooks' for projecting our unconscious qualities. We can learn something about ourselves withdrawing or dissolving projections.
Genealogical Imagination
Genealogy is a sequence of corporeal births, but also psychic events. 'Walking a path' is much like 'walking a labyrinth. We begin with our self and proceed back to the progenitor of each direct ancestor, both male and female. "Walking the path" means you must visit every profile in both paths, no shortcuts. Jung called the sequence of psychic events a connection, a solid sequence, that either begins with a prime cause or follows a final cause.
Beyond causal qualities, obvious connections are demonstrated by the sequence of events, but our family tree also expresses nonlocal qualities, beyond mind, body, space and time. In everyday life, distance and location are mundane absolutes. Yet physics now suggests that at the most fundamental level, the universe is nonlocal—there is no such thing as place or distance.
Nonlocal Ancestors
Ancestral line, bloodline, line of descent, line of succession, and line of inheritance are all linear descriptors -- chains with causal implications. But not all ancestral effects, like vicarious participation and the genealogical experience of history, are causal.
Nonlocal consciousness is not confined to specific points in space, including brains or bodies, nor to the present moment. It is an ordering principle that can inject information into disorganized or random systems.
There are reports of non-ordinary experiences during pregnancy, for example, where obscure episodes from the lives of parents and unknowable details of ancestors, minute physiological characteristics of various animal and plant species, and arcane details of world mythologies of which the person clearly had no prior knowledge. The imaginal world is neither literal nor abstract.
Nonlocality operates beyond mere awareness, unconsciously, drawing on individual and collective consciousness, as well as the world or environment. Coherence or resonance may be expressed as compassion, empathy, love, unity, oneness, and connectedness. Consciousness affects or informs human and nonhuman or inanimate forms alike.
Consciousness is present everywhere in spacetime, so has no need to “go” or “be sent” via a medium or carrier. Synchronous events, including intentional or directed healing, may work via coherence, an entanglement or resonance effect, but we should be careful not to mistake this field effect for the mind itself, which permeates and undergirds all. Still none of us has any idea how anything material could be conscious, so we must simply stand in that Mystery. We share its essential nature; it is the cosmos within us. We are that.
Nonlocal events, like synchronicity are apparently 1) unmediated, requiring no go-between signal; 2) unmitigated, with no diminishing of effect with distance; 3) immediate, apparently outside of time and space as we commonly understand them. In this acausal process, consciousness is fundamental, not derivative and unexplainable in terms of anything more basic.
Jung advised, “This feeling for the infinite can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost. In knowing ourselves to be ultimately limited we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then!”
Recent experiments (2016) have suggested that no such hidden or nonlocal reality exists. But the theory of connectivity still holds in other models. They have only ruled out a specific class of theories in which the hidden reality of any particle is local, and not influenced by something far away.
Bohm’s ideas involve non-local hidden reality, in which everything depends on everything. Everything happening in a distant galaxy is influencing you right now and vice versa, however minor the effect. Bohm’s theory says that and electron is both a wave and particle: an electron is a particle with a definite trajectory, but this path is governed by a wave upon which the electron rides. The wave can also be influenced by other particles, which in turn changes the trajectory of the electron.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2078251-quantum-weirdness-may-hide-an-orderly-reality-after-all/
Quantum entanglement—which occurs when two or more particles are correlated in such a way that they can influence each other even across large distances—is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but occurs in various degrees. The more a quantum state is entangled with its partner, the better the states will perform in quantum information applications.
The paths of our descent remain correlated, entangled forever. Each time we retrace our roots we are commemorating and reenacting the glorious time of the beginnings. The contrast image of ascent and descent on the Tree of Life is the primary metaphor, unlocking a treasure of family knowledge and self-knowledge, and a new sense of presence.
We have another life than the life we consciously intend to have. Alchemy stresses redemption of the physical body, or matter, while actively striving toward creation of a subtle, immortal body, which has no apparent physical basis. Matter is the raw unconscious. We enter that unconsciousness for the purpose of raising it to consciousness, to raise up the treasure -- the precious heritage of the ancestors.
“The alchemist saw the union of opposites under the symbol of the tree… the symbol of the cosmic tree rooted in this world and growing up to heaven -- the tree that is also man. In the history of symbols this tree is described as the way of life itself, a growing into that which eternally is and does not change; which springs from the union of opposites and, by its eternal presence, also makes that union possible.” (Jung, CW 9i, para. 198)
World Soul; World Tree
The world-tree is an expression of anima-mundi or world-soul. It is the axis that aligns us with the cosmos, but more tangibly, it is the shared ancestral tree, rather than a stand-alone tree. Alchemy requires resurrection of the soul of body. The challenge we encounter in developing and "owning" this fresh worldview is to "see through" to a unified vision of mundane physical processes with spiritual values and vision.
In shamanism, the ancestors were venerated as the effect was a preventive therapy that maintained those vital connections with the past. While the World Tree meant one thing in shamanic culture today it refers to the definitive family tree for the entire world, a collaboration on shared ancestry by constantly expanding and improving the tree. The World Family Tree currently has more than 100 million profiles.
The World Family Tree is like having millions of people solving the same jigsaw puzzle together instead of each of us solving a separate, tiny puzzle. Traditionally, people have embarked on individual studies of their family history in the hope of preserving it for future generations. However, this isolated approach results in the same research being repeated over and over again. By combining all research into a single, collaborative tree, users can focus on verifying existing information and pursue new leads rather than wasting time repeating what others have already found.
With the World Family Tree you will be delighted to constantly discover new information about your family because so many other users are constantly working to improve it with new findings. Sources and citations are included so the work of others can be checked and enhanced.
If mistakes are found, you can fix them quickly on the World Family Tree, which is not possible with standalone trees that are controlled by someone else. Thus, errors gradually disappear instead of perpetuating, growing worse, and achieving the false notion of accuracy simply by being repeated by others.
The World Family Tree allows identical profiles to be merged into one, reducing duplication and collecting the best information for all to share. Profiles support multiple languages so you can easily document names and biographies separately in different languages. The World Family Tree is also curated by a large team of expert volunteer Curators.
Entangled Particles
We can develop awareness of the psychophysical ordering processes inherent in matter -- in our matter. The physical body is a living metaphor -- a metaphorm -- for psychic transformation. Life begets life in creative manifestation.
According to Jung, psyche is not different from matter. At the psychoid or psychophysical ground level, they are different perspectives on the phenomenal world. Psyche is the womb of manifestation. The collective unconscious is also projected into the inner aspect of our own bodies.
In Psychology of Religion, Jung said, Jung, “We might well say, on the contrary, that physical existence is a mere inference, since we know of matter only in so far as we perceive psychic images.” And, Jung comments, “In reality, there is nothing but a living body. That is the fact, and psyche is as much a living body as body is living psyche: it is just the same.” (Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, vol. 1, p. 396.)
The psychoid nature of archetypes extends beyond a neurophysiological basis into the general dynamical patterns of all matter and energy -- the unconscious properties of the physiological world. Both psyche and matter are in a constant process of redefinition.
In pilot-wave theory, if space and time behave like a superfluid, or a fluid that experiences no dissipation at all, then 'path memory' could conceivably give rise to the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement. When two particles become entangled, a measurement of the state of one instantly affects that of the other, even at vast distances. The superfluidfluid/quantum correlation mirrors the collective unconscious field as a vast ocean of potential.
In standard quantum mechanics, the effect is rationalized as the instantaneous collapse of the particles’ joint probability wave. But in the pilot-wave version of events, an interaction between two particles in a superfluid universe sets them on paths that stay correlated forever. The interaction permanently affects the contours of the superfluid, accounting for nonlocal correlations.”
Entangled Lives
Jung referred to unitary reality consisting of both psyche and matter as transcendental -- an unextended energetic intensity, or potential. He argued, "...Psyche cannot be totally different from matter for how otherwise could it move matter? And matter cannot be alien to psyche, for how else could matter produce psyche? Psyche and matter exist in the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible."
We are each a personal part of the world's impersonal fabric, so psyche and soma interpentrate. Waves in this potential spacetime mysteriously “collapse” into particles in actual spacetime. They collapse from their ghostly state into definite quantum particles.
This idea shares much with a holistic or integral perspective, an approach which we can extend to our family tree. In psychosomatics, psyche carries the potential, while soma is the actuality. In the absence of a voice, the body can articulate complex affective and relational losses.
Paleopoetics
We can engage the somatic unconscious as an experiential space of relations and imagination of the heart. The three instincts are self-preservation, sexual, and social. How did humans, given their non-symbolic mammalian heritage, come to represent their knowledge in symbolic form?
All non-verbal communication is mimetic (rehearsal loop), a self-started representational act -- the ability to alternate between various self-perspectives and other-perspectives. The archaic basis of episode recognition patterns is different from generalized, procedural memory. We learned to represent a situation and reflect on it (metacognition, orientation, time, space, date, specific place).
Jung suggested we cannot stand to live a meaningless life. but individuation means to find one's own meaning and connection to universal meaning. The collective unconscious doesn't express personal wishes and intentions as it is an absolutely transpersonal, neutral, psychic 'entity,' which, like nature, is an emanative form of appearance.
Cultural Networks
Humans are linked from birth to a vast cultural storehouse of knowledge and skill accumulated as cultural memory over aeons. We are sensitive to understanding the significance of environmental effects and mimesis (motor skill and imagination) allows us to invent intentional representations.
Culture is mimetic framework. Mirror neurons allow us to love, to socialize, and to empathize with the experience of others through collective shaping of network architecture. In the genealogical context, we are more than a fixed point in a particular cultural network. The genealogy symbolizes the angular momentum of descent. Our responsibility is to make that path easier. Such is the way of nature. Psychogenealogy modulates consciousness in a marked and novel way.
Episodic memories are locked in details of specific experiences such as the death of a loved one. Mythical culture institutionalized meaning by codifying significant contents of individual experience. Internal memory became external culture. We developed theories to predict and explain through symbolic culture. We are still rooted in episodic experience, as well as being mythic, symbolic, and theoretical. Theoretical development strips away previous mythic meanings, demystifying them.
Metaphysics of Presence
The psychoid level of archetypes correlates with wave/particle duality and the heritable DNA biohologram. Expressive nature can be likened to epigenetics, heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in DNA sequence. Every cell in the body has the same genetic information. Cells, tissues and organs differentiate when different sets of genes are turned on or expressed.
We exist in relation to ourselves, to others, to myths, to images, and to archetypes. Their expression is the essence of our being. The body is inescapably a relational body with the potential for overcoming the boundaries of flesh to perpetuate relationality, received wisdom (lucidity), and power-knowledge even in the absence of material embodiment.
Quantum entanglement and nonlocality are models or metaphors for how we may actually remain connected. Our entangled pairs close the locality loophole. David Bohm suggested we have an almost universal tendency to fragment the world and ignore the dynamical interconnectedness of things. This is responsible for many of our problems, not only in science but in our lives and culture -- and in our relations with our own ancestors.
Unexamined Ground
Genealogy can help bridge that interconnectedness gap -- the unconscious, unexamined ground. Genealogy is a differential element of values. It is a field in which relationships operate -- a realm of conscious and unconscious cooperation represented by point to point networks of individuals, dead and alive. The sociality is not merely objective, because of our deep psychophysical involvement. Theory describes "Soul as Intersubjective Reality and Spirit as Interobjective Reality."
Genealogy is complex and requires a broad context -- an open value network with communication, non-control, open-access and value creation. It has its own space-time relationality. As relational selves we stand in intricate and intimate webs of connection with all we contact—whether human or animal, animate or inanimate. 'Path memory' stimulates the right probabilities.
Agents, relationships, and the field of relationality in which relationships occur close the objective-subjective loop with assertion and intentionality. Atomistic individualism is rejected for a relational self, a balance between individual agency and collective communion.
Genealogy can energize the relationships that mobilize action across different interwoven dimensions of relationality. It helps us organize ancestral incoherence and multiplicity. Our pathways of descent or family branches are like converging or parallel realities.
Embodied Relationality
Relationality considers relationships the foundation of subjectivity, including the tangible and intangible beyond the boundaries of life/death in the absence of the corporeal or embodied other. Separation of families occurs by disappearance, miscarriage, migration, displacement, divorce, war, and death.
Archetypal ideas can be correlated with fundamental physiological processes. For example, the union of opposites can be linked to the sympathetic and parasympathic systems - ergotrophic and trophotropic systems of arousal. The 'rein' effect is the emotional alchemy of our ecstatic and transcendent nature. One system, ergotrophic, energizes us; the other, trophotropic, tranquilizes us. The E-system is Yang, while the T-system is Yin. http://ionamiller.weebly.com/emotional-alchemy.html
Family members who have died are only 'relatively disembodied.' Bonds are not severed by death but continue in an interactive psychophysical relationship. Even after death attachments and continuing bonds remain apparent. Bereavement, depression, and symptoms are some examples.
Metaphorically, at least, quantum entanglement (relational entanglement) is mirrored in the twisted limbs of our ancestral branches, particularly the first 5-6 generations that connect us with the more widely shared World Tree. Actions performed on one affect the other, even when separated by great distances.
Psychophysical Relativity
Despite our inherent relationality, a “crisis of nonrelation” often marks our psychic entanglements. What gets in the way and leaves us facing pathological alternatives instead? What is it about our relationality that tempts us to disavow the very thing that makes us who we are?
Why do we tend to avoid our relationality pursuing narcissistic solace and solitary self-enclosure? Ancestral connection, attachment, and intersubjectivity is one way to overcome such tendencies with the interconnectedness of processes of individuation, relationality and affect. Relationality is shaped across global and local contexts by gender and generation, including aspects of emotions and embodiment.
Collective Individuation
Such radical decentering establishes a number of shifts that enable us to think in categories and concepts like the individual, the subject, the group, the threshold, relationality, co-implication and so on. Breaking with both subject-centerdness and the individual as model or starting point is an epistemological shift. We can be part of an undivided whole and still possess our own unique qualities.
Singularity, rather than that of the individual, coupled to the standpoint of relationality enables us to think of the self — other, human—animal, nature— culture and human — world in terms of complex becoming. Intersubjectivity and interbeing incorporate a sense of the dynamic web of relationships that are constitutive for our being at a given moment.
Personal & Universal
The co-constitution of all life has major implications regarding responsibility for the other and responsibility for the world. Grounding in the standpoint of the temporality and historicity of being is our existential condition and circumscribes our relation to the other. http://bod.sagepub.com/content/16/1/129.abstract
Western societies presume death signifies an absolute loss of the other in the demise of their physical body. But we can recognize that embodied relational experience can continue after death, encompassing a ‘me’, a ‘you’ and an ‘us’. After death ‘me’ and ‘us’ remain (though changed) while crucial dimensions of ‘you’ persist too. Caring for the dead involves including them in the family, remembering them, and acting in ways they would approve. Imaginal dialogue provides comfort and guidance.
Relational Identity
The binary divide between living and dead bodies mirrors other related dichotomies of mind/body, self/other, internal/external, and nature/social. Empirical and anecdotal research suggests that embodied relationality expresses how connectedness is lived out after death and/or disruptive transitions in material practices and felt experiences.
Research continues to imply that we are not just ontologically bounded units or entities. We don't just participate in relationships, but are constituted by them, especially those directly related to us. Embodied relationality includes caring after death.
Family descent and history is one key dimension of categories of identity. Social membership and 'belonging' is another. Genealogy is framed by waves of mobility and intercultural history.
Ancestral home and place of origin is another dimension. The material landscapes of certain prehistoric lands are part of our heritage because our ancestors were there when it was being shaped. This is native belonging. Alternatives are settler presence, or collective displacement, shaped by long histories of migrations.
Spirits of the Ancestors
Entanglement is an instantaneous nonlocal connection at the quantal and subquantal level. Two or more objects or subjects can only be described in relation to one another even when widely separated. In quantum entanglement two particles can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions of light-years of space or time. This supermemory is a bizarre intersection of entanglement, information and time.
Family Matters
A change induced in one affects the other; unity of mind is achieved by quantum entanglement. Entanglement remains as long as neither has any significant interactions with other objects to break the entanglement. Particles of energy/matter can become correlated to predictably interact with each other. No signal is sent, no influence transmitted. But the fate of one embodies and reveals the fate of the other.
Unconscious images, beliefs, compulsions and physical symptoms can be the result of being entangled with family and ancestors. Unconscious entanglements with family members or ancestors play a significant role in our emotional conflicts, physical illnesses and spiritual distress. These entanglements also influence the way we cope with the challenges of growing up in our families.
Causal Ambiguity
Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links -- not space-time -- constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. What happens now can be correlated with what happens later, in ways that elude a simple mechanistic explanation. In effect, you can have spooky action at a delay.
These strong temporal correlations between time and space are seriously counterintuitive. Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier to the later one, two events can become correlated so that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later. Each of these events is the cause of the other, as if each were the first to occur.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/
Once Connected Matter
It is a physical fact we contain our ancestral genetics and epigenetics and it remains a psychological fact, too. Further, Scientific American reports that "It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person."
We now know that cells from a developing fetus cross the placenta, allowing the baby’s DNA to become part of the mother’s body. These fetal cells persist in a woman’s body into her old age. If she has been pregnant with a male child it’s likely she’ll have some Y-chromosomes drifting around for a few decades too, even if the baby she carried didn’t live to be born. The cells of that child stay with her, resonating in ways that mothers have known intuitively throughout time. Male cells were found in the brains of women and had been living there, in some cases, for several decades.
Fetal cells you contributed to your own mother may be found in her blood, bone marrow, skin, kidney, and liver. These fetal cells appear to “treat” her when she is ill or injured.
In one case, a woman stopped treatment against medical advice. A liver biopsy showed “thousands of male cells” determined to be from a pregnancy terminated nearly 20 years earlier. These cells helped her body recover just as fetal cells you gave your mother rush to help repair her from within when she’s unwell.
Any woman who has ever been pregnant, even if she miscarried so early she never knew she was with child, is likely to be a microchimera (a person who carries the cells of another person). Fetal cells have the imprint of her child’s father and his ancestry.
Fetal cells can be shared from one pregnancy to another, meaning the cells of older siblings may float within younger siblings. The presence of fetal cells in a woman’s body is associated with substantially improved longevity, with an overall mortality rate 60 percent lower than women whose bodies don’t contain such cells. According to such findings, we heal our mothers and our children heal us. http://lauragraceweldon.com/2012/06/12/mother-child-are-linked-at-the-cellular-level/
We imagine ourselves as singular autonomous individuals, but these foreign cells suggest that most people carry remnants of other individuals, including absorbed twins.
If the fetus is absorbed completely, there are usually no further complications to the pregnancy, other than first trimester vaginal bleeding. This occurs when a twin or multiple disappears in the uterus during pregnancy as a result of a miscarriage of one twin or multiple. The fetal tissue is absorbed by the survivor.
Men have failed paternity tests because of this phenomena. A man's DNA may notmatch because the man's unborn twin is technically the genetic father of their son.
An intriguing new study suggests children may resemble a mother’s previous sexual partner. The effect may be due to molecules in the semen of the first mate being absorbed by the female's immature eggs where they influence future offspring.
The quantum level of interconnectedness between once-connected matter could explain the frequent stories of mothers knowing when something has gone wrong at a distance for their spouses, children. or siblings, and vice versa. If we can 'talk' to the cells of our bodies to good healing effect and immune stimulation, we might reasonably also speak with and mobilize the cells of others circulating in our system.
Politics of Belonging
Jung asks, not what childhood trauma creates a fixation, but what obstacle in the life path are we unable to overcome, and what is the cause of the regression? Our lives remain literally entangled with our immediate family and the souls, spirits, and issues of our ancestors. Our branches criss-cross continents, oceans, and culture wars. The lost or forgotten knowledge and secrets of our ancient ancestors, shapes the creative and moral future reality.
Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently. Instead, a quantum state may be given for the system as a whole.
In a similar way we are entangled with the fate of our ancestors and carry their burdens. When the root of the problem is brought to light, we don't have to repeat the fate of our ancestors with whom we were entangled. Only when these indeterminate causal relations between events are pruned away — so that nature realizes only some of the possibilities available to it — do space and time become meaningful. Quantum correlations come first, space-time later.
Measurements of physical properties such as position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc., performed on entangled particles are found to be appropriately correlated. Schrödinger said, "I would not call [entanglement] one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought."
Ancestor Syndrome
The psychological term for negative entanglement is enmeshment. Our ancestors reflect our dissociated and unintegrated personality facets. Its most positive expression is the unus mundus, the essential heart of the World Soul.
Family Constellations (a subset application of Systemic Constellations) is an experiential process of releasing and resolving profound tensions within and between people. The process diverges from conventional forms of cognitive, behavior and psychodynamic psychotherapy in several key respects.
Family Constellations attempt to reveal a previously unrecognized systemic dynamic that spans multiple generations in a given family. We can resolve the harmful effects of that dynamic by encouraging acceptance of the factual reality of the past, psychophysical transformation, and transcendence.
Your Ancestors Make It Matter
The growing one is the TREE OF LIFE. It greens by heaping up growing living matter.
Good and evil unite in the growth of the tree. In their divinity life and love stand opposed. ~Diahmon, Liber Novus, Page 351.
Genealogy is our map of the unconscious -- the Land of the Dead. The Red Thread, the thread of destiny, connects to the Source. It shows us the way, igniting imagination with the alchemy of 'seeing', awakening the soul. The red threads of your blood link you and your Tree to the World Tree, your history to world history and mythology. The bloodline is also called the "underground stream," a transmission of cultural influences of ancestors. Knowing who our ancestors were is fundamental to our sense of who we are.
Genealogical Embeddedness
We often feel nostalgic about the long-lost time “when place, identity, culture and ancestry coincided.” "Standing on the land that ancestors knew” can thus produce a sense of genealogical connection that is sometimes explained as an inexpressible sense of spiritual affinity, and often experienced bodily in “shivers down the spine” and “goosebumps.” It is easy to imagine a shared physical experience that links ancestors to their descendants across time.
Charles Darwin first realized the entire natural system is actually “founded on descent” and is thereby “genealogical in its arrangement.” Genealogical connectedness is, in fact, “the linchpin of evolution,” which is “first and foremost
a genealogical process.”
Genealogies are more than mere reflections of nature or mere records of history. Rather than simply passively documenting who our ancestors were, they are the narratives we construct to actually make them our ancestors.
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/08/why_do_we_care_about_our_ancestors/
https://books.google.com/books?id=tVjuzNPfLcgC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rethinking Our Ancestry
Are we really alive if we remain 'dead' to the true nature of Reality? Without a deep visceral understanding of our own embodiment, kith and kin, without knowledge of our family tree, and without the personal story of who we are and where we come from, we remain rootless without a living connection.
Every single one of our ancestors is indispensable to our existence. Without genealogical context within which to “make sense of themselves” identity problems can arise in those who experience such a “genealogical void,” or existential vacuum, feeling cut off from the life giving forces of nature. Nature itself is sacred and holds the promise of eternal life.
Psychic dissociation is desacralization -- loss of soul. Psychological integrity is linked to genealogical roots. You have to bring your experience to the process to make that connection with a new perspective and a new way to hear old wisdom. But, we are connected to the ancestors like long forgotten dreams, even when they remain unconscious. Like an artist, we simply need to engage. The unconscious runs through everything. Phenomena simply show themselves to us as revelations of psyche's nature.
Thierry Gaillard frames it succinctly: "At birth, we unconsciously inherit unfinished stories of our parents, our ancestors and our society. Like open circuits, the charges of this heritage influence our lives for we cannot cut ourselves off from our roots without losing an essential part of ourselves. These histories replay themselves in some of the difficulties we encounter in our own lives, often programming the same outcomes again and again."
Generally, we only remember our ancestors for a few generations unless there is a historical reason for records and stories to be preserved. But the cultural practice and rituals of genealogy have served individuals, tribes and nations throughout the history of mankind. The ancestors are like 'living fossils' in our our psyche, which we can differentiate out from the pointless forest of an undelineated Tree. We may descend from several undelineated families.
From Europe to Asia, genealogy is a “blueprint for action.” Historically genealogical records have been lost and recreated many times, and there have been several periods of genealogical reconstruction and confabulation with legends and myth, produced as politically compelling narratives of descent and right to rulership. Also, historically, writing genealogies only vaguely depends on records.
From Belle Epoch America to modern China, if they don’t have the records, they just make it up. It may be a fraudulent genealogist, social climbers, or an inexperienced family member copying from inaccurate trees. Even with accurate records, some try to embellish their family history, making it grander than it really was.
Those writing a new genealogy can easily borrow pieces of any story from extant records and claim it. It’s easy to claim that your ancestors have an important name, or were important officials. But, to knowingly do so would indicate some kind of shadow problem, and persona issues -- blocks to true meaning, which can be as disabling as inflations from pure fantasies or superstitions about noble lines.
Branching Out
Genealogical narrative has its own power. Most people know it has its own fictional conventions. The fictions of our family are a source of metaphors delineating relationships in familial terms. It opens ground into the further unknown. In a group of their contemporaries and peers an individual loses uniqueness. But that same person, as the latest member of a lineage of forebears, automatically assumes a certain status.
The narration of a genealogy inevitably highlights the last member. Not only do the achievements of the ancestors accrue to the most recent descendant, but the ancestors themselves appear to be more forerunners pointing to what is yet to come. Arguably, length of genealogy confers prestige on an individual; likewise, length of history confers prestige on a nation.
Ritual, a way to perform genealogies, invokes the 'spirits' -- ordered relationships between human beings in the here-and-now and non-immediate sources of power, authority, and value. The fundamental efficacy of ritual lies in its ability to have people embody assumptions about their place in the larger order of things.
Generational analysis is one such ritual. But even more than trying to make the unconscious conscious, genealogy is about looking for routes into the unconscious areas. As genealogists, we know this is where we will find the gods at the roots of our longest lines -- the god inside each of us.
Ancestral Linkage
We can build our Family Tree as an aspirational framework with genealogy and psychogenealogy, and our paths through the Tree of Life. Heraclitus observed that we can never discover the extent of the soul, no matter how many paths we travel, because of its profound nature.
"Walking the path" of our various branches step-by-step, we discover precisely which ancestors connect us and how to older common ancestors. This is the first step in revealing hidden truth and differentiating ourselves from our unconscious collective - the prima materia or massa confusa.
Jung thought, "A tree is not a bad analogy, because we do not understand how a tree functions either, how it raises up to its crown the huge volume of water that circulates in its system, for example, yet the tree is an indisputable fact, a natural process." Jung thought individuation was such a natural process, like an oak growing from an acorn.
'Raising to consciousness' formerly unknown ancestors is a metaphorical 'resurrection,' that increases our self-knowledge and leads toward assimilation or transgenerational integration. Consciousness can also block individuation through resistance by not allowing what is in the unconscious to develop.
Complexes may be related to environmental traumatic experience, or internal conflicts. The core of any complex is a universal pattern of experience, or archetype. Complexes originate in the archetypal depths of the psyche -- deep structures, patterns and ways of living that represent an inherited memory of the history of human culture. The primordial psyche is magical and archaic, and may be a source for much of is interpreted as past lives, which might be 'passed' lives.
Complexes and repetition compulsions can be associated with unconscious ancestral effects. Important groups of unconscious associations, conflicting beliefs that stand on their own like a splinter identity, or a strong unconscious impulse can be embodied as ancestors. We encounter them embodied as images that self-present themselves in their own imaginal, precise detail. Hillman claimed that imagination itself provides grounding and body.
We raise patterns and images to consciousness from the psychoid depths, finding our purpose in the universe and give expression to what we realize. Such gnosis and healing potential is derived from knowledge of the unconscious -- represented unconscious contents. Patterns of unfolding consciousness reveal archetypal structure, promoting wholeness and balance between wholesale identification with myth and outright rejection of it, restoring the free flow of consciousness.
We share unconscious contents through participation mystique - a symbiosis where contents of one's personal unconscious are experienced in another or through another person. Jung claimed, "The participation mystique by which society contains the individual may be understood as a statement of the fact that individuals are still undifferentiated from each other, that is to say, they have not yet been self-consciously broken up into individual personalities." (C.G. Jung Speaking; Interviews and Encounters).
Projection and archaic identification are often mythological motifs surrounding situations and objects, including other persons, dead or alive. In an unconscious process we 'meet our projections' rather than make them. Ancestors are 'hooks' for projecting our unconscious qualities. We can learn something about ourselves withdrawing or dissolving projections.
Genealogical Imagination
Genealogy is a sequence of corporeal births, but also psychic events. 'Walking a path' is much like 'walking a labyrinth. We begin with our self and proceed back to the progenitor of each direct ancestor, both male and female. "Walking the path" means you must visit every profile in both paths, no shortcuts. Jung called the sequence of psychic events a connection, a solid sequence, that either begins with a prime cause or follows a final cause.
Beyond causal qualities, obvious connections are demonstrated by the sequence of events, but our family tree also expresses nonlocal qualities, beyond mind, body, space and time. In everyday life, distance and location are mundane absolutes. Yet physics now suggests that at the most fundamental level, the universe is nonlocal—there is no such thing as place or distance.
Nonlocal Ancestors
Ancestral line, bloodline, line of descent, line of succession, and line of inheritance are all linear descriptors -- chains with causal implications. But not all ancestral effects, like vicarious participation and the genealogical experience of history, are causal.
Nonlocal consciousness is not confined to specific points in space, including brains or bodies, nor to the present moment. It is an ordering principle that can inject information into disorganized or random systems.
There are reports of non-ordinary experiences during pregnancy, for example, where obscure episodes from the lives of parents and unknowable details of ancestors, minute physiological characteristics of various animal and plant species, and arcane details of world mythologies of which the person clearly had no prior knowledge. The imaginal world is neither literal nor abstract.
Nonlocality operates beyond mere awareness, unconsciously, drawing on individual and collective consciousness, as well as the world or environment. Coherence or resonance may be expressed as compassion, empathy, love, unity, oneness, and connectedness. Consciousness affects or informs human and nonhuman or inanimate forms alike.
Consciousness is present everywhere in spacetime, so has no need to “go” or “be sent” via a medium or carrier. Synchronous events, including intentional or directed healing, may work via coherence, an entanglement or resonance effect, but we should be careful not to mistake this field effect for the mind itself, which permeates and undergirds all. Still none of us has any idea how anything material could be conscious, so we must simply stand in that Mystery. We share its essential nature; it is the cosmos within us. We are that.
Nonlocal events, like synchronicity are apparently 1) unmediated, requiring no go-between signal; 2) unmitigated, with no diminishing of effect with distance; 3) immediate, apparently outside of time and space as we commonly understand them. In this acausal process, consciousness is fundamental, not derivative and unexplainable in terms of anything more basic.
Jung advised, “This feeling for the infinite can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost. In knowing ourselves to be ultimately limited we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then!”
Recent experiments (2016) have suggested that no such hidden or nonlocal reality exists. But the theory of connectivity still holds in other models. They have only ruled out a specific class of theories in which the hidden reality of any particle is local, and not influenced by something far away.
Bohm’s ideas involve non-local hidden reality, in which everything depends on everything. Everything happening in a distant galaxy is influencing you right now and vice versa, however minor the effect. Bohm’s theory says that and electron is both a wave and particle: an electron is a particle with a definite trajectory, but this path is governed by a wave upon which the electron rides. The wave can also be influenced by other particles, which in turn changes the trajectory of the electron.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2078251-quantum-weirdness-may-hide-an-orderly-reality-after-all/
Quantum entanglement—which occurs when two or more particles are correlated in such a way that they can influence each other even across large distances—is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but occurs in various degrees. The more a quantum state is entangled with its partner, the better the states will perform in quantum information applications.
The paths of our descent remain correlated, entangled forever. Each time we retrace our roots we are commemorating and reenacting the glorious time of the beginnings. The contrast image of ascent and descent on the Tree of Life is the primary metaphor, unlocking a treasure of family knowledge and self-knowledge, and a new sense of presence.
We have another life than the life we consciously intend to have. Alchemy stresses redemption of the physical body, or matter, while actively striving toward creation of a subtle, immortal body, which has no apparent physical basis. Matter is the raw unconscious. We enter that unconsciousness for the purpose of raising it to consciousness, to raise up the treasure -- the precious heritage of the ancestors.
“The alchemist saw the union of opposites under the symbol of the tree… the symbol of the cosmic tree rooted in this world and growing up to heaven -- the tree that is also man. In the history of symbols this tree is described as the way of life itself, a growing into that which eternally is and does not change; which springs from the union of opposites and, by its eternal presence, also makes that union possible.” (Jung, CW 9i, para. 198)
World Soul; World Tree
The world-tree is an expression of anima-mundi or world-soul. It is the axis that aligns us with the cosmos, but more tangibly, it is the shared ancestral tree, rather than a stand-alone tree. Alchemy requires resurrection of the soul of body. The challenge we encounter in developing and "owning" this fresh worldview is to "see through" to a unified vision of mundane physical processes with spiritual values and vision.
In shamanism, the ancestors were venerated as the effect was a preventive therapy that maintained those vital connections with the past. While the World Tree meant one thing in shamanic culture today it refers to the definitive family tree for the entire world, a collaboration on shared ancestry by constantly expanding and improving the tree. The World Family Tree currently has more than 100 million profiles.
The World Family Tree is like having millions of people solving the same jigsaw puzzle together instead of each of us solving a separate, tiny puzzle. Traditionally, people have embarked on individual studies of their family history in the hope of preserving it for future generations. However, this isolated approach results in the same research being repeated over and over again. By combining all research into a single, collaborative tree, users can focus on verifying existing information and pursue new leads rather than wasting time repeating what others have already found.
With the World Family Tree you will be delighted to constantly discover new information about your family because so many other users are constantly working to improve it with new findings. Sources and citations are included so the work of others can be checked and enhanced.
If mistakes are found, you can fix them quickly on the World Family Tree, which is not possible with standalone trees that are controlled by someone else. Thus, errors gradually disappear instead of perpetuating, growing worse, and achieving the false notion of accuracy simply by being repeated by others.
The World Family Tree allows identical profiles to be merged into one, reducing duplication and collecting the best information for all to share. Profiles support multiple languages so you can easily document names and biographies separately in different languages. The World Family Tree is also curated by a large team of expert volunteer Curators.
Entangled Particles
We can develop awareness of the psychophysical ordering processes inherent in matter -- in our matter. The physical body is a living metaphor -- a metaphorm -- for psychic transformation. Life begets life in creative manifestation.
According to Jung, psyche is not different from matter. At the psychoid or psychophysical ground level, they are different perspectives on the phenomenal world. Psyche is the womb of manifestation. The collective unconscious is also projected into the inner aspect of our own bodies.
In Psychology of Religion, Jung said, Jung, “We might well say, on the contrary, that physical existence is a mere inference, since we know of matter only in so far as we perceive psychic images.” And, Jung comments, “In reality, there is nothing but a living body. That is the fact, and psyche is as much a living body as body is living psyche: it is just the same.” (Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, vol. 1, p. 396.)
The psychoid nature of archetypes extends beyond a neurophysiological basis into the general dynamical patterns of all matter and energy -- the unconscious properties of the physiological world. Both psyche and matter are in a constant process of redefinition.
In pilot-wave theory, if space and time behave like a superfluid, or a fluid that experiences no dissipation at all, then 'path memory' could conceivably give rise to the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement. When two particles become entangled, a measurement of the state of one instantly affects that of the other, even at vast distances. The superfluidfluid/quantum correlation mirrors the collective unconscious field as a vast ocean of potential.
In standard quantum mechanics, the effect is rationalized as the instantaneous collapse of the particles’ joint probability wave. But in the pilot-wave version of events, an interaction between two particles in a superfluid universe sets them on paths that stay correlated forever. The interaction permanently affects the contours of the superfluid, accounting for nonlocal correlations.”
Entangled Lives
Jung referred to unitary reality consisting of both psyche and matter as transcendental -- an unextended energetic intensity, or potential. He argued, "...Psyche cannot be totally different from matter for how otherwise could it move matter? And matter cannot be alien to psyche, for how else could matter produce psyche? Psyche and matter exist in the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible."
We are each a personal part of the world's impersonal fabric, so psyche and soma interpentrate. Waves in this potential spacetime mysteriously “collapse” into particles in actual spacetime. They collapse from their ghostly state into definite quantum particles.
This idea shares much with a holistic or integral perspective, an approach which we can extend to our family tree. In psychosomatics, psyche carries the potential, while soma is the actuality. In the absence of a voice, the body can articulate complex affective and relational losses.
Paleopoetics
We can engage the somatic unconscious as an experiential space of relations and imagination of the heart. The three instincts are self-preservation, sexual, and social. How did humans, given their non-symbolic mammalian heritage, come to represent their knowledge in symbolic form?
All non-verbal communication is mimetic (rehearsal loop), a self-started representational act -- the ability to alternate between various self-perspectives and other-perspectives. The archaic basis of episode recognition patterns is different from generalized, procedural memory. We learned to represent a situation and reflect on it (metacognition, orientation, time, space, date, specific place).
Jung suggested we cannot stand to live a meaningless life. but individuation means to find one's own meaning and connection to universal meaning. The collective unconscious doesn't express personal wishes and intentions as it is an absolutely transpersonal, neutral, psychic 'entity,' which, like nature, is an emanative form of appearance.
Cultural Networks
Humans are linked from birth to a vast cultural storehouse of knowledge and skill accumulated as cultural memory over aeons. We are sensitive to understanding the significance of environmental effects and mimesis (motor skill and imagination) allows us to invent intentional representations.
Culture is mimetic framework. Mirror neurons allow us to love, to socialize, and to empathize with the experience of others through collective shaping of network architecture. In the genealogical context, we are more than a fixed point in a particular cultural network. The genealogy symbolizes the angular momentum of descent. Our responsibility is to make that path easier. Such is the way of nature. Psychogenealogy modulates consciousness in a marked and novel way.
Episodic memories are locked in details of specific experiences such as the death of a loved one. Mythical culture institutionalized meaning by codifying significant contents of individual experience. Internal memory became external culture. We developed theories to predict and explain through symbolic culture. We are still rooted in episodic experience, as well as being mythic, symbolic, and theoretical. Theoretical development strips away previous mythic meanings, demystifying them.
Metaphysics of Presence
The psychoid level of archetypes correlates with wave/particle duality and the heritable DNA biohologram. Expressive nature can be likened to epigenetics, heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in DNA sequence. Every cell in the body has the same genetic information. Cells, tissues and organs differentiate when different sets of genes are turned on or expressed.
We exist in relation to ourselves, to others, to myths, to images, and to archetypes. Their expression is the essence of our being. The body is inescapably a relational body with the potential for overcoming the boundaries of flesh to perpetuate relationality, received wisdom (lucidity), and power-knowledge even in the absence of material embodiment.
Quantum entanglement and nonlocality are models or metaphors for how we may actually remain connected. Our entangled pairs close the locality loophole. David Bohm suggested we have an almost universal tendency to fragment the world and ignore the dynamical interconnectedness of things. This is responsible for many of our problems, not only in science but in our lives and culture -- and in our relations with our own ancestors.
Unexamined Ground
Genealogy can help bridge that interconnectedness gap -- the unconscious, unexamined ground. Genealogy is a differential element of values. It is a field in which relationships operate -- a realm of conscious and unconscious cooperation represented by point to point networks of individuals, dead and alive. The sociality is not merely objective, because of our deep psychophysical involvement. Theory describes "Soul as Intersubjective Reality and Spirit as Interobjective Reality."
Genealogy is complex and requires a broad context -- an open value network with communication, non-control, open-access and value creation. It has its own space-time relationality. As relational selves we stand in intricate and intimate webs of connection with all we contact—whether human or animal, animate or inanimate. 'Path memory' stimulates the right probabilities.
Agents, relationships, and the field of relationality in which relationships occur close the objective-subjective loop with assertion and intentionality. Atomistic individualism is rejected for a relational self, a balance between individual agency and collective communion.
Genealogy can energize the relationships that mobilize action across different interwoven dimensions of relationality. It helps us organize ancestral incoherence and multiplicity. Our pathways of descent or family branches are like converging or parallel realities.
Embodied Relationality
Relationality considers relationships the foundation of subjectivity, including the tangible and intangible beyond the boundaries of life/death in the absence of the corporeal or embodied other. Separation of families occurs by disappearance, miscarriage, migration, displacement, divorce, war, and death.
Archetypal ideas can be correlated with fundamental physiological processes. For example, the union of opposites can be linked to the sympathetic and parasympathic systems - ergotrophic and trophotropic systems of arousal. The 'rein' effect is the emotional alchemy of our ecstatic and transcendent nature. One system, ergotrophic, energizes us; the other, trophotropic, tranquilizes us. The E-system is Yang, while the T-system is Yin. http://ionamiller.weebly.com/emotional-alchemy.html
Family members who have died are only 'relatively disembodied.' Bonds are not severed by death but continue in an interactive psychophysical relationship. Even after death attachments and continuing bonds remain apparent. Bereavement, depression, and symptoms are some examples.
Metaphorically, at least, quantum entanglement (relational entanglement) is mirrored in the twisted limbs of our ancestral branches, particularly the first 5-6 generations that connect us with the more widely shared World Tree. Actions performed on one affect the other, even when separated by great distances.
Psychophysical Relativity
Despite our inherent relationality, a “crisis of nonrelation” often marks our psychic entanglements. What gets in the way and leaves us facing pathological alternatives instead? What is it about our relationality that tempts us to disavow the very thing that makes us who we are?
Why do we tend to avoid our relationality pursuing narcissistic solace and solitary self-enclosure? Ancestral connection, attachment, and intersubjectivity is one way to overcome such tendencies with the interconnectedness of processes of individuation, relationality and affect. Relationality is shaped across global and local contexts by gender and generation, including aspects of emotions and embodiment.
Collective Individuation
Such radical decentering establishes a number of shifts that enable us to think in categories and concepts like the individual, the subject, the group, the threshold, relationality, co-implication and so on. Breaking with both subject-centerdness and the individual as model or starting point is an epistemological shift. We can be part of an undivided whole and still possess our own unique qualities.
Singularity, rather than that of the individual, coupled to the standpoint of relationality enables us to think of the self — other, human—animal, nature— culture and human — world in terms of complex becoming. Intersubjectivity and interbeing incorporate a sense of the dynamic web of relationships that are constitutive for our being at a given moment.
Personal & Universal
The co-constitution of all life has major implications regarding responsibility for the other and responsibility for the world. Grounding in the standpoint of the temporality and historicity of being is our existential condition and circumscribes our relation to the other. http://bod.sagepub.com/content/16/1/129.abstract
Western societies presume death signifies an absolute loss of the other in the demise of their physical body. But we can recognize that embodied relational experience can continue after death, encompassing a ‘me’, a ‘you’ and an ‘us’. After death ‘me’ and ‘us’ remain (though changed) while crucial dimensions of ‘you’ persist too. Caring for the dead involves including them in the family, remembering them, and acting in ways they would approve. Imaginal dialogue provides comfort and guidance.
Relational Identity
The binary divide between living and dead bodies mirrors other related dichotomies of mind/body, self/other, internal/external, and nature/social. Empirical and anecdotal research suggests that embodied relationality expresses how connectedness is lived out after death and/or disruptive transitions in material practices and felt experiences.
Research continues to imply that we are not just ontologically bounded units or entities. We don't just participate in relationships, but are constituted by them, especially those directly related to us. Embodied relationality includes caring after death.
Family descent and history is one key dimension of categories of identity. Social membership and 'belonging' is another. Genealogy is framed by waves of mobility and intercultural history.
Ancestral home and place of origin is another dimension. The material landscapes of certain prehistoric lands are part of our heritage because our ancestors were there when it was being shaped. This is native belonging. Alternatives are settler presence, or collective displacement, shaped by long histories of migrations.
Spirits of the Ancestors
Entanglement is an instantaneous nonlocal connection at the quantal and subquantal level. Two or more objects or subjects can only be described in relation to one another even when widely separated. In quantum entanglement two particles can be intimately linked to each other even if separated by billions of light-years of space or time. This supermemory is a bizarre intersection of entanglement, information and time.
Family Matters
A change induced in one affects the other; unity of mind is achieved by quantum entanglement. Entanglement remains as long as neither has any significant interactions with other objects to break the entanglement. Particles of energy/matter can become correlated to predictably interact with each other. No signal is sent, no influence transmitted. But the fate of one embodies and reveals the fate of the other.
Unconscious images, beliefs, compulsions and physical symptoms can be the result of being entangled with family and ancestors. Unconscious entanglements with family members or ancestors play a significant role in our emotional conflicts, physical illnesses and spiritual distress. These entanglements also influence the way we cope with the challenges of growing up in our families.
Causal Ambiguity
Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links -- not space-time -- constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. What happens now can be correlated with what happens later, in ways that elude a simple mechanistic explanation. In effect, you can have spooky action at a delay.
These strong temporal correlations between time and space are seriously counterintuitive. Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier to the later one, two events can become correlated so that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later. Each of these events is the cause of the other, as if each were the first to occur.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/
Once Connected Matter
It is a physical fact we contain our ancestral genetics and epigenetics and it remains a psychological fact, too. Further, Scientific American reports that "It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person."
We now know that cells from a developing fetus cross the placenta, allowing the baby’s DNA to become part of the mother’s body. These fetal cells persist in a woman’s body into her old age. If she has been pregnant with a male child it’s likely she’ll have some Y-chromosomes drifting around for a few decades too, even if the baby she carried didn’t live to be born. The cells of that child stay with her, resonating in ways that mothers have known intuitively throughout time. Male cells were found in the brains of women and had been living there, in some cases, for several decades.
Fetal cells you contributed to your own mother may be found in her blood, bone marrow, skin, kidney, and liver. These fetal cells appear to “treat” her when she is ill or injured.
In one case, a woman stopped treatment against medical advice. A liver biopsy showed “thousands of male cells” determined to be from a pregnancy terminated nearly 20 years earlier. These cells helped her body recover just as fetal cells you gave your mother rush to help repair her from within when she’s unwell.
Any woman who has ever been pregnant, even if she miscarried so early she never knew she was with child, is likely to be a microchimera (a person who carries the cells of another person). Fetal cells have the imprint of her child’s father and his ancestry.
Fetal cells can be shared from one pregnancy to another, meaning the cells of older siblings may float within younger siblings. The presence of fetal cells in a woman’s body is associated with substantially improved longevity, with an overall mortality rate 60 percent lower than women whose bodies don’t contain such cells. According to such findings, we heal our mothers and our children heal us. http://lauragraceweldon.com/2012/06/12/mother-child-are-linked-at-the-cellular-level/
We imagine ourselves as singular autonomous individuals, but these foreign cells suggest that most people carry remnants of other individuals, including absorbed twins.
If the fetus is absorbed completely, there are usually no further complications to the pregnancy, other than first trimester vaginal bleeding. This occurs when a twin or multiple disappears in the uterus during pregnancy as a result of a miscarriage of one twin or multiple. The fetal tissue is absorbed by the survivor.
Men have failed paternity tests because of this phenomena. A man's DNA may notmatch because the man's unborn twin is technically the genetic father of their son.
An intriguing new study suggests children may resemble a mother’s previous sexual partner. The effect may be due to molecules in the semen of the first mate being absorbed by the female's immature eggs where they influence future offspring.
The quantum level of interconnectedness between once-connected matter could explain the frequent stories of mothers knowing when something has gone wrong at a distance for their spouses, children. or siblings, and vice versa. If we can 'talk' to the cells of our bodies to good healing effect and immune stimulation, we might reasonably also speak with and mobilize the cells of others circulating in our system.
Politics of Belonging
Jung asks, not what childhood trauma creates a fixation, but what obstacle in the life path are we unable to overcome, and what is the cause of the regression? Our lives remain literally entangled with our immediate family and the souls, spirits, and issues of our ancestors. Our branches criss-cross continents, oceans, and culture wars. The lost or forgotten knowledge and secrets of our ancient ancestors, shapes the creative and moral future reality.
Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently. Instead, a quantum state may be given for the system as a whole.
In a similar way we are entangled with the fate of our ancestors and carry their burdens. When the root of the problem is brought to light, we don't have to repeat the fate of our ancestors with whom we were entangled. Only when these indeterminate causal relations between events are pruned away — so that nature realizes only some of the possibilities available to it — do space and time become meaningful. Quantum correlations come first, space-time later.
Measurements of physical properties such as position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc., performed on entangled particles are found to be appropriately correlated. Schrödinger said, "I would not call [entanglement] one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought."
Ancestor Syndrome
The psychological term for negative entanglement is enmeshment. Our ancestors reflect our dissociated and unintegrated personality facets. Its most positive expression is the unus mundus, the essential heart of the World Soul.
Family Constellations (a subset application of Systemic Constellations) is an experiential process of releasing and resolving profound tensions within and between people. The process diverges from conventional forms of cognitive, behavior and psychodynamic psychotherapy in several key respects.
Family Constellations attempt to reveal a previously unrecognized systemic dynamic that spans multiple generations in a given family. We can resolve the harmful effects of that dynamic by encouraging acceptance of the factual reality of the past, psychophysical transformation, and transcendence.
***********************
"In the deepest sense, we all dream not of ourselves,
but out of what lies between us and the other." --C.G. Jung
"The realm of the psyche is immeasurably great and filled with living reality.
At its brink lies the secret of Matter and Spirit." ~Carl Jung
What the ancients did for their dead! You seem to believe that you can absolve yourself from the care of the dead, and from the work that they so greatly demand, since what is dead is past. You excuse yourself with your disbelief in the immortality of the soul. Do you think that the dead do not exist because you have' devised the impossibility of immortality? You believe in your idols of words. The dead produce effects, that is sufficient. In the inner world there is no explaining away, as little as you can explain away the sea in the outer world. You must finally understand your purpose in explaining away, namely to seek protection.
~Carl Jung; Red Book.
But if we can reconcile ourselves with the mysterious truth that spirit is the living body seen from within, and the body the outer manifestation of the living spirit --the two being really one-then we can understand why it is that the attempt to transcend the present level of consciousness must give its due to the body. ~Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Page 220
"In the deepest sense, we all dream not of ourselves,
but out of what lies between us and the other." --C.G. Jung
"The realm of the psyche is immeasurably great and filled with living reality.
At its brink lies the secret of Matter and Spirit." ~Carl Jung
What the ancients did for their dead! You seem to believe that you can absolve yourself from the care of the dead, and from the work that they so greatly demand, since what is dead is past. You excuse yourself with your disbelief in the immortality of the soul. Do you think that the dead do not exist because you have' devised the impossibility of immortality? You believe in your idols of words. The dead produce effects, that is sufficient. In the inner world there is no explaining away, as little as you can explain away the sea in the outer world. You must finally understand your purpose in explaining away, namely to seek protection.
~Carl Jung; Red Book.
But if we can reconcile ourselves with the mysterious truth that spirit is the living body seen from within, and the body the outer manifestation of the living spirit --the two being really one-then we can understand why it is that the attempt to transcend the present level of consciousness must give its due to the body. ~Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Page 220
ANCESTORS & ARCHETYPES
http://ancestorsandarchetypes.weebly.com/
OUR INVISIBLE FAMILY
PREMIS
It's All Relative
Together the patient and I address ourselves to the 2,000,000-year-old man that is in all of us.
In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us. ~Carl Jung, NY Times, Oct. 4, 1936.
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live according to nature."
--Marcus Aurelius [my 61st great grandfather]
"It is only possible to live as we should
if we live according to our own nature."
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, 7 June 1935.
The symbol is the word that goes out of the mouth, that one that does not simply speak, but that rises out of the depths of the self as a word of power and great need and places itself unexpectedly on the tongue. It is an astonishing and perhaps seemingly irrational word, but one recognizes it as a symbol since it is alien to the conscious mind.
If one accepts the symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one previously did not know.
But if one does not accept the symbol, it is as if one carelessly went past this door; and since this was the only door leading to the inner chambers, one must pass outside into the streets again, exposed to everything external. But the soul suffers great need, since outer freedom is of no use to it.
Salvation is a long road that leads through many gates.
These gates are symbols. Each new gate is at first invisible; indeed it seems at first that it must be created, for it exists only if one has dug up the spring’s root, the symbol. ~Jung, Red Book, Page 311.
I wait, secretly anxious.
I see a tree arise from the sea.
Its crown reaches to Heaven and its roots reach down into Hell. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 300.
Original Awareness
Our antic biophysical background has been easier to ascertain than the physics of the soul, though many have tried in transpersonal psychologies and the field of Consciousness Studies. Some suggest quantum and even subquantal descriptions of primordial consciousness, which could be described as identical with or inherent in matter.
Consciousness does not mean individual awareness. The larger concept includes the personal unconscious and collective mind, conscious and unconscious -- the union of the serpent (subconscious) with the eagle (super conscious). Consciousness is the bottomless pit of the indivisible whole. It means the world. In the most inclusive sense it is cosmic consciousness. The mind's nature is primordial awareness, practiced by mystics and sages from time immemorial.
New archaeological finds have helped us discover human hybrid interbreeding among the archaic and extinct hominins. Genome analysis suggests there was cross-species interbreeding between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and additional unknown archaic populations, perhaps as far back as Homo Erectus.
We are in no way separate from Nature and our nature is archetypal. We discover how to orient ourselves in the tidal pathways of the unconscious. We see that our shadows and strengths fall into archetypal patterns -- the timeless parts of ourselves we act out unconsciously. Our genealogical maps help us find our way into the deep unconscious and our greatest possible treasure -- our inner gold.
Self-Awareness
We are always telling and remembering and forgetting our stories and those of our near and distant families. Primary in that telling is the tale of from whom we descend through archetypal process and relationship. The primary issues are ‘to be or not be’ and ‘to belong or not to belong.' Our inherent way of expressing is our flow state, our gift, and fulfillment of our personal myth.
We need to both identify and integrate our ancestral legacy in our trials of descent. Without it we may remain stuck in the wasteland of alienation, dissociation, and existential crisis rather than integrating our unconscious heritage and history. We can find our missing qualities in our genealogy.
To figure out what is happening in the present, we need to figure out something of the past. However, we imagine so many things to be true and so many to be false, we simply don't know what is 'real' or not. Life comes from your imagination and what you imagine to be real.
Raising Cain
Those who have not done their own genealogies think some of the claims about conventional genealogical results are utterly fallacious. But if you draw your own lines past a certain era, you find the rumors are indeed 'true,' no matter what that means in terms of symbolic and psychological realities. Naturally, such fabled lines are not literally so. Though you or I can "raise Cain" in our drop lines, there is no way to document such mythic descent. Yet, these are the ancestors of our souls, of our psyche.
Our society is oriented primarily around father and mother, patriarch and matriarch --the King or Queen archetype and basis of unconscious tensions and hidden value judgments. They give life to the archetypal Child, the new consciousness, creativity, and archetypal Seeker. When two people really unite, their inner and outer worlds merge, whether in gnosis or shared folly.
We come upon our ancestors unawares as we 'dig up' our connections with them. If we aren't forewarned we may be shocked to find royals in our lines. The King or Queen can bless us, knight us, and make us feel special and a valuable part of the whole as no other archetype can. This may change our sense of self-identity forever. It can bring new insight, understanding, and comprehension, but may also lead to emotional flooding and an invasion of the unconscious as ego inflation.
We proceed along quite normally, logging commoner and noble spouses and their ancestors, then suddenly the atmosphere changes. Geography moves to imaginal landscapes.
Genealogy is a place of exchange not only with ancestors, but between humans and a variety of supernatural creatures of mixed human and legendary lineage. Such creatures inherit different nature's from their parents, but they still draw their identity from the family unit.
Atavisms
The whole of evolution is within us and recapitulates in uterine life. Development of an organism (ontogeny) expresses all the intermediate forms of its ancestors throughout evolution (phylogeny). Atavism is the regressive tendency to revert to ancestral type -- an evolutionary throwback or reversal. The word atavism is derived from the Latin atavus -- a great-grandfather's grandfather -- or generally, an ancestor. An anatomical atavism is a vestigial structure, or morphological anomaly.
Atavism is the reappearance of a lost character specific to a remote evolutionary ancestor and not observed in the parents or recent ancestors. Left-over traits from a distant evolutionary ancestor can reappear long after they disappeared generations before. Perhaps inherited genetic mutations, deformities, and birth defects were confounded with mythic beings.
Supernatural tales have their liminal settings, mythical characters, inter-species romances, and close family connections. The otherworld and the ordinary intermingle. This is the gloss of imaginal vision that co-exists with ordinary reality -- our desires, phantasms, and projections.
But it is not the family ties nor the romantic fairy tale appeal of such inclusions but their psychic necessity that makes them a legitimate part of our pedigree -- even if disowned, repressed, or 'fictionalized' by modern genealogical corrective trends. We enter the underworld when we cross the threshold dividing the rational and historical from the irrational and legendary.
We find curious hybrids, from fairies to godforms with supernatural romances, curses, and royal marriages in liminal spaces beyond mortal ken. Sometimes such creatures with their disturbing transformations enter a lineage as the result of a familial curse.
It is transmitted to descendants in repeating cycles of suffering, heartbreak, betrayals, separation, mourning, and death. This raises the specter that such demonic behavior is related to medieval descriptions of mental illness and mood disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar, narcissism, or borderline issues.
Some genealogists want to expunge supernatural characters and liminal settings from the World Tree, but we do so at our peril -- cutting of psyche from its own imaginal roots. Naturally, to claim we literally descend from pixies, elves, fairies, dragons, serpents, gods or goddesses sounds preposterous, and must be contextualized as imaginal.
The irreconcilable dual nature of human and bestial ancestry demands we work that out for ourselves, so it not turn monstrous. Ours is a very complicated and nuanced family full of by-gone cultural dreams that still inhabit and inform our films and literature.
http://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=honors_theses
Family Wisdom
Our original awareness of ourselves is that of a family member, born of our ancestors through our parents into the House of our descent. We carry the First-Person perspective (self, body, self-reference) even though we may be the last of our line. But we can hardly claim self-knowledge if we remain unconscious of our unseen forebears from both a genealogical and symbolic approach. Along with our strengths we pass on our human weaknesses.
We may have different intentions as we begin our genealogical work, but despite our approach transgenerational EFFECTS will begin emerging spontaneously as a natural consequence of stirring the unconscious. Real time effects, seen and unforeseen always trump original intentions or will which has nothing to do with it.
Unconscious forces may amplify or draw attention to dynamics already in action -- chaotic relationships, addictive patterns, psychophysical symptoms, etc. as well as unconscious determinism and mythic dynamics. We may or may not notice similar patterns in our close ancestors, such as star-crossed lovers or maternal fusion/absent father.
How could we have something so life-changing, so valuable within and not even realize we have it? The persistent state of unconsciousness keeps them secret, keeps them hidden from us. These spontaneous effects contain elements of transgenerational family problems and its inherent wisdom and healing potential. They remain an integral part of our lives through their effects on our psychophysical being -- avoidance, repression, denial, stress, blame, discomfort. Are we stuck or just ancestrally challenged?
How You Came To Be
We each have a way we put together the fragments that make up our lives — their flotsam and jetsam, highs and lows, meaningful and slight details, shrieking and weeping, big and small news, reminders of the family's past, with events and how they impact us. Who welcomed death when it came? But linear time is a persistent illusion -- a cultural artifact.
We could imagine switching off the default mode network so the brain itself receives a denser spectrum of consciousness. The unconscious or ancestral field is actually just such a vast spectrum of information that we’re just not seeing, but it is always there. Each and every ancestor is there if we but tune into their essence, their nature, and their relationships -- not in a supernatural but an informational way.
The inner forms the outer, pulsating out in manifestation. Primordial awareness is an externalization of our existing internal patterns. The ancient Greeks perceived immersive time and linear perspective somewhat differently, seeing the past before them and the future behind. The past was ahead of them -- already manifested -- where they had eyes to see, not a by-gone event buried in the past. In symbol and myth the past is not the past.
So, through genealogy we can see and face the past head on. Without knowing who we are, we remain somewhat blind looking either forward or back. The ancients moved into the future facing the past, not the unknown future which cannot be seen. The future was behind, enveloping them, manifesting through them, stalking them relentlessly like death.
The anxieties of heredity mirror the fears and conflicts of society at any given time. Stains from the past raise questions about intergenerational or collective responsibility. Are we somehow marked by ancient violence, deprivation, or abundance? How does each generation shape and alter that story, hereditary character, and moral inheritance?
Transferred Guilt
Ancestral Fault? Original sin? Missing the mark? The concept of inherited guilt and delayed punishment is archaic, appearing in the Torah, Bible, and Greek tragedy. Divine punishment of innocent descendants is an interaction of human action and divine order. Deferred punishment implies its inevitability. The perverted family is doomed to pass on its toxic inheritance until or unless someone takes on the great work of raising the pattern to consciousness.
Are we liable for the personal errors and transgressions of our ancestors? Do the gods hold us accountable? They play a leading role in the sense that Jung mentions, that the gods have become diseases. Doesn't each generation suffer in succession with or without family misfortune? Does our past mean moral debt, culpability, menace, shame, dishonor, grief, and distress? What is the hereditary character of human unhappiness and in what way is it 'divine punishment'? How can we "face it"?
Legacy of Misfortune
How and where do we hold the pain of the old transgressions? That anguish of the past has a remarkable grip on contemporary society as systemic crisis and inherited liability. Are some houses accursed? Any family 'curse' -- originating in a prayer for vengeance -- is more likely to mean inherited guilt, genetic corruption, or persistent unexplained adversity. Disaster, calamity, and ruin can also strike blindly.
Ancestral fault is a core idea of Greek literature. 'The guiltless will pay for the deeds later: either the man's children, or his descendants thereafter', said Solon in the sixth century BC, a statement echoed throughout the rest of antiquity. This notion lies at the heart of ancient Greek thinking on theodicy, inheritance and privilege, the meaning of suffering, the links between wealth and morality, individual responsibility, the bonds that unite generations and the grand movements of history. From Homer to Proclus, it played a major role in some of the most critical and pressing reflections of Greek culture on divinity, society and knowledge. The burning modern preoccupation with collective responsibility across generations has a long, deep antecedent in classical Greek literature and its reception. (Gagne)
Why do we even endorse our belief in ancestral fault?
Probably because it appeals individually and collectively as an explanation for misfortune as punishment. Perhaps it gives meaning to adversity -- vague traces in distant historical records or dramatic tragedies. Besides its social functions, the cultural notion of ancestral fault also has its own coherent and inconsistent poetics -- how the idea is presented and what role it plays as we mine and reconstruct it.
As we write our genealogical story, we turn to the past even as the past returns to us. Facing it squarely, we are in the present, facing the past, while the unseen future, being unknown, is behind us. It depends if we are looking at event time or narrative time -- relative conceptualizations.
Physicist John Wheeler suggested reality grows out of the act of observation, and thus consciousness itself is "participatory." He also considered information the most fundamental building block of reality. He thought the universe should be seen as a self-synthesized information system: a self-excited circuit that is developing through a (closed loop) cycle.
His experiments led to the idea that human observers may not only determine the present, but also may influence the past. According to Wheeler, ultimate mutability is the central feature of physics, and the meaning of reality can only be established if there is a universal knowledge field, that transcends physical past, present and future.
("The Universe as a Cyclic Organized Information System:
John Wheeler’s World Revisited", Dirk K.F. Meijer)
Future Behind, Past In-Front
Time metaphor is a spatial (spatio-temporal) language. Marshall McLuhan said, "We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future." He reiterated the ancient Greek perspective. They stood in the present moment with the past receding away from them back toward the Golden Age as their point of reference, rather than the future. So, sequence is a relative position along a path -- a relationship of figure to Ground (the moment of utterance). Ego may play the role of Ground in directionality, but it is the directionless unconscious that is the primordial Ground.
What Is Unconscious Remains Timeless
In ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle agreed that the past is eternal. Ancestral fault included inherited guilt and divine punishment. The Greek word for 'revealed' actually means 'reappear,' like rivers and streams that flow underground and spring forth again. The course remains invisible until it reappears to sight.
Only the ideology of progress flipped the magnetic poles of our psyches. The past is no reliable guide to a future that is the main locus of our attention. We need to rethink how we construct our stories of duration and how we conceive our relationship to it. Stories anchor the present and seem to give our preferred futures some substance and pull.
Time doesn't only belong to events, because psychological time is open and all events are real. In the epistemic modality, there is no past or future but possibility, necessity, and evidentiality. Only our expression of past tense creates evidential markers.
Temporality is a modality. What time we are present in depends on which world we are in. That is, in the genealogical domain our world is now as it was in 50 BCE, a product of linguistic relativity and tenseless language. In Kabbalah, “time” is a paradox and an illusion. Both the future and the past are recognized to be simultaneously present.
This purposefully fissured quality opens us to the heights and depths of our being, light and dark, accessible and opaque, concrete and abstract. Such stories may be drizzled in sadness and despair, while others remain profoundly unconscious until we find and walk through the threshold of our genealogy.
Our own family tree and our unique descent from the roots of mankind reveals the instinct, opinion, and knowledge of original thought. Rational comes from 'ratio' - from relationship. The bones of our mother are the stones of the Earth. The body of the Earth and her water is our water, our body, as primordial as it ever was.
http://ancestorsandarchetypes.weebly.com/
OUR INVISIBLE FAMILY
PREMIS
It's All Relative
Together the patient and I address ourselves to the 2,000,000-year-old man that is in all of us.
In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us. ~Carl Jung, NY Times, Oct. 4, 1936.
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live according to nature."
--Marcus Aurelius [my 61st great grandfather]
"It is only possible to live as we should
if we live according to our own nature."
~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, 7 June 1935.
The symbol is the word that goes out of the mouth, that one that does not simply speak, but that rises out of the depths of the self as a word of power and great need and places itself unexpectedly on the tongue. It is an astonishing and perhaps seemingly irrational word, but one recognizes it as a symbol since it is alien to the conscious mind.
If one accepts the symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one previously did not know.
But if one does not accept the symbol, it is as if one carelessly went past this door; and since this was the only door leading to the inner chambers, one must pass outside into the streets again, exposed to everything external. But the soul suffers great need, since outer freedom is of no use to it.
Salvation is a long road that leads through many gates.
These gates are symbols. Each new gate is at first invisible; indeed it seems at first that it must be created, for it exists only if one has dug up the spring’s root, the symbol. ~Jung, Red Book, Page 311.
I wait, secretly anxious.
I see a tree arise from the sea.
Its crown reaches to Heaven and its roots reach down into Hell. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 300.
Original Awareness
Our antic biophysical background has been easier to ascertain than the physics of the soul, though many have tried in transpersonal psychologies and the field of Consciousness Studies. Some suggest quantum and even subquantal descriptions of primordial consciousness, which could be described as identical with or inherent in matter.
Consciousness does not mean individual awareness. The larger concept includes the personal unconscious and collective mind, conscious and unconscious -- the union of the serpent (subconscious) with the eagle (super conscious). Consciousness is the bottomless pit of the indivisible whole. It means the world. In the most inclusive sense it is cosmic consciousness. The mind's nature is primordial awareness, practiced by mystics and sages from time immemorial.
New archaeological finds have helped us discover human hybrid interbreeding among the archaic and extinct hominins. Genome analysis suggests there was cross-species interbreeding between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and additional unknown archaic populations, perhaps as far back as Homo Erectus.
We are in no way separate from Nature and our nature is archetypal. We discover how to orient ourselves in the tidal pathways of the unconscious. We see that our shadows and strengths fall into archetypal patterns -- the timeless parts of ourselves we act out unconsciously. Our genealogical maps help us find our way into the deep unconscious and our greatest possible treasure -- our inner gold.
Self-Awareness
We are always telling and remembering and forgetting our stories and those of our near and distant families. Primary in that telling is the tale of from whom we descend through archetypal process and relationship. The primary issues are ‘to be or not be’ and ‘to belong or not to belong.' Our inherent way of expressing is our flow state, our gift, and fulfillment of our personal myth.
We need to both identify and integrate our ancestral legacy in our trials of descent. Without it we may remain stuck in the wasteland of alienation, dissociation, and existential crisis rather than integrating our unconscious heritage and history. We can find our missing qualities in our genealogy.
To figure out what is happening in the present, we need to figure out something of the past. However, we imagine so many things to be true and so many to be false, we simply don't know what is 'real' or not. Life comes from your imagination and what you imagine to be real.
Raising Cain
Those who have not done their own genealogies think some of the claims about conventional genealogical results are utterly fallacious. But if you draw your own lines past a certain era, you find the rumors are indeed 'true,' no matter what that means in terms of symbolic and psychological realities. Naturally, such fabled lines are not literally so. Though you or I can "raise Cain" in our drop lines, there is no way to document such mythic descent. Yet, these are the ancestors of our souls, of our psyche.
Our society is oriented primarily around father and mother, patriarch and matriarch --the King or Queen archetype and basis of unconscious tensions and hidden value judgments. They give life to the archetypal Child, the new consciousness, creativity, and archetypal Seeker. When two people really unite, their inner and outer worlds merge, whether in gnosis or shared folly.
We come upon our ancestors unawares as we 'dig up' our connections with them. If we aren't forewarned we may be shocked to find royals in our lines. The King or Queen can bless us, knight us, and make us feel special and a valuable part of the whole as no other archetype can. This may change our sense of self-identity forever. It can bring new insight, understanding, and comprehension, but may also lead to emotional flooding and an invasion of the unconscious as ego inflation.
We proceed along quite normally, logging commoner and noble spouses and their ancestors, then suddenly the atmosphere changes. Geography moves to imaginal landscapes.
Genealogy is a place of exchange not only with ancestors, but between humans and a variety of supernatural creatures of mixed human and legendary lineage. Such creatures inherit different nature's from their parents, but they still draw their identity from the family unit.
Atavisms
The whole of evolution is within us and recapitulates in uterine life. Development of an organism (ontogeny) expresses all the intermediate forms of its ancestors throughout evolution (phylogeny). Atavism is the regressive tendency to revert to ancestral type -- an evolutionary throwback or reversal. The word atavism is derived from the Latin atavus -- a great-grandfather's grandfather -- or generally, an ancestor. An anatomical atavism is a vestigial structure, or morphological anomaly.
Atavism is the reappearance of a lost character specific to a remote evolutionary ancestor and not observed in the parents or recent ancestors. Left-over traits from a distant evolutionary ancestor can reappear long after they disappeared generations before. Perhaps inherited genetic mutations, deformities, and birth defects were confounded with mythic beings.
Supernatural tales have their liminal settings, mythical characters, inter-species romances, and close family connections. The otherworld and the ordinary intermingle. This is the gloss of imaginal vision that co-exists with ordinary reality -- our desires, phantasms, and projections.
But it is not the family ties nor the romantic fairy tale appeal of such inclusions but their psychic necessity that makes them a legitimate part of our pedigree -- even if disowned, repressed, or 'fictionalized' by modern genealogical corrective trends. We enter the underworld when we cross the threshold dividing the rational and historical from the irrational and legendary.
We find curious hybrids, from fairies to godforms with supernatural romances, curses, and royal marriages in liminal spaces beyond mortal ken. Sometimes such creatures with their disturbing transformations enter a lineage as the result of a familial curse.
It is transmitted to descendants in repeating cycles of suffering, heartbreak, betrayals, separation, mourning, and death. This raises the specter that such demonic behavior is related to medieval descriptions of mental illness and mood disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar, narcissism, or borderline issues.
Some genealogists want to expunge supernatural characters and liminal settings from the World Tree, but we do so at our peril -- cutting of psyche from its own imaginal roots. Naturally, to claim we literally descend from pixies, elves, fairies, dragons, serpents, gods or goddesses sounds preposterous, and must be contextualized as imaginal.
The irreconcilable dual nature of human and bestial ancestry demands we work that out for ourselves, so it not turn monstrous. Ours is a very complicated and nuanced family full of by-gone cultural dreams that still inhabit and inform our films and literature.
http://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=honors_theses
Family Wisdom
Our original awareness of ourselves is that of a family member, born of our ancestors through our parents into the House of our descent. We carry the First-Person perspective (self, body, self-reference) even though we may be the last of our line. But we can hardly claim self-knowledge if we remain unconscious of our unseen forebears from both a genealogical and symbolic approach. Along with our strengths we pass on our human weaknesses.
We may have different intentions as we begin our genealogical work, but despite our approach transgenerational EFFECTS will begin emerging spontaneously as a natural consequence of stirring the unconscious. Real time effects, seen and unforeseen always trump original intentions or will which has nothing to do with it.
Unconscious forces may amplify or draw attention to dynamics already in action -- chaotic relationships, addictive patterns, psychophysical symptoms, etc. as well as unconscious determinism and mythic dynamics. We may or may not notice similar patterns in our close ancestors, such as star-crossed lovers or maternal fusion/absent father.
How could we have something so life-changing, so valuable within and not even realize we have it? The persistent state of unconsciousness keeps them secret, keeps them hidden from us. These spontaneous effects contain elements of transgenerational family problems and its inherent wisdom and healing potential. They remain an integral part of our lives through their effects on our psychophysical being -- avoidance, repression, denial, stress, blame, discomfort. Are we stuck or just ancestrally challenged?
How You Came To Be
We each have a way we put together the fragments that make up our lives — their flotsam and jetsam, highs and lows, meaningful and slight details, shrieking and weeping, big and small news, reminders of the family's past, with events and how they impact us. Who welcomed death when it came? But linear time is a persistent illusion -- a cultural artifact.
We could imagine switching off the default mode network so the brain itself receives a denser spectrum of consciousness. The unconscious or ancestral field is actually just such a vast spectrum of information that we’re just not seeing, but it is always there. Each and every ancestor is there if we but tune into their essence, their nature, and their relationships -- not in a supernatural but an informational way.
The inner forms the outer, pulsating out in manifestation. Primordial awareness is an externalization of our existing internal patterns. The ancient Greeks perceived immersive time and linear perspective somewhat differently, seeing the past before them and the future behind. The past was ahead of them -- already manifested -- where they had eyes to see, not a by-gone event buried in the past. In symbol and myth the past is not the past.
So, through genealogy we can see and face the past head on. Without knowing who we are, we remain somewhat blind looking either forward or back. The ancients moved into the future facing the past, not the unknown future which cannot be seen. The future was behind, enveloping them, manifesting through them, stalking them relentlessly like death.
The anxieties of heredity mirror the fears and conflicts of society at any given time. Stains from the past raise questions about intergenerational or collective responsibility. Are we somehow marked by ancient violence, deprivation, or abundance? How does each generation shape and alter that story, hereditary character, and moral inheritance?
Transferred Guilt
Ancestral Fault? Original sin? Missing the mark? The concept of inherited guilt and delayed punishment is archaic, appearing in the Torah, Bible, and Greek tragedy. Divine punishment of innocent descendants is an interaction of human action and divine order. Deferred punishment implies its inevitability. The perverted family is doomed to pass on its toxic inheritance until or unless someone takes on the great work of raising the pattern to consciousness.
Are we liable for the personal errors and transgressions of our ancestors? Do the gods hold us accountable? They play a leading role in the sense that Jung mentions, that the gods have become diseases. Doesn't each generation suffer in succession with or without family misfortune? Does our past mean moral debt, culpability, menace, shame, dishonor, grief, and distress? What is the hereditary character of human unhappiness and in what way is it 'divine punishment'? How can we "face it"?
Legacy of Misfortune
How and where do we hold the pain of the old transgressions? That anguish of the past has a remarkable grip on contemporary society as systemic crisis and inherited liability. Are some houses accursed? Any family 'curse' -- originating in a prayer for vengeance -- is more likely to mean inherited guilt, genetic corruption, or persistent unexplained adversity. Disaster, calamity, and ruin can also strike blindly.
Ancestral fault is a core idea of Greek literature. 'The guiltless will pay for the deeds later: either the man's children, or his descendants thereafter', said Solon in the sixth century BC, a statement echoed throughout the rest of antiquity. This notion lies at the heart of ancient Greek thinking on theodicy, inheritance and privilege, the meaning of suffering, the links between wealth and morality, individual responsibility, the bonds that unite generations and the grand movements of history. From Homer to Proclus, it played a major role in some of the most critical and pressing reflections of Greek culture on divinity, society and knowledge. The burning modern preoccupation with collective responsibility across generations has a long, deep antecedent in classical Greek literature and its reception. (Gagne)
Why do we even endorse our belief in ancestral fault?
Probably because it appeals individually and collectively as an explanation for misfortune as punishment. Perhaps it gives meaning to adversity -- vague traces in distant historical records or dramatic tragedies. Besides its social functions, the cultural notion of ancestral fault also has its own coherent and inconsistent poetics -- how the idea is presented and what role it plays as we mine and reconstruct it.
As we write our genealogical story, we turn to the past even as the past returns to us. Facing it squarely, we are in the present, facing the past, while the unseen future, being unknown, is behind us. It depends if we are looking at event time or narrative time -- relative conceptualizations.
Physicist John Wheeler suggested reality grows out of the act of observation, and thus consciousness itself is "participatory." He also considered information the most fundamental building block of reality. He thought the universe should be seen as a self-synthesized information system: a self-excited circuit that is developing through a (closed loop) cycle.
His experiments led to the idea that human observers may not only determine the present, but also may influence the past. According to Wheeler, ultimate mutability is the central feature of physics, and the meaning of reality can only be established if there is a universal knowledge field, that transcends physical past, present and future.
("The Universe as a Cyclic Organized Information System:
John Wheeler’s World Revisited", Dirk K.F. Meijer)
Future Behind, Past In-Front
Time metaphor is a spatial (spatio-temporal) language. Marshall McLuhan said, "We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future." He reiterated the ancient Greek perspective. They stood in the present moment with the past receding away from them back toward the Golden Age as their point of reference, rather than the future. So, sequence is a relative position along a path -- a relationship of figure to Ground (the moment of utterance). Ego may play the role of Ground in directionality, but it is the directionless unconscious that is the primordial Ground.
What Is Unconscious Remains Timeless
In ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle agreed that the past is eternal. Ancestral fault included inherited guilt and divine punishment. The Greek word for 'revealed' actually means 'reappear,' like rivers and streams that flow underground and spring forth again. The course remains invisible until it reappears to sight.
Only the ideology of progress flipped the magnetic poles of our psyches. The past is no reliable guide to a future that is the main locus of our attention. We need to rethink how we construct our stories of duration and how we conceive our relationship to it. Stories anchor the present and seem to give our preferred futures some substance and pull.
Time doesn't only belong to events, because psychological time is open and all events are real. In the epistemic modality, there is no past or future but possibility, necessity, and evidentiality. Only our expression of past tense creates evidential markers.
Temporality is a modality. What time we are present in depends on which world we are in. That is, in the genealogical domain our world is now as it was in 50 BCE, a product of linguistic relativity and tenseless language. In Kabbalah, “time” is a paradox and an illusion. Both the future and the past are recognized to be simultaneously present.
This purposefully fissured quality opens us to the heights and depths of our being, light and dark, accessible and opaque, concrete and abstract. Such stories may be drizzled in sadness and despair, while others remain profoundly unconscious until we find and walk through the threshold of our genealogy.
Our own family tree and our unique descent from the roots of mankind reveals the instinct, opinion, and knowledge of original thought. Rational comes from 'ratio' - from relationship. The bones of our mother are the stones of the Earth. The body of the Earth and her water is our water, our body, as primordial as it ever was.
You Get the Genealogy You Deserve
It isn't merely our royal genealogy that makes us who we are. After all, we share most of it with millions of people. What is unique is our personal reaction to such knowledge and how our relationship with it evolves as we assimilate that expanded awareness. Genealogy affects the psyche with historical and imaginal, both known and unknown elements. It stimulates the imaginal faculty and can induce strong identifications, projections, and even possessions. It comes with strong spiritual and mythic overtones from the elder god-kings, the royal Davidic line, the family of Jesus, the Merovingians, Gnostics, and crusading Templars. Internal conflict may arise when loyalties are torn between opposing forces, each of which are ancestral lines. In fact, the symbolic treasure of genealogy is that it encodes the entire transformational process from the war of opposites to the royal marriage and graphically shows how intimately it is connected to our very existence through those who gave us faces. This knowledge, moreso than a pedigree on paper, is the treasure hard to attain that nourishes and sustains us in our intergenerational Being. This is, in fact, The Grail.
It isn't merely our royal genealogy that makes us who we are. After all, we share most of it with millions of people. What is unique is our personal reaction to such knowledge and how our relationship with it evolves as we assimilate that expanded awareness. Genealogy affects the psyche with historical and imaginal, both known and unknown elements. It stimulates the imaginal faculty and can induce strong identifications, projections, and even possessions. It comes with strong spiritual and mythic overtones from the elder god-kings, the royal Davidic line, the family of Jesus, the Merovingians, Gnostics, and crusading Templars. Internal conflict may arise when loyalties are torn between opposing forces, each of which are ancestral lines. In fact, the symbolic treasure of genealogy is that it encodes the entire transformational process from the war of opposites to the royal marriage and graphically shows how intimately it is connected to our very existence through those who gave us faces. This knowledge, moreso than a pedigree on paper, is the treasure hard to attain that nourishes and sustains us in our intergenerational Being. This is, in fact, The Grail.
Christopher Kisiak
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gyaban_fr/with/7898768194/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gyaban_fr/with/7898768194/
HOW DID YOU EVER GET HERE?
10,000 Paths to the Passed
Each of our ancestors is a gate to our Inner Sanctum, to our soul. Genealogy is the relational mode of understanding. The tale of our genesis is our prima materia and our ultima materia, the unknown and self-knowledge.
In the beginning everything is chaotic, fluid, co-mingled, and undifferentiated. Its alchemical symbol is a 3-headed serpent or dragon, of Sulpher, Mercury, and Salt. This represents the dance of Sun and Moon, King and Queen, the archetypal superpatterns of male and female, and their material offspring. We spring from the soul and remain the child of our ancestors.
In every adult there lurks a child--an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole. -C. G. Jung CW 17: 286
First matter gives universe its properties. It organizes into the Elements, (fire, water, air, and earth), which are the building blocks of words, thought-ideas or archetypes. It is liminal, between manifest and unmanifest. It is the spiritualized essence or soul of substance: identity, form, and function oscillating between creation and destruction.
We must go a bit deeper and realize that with the instinct of creation is always connected a destructive something; the creation in its own essence is also destructive. You see that quite clearly in the moment when you check the creative impulse; nothing is more poisonous to the nervous system than a disregarded or checked creative impulse. It even destroys people's organic health. It is dangerous because there is that extraordinary destructive quality in the creative thing. Just because it is the deepest instinct, the deeper power in man, a power which is beyond conscious control, and because it is on the other side the function which creates the greatest value, it is most dangerous to interfere with it.
~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 654.
The main difficulty here is that the eternal ideas have been dragged down from their "supracelestial place" into the biological sphere, and this is somewhat confusing for the trained philosopher and may even come to him as a shock. (Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 559-560).
"The transformation of Mercurius, as prima materia, in the heated, sealed vessel is comparable to cooking the basic instinctive drives in their own affect until their essential fantasy content becomes conscious."
“Instead of arguing with the drives which carry us away, we prefer to cook them and . ask then what they want. . . . That can be discovered by active imagination, or through experimenting in reality, but always with the introverted attitude of observing objectively what the drive really wants.” (Marie von Franz, Alchemy, p. 129)
It is often suggested the prima materia is found in "feces" or lead which is alchemical code for matter or the physical body and what gets shoved down into the unconscious. The first matter is cyclic, contains all the elements, and is the source of the Philosopher's Stone -- the egg or light of Nature; Anima Mundi or Soul of the World.
The alchemical motto Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultuum Lapidem means “Visit the innermost parts of the earth; by setting things right (‘rectifying’), you will find the hidden Stone.”
Jung more or less identified the unconscious with the autonomic nervous system. Such sympathetic identification is integral, interiorized or internalized knowing instead of conceptual knowing: unmediated, direct perception by the body and the emotions and the intellect -- the soul. Emotions are part of the reasoning process itself -- bodily intelligence.
This psychophysical mimesis, or power of imitation, is direct experience by total submergence of the unconscious tendencies of the ancestors. So, we can visit the interior of our own earth, our physical body for the treasure of embedded ancestral memories it has hidden for good or ill.
Disorientation & Suffering.
Like any Great Work, Jung suggests that the opus consists of three parts: insight, endurance, and action. Psychology is needed only in the first part, but in the second and third parts moral strength plays the predominant role.
Working through the invisible loyalties of the family system is just the beginning of our journey back through time, the unconscious, and our genetic history. Epigenetics demonstrates that we inherit our parents' trauma and family secrets. Children of survivors may be born less able to metabolize stress, more susceptible to PTSD, a vulnerability expressed in their molecules, neurons, cells, and genes.
Vicarious Traumatization Burden
Traumas are events that induce intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Dysregulation induced by that trauma becomes a body’s default state in PTSD. Trigger a person with PTSD, and the heart pounds faster, startle reflex is exaggerated, we sweat and the mind races. The amygdala, which detects threats and releases the emotions associated with memories, whirs in overdrive. Meanwhile, hormones and neurotransmitters don’t always flow as they should, leaving the immune system underregulated.
The result can be the kind of over-inflammation associated with chronic disease, including arthritis, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Moreover, agitated nervous systems release adrenaline and catecholamines, both involved in the fight or flight response, unleashing a cascade of events that reinforces the effects of traumatic memories on the brain. This may partially explain why intrusive memories and flashbacks plague people with PTSD. Also, extreme stress and PTSD shorten telomeres—the DNA caps at the end of a chromosome that govern the pace of aging.
Genes & Memes
The dragon's egg of the primordial unconscious or archetypal container signifies the eternal cycle of life, primordial unconsciousness, the unity of opposing forces. Jung said there is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites.
To be whole is to be full of contradictions. The unity never becomes apparent because the opposites within us operate and mingle in various ways and it is their interaction that makes the whole man. The complete human being, the hermaphrodite, is never visible. He is indescribable, always a mystical experience. (Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung - Ostrowski,)
So, the ultima materia means the total recapitulation of the species evolution beginning with conception moved by telos. Julian Huxley argued that evolution moved to the psychosocial realm and DNA was replaced by memory and language inside minds that could understand it, giving evolution a purpose.
The brain is the Tree of Life. If our reptilian brain and brain stem is our internal Tree of Life, then the higher brain and limbic system (with the amygdala) is our Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil. Wisdom of the divine becomes wisdom of the self -- the seed of cosmic consciousness and Immortal Mind. In Hermetic doctrine, a circular relationship exists between mankind and the divine. The cosmos mirrors mankind's need for self-knowledge through recognition.
Serpent's Breath
The serpent in that Tree is its numinous voice, with its active dynamic kundalini -- the Serpent Power, the Secret Fire, the life force or basic animating principle -- the quintessence of matter. Never calling it evil, Genesis 3:1 says, "Now the Serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."
Our serpentine lines of ancestral descent recursively bite their own tails in the primordial archetype of the Orobouros. “"All human things are a circle” was inscribed on the temple at Athens.
The Hermetic "Holy Grail" was a circular crater or bowl of regeneration described in the fourth treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum. It was a font of immersion symbolizing the constant decay and renewal of all things, present in all Nature. The genealogical Holy Grail is found in royal lines that include the Arthurian legends then trace back to roots in various gods and goddesses.
For the gods, time is primordial and unstructured; for mankind it is historical and linear. In the unconscious if there is any notion of time at all, it is circular, arranging events so they return eternally and can be re-entered through myth, symbol, and ritual with no distinction between self and environment.
Grail symbolism encompasses the womb that always makes children, the horn and cup that serve drink, and the cauldron and bowl that give food. The quest for the Grail comes from these primal facts of life.
The holy bowl -- the cranium, where heaven meets earth -- is where individual souls mix with universal mind in a metaphor of immersive experience, The immersive baptism of wisdom or gnosis means 'living water' that springs up in creativity and illumination -- "the drink of the soul by the sweet stream of wisdom (Sophia)."
What Are They Remembering For Us?
Our history is our collective transgenerational memory. No people can successfully live outside of their memory. Jung tells us that, "Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force." (MDR, Page 277). The past plays one of the most critical roles in Western civilization. but it is so embedded, so obvious that it becomes invisible. The past remains with us as experiences change sperm and eggs.
Genes aren't the cause of most disease; the cause of most disease alters genetic expression. Epigenetics is revealing the biological transmission of molecular memory -- that we can pass down altered responses, emotional trauma, agitated nervous systems, under-regulated immune systems, chronic over-inflammation, and somatic disorders.
Biological Legacy
Ancestral behavior can also mutate single genes. Everybody has a different level of tolerance for alcohol, but some people act very strangely, exhibiting reckless, impulsive, violent, or even dangerous behavior on alcohol. Finnish researchers found that a fairly common mutation in serotonin 2B receptor gene can render some prone to impulsive behavior by nature, sober or under the influence of alcohol. They struggle with self-control or mood disorders.
“One of our main findings was that the HTR2B Q20* predicted alcohol-related risk-behaviors. The HTR2B Q20* carriers demonstrated aggressive out-bursts, got into fights and behaved in an impulsive manner under the influence of alcohol. They were also arrested for driving while under the influence of alcohol more often than the controls."
“The HTR2B Q20* carriers were not alcoholics per se, as measured by average alcohol consumption, and were not diagnosed as alcoholics, but they had a tendency to lose behavioral control while under the influence of alcohol.”
http://www.sciencealert.com/common-genetic-mutation-linked-to-reckless-drunken-behaviour?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Website&utm_campaign=InArticleReadMore
All cells have a genetic code with information to produce certain proteins to carry out vital processes. Chemical switches can turn genes on or off, or crank them up or down, so the cells know which proteins to produce and in what quantities. These switches or epigenetic tags are altered by environment, bad habits, and experience, passed on to their offspring, and their offspring's offspring.
Sperm and eggs carry genetic memories of parents' health well before conception. Even what grandparents ate and the father's behavior long before conception can influence the child's health in a range from mood disorders to mental illness. They inherit parents' psychic burdens, anxiety, low impulse control. Older people can unconsciously externalizes their traumatized self onto a developing child’s personality. The physical transmission of the horrors of the past is “embodied history.”
Transgenerational trauma is transferred from the first generation of trauma survivors to the second and further generations of offspring of the survivors by complex post-traumatic stress disorder mechanisms. Epigenetics changes the way instructions in the genetic code were translated and carried out by the body.
We are more than our transgenerational wounds. Our essence transcends our identification with history. In healing we are not alone, we trust a path to greater freedom, and feel our relationship to the suffering of our family lineage. We feel lighter when we release the burdens of our own trauma or family history. We can make wider choices and expand our sense of belonging in the world.
The Spent Breath of Millions
We all carry and relive the primordial psyche which is reliving the soul of our ancestors. They may be gone, but primordial psyche remains alive within us, and available for interaction. Some live closer to it than others, but we all have creative, rational, and intuitive faculties. These are rooted in this primordial ground, an unalterable level of creative imagination, primordial unity, and instinctive participation mystique. As Jung says, "But in these days we live by our brains alone and ignore the very definite laws of our body and the instinctive world." (Letters Vol. II, Page 567)
Perhaps the ancestors inform us in their own way. Intuition is information that is received by the mind. But for that information to be useful, it must be analyzed and purposefully acted upon. When integrated we act on those intuitive impulses with wise judgment and confidence. Creative ideas then take shape in manifest form.
Primordial Psyche
Our genealogical lines may all look like good little soldiers lined up in neat succession. But they also have complex, nonlinear and cyclic dimensions among the patterns we can discern. This is the realm of the imaginal -- primordial images or instinctual energy which nevertheless have objective effects.
We consciously and unconsciously mourn the loss of the sacred in our lives to the abyss of evolution and our primordial relationship with Mother Earth. We've forgotten our connection to the dark animal orobouric Great Mother. Mother Nature may be the oldest motif but it is the underlying pattern of symbol-formation that is inherited.
Archetypes & Instincts
That something missing in the lives of so many people isn't found in another's form, it's found in the dark of the unconscious. In Jungian thought, when we search for our "other half" and perhaps for our ancestors, too, we actually seek the integration of the elements of the unconscious psyche. “It is always important to have something to bring into a relationship, and solitude is often the means by which you acquire it” (Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 610, Letters Vol. II.)
As Jung notes, "Whether he understands them or not, man must remain conscious of the world of the archetypes, because in it he is still a part of nature and is connected to his own roots." (Symbols of Transformation, Page 23).
If I speak of the collective unconscious I don't assume it as a principle, I only give a name to the totality of observable facts, i.e., archetypes. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 567
The main difficulty here is that the eternal ideas have been dragged down from their "supracelestial place" into the biological sphere, and this is somewhat confusing for the trained philosopher and may even come to him as a shock. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 559-560
The Platonic "Idea" is in this case no longer intellectual but a psychic, instinctual pattern. Instinctual patterns can be found in human beings too. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 559-560
"Self-reflection, or - what comes to the same thing - the urge to individuation, gathers together what is scattered and multifarious and exalts it to the original of the One, the Primordial Man. In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious, the sources of conflict are dried up." ("Transformation Symbolism in the Mass", CW 11, para. 401).
Inherent Nature of Man
Jung thought the "primordial images" are those expressed in the earliest life-history of the human species. They grow out of the rudimentary nature of the psyche in its pre-conscious form. These basic layers of the psyche spontaneously recur in modern psychic phenomena in ever-new forms that vary around certain deeply rooted motifs at the base of consciousness. The generic structural nature of the psyche is unrestricted to collective or group phenomena.
Water is the cosmogonic element by which the self sinks into involuntary immersion in the dimensional abysses. Our pre-historical ancestors have sunk in the Atlantis of the waters of the unconscious. This may be more than symbolic as we now know humanity has gone through a few local and global catastrophic events.
Supervolcanoes, repeated glaciation, meteor, and comet falls, massive sea-rise, and climate change are only preserved in myth and legend, leading to speculation that we have a species-wide amnesia. We have only recently found that our genome contains contributions from at least three other species -- Neanderthal, Denisovan, and another as-yet-unknown hominid.
Life is a thread interwoven with hidden archetypes which remain entangled in our eternal present. We're already in our phenomenological graves. If we can embrace the ancient soul of our ancestors soulfully and creatively, we may engage and fall in love with the sacred again. Wisdom is recognizing patterns in life.
In our own genealogy, we begin to reveal a pattern in which we can locate a felt sense of understanding, a resonance that speaks to us within a myth or traces the path of a wounding through therapy. We can followed the thread of understanding using dreamwork, ritual, or other depth psychological methods, or experience the numinous on some unalterable level that changes us forever.
Genealogy can be our approach and return to the sacred. To understand the living we commune with the dead. We approach the phenomena of the psyche as we do the phenomena of nature. We've unwittingly buried with our ancestors any symbolic or revelatory meaning that would otherwise push its way through from the unconscious.
Modern life has short-circuited our connection with the primeval unconscious resulting in an intolerable rift -- psychic dissociation. This division separates us from the sacred, limiting our capacity to navigate divine corridors of the numinous, relegating us to lives of estrangement, isolation, and alienation.
Potentiality of Meaning
Genealogy makes us think about the nature of time and space, our own deepest nature, and cosmos -- and our relationship to it. Entering our genealogy with a sensitivity to the phenomena that might arise means we are more attuned, more likely to notice when they arise within us and what they call forth.
Genealogy becomes our altar to the sacred -- to the Great
Mystery that surrounds ideas of primordial mind, ancestral and shamanic wisdom, visionary transpersonal experiences, and other numinosum. As we become more keenly attuned to the psychophysical sensations of arising emotions, we become more keenly attuned to our ancestry, wholeness, and deep history. At the informational level, our bones are their bones, our nerve pathways are their nerves, our blood is their blood.
Information Storage & Retrieval
Akash and the Akashic Records have been linked to primordial informational fields. Even Tesla says, “All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena.” (Man’s Greatest Achievement, 1907)
Radical new proposals from physics are arising for vectors of information. Ervin Laszlo has linked it with psi phenomena and an integral theory recognizing the self-organizing interconnection of all things. He bootstraps from the Sanskrit, calling non-local interaction the Akasha Paradigm -- an entangled self-actualizing cosmos not limited to the here and now. We can connect and feel into each other. Laszlo shows the cosmos of the Akasha to be a self-actualizing, self-organizing whole. Each part is in coherence with all others and all parts together create the conditions for the emergence of life and consciousness. (2007; 2014).
http://manifestdestinytriforce.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-akashic-records-what-are-they-do.html
Igor V. Limar (2012) proposes linking synchronicity, correlated mental processes, and quantum entanglement. Mental processes of two different persons correlate not just when the subjects are located at a distance from each other, but also when both persons are alternately (and sequentially, one after the other) located in the same point of space. In this case, there is a time gap between manifestation of mental process in one person and manifestation of mental process in the other person.
NeuroQuantology, Sept. 2012, Vol. 10, Issue 3, Page 489-491.
"A Version of Jung’s Synchronicity in the Event of Correlation of Mental Processes in the Past and the Future: Possible Role of Quantum Entanglement in Quantum Vacuum"
http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/477/535
Approaching the Ancestors
We begin our genealogy knowing there is an art of approaching. We may yearn for that which we cannot name; we may find unspeakable secrets. Jung spoke of it poetically, "Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead. Reflect in good heart upon evil, this is the way to the ascent. But before the ascent, everything is night and Hell." (Liber Novus, Page 244).
When you step into your own Hell, never think that you come like one suffering in beauty; or as a proud pariah, but you come like a stupid and curious fool and gaze in wonder at the scraps that have fallen from your table. (Liber Novus, Page 262).
But the deepest Hell is when you realize that Hell is also no Hell, but a cheerful Heaven, not a Heaven in itself, but in this respect a Heaven, and in that respect a Hell. (Liber Novus, Page 244).
Our approach is framed with emotionally dependent perspectives, psychophysical reactions, and perceptual filters.
We become absorbed by the emotions we are feeling. Shifts in neurohormone levels affect our consciousness. They may manifest as interference patterns, psychosomatics or what might be called soma-signficance. Sometimes we "carry on" the maladies of our parents or grandparents within ourselves long after their passing. More than genetic or epigenetic inheritance, perhaps that is one way of keeping them with us.
Soma-Significance
Our bodies are simply connected with an intuitive sense of meaning, in all its implications and possibilities. Our structure encodes the recent and deep past. The physical and its significance are in no way separate but two aspects of a non-dual reality. So, some arising emotions may 'belong' to us while others arise from an empathic identification with our ancestors, or even fusions of their energies. They may appear in the pre-sensory, sensory elements and images in our dreams.
Proprioception is how we perceive ourselves physically -- our own individual orientation, moment to moment. It is how we grasp or sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.
Sensory information contributes to the sense of position of self and movement.
Expressing emotions amplifies them. So we can also unlock significance by moving intuitively, by "letting go," and seeing how that feels and what it brings up. That movement itself is a primal image that communicates information not only to our senses but our entire being. It helps us sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium.
Contemplation of our family tree provokes reflection on our destiny. We look to the beginning to reveal the end, since like a hologram or fractal each part reveals the whole. The initial condition is archetypal. This alchemy of multigenerational marriage bridges has come down to us in the present -- as our unique embodied being. Jung cautions that, "Individuals who believe they are masters of their fate are as a rule the slaves of destiny." (Letters Vol. II, P. 520-523)
Connection to Source is the basis of creation, which manifests something unique from formless nothing. In our mundane existence we can lose sight of the wonder of life. Genealogy manifests the marriage of matter and psyche. Our family tree is a forest doubling in numbers each generation we go back.
Those who have passed are often passed over. Recognizing them, we recognize the reality of the psyche. We contain multitudes. By the medieval period, they number in the thousands, and tens and hundreds of thousands. They outnumber themselves, leading to the phenomenon of 'pedigree collapse,' when ancestors repeat in multiple lines of our descent. Collectively, they are nevertheless our particular way of descending into the cosmos and life and carrying it forward.
Increasing knowledge of self can come by knowing the Others within and renewing ruptured relationships. We can draw an analogy between the ascending and descending pathways of our psychobiology and genealogy. Emotions have bodily effects.
"Threshold events" occur when information that was formerly profoundly unconscious arises within our somatic, emotional, mental, or spiritual perceptions. Once we can locate sensations in the body, we can get a metaphor for what that experience is "like," engaging our imaginal faculty.
Multiple streams of consciousness can participate in one perspective that frees us of our amnesia. Somato-sensory pathways are information channels. The somatosensory system is the part of the sensory system concerned with the conscious perception of touch, pressure, pain, temperature, position, movement, and vibration, which arise from the muscles, joints, skin, and fascia. Self-organizing systems of mind-body communication across all levels from the cellular-genetic to the psychosocial and behavioral affect our psychobiology and natural or spontaneous healing.
It isn't about belief but directing our awareness to a different transderivational level of the system. Richness of interactions allows systems as a whole to undergo spontaneous self-organization and reorganization at all levels. We emphasize the need to deal with illness at formative levels, i.e., at the organism's initial conditions -- perinatal states, as suggested by Grof, Tart, and Mindell. At subtle levels outer structure is only a passing reflection of this continuing deep inner evolution.
An incoming communication we cannot make any sense of whatsoever is an integral part of processing language, and of attaching meaning to communication. How we ask the question determines the information we get. For example, we can create association rather than dissociation.
One approach is to drop into the body and get a sensation for where a feeling is, following it around, if necessary. Sensory responses are evoked potentials. When we detect a response we have a place to begin noticing, remembering, and processing. At the threshold level we have a 50-50 chance of detecting our response as attention or distraction. We may feel it weakly or even wonder if we felt it at all. This way we can reactivate pretty much any feeling we've ever had or that lives in us with a new level of sensation and connection in the present. We become aware of issues by their somatic, energetic, and emotional components.
"Here, here's where we live
Here is a sea, my family
We'll always be young as we've ever been
Death will not part us again nearer to heaven than
10,000 ancestors who dream of me
Well I hear you dreaming of me
Yeah sometimes, dream of me!"
The Albatross, (Rickie Lee Jones/Leo Kottke/John Leftwich)
Exploring the unconscious through genealogy or psychogenealogy is a healing process, an uplifting engagement that is foundational to self-realization. We are no longer relegated to a single contemporary place and time. The ancestors remained an important part of daily life not so long ago, and remain so for many indigenous societies.
We Are Highly Improbable
Scientists have calculated that each unique individual is highly improbable -- apparently a rather miraculous 400 trillion to one chance. The odds of us existing, 1:400 trillion, are virtually zero. Conversely, by the 40th generation we have over a trillion ancestors. We have to consider the odds of our parents meeting relative to the number of people on Earth. Then consider the odds of contact leading further in competition with all the others we meet.
The probability dwindles of a long-term relationship and reproduction, the right sperm and egg combining, and finally the probabilities of each of our trillion+ ancestors successfully mating with all the variables of genetics that make up the chain of those all those ancestors -- the Tree of Life of perfect eternal fruits. Jung notes obviously that, "Living matter is a mystery which is beyond our understanding, if only for the reason that we ourselves consist of living matter."
You are a virtual miracle, which is simply an event so improbable it is unlikely to occur. So each life is unique and precious to the nth degree as the result of the cumulative process of increasing information. Even Jung might be challenged to call it a fortuitous series of synchronicities. We are an emergent phenomenon. There are mere chance occurrences as well as synchronicity. So, another model is self-organizing chaos in multiple systems.
Field, Form & Fate
Self-organization is the structure of creation -- a process where pattern emerges at the global (collective) level through interactions among the components of the system at the individual level. These interactions explicitly specify the global pattern. We are self-similar to our predecessors and all their reiterations. In the vernacular of chaos theory, we are “strange attractors” or patterns of order within chaos, which never exactly repeat themselves. An observer can never predict exactly what will happen, yet we display a quality of orderliness which hints at underlying “laws not yet discovered.”
As times change so do our metaphors, psychological and otherwise. Self-organization, chaos, and complexity are the basis of the new biology, but it strains the imagination to consider it operating transgenerationally. We might consider the overall effect as a transgenerational field effect -- a relationship of archetypal fields within fields. Memories are accumulating affecting the soul.
Yet here we are, unpredictable though it may be. Souls extend from other souls. Order emerges at the edge of chaos and we are that leading edge of our descent. Our life somehow dances into being. And this is precisely the Mystery of our being, formed by historical, psychosocial, and genetic forces. We are active psychophysical elements of the entire creation. Information and spiritual knowledge is accumulating if we know how to listen deeply with a close attunement to our ancestral and generational themes.
Generational Archetypes
Everything we do starts with feeling and feeling starts in the family. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe created the Strauss-Howe generational theory. It identifies a recurring generational cycle in the last five centuries of Anglo-American history. It can be explained by four generational archetypes that repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern every 80-100 years. This is the unfixed length of a long human life the ancients called a “saeculum," which can be divided into four "seasons" of approximately 22 years each; these seasons represent youth, rising adulthood, midlife, and elderhood.
Basically, this sociological generational theory describes how the era a person was born into affects the development of their view of the world. Our value systems are shaped in the first decade or so of our lives, by our families, our friends, our communities, significant events and the general era in which we are born.
All cultures are shared unconscious fantasies about how to live life. Traditional cultures viewed time as cyclical, much as the waxing and waning of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun, the birth and death of living creatures, the planting and harvesting of crops, and the seasons of the year. The idea of sacred time as an eternal round and the symbol of the ring or wheel are cross-cultural symbols. There is a repeating cycle in historical generational values. Each 20-year long generation faces similar issues and experiences.
http://www.tomorrowtoday.uk.com/articles/article001_intro_gens.htm
Beyond the modern pop nomenclature of Greatest Generation, Boomers, and Gens X, Y, Millennials, and Post-Millennials ("Homeland Generation"), their 1997 book The Fourth Turning, expands the theory focusing on a pulsating fourfold cycle of generational types and recurring mood eras in American history. Graeme Codrington summarizes the repeating cycle.
Social Cycle Theory
[Each] 80 year period of human history, we start with a crisis period, when society has to stop and deal with an issue that actually changes institutions and structures. Children born during such a time grow up to be like the Silent generation of today. This is followed by an outer directed and driven period of rebuilding, with grand visions and big dreams, giving rise to a Boomer-like generation. This idealistic world cannot be sustained, however, and a period of disillusionment and breaking down follows, with society being reconfigured and adjusted. The children of this era grow up to be like Generation X is today. This era is followed by an inner-directed era, where leaders, institutions and society itself focuses on consolidating and building new foundations, rebuilding institutions and protecting the young. This era gives rise to the type of people who are from the GI generation and the Millennial generation today. Finally, this inner-directed focus cannot be maintained, and a crisis occurs, sparking a new cycle.
If this is correct, then generational theorists are expecting a major crisis to hit global society in the next few years. This is something that will cause society to stop, reconsider and reconstitute itself. http://www.tomorrowtoday.uk.com/articles/article001_intro_gens.htm
While they focus on the history of the United States, including the Colonial era and British antecedents, they also find similar generational trends around the globe from the late Medieval period. They have defined generational archetypes in cohort groups that express the zeitgeist of their times. While such attributions are arguable they can provide a touchstone for certain eras and their collective culture.
http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/generational-archetypes.html
They group four generations into a series of 80-year cyclic 'turnings' that include an initial 'high', followed by 'awakening,' unraveling,' and 'crisis.' Their archetypes include 'prophet,' 'nomad,' 'hero,' and 'artist' generations. We can think of such themes as collective dreams. Repeating cycles are a common theme for both individuals and whole generations.
As is the generation of leaves, so to of men:
At one time the wind shakes the leaves to the ground
but then the flourishing woods
Gives birth, and the season of spring comes
into existence;
So it is with the generations of men, which
alternately come forth and pass away.
– Homer, The Illiad, Book Six
We might benefit from the generational method in formulating our own Big Picture, as well as broad-stroke insights for our own generation within the pattern. The theory contends that each new generation entering a specific lifestage will redefine that lifestage and change it either subtly or dramatically. As generations clash there is a collision of values, expectations, ambitions, attitudes and behaviors -- the generation gap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory
Self-Generating Creativity
Prima materia is the "beginning of all," "the abyss," the primary chaotic earth, or principle of existence in general. In his 1941 ETH lecture, Jung describes how many philosophers have sought information about the prima materia from inhabitants of Hades, or in the "habitation of souls." This is the realm of psychic dark matter, what is hidden from view.
This "land of the dead" is also known as "the egg," "Adam's Earth," "Mercurial serpent," "winged dragon," and the "entrance to the West,” "the root of itself," the dark sky of night, the non-created, or eternity. Or, as Jung states, in Liber Novus, "Hell is when the depths come to you with all that you no longer are or are not yet capable of." (Page 244).
Prima materia is also called a neglected, rejected, and abandoned "orphan." The original "chaos" or "sea" constitutes all matter. Such self-organizing complexity is the beginning and end of transformation and renewal. This is the creative process Jung spoke about.
…a creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, and in elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work by giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life (CW 15, P. 82)
Edinger (1978) compares the problem of discovering the prima materia to the problem of finding what to work on in psychotherapy. He gives some hints:
(1) It is ubiquitous, to be found everywhere, before the eyes of all. This means that psychotherapeutic material likewise is everywhere, in all the ordinary, everyday occurrences of life. Moods and petty personal reactions of all kinds are suitable matter to be worked on by the therapeutic process.
(2) Although of great inward value, the primal materia is vile in outer appearance and therefore despised, rejected or thrown on the dung heap. The prima materia is treated like the suffering servant in Isaiah. Psychologically, this means that the primal materia is found in the shadow, that part of the personality which is considered most despicable. Those aspects of ourselves most painful and most humiliating are the very ones to be brought forward and worked on.
(3) It appears as multiplicity, "has as many names as there are things," but at the same time is one. This feature corresponds to the fact that initially psychotherapy makes one aware of his/her fragmented, disjointed condition. Very gradually these warring fragments are discovered to be differing aspects of ones underlying unity. It is as though one sees the fingers of a hand touching a table at first only in two dimensions, as separate unconnected fingers. With three-dimensional vision, the fingers are seen as part of a larger unity, the hand.
(4) The prima materia is undifferentiated, without definite boundaries, limits or form. This corresponds to a certain experience of the unconscious which exposes the ego to the infinite. ...It may evoke the terror of dissolution or the awe of eternity. It provides a glimpse of the pleroma. ...the chaos prior to the operation of the World-creating Logos. It is the fear of the boundless that often leads one to be content with the ego-limits he has rather than risk falling into the infinite by attempting to enlarge them.
The different operations to transform the prima materia follow as the natural consequences of finding the material to work on. The imagery associated with these operations is profuse and draws from ancestors (genetic memory), myth, religion and folklore. The symbols for all these imagery-systems comes from the collective unconscious.
Dying to be Heard
Jung implies we cannot get rid of the unconscious and its intuitions, which are rooted in our instinctual, reflexive, and parasympathic systems. But we can go from being 'herd' to being heard. We can engage in intentional multisensory dialogue with our depths. It arises from the primordial ground of the subquantal level of every quantum particle of our being. Jung likened Hades to a black hole without an outlet.
When we enter our genealogy we enter the realm of the dead, so we must find a way to reconcile that metaphor and our surrender to the process. Jung cautions, "Under certain conditions living people can descend into Hades, but it does not agree with them. One must really be dead to go there, for it is the dark land where the dead are imprisoned; and this is a place from which this marvellous substance comes." (ETH, Pages 215-223.)
In Arcadia, the ancients sought out the Necromanteion or "Oracle of Death" where they communed with their dead ancestors in a psychoactive ritual. Though there were many oracles of the dead, the Necromanteion of Ephyra was the most important. Herodotus recounts that Periander, sent emissaries in the 6th century BC to ask questions of his dead wife, Melissa. In his nekyia, Odysseus enters Hades through the Necromanteion.
We can listen to the voice that has no words --the voice of the silence. We're all connected via the interactive sea of energy that connects us to everyone and everything in our world. It seems Hades presides over our descents and perhaps our descendancy. According to Jung, "To journey to Hell means to become Hell oneself. It is all frightfully muddled and interwoven." (Liber Novus, Page 240.)
Caves always had their own gods. The underworld with its narrow jagged gaps is essential to many spiritual worldviews. We can imagine that a notion of hell arose early in mankind's emerging consciousness somewhere between the darkness of imagination and physical mazes of deep caverns that seem like uterine spaces or living, breathing internal cavities that snake for miles. Caves -- the original temples -- were worshipped and feared as the center of the earth with miles of crumbling tunnels and steep precipitous drop offs multiple-stories deep.
Mankind has journeyed deep into them and used these dark and treacherous labyrinths that tortured and twisting passages with seemingly bottomless pits, to live, to hide, to explore, and to worship with pilgrimage, art, and rituals. But all who descend into the underworld do so at their own risk. Initiatory passageways and vertical shafts have dangerous hand and footholds etched in lava and ice, and studded with magical curtains, spires, crystals and inscriptions.
In some sense, hell was our ancient dwelling place to which we returned upon death -- a metaphorical regression to the primal epoch. With its flickering fires, smoky caverns, and hidden dangers the cave gave rise to mythic and archetypal recollections and dreams of ancestral spirits. The dreamworld became a stone cold abyss and the primordial underworld was born.
The first proto-images appeared in cave art. Men and women impulsively desired to participate in the potential transforming powers of the "insides." Hades, the devouring one, could be contacted in the dark cavern of fathomless psychic force. The dismal labyrinthine complexity gave rise to the original trope. The soul is within, below, buried deep in self as within earth itself. This is the archetypal sleepworld of Hypnos and Thanatos.
If we accept that death is not the enemy but a doorway we can rest naturally in what is. The great invitation is to accept death. Lao Tzu invites us to give up the fight against death so existence is revealed as sublime relaxation. Each moment becomes a surrender, one of ‘touch and let go.’ We must not hide, but rather be open to all aspects of being. In sublime relaxation, shadow issues can emerge, some even hidden by our nondual language and cliches. All is grist for death’s mill.
In archetypal psychology, soul remains close to death -- disease, disorder, collapse. We die to the literal and concrete world of the senses for the sake of soul. Hillman imagined Hades right alongside daily life, the invisible made visible in psychic events, soul process, and revelatory meaning. It is the gaps between breaths. The dreamworld is also the underworld of Hades. From Hades perspective we are our images. By "letting be," we can allow dream images to speak for themselves, rather than forcing them toward interpretations for mundane life.
The underworld is the primal void -- the prima materia. Underworld is psyche. It is not a place but a hidden domain of liminal experience -- a dimension not available in itself. Our concern with Hades here regarding our ancestors is the spontaneous image-making of the soul. The 'ground' is a fathomless depth.
We experience dread and resistance when we delve too deeply inside ourselves -- this is the devouring darkness of death and desolation before rebirth. Death is at the heart of alchemy. We can understand the "death experience" metaphorically and psychologically, but we still must all confront it with naked awareness without the symbols and images born of nature's own workings.
Some families never forget who they are, while others struggle with a few fragments that don't seem to fit together. Either way it's a puzzle with some missing or damaged pieces. We must keep the big picture in mind to understand the smaller parts. We all have the ability to recognize and seize the deep sense of mystery that lives in our own lives.
Undoubtedly, there is a sacred dimension to the genealogical process, more so when we do the work ourselves. In our first attempts we cross the threshold of initiation. Jung suggests, "But if you know what the dead demand, temptation will become the wellspring of your best work, indeed of the work of salvation." (Liber Novus, Page 278, Footnote 188.)
"From the middle of life, only he who is willing to die with life remains living. Since what takes place in the secret hour of life's midday is the reversal of the parabola, the birth of death ..." ~Carl Jung; Soul and death, CW 8, §800.
History, Memories, Stories
With genealogy we dig below the basement of our personal unconscious to find what lies below that still haunts or calls for us. What has been buried in the past yet is not gone nor dormant because it is part of the our psychophysical being. Our adaptive survival styles can distort identity in adult life.
To reclaim our ancestral soul we suffer through the anguish of the unknown as well as the burdens of what we do find from which we wished to protect ourselves. There is shock trauma and developmental trauma. We find things that are great and things that are tragic. Genealogy gives and it takes.
The Trail That Never Ends
Such discoveries have been popularized by media: “Finding Your Roots”‘, "Who Do You Think You Are", “Roots of Faith Ancestry”, "Genealogy Roadshow", and others. Genealogy is touted as the second biggest hobby in America. People want to reconnect with their ancestral homeland to know where and how they lived. http://b.treelines.com/in-defense-of-genealogy-as-a-hobby/
Finding Yourself
Many feel compelled to take on the project. Online genealogy sites are some of the most popular on the web. It's a thrill extending the family heritage back a few more generations or discovering that your family is related to royalty, or allegedly to the legends of history. The progenitor of the clan lies at the root of the male line.
Bi-Lateral Descent
Our own bi-lateral descent includes both of our parents. But each female in our direct descent has her own bi-lateral lines, as well. We honor not only our paternal surname (patrilineal descent), but all those grandmothers whose families keep our lines invigorated with new blood.
New surnames enter the tree with each wife. These are not easy lines to follow, retrieve, or draw without the aid of computers. Maiden names often present brick walls difficult to push beyond. Pedigrees show both family-as-child and their families-as-parent.
Algorithm Genealogy
Rather than mere family trees, massive genealogical sites with billions of records have been likened to Amazonian forests of family connections of blood ties and marriage bridges. Genealogists who explore the family tree information, weeding out false or duplicate information, call themselves "forest rangers." When genealogies were digitally archived it became possible for algorithms to find lines of descent that included both male and female progenitors.
Thus, genealogy reclaimed the realm of the Mothers -- a return of the Feminine to genealogy where female lines are equally valued. Algorithm genealogy finds paths of mixed fathers and mothers to particular ancestors that might not otherwise be discernible. This is particularly so for ancient and legendary ancestors. Usually, the term “Descents from Antiquity” refers to modern efforts to find plausible lines of descent. However, it can also include traditional descents that have varying degrees of reliability.
Matrilineal descent is called a "mother line". An individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as her or his mother. The matriline of historical nobility was also called her or his enatic or uterine ancestry (corresponding to the patrilineal "agnatic" ancestry).
Family Relationships
Algorithms can find all family relationships. Data structure represents a genealogy or genealogies as a stand-alone date structure. Genealogy is considered as a finite, connected graph that enables storage of the minimum of family relationships and recognition of them and others like 'ancestor-descendant', 'sibs', 'twins', 'cousins', 'uncle/aunt-nephew/niece' or 'spouses'. Algorithms for genealogy retrieval are classified as vertical, lateral and parallel. In certain combinations, vertical and lateral algorithms become capable of finding any relatives, no matter if they are in a direct 'ancestor-descendant' relationship or if they have only the same ancestor(s). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8366693
Like miners for meaning we tunnel through our history encountering riches and danger below. But genealogy also has its own myths. As we proceed, we dig deeper into our multigenerational study. Like ancient navigators, we have to course correct along the way for errors, forgeries, and fictitious ancestors. Genealogy is not a mash-up of metaphysical percepts, concepts, and pareidolia. We begin with percepts (i.e. the senses, from which we initially
know reality), not concepts (i.e. what we imagine the world to be or, commonly, wish it would become).
Re-Cording the Ties that Bind
Genealogy directly manifests the psyche as a transpersonal field that informs our personality and sustains us. Each ancestral couple embodies psychic polarities from exaltation to the conscious and unconscious suffering that brings positive developments such as enhanced empathy, wisdom, or spiritual development. Speaking of the opposites in his 1925 Seminar (p.85), Jung says, "Life is never so beautiful as when surrounded by death."
As we engage our ancestors we engage the numinous. We discover our mythic roots, the injured feminine, sacrifice, and other powerful archetypal forces of the cauldron of generativity -- the central theme of humanity. Sexuality, love, and spirituality play through the epic ancestral drama, uniting the opposites, again and again, shaping who we are and weaving patterns of conditioning and potential wholeness.
Genealogy can help us recapture that sense through creating a sacred space that allows us to reconnect in a direct way with our ancient past. Encounters with our ancestors, historical and imaginal, are encounters with soul. The imaginal becomes virtual and probabilistic vision. We don't need to split our subjective self from the the objective perception of the world. Perhaps "the view from death" enriches and enlarges the improbability of the gift of life. More than 10,000 ancestors are dreaming of you.
Feel It, Reveal It, Heal It
The emotional brain reacts the same way to objective or virtual information. In fact, the later may prompt a stronger brain response. Even when subliminal, the brain produces a global response to the unexpected, but it is more recognition than complex cognition. The neural correlates of conscious, global processing across the entire network are also generated during unconscious activity...even when something is perceived unconsciously, or subliminally, leading to activity over the entire network. We can speculate that waves of virtual particles might indeed create real effects.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28444-leading-theory-of-consciousness-rocked-by-oddball-study/
Physics is finding that the arrow of time does not seem to follow the standard laws of physics. Now, physicists are unmasking a more fundamental source for the arrow of time: Energy disperses and objects equilibrate, they say, because of the way elementary particles become intertwined when they interact — a strange effect called “quantum entanglement.”
The Crucible of Love
It is well-known to clergy and psychologists that on their deathbeds, people don't wish to discuss God or religion, but their own families. Many are not afraid to die but don't want to leave their living families. They speak and may even call out to their parents, their sons and daughters, or see lost spouses.
Or, we may call on our 'godparents,' those whom we've chosen as nurturing allies, known or unknown, for their inspiration and succor. Hillman noted as we become old we develop character which makes us fit ancestors and mentors. Soul's Code (1997)
We are born into and create our lives in families and families we create. This is where we find meaning, where our purpose becomes clear. There we experience love and first give it, and are hurt, betrayed, or rejected by caregivers and siblings. In this crucible of love we begin asking big spiritual questions to which we come back in the very end. Jung admonishes us, "My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart." (The Red Book, Page 232)
Those images in the conscious mirror reflect both the material and universal soul, our spiritual essence through a "sympathy," an intelligence of spirit that reflects the animation of the material world and the union of cosmic reality.
Some confess what it feels like to know that they neglected, criticized, abandoned, or engulfed and overwhelmed their children, or that drinking destroyed their family. They lament they were physically or psychologically abusive, or failed to care for those who most needed them. It isn't difficult to understand how such behavior leaves its mark on the future. All seem to know what is missing, and what was deserved by the innocent.
On their deathbeds, people often speak of the love they felt and gave away -- or didn't receive or give, or even known how to offer unconditionally. Love may be imperfect, emotionally unavailable, or entirely missing, or full of rage and trauma -- or uncertain and ambiguous. In the end the meaning of life is concerned only with love -- lost and found. Love is what matters -- perhaps the only thing that matters in the end.
We may hope we've had a gift to give. When the love is imperfect, or a family is destructive, forgiveness can be learned. Our spiritual work as human beings is learning how to love and how to forgive. Most have a simple wish that someone will remember them fondly and that they lived and loved fully, even if they know they have not.
But it's not about fixing, or making, or doing, but being in the presence of the Mystery into which we are born and to which we return with a fully open heart. The Egyptians had a ceremony for weighing the lightness of the heart against the weight of a feather of Ma'at for balance. Thought, memory, and emotion came from the heart. Today we speak of the neurological heart-brain and gut-brain. We might imagine weighing our own hearts for such psychic and emotional balance.
Exploring our family tree helps us explore the depths of love. We never say goodbye to those we hold in our hearts. If we listen with our heart, we make a mindful journey as we wend our way along. We won't know where it is leading. As in physics, the very act of our observation disturbs and alters the whole system through our participation.
Long buried issues come up, are unburied, challenge and lay claim to us somatically, emotionally, mentally, even spiritually. Many develop self-destructive biological processes or behaviors. We may need to reconnect with Death and our own death to reorient ourselves in life and find sanctuary. Doors are opened and closed by the mysterious spirit behind life and death.
Our dreams and the body will tell us. We may come to understand that fate itself rules and as we age we have to give up our own story, our merely personal history, to find peace. We find in some sense the end is in the beginning. Even death may need to feel our love. Death becomes our medicine.
Genealogy has a dry factual basis but the imaginal dimension is also inherent in the self-unfolding dynamics. It helps us create and cultivate an imaginal sacred space where soul and spirit unfold generation after generation. It creates a wealth of energy that we find is a source of wisdom and containment. Inner guidance connects us with source. We awaken from our illusion of separateness by embracing our extended family.
We cross the threshold from the edge of the sacred, into the temenos, moving toward the numinous at the far boundaries of our mythically-rooted lines. As we stay with a family line, working our way up through the children to the parents, we get to "know" them. The sacred makes claims on us as well as offering gifts. It takes the form of personal experience.
Spontaneous fantasies with all kinds of implications will naturally arise in the genealogical process. Jung notes that such play of ideas and impression can be purposeful and valuable. Hillman says we wrestle with our spirits at night.
"The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic also of the child, and as such it appears inconsistent with the principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy any creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable. It is therefore short-sighted to treat fantasy, on account of its risky or unacceptable nature, as a thing of little worth. (Psychological Types Ch. 1; Page 82).
Resonance Phenomena
Our ancestral deep field is a plenum of personalities and procreation -- a community of virtual beings and sacred space of wholeness. It pulsates with life force and the creative energy of love. We can imagine messages resonating along the many family lines -- waves of vibration that connect with the ancient past like some archaic tin-can and string 'telephone.' Such 'kindling' is an important part of our neurological process. Listening and sounding is interactive.
In The Emerald Tablet, Thoth says, "Send through thy body a wave of vibration, irregular first and regular second, repeating time after time until free. Start the wave force in thy brain center. Direct it in waves from thine head to thy foot."
The recipient then becomes a receiver and, through the process of entrainment, modulates the same frequency and the same waveform in a reversed phase. They become coupled and are no longer distinguishable from one another. In-between two physical systems, entrainment synchronizes one entity to vibrate in an identical way in metaphorical response to the Other.
"The Orphan" Soul
Nature’s ensemble of voices curiously leads to systems of increasing complexity, and hints at a collective intelligence -- the instinctual and the luminous. It may at first come as an emotional flooding or an inundation of fantasies before that massa confusa of primal material differentiates. We may experience loss and grief that things haven't worked out as we might have hoped. Powerful events can triggers such feelings.
It evokes an image of the archetypal "orphan soul" sought by alchemists to create the Philosopher's Stone. Secret fire is the "leaded" fuel that cooks under the surface from the "heat" of awareness -- that cooks it into conscious experience. This calcination is Stage 1 of our spiritual alchemy, which is followed by dissolution (solutio) and separation (coagulatio).
We begin in a state of disintegration, of insensibility, and gradually reach greater awareness. We all have a bit of the disillusioned orphan in us. Some have living parents who were never available or are now emotionally unavailable. We may be alienated but long to belong or connect in a meaningful way. Perhaps we resonate with other orphans in our lines.
The experience of "adult orphans" is often underplayed as we consider the death of our parents 'normal' in adulthood, but it is a condition worthy of attention, and genealogy is one way to address it, to deepen it, to deal with abandonment and loss. Jung says, "When one lives for a long time in great solitude, the silence or the darkness becomes visibly, audibly, and tangibly alive, and the unknown in oneself steps up in an unknown guide."
This is no seance, spiritualism, hallucination, or lunacy, and should not be approached as such. It is not supernatural. This is an involuntary flood of charged emotions arising from the unconscious. Often double binds and hyperarousal lead to emotional flooding -- that ocean of emotion. Much of the trauma is held in the body in structure, soft tissue, and symptoms.
It's All Relative
For example, we may have internalized the traits of one parent, as well as the other parent's loathing of those qualities. If you are overloaded you may feel swamped. You may dream of tsunamis. Such feelings are linked to helplessness, frustration, anger, feeling trapped, remorse, guilt, and self-hate.
Orphans have to learn to not be loyal to their suffering, the abandonment, trauma, and betrayal. But we must be willing to accept our grief and loneliness and let go. It's not just your pain or hurt, but the hurt of humanity in this vastness. We can learn mercy and forgiveness, within our Tree and for ourselves. We may transform from hating and being incensed, to the sweet fragrance of an incense tree that perfumes our sacred space.
Follow the Pain & Fear Deeper
Pain also leads us into liminal space. We can view it as an acronym for "pay attention; integrate now." When we surrender control, something genuinely new can happen. We see beyond our self-interest and security issues. The liminal opens a space for alternative consciousness to emerge.
Furio Jesi suggests the mask of pain and despair counterfeits the reality of death. He cites Dionysus as the God of pain because loss of the past is painful when the truth of the past is not mentioned. Primordial initiation was about the experience of death and rebirth -- change from one state to another, from one Time to another. The death that precedes rebirth is the abandonment of the past, but rebirth includes everything from the past that was and is alive that we don't remember.
Furio Jesi, Mythological material. Myth and anthropology in Central European culture, Einaudi , Turin 1979.
House-Burial
Some cultures wanted their dead so close to home and family, they buried them under their house. In the Neolithic era, the dead "slept" beneath the floor where their kindred continued their activities. The Greeks and Minoans interred loved ones, especially children, in jars buried in the floor. The Dravidians buried the dead in the house so their spirits could be more easily reborn as children of the same family. Poverty is another reason of under home burials.
The Cherokee buried their dead in the floor directly under the place where the person died. Some cultures later removed the bones and venerated them in the house. Sometimes only the soul of the dead is returned to the house after burial elsewhere. We likely wouldn't do so, but if we don't have an urn, we might have file boxes of photos and genealogical research "buried" in the basement or elsewhere, symbolically echoing the ancient sentiment of "housing" the dead. We may house skeletons in the basement of our subconscious.
Even grieving can be a sacred space -- a Grail space where magic can happen. We cannot get rid of the pain until we discern what it has to teach us. Much of our understandable anger is actually disguised and denied sadness, a depression.
We can learn self-compassion to carry our pain more graciously. Meditative dialogues and co-meditation with the ancestors become possible. As we penetrate the unknown we have to tolerate not knowing and maintain trust in the process and sea of people.
We are never experts in this task, as Confucious reminds us: "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." In 2009, China acknowledged a new Confucianism by publishing the genealogy of the 800-year-old Kong family on a computer database at China's National Library in Beijing.
China is trying to revive its traditional culture, including genealogy. "The Chinese have always been interested in their past -- worship of ancestors is worship of origins." (Heinz 1999:225). Kong Ming, a 33-year-old businessman from Shanghai, began researching his family in 1998. His elderly grandfather dug up the coffin in which he had hidden the family records to escape persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Heinz, Carolyn Brown, Asian Cultural Traditions (Waveland Press, Inc., 1999).
Tian, commonly translated as Heaven or Sky, but philologically meaning the Great One, the Great Whole, is a key concept in Confucianism. "Forming one body with the universe" is a neo-Confucian ideal. As we work, formlessness congeals into form. We arose from that. Such a healing space is naturally therapeutic and traditionally described as "the center of the world."
In our case this archetypal center is the Tree of Life that connects heaven and earth. It realigns us with the Cosmos with a new perspective -- a much larger story. Our personal family tree merges with the collective World Tree. We repeat the cycle of discovering and adding ancestors and the images and symbolism of their lives. We get out of it the transformed energy we put into the process.
In Letters, Vol. I, Jung suggests, "The community is nothing without the individual and if a community consists of individuals that do not fulfill their individual telos, then the community has no telos or a very wrong one" (p. 464). The only thing we need to know is ourselves, the greatest secret, the greatest gnosis.
Pleroma
In Liber Novus, (Pg. 274, Fn 75), Jung notes that life is an energetic process with its own goal. "But every energetic process is in principle irreversible and therefore unequivocally directed toward a goal, and the goal is the state of rest ..." Jung's plenum is a field of universal potential, unbound luminosity and infinite awareness. Space isn't an empty vacuum but characterized as a fullness and creative flow.
Science tells us the ultimate state of rest is the virtual vacuum of absolute space, the Zero Point, zero-phase geometry. It is the groundstate of being and has been likened to the Akashic Field and universal memory by Ervin Lazlo (2007).
This subquantum coherent field is pure information. Rather than linear lines of ancestors, we might think of them metaphorically as superpositions of our deep ancestry -- a superwave "reaching over" with interference peaks, information states with entangled and partly coherent stimulated emissions.
Jung called it the Pleroma, after the Gnostics. The non-dual is beyond all distinctions, a field that is the only reality. "Emptiness is Form, Form is Emptiness." In it thinking and being cease, because the eternal is without qualities. There is no one in it because they would be differentiated from the Pleroma, according to the Red Book. We must watch out for what we believe, but we can entertain many notions.
All These Paths Lead to You
The call to adventure is the call to the future and interiority. Genealogy makes it graphically obvious that many paths lead to the central experience and facilitate the other paths that lead there.
An underground stream runs through the hidden ground of our being. We can meander through the furthest reaches of the transpersonal imagination, purposefully seeking that which remains as-yet-unknown in the depths. It is just a matter of being present with our experience, open to what is found along the way, be it answers or ambiguity.
Mankind has wandered in the fields of reality seeking its true nature since the dawn of time. A fiercely lived life is an artform -- illumination in action, based on discipline, practice and service. The specific “Art” is alchemical, a merger of inner and outer reality in One World. Jung said, "To live what is right and to let what is false die, that is the art of life." (Liber Novus, Pg 274, Footnote 75).
Rootedness
Conscious experiences belong to slipstreams of consciousness, and these streams are part of nature’s process. They can be described in physical and psychological terms as our sacred journey.
Experience is a process rooted in the stream of consciousness and happens “to” a person in that stream of consciousness. Each person is an aspect of nature’s process whose stream can flow forth like a fountainhead to quench and nourish many over the course of time.
Whose Trauma Is It?
Whether your genealogical methods are clinical or intuitive, you face your lineage as an individual. Each ancestor relationship you form is special to you because intuition is never completely conscious. Regardless of our style of genealogy practice, we need to approach recovery of our deep identity with a sense of balance. We want to recover our ancestors, not reinvent them. We want to recontextualize them and reinvigorate that spirit. At some point all family lines fade into historical amnesia.
Trauma can be physical or psycho-emotional impact. We may seek specific trauma recovery while a variety of behavioral, emotional and physical conditions are rooted in unresolved traumatic experiences, whether in real-time crisis or post-event disorder. Anger and hate may be there but so is our inner guidance system, the capacity to love and accept.
Transgenerational Inheritance
Our inheritance from ancestors is both good and burdensome. Their issues become our issues through genetics, epigenetics, and shared trauma. Not only our emotions, but what we eat and breath affect the genes of our descendants. The environment affects up- and down-regulation of gene expression and disease development.
Upregulation and downregulation can also happen as a response to toxins or hormones. An example of upregulation in pregnancy is hormones that cause cells in the uterus to become more sensitive to oxytocin.
Transgenerational integration suggests that trauma can become displaced in time, leading to symptoms and repetition compulsion. Freud saw repetitious compulsions or symptoms as a way of “working through” or exorcising the pain of traumatic events and thoughts. But it is also re-traumatizing. Working through requires some degree of re-living of events as we re-enliven emotional and mental patterns.
Metaphors Be With You
However, we can safely use metaphors rather than the historical dimension. How we know what we know is expressed naturally in metaphor. Images arise as self-generating metaphors -- what is happening and what it's like. Thus, we can dig up our buried sorrow, or release bottled-up anger.
We can express our experiences symbolically. Metaphoric expressions are tied to our unconscious or implicit experiences. They are inherent to our language. Metaphor functions like dreams and symptoms that simultaneously express material from different dynamic, structural, and topographical psychic levels.
With metaphor we can link our experiences across diverse times and situations. Change the root, change the reaction. We treat the figurative language as real. The figures of the subconscious pictures or constructs are treated as real. Resistance is also information from which a metaphor can emerge. Such metaphors are naturally healing.
Lacan reversed Freud's conception: Symptoms help us reorganize our life so we continue to derive a secret enjoyment from something that, on a conscious level, we want to be rid of. We may not really enjoy it, but what is "familiar" from family life, even chaos, is often more comfortable than what is healthy.
Trauma Crosses Generations
Trauma in one generation can be transmitted consciously and unconsciously to later generations. For example, three or more generations can share similar traumas, such as early loss of a parent, and/or early loss of a spouse. They may all share multi-generational denial, repression, triggers, PTSD, unresolved grief and attendant depression.
The contradiction between conscious aversion and unconscious enjoyment actually warps our symbolic-imaginary spacetime, causing the strange tail-chasing, repetitive “orbiting” behavior of all neuroses and obsessive behavior. Our miseries or dreary compulsions conceal,
preserve, and protect a vital and enlivening unconscious dimension. Genealogy and therapy help us unbury these toxic attachments from our genetic tree. Expressive therapies address intergenerational trauma and psychophysical conditions.
There are numerous changes at the physical, neurobiological, emotional, and spiritual levels. There are phases of response after trauma. We can map traumas across our own lives and related others in a timeline revealing personal challenges and stress triggers. For self-care and self-regulation we can make a stress management plan. Some might choose to use expressive or genogram techniques for trauma integration.
Often it is necessary to clarify a vague content by giving it a visible form. This can be done by drawing, painting, or modeling. Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.” (Jung, CW 16, Para 181)
Cross Time Communication
Paradoxically, our most personal past is a telos. This emergent aim or purpose pulls us forward into our deep past through a process in the present. In genealogy, it is one thing to know what to look for and another to know where to look. The red thread passes through the eye of the cosmic needle.
Like Aboriginal song-lines from the Dreamtime, our genealogical lines reveal place names with their own stories. We have to sense our way along, to navigate through the terrain of the unconscious. Such dreaming-tracks cut through the wilderness of the unknown. We catch the rhythm and 'observe' the landscape. By such a path, through sacred movement of the soul we discover our Self, a dynamic emancipation of our life energies and self-actualization.
"Our concepts of space and time have only approximate validity, and there is therefore a wide field for minor and major deviations.
In view of all this, I lend an attentive ear to the strange myths of the psyche, and take a careful look at the varied events that come my way, regardless of whether or not they fit in with my theoretical postulates." (Jung, MDR, Pg. 300)
Reassume the Past
Our ancestors embody our innate unconscious metaphors and archetypal autonomy. Archetypes give form to chaos and intuition. Jung said, "An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors." In this sense, genealogy has a transcendent function, concerning the meaning of being in time -- psyche's innate purposiveness, aesthetics, and biocultural evolution.
False Trails
We must watch our conditioned responses directly. As we engage in this Great Work, we encounter merge issues, dead ends, and false trails. We cannot rewrite the past. We must be willing the surrender understanding we thought we had found if it proves fallacious.
We must frame and reframe our pictures of the past as it grows and changes each time we access our genealogy, each time we contemplate it within. In that process we will make many concretizations and assumptions, commit cultural errors, and encounter lacuna we cannot fill with any evidence. The gap in time is also a gulf in mores and ways of life, so be careful making anachronistic personal judgments from today's standpoint.
Hypnoidal Dynamics
We all have our own wounds and our ancestors did, too. The wound healing cycle is an instrument of recovery. Pathological traumatic stress (PTSD) has hypnoidal dynamics indicating unresolved trauma. Fostering resilience with direct suggestion, metaphor, and transpersonal methods that bring healing from beyond the self is another long-term recovery tool. Analytical methods help internal conflict resolution and transformation. Bio-energetics and hands on methods help the physical and energy body.
Because the brain accepts the imaginal as real, changes take place at a physical and mental level. Looking at what lies ahead becomes part of our noncausal interpretation of the past, an emotional movement from darkness to light. We live nested in two levels of personal and transpersonal being. We should be watchful for our own projections and distortions.
We must bear in mind that we do not make projections, rather they happen to us. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 563.
Of course you really don't make projections: they are; it is a mistake when one speaks of making a projection, because in that moment it is no longer a projection, but your own property. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 1493.
Ghosts and Spirits. These phenomena are projections from the background of the psyche, autonomous inner images of a subjective nature, obeying no conscious intention, but coming and going at their own volition. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 40
Those wounds teach us something about ourselves that effects a holistic re-patterning. Going through our wound means realizing we will never again be the same once we emerge from this initiatory process. All forms are dissolved in the underground stream, the rushing stream of consciousness, in a baptism or healing immersion in the vast ocean of deep consciousness. We ride the dragon on the backs of our ancestors to the realm of the Unborn, returning to the pure creative energy of the cosmic womb for the mystery of alchemical rebirth.
Going through our wound is a genuine (ego) death experience, as our old self "dies" in the process, while a new, more expansive and empowered human potential is born. Thus, the Grail is not only about birth, it is about catalyzing transformational rebirth into a nonlinear, nonlocal expanded sense of self beyond mere ego inflation. Self-actualization or self-realization implies the stabilizing or grounding of the spiritual fruits of inner exploration. This is gnosis.
Marie-Louise Von Franz, said "the wounded healer IS the archetype of the Self (our wholeness, the God within) and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures," resulting in a more open-ended and expansive sense of who we think we are, and who we imagine others are in relation to us. The wound is not only a personal experience, but a doorway, a hyper-dimensional portal into the transpersonal / archetypal realm, which is a higher order (in terms of freedom) of our being.
Self-Compassion
Both future and past operate in the present, symbolizing our as-yet-unlived life potential, including extension into eternity. Anticipation fuels the process, but everything cannot happen at once as we need time to digest it. We tend to overlook the infinitely vast scale of time at every moment. Genealogy helps us keep such insights in sight by softening the boundaries of birth and death in our narrative, exposing us experientially to the unbound sweep of deep time.
We are neither gods nor demons, and neither were our ancestors though we are all filled by archetypal potentials, their archetypal pathologies, and symptoms. Our collective unconscious -- the primary phenomena -- informs the experience of being. Suffering merges with hopeful transcendence. Instead of dissociating, we experience it by creatively collapsing the future-past timeline, reflectively and reflexively interpreting that experience. We remember the past but not the future because of a buildup of correlations between interacting particles. From some perspective there is a single psyche and a single subject that is not acquired through personal experience.
Archetypal Merger
All individual lives are simultaneously participating in the collective unconscious, as graphically depicted in our genealogical charts. Jung links the realization of withinness with the image of the World Mother, Mother Bride, rebirth, and the archetype of vision of what is waiting to be seen and known -- a symbolic within. Our revelations express the aims and instincts of the soul which invites us into the sacred marriage with psychic life. Our story is a living symbol of eternal mystery, personal and collective.
We participate in that Royal Marriage, the telos of Jungian work, when we lovingly hold those opposites, all those couples that metaphorically and literally express the union of personal and archetypal mediators, anima and animus. Authentic and genuine relationship is complimentary.
Genealogy is thus another way to experience and integrate the concept that psyche is matter, and matter is psyche. What is-is, and it is divine. Jung says, "In this deification mystery you make yourself into the vessel, and are a vessel of creation in which the opposites reconcile." As St. Augustine said, "For it is secretly, and in the hidden depths of the spirit, that the soul of man is joined to the word of God, so that they are two in one flesh." This is the marriage of heaven and earth, the eternal and transient.
The divine is a divine couple, the father and mother of souls, who give birth to the divine child in the depth of winter. Jung speaks of the path of soul as a phenomenological path -- the soul lives and knows. This is Gnosis. It is a psychic fact we are born in the divine world to the divine couple. The divine is within the unconscious but autonomous. It gives birth to the divine child, to possibility, the potential of the soul. Our spiritual task is to protect the child.
Sacred Marriage, Sacred Feminine
Perhaps the archetypal appeal of sacred marriage -- the union of alchemical opposites, hierosgamos, or Mysterium Coniunctionis -- is one reason many people become fascinated with royal lines almost to the exclusion of others. Yet it is only the royal lines that have epic historical scope and are hypothetically traceable back to ancient times.
Spiritual marriage recalls the union of archetypal figures in the rebirth mysteries of antiquity.. These are ancient rites of fertility, regeneration, and psychophysical transformation, an archetypal drive inherent in our nature and a primordial mystery of sexuality.
Myths come to life in ways that resonate with our own lives. According to Jung, the deeper mystery of the unifying myth represents the psychological process of "individuation," the "inner marriage" of the opposites within the psyche - masculine/feminine, conscious/unconscious, divine/human - giving birth to the archetype of wholeness.
Naming Our Ancestors
When writing appeared in the 2nd and 3rd millennium BC, “a new concept of creation enters religious thinking: Nothing exists unless it has a name. The name means existence.” “Naming has profound significance in the Old Mesopotamian belief system. The name reveals the essence of the bearer; it also carries magic power . . . What is important to observe here is that the concept of creation has changed, at a certain period in history from being merely the acting out of the mystic force of female fertility to being a conscious act of creation ” by merely expressing “the name”. (Gerda Lerner, 1986)
As preparation for eternity, the ancient Egyptians made a priority not only of preserving the body but also preserving the name of the deceased. The body, a combination of the non-physical ka, ba, name and shadow, was thought to make a person complete in this life and in the next.
So, perhaps in this archaic sense, we complete our ancestors as we recollect and re-member them. Just as archaeologists can only tell so much from digging up artifacts and interpreting archival material, psychologists and genealogists can do no more.
Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood? --Jung
10,000 Paths to the Passed
Each of our ancestors is a gate to our Inner Sanctum, to our soul. Genealogy is the relational mode of understanding. The tale of our genesis is our prima materia and our ultima materia, the unknown and self-knowledge.
In the beginning everything is chaotic, fluid, co-mingled, and undifferentiated. Its alchemical symbol is a 3-headed serpent or dragon, of Sulpher, Mercury, and Salt. This represents the dance of Sun and Moon, King and Queen, the archetypal superpatterns of male and female, and their material offspring. We spring from the soul and remain the child of our ancestors.
In every adult there lurks a child--an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole. -C. G. Jung CW 17: 286
First matter gives universe its properties. It organizes into the Elements, (fire, water, air, and earth), which are the building blocks of words, thought-ideas or archetypes. It is liminal, between manifest and unmanifest. It is the spiritualized essence or soul of substance: identity, form, and function oscillating between creation and destruction.
We must go a bit deeper and realize that with the instinct of creation is always connected a destructive something; the creation in its own essence is also destructive. You see that quite clearly in the moment when you check the creative impulse; nothing is more poisonous to the nervous system than a disregarded or checked creative impulse. It even destroys people's organic health. It is dangerous because there is that extraordinary destructive quality in the creative thing. Just because it is the deepest instinct, the deeper power in man, a power which is beyond conscious control, and because it is on the other side the function which creates the greatest value, it is most dangerous to interfere with it.
~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 654.
The main difficulty here is that the eternal ideas have been dragged down from their "supracelestial place" into the biological sphere, and this is somewhat confusing for the trained philosopher and may even come to him as a shock. (Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 559-560).
"The transformation of Mercurius, as prima materia, in the heated, sealed vessel is comparable to cooking the basic instinctive drives in their own affect until their essential fantasy content becomes conscious."
“Instead of arguing with the drives which carry us away, we prefer to cook them and . ask then what they want. . . . That can be discovered by active imagination, or through experimenting in reality, but always with the introverted attitude of observing objectively what the drive really wants.” (Marie von Franz, Alchemy, p. 129)
It is often suggested the prima materia is found in "feces" or lead which is alchemical code for matter or the physical body and what gets shoved down into the unconscious. The first matter is cyclic, contains all the elements, and is the source of the Philosopher's Stone -- the egg or light of Nature; Anima Mundi or Soul of the World.
The alchemical motto Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultuum Lapidem means “Visit the innermost parts of the earth; by setting things right (‘rectifying’), you will find the hidden Stone.”
Jung more or less identified the unconscious with the autonomic nervous system. Such sympathetic identification is integral, interiorized or internalized knowing instead of conceptual knowing: unmediated, direct perception by the body and the emotions and the intellect -- the soul. Emotions are part of the reasoning process itself -- bodily intelligence.
This psychophysical mimesis, or power of imitation, is direct experience by total submergence of the unconscious tendencies of the ancestors. So, we can visit the interior of our own earth, our physical body for the treasure of embedded ancestral memories it has hidden for good or ill.
Disorientation & Suffering.
Like any Great Work, Jung suggests that the opus consists of three parts: insight, endurance, and action. Psychology is needed only in the first part, but in the second and third parts moral strength plays the predominant role.
Working through the invisible loyalties of the family system is just the beginning of our journey back through time, the unconscious, and our genetic history. Epigenetics demonstrates that we inherit our parents' trauma and family secrets. Children of survivors may be born less able to metabolize stress, more susceptible to PTSD, a vulnerability expressed in their molecules, neurons, cells, and genes.
Vicarious Traumatization Burden
Traumas are events that induce intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Dysregulation induced by that trauma becomes a body’s default state in PTSD. Trigger a person with PTSD, and the heart pounds faster, startle reflex is exaggerated, we sweat and the mind races. The amygdala, which detects threats and releases the emotions associated with memories, whirs in overdrive. Meanwhile, hormones and neurotransmitters don’t always flow as they should, leaving the immune system underregulated.
The result can be the kind of over-inflammation associated with chronic disease, including arthritis, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Moreover, agitated nervous systems release adrenaline and catecholamines, both involved in the fight or flight response, unleashing a cascade of events that reinforces the effects of traumatic memories on the brain. This may partially explain why intrusive memories and flashbacks plague people with PTSD. Also, extreme stress and PTSD shorten telomeres—the DNA caps at the end of a chromosome that govern the pace of aging.
Genes & Memes
The dragon's egg of the primordial unconscious or archetypal container signifies the eternal cycle of life, primordial unconsciousness, the unity of opposing forces. Jung said there is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites.
To be whole is to be full of contradictions. The unity never becomes apparent because the opposites within us operate and mingle in various ways and it is their interaction that makes the whole man. The complete human being, the hermaphrodite, is never visible. He is indescribable, always a mystical experience. (Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung - Ostrowski,)
So, the ultima materia means the total recapitulation of the species evolution beginning with conception moved by telos. Julian Huxley argued that evolution moved to the psychosocial realm and DNA was replaced by memory and language inside minds that could understand it, giving evolution a purpose.
The brain is the Tree of Life. If our reptilian brain and brain stem is our internal Tree of Life, then the higher brain and limbic system (with the amygdala) is our Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil. Wisdom of the divine becomes wisdom of the self -- the seed of cosmic consciousness and Immortal Mind. In Hermetic doctrine, a circular relationship exists between mankind and the divine. The cosmos mirrors mankind's need for self-knowledge through recognition.
Serpent's Breath
The serpent in that Tree is its numinous voice, with its active dynamic kundalini -- the Serpent Power, the Secret Fire, the life force or basic animating principle -- the quintessence of matter. Never calling it evil, Genesis 3:1 says, "Now the Serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."
Our serpentine lines of ancestral descent recursively bite their own tails in the primordial archetype of the Orobouros. “"All human things are a circle” was inscribed on the temple at Athens.
The Hermetic "Holy Grail" was a circular crater or bowl of regeneration described in the fourth treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum. It was a font of immersion symbolizing the constant decay and renewal of all things, present in all Nature. The genealogical Holy Grail is found in royal lines that include the Arthurian legends then trace back to roots in various gods and goddesses.
For the gods, time is primordial and unstructured; for mankind it is historical and linear. In the unconscious if there is any notion of time at all, it is circular, arranging events so they return eternally and can be re-entered through myth, symbol, and ritual with no distinction between self and environment.
Grail symbolism encompasses the womb that always makes children, the horn and cup that serve drink, and the cauldron and bowl that give food. The quest for the Grail comes from these primal facts of life.
The holy bowl -- the cranium, where heaven meets earth -- is where individual souls mix with universal mind in a metaphor of immersive experience, The immersive baptism of wisdom or gnosis means 'living water' that springs up in creativity and illumination -- "the drink of the soul by the sweet stream of wisdom (Sophia)."
What Are They Remembering For Us?
Our history is our collective transgenerational memory. No people can successfully live outside of their memory. Jung tells us that, "Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force." (MDR, Page 277). The past plays one of the most critical roles in Western civilization. but it is so embedded, so obvious that it becomes invisible. The past remains with us as experiences change sperm and eggs.
Genes aren't the cause of most disease; the cause of most disease alters genetic expression. Epigenetics is revealing the biological transmission of molecular memory -- that we can pass down altered responses, emotional trauma, agitated nervous systems, under-regulated immune systems, chronic over-inflammation, and somatic disorders.
Biological Legacy
Ancestral behavior can also mutate single genes. Everybody has a different level of tolerance for alcohol, but some people act very strangely, exhibiting reckless, impulsive, violent, or even dangerous behavior on alcohol. Finnish researchers found that a fairly common mutation in serotonin 2B receptor gene can render some prone to impulsive behavior by nature, sober or under the influence of alcohol. They struggle with self-control or mood disorders.
“One of our main findings was that the HTR2B Q20* predicted alcohol-related risk-behaviors. The HTR2B Q20* carriers demonstrated aggressive out-bursts, got into fights and behaved in an impulsive manner under the influence of alcohol. They were also arrested for driving while under the influence of alcohol more often than the controls."
“The HTR2B Q20* carriers were not alcoholics per se, as measured by average alcohol consumption, and were not diagnosed as alcoholics, but they had a tendency to lose behavioral control while under the influence of alcohol.”
http://www.sciencealert.com/common-genetic-mutation-linked-to-reckless-drunken-behaviour?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Website&utm_campaign=InArticleReadMore
All cells have a genetic code with information to produce certain proteins to carry out vital processes. Chemical switches can turn genes on or off, or crank them up or down, so the cells know which proteins to produce and in what quantities. These switches or epigenetic tags are altered by environment, bad habits, and experience, passed on to their offspring, and their offspring's offspring.
Sperm and eggs carry genetic memories of parents' health well before conception. Even what grandparents ate and the father's behavior long before conception can influence the child's health in a range from mood disorders to mental illness. They inherit parents' psychic burdens, anxiety, low impulse control. Older people can unconsciously externalizes their traumatized self onto a developing child’s personality. The physical transmission of the horrors of the past is “embodied history.”
Transgenerational trauma is transferred from the first generation of trauma survivors to the second and further generations of offspring of the survivors by complex post-traumatic stress disorder mechanisms. Epigenetics changes the way instructions in the genetic code were translated and carried out by the body.
We are more than our transgenerational wounds. Our essence transcends our identification with history. In healing we are not alone, we trust a path to greater freedom, and feel our relationship to the suffering of our family lineage. We feel lighter when we release the burdens of our own trauma or family history. We can make wider choices and expand our sense of belonging in the world.
The Spent Breath of Millions
We all carry and relive the primordial psyche which is reliving the soul of our ancestors. They may be gone, but primordial psyche remains alive within us, and available for interaction. Some live closer to it than others, but we all have creative, rational, and intuitive faculties. These are rooted in this primordial ground, an unalterable level of creative imagination, primordial unity, and instinctive participation mystique. As Jung says, "But in these days we live by our brains alone and ignore the very definite laws of our body and the instinctive world." (Letters Vol. II, Page 567)
Perhaps the ancestors inform us in their own way. Intuition is information that is received by the mind. But for that information to be useful, it must be analyzed and purposefully acted upon. When integrated we act on those intuitive impulses with wise judgment and confidence. Creative ideas then take shape in manifest form.
Primordial Psyche
Our genealogical lines may all look like good little soldiers lined up in neat succession. But they also have complex, nonlinear and cyclic dimensions among the patterns we can discern. This is the realm of the imaginal -- primordial images or instinctual energy which nevertheless have objective effects.
We consciously and unconsciously mourn the loss of the sacred in our lives to the abyss of evolution and our primordial relationship with Mother Earth. We've forgotten our connection to the dark animal orobouric Great Mother. Mother Nature may be the oldest motif but it is the underlying pattern of symbol-formation that is inherited.
Archetypes & Instincts
That something missing in the lives of so many people isn't found in another's form, it's found in the dark of the unconscious. In Jungian thought, when we search for our "other half" and perhaps for our ancestors, too, we actually seek the integration of the elements of the unconscious psyche. “It is always important to have something to bring into a relationship, and solitude is often the means by which you acquire it” (Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 610, Letters Vol. II.)
As Jung notes, "Whether he understands them or not, man must remain conscious of the world of the archetypes, because in it he is still a part of nature and is connected to his own roots." (Symbols of Transformation, Page 23).
If I speak of the collective unconscious I don't assume it as a principle, I only give a name to the totality of observable facts, i.e., archetypes. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 567
The main difficulty here is that the eternal ideas have been dragged down from their "supracelestial place" into the biological sphere, and this is somewhat confusing for the trained philosopher and may even come to him as a shock. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 559-560
The Platonic "Idea" is in this case no longer intellectual but a psychic, instinctual pattern. Instinctual patterns can be found in human beings too. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 559-560
"Self-reflection, or - what comes to the same thing - the urge to individuation, gathers together what is scattered and multifarious and exalts it to the original of the One, the Primordial Man. In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious, the sources of conflict are dried up." ("Transformation Symbolism in the Mass", CW 11, para. 401).
Inherent Nature of Man
Jung thought the "primordial images" are those expressed in the earliest life-history of the human species. They grow out of the rudimentary nature of the psyche in its pre-conscious form. These basic layers of the psyche spontaneously recur in modern psychic phenomena in ever-new forms that vary around certain deeply rooted motifs at the base of consciousness. The generic structural nature of the psyche is unrestricted to collective or group phenomena.
Water is the cosmogonic element by which the self sinks into involuntary immersion in the dimensional abysses. Our pre-historical ancestors have sunk in the Atlantis of the waters of the unconscious. This may be more than symbolic as we now know humanity has gone through a few local and global catastrophic events.
Supervolcanoes, repeated glaciation, meteor, and comet falls, massive sea-rise, and climate change are only preserved in myth and legend, leading to speculation that we have a species-wide amnesia. We have only recently found that our genome contains contributions from at least three other species -- Neanderthal, Denisovan, and another as-yet-unknown hominid.
Life is a thread interwoven with hidden archetypes which remain entangled in our eternal present. We're already in our phenomenological graves. If we can embrace the ancient soul of our ancestors soulfully and creatively, we may engage and fall in love with the sacred again. Wisdom is recognizing patterns in life.
In our own genealogy, we begin to reveal a pattern in which we can locate a felt sense of understanding, a resonance that speaks to us within a myth or traces the path of a wounding through therapy. We can followed the thread of understanding using dreamwork, ritual, or other depth psychological methods, or experience the numinous on some unalterable level that changes us forever.
Genealogy can be our approach and return to the sacred. To understand the living we commune with the dead. We approach the phenomena of the psyche as we do the phenomena of nature. We've unwittingly buried with our ancestors any symbolic or revelatory meaning that would otherwise push its way through from the unconscious.
Modern life has short-circuited our connection with the primeval unconscious resulting in an intolerable rift -- psychic dissociation. This division separates us from the sacred, limiting our capacity to navigate divine corridors of the numinous, relegating us to lives of estrangement, isolation, and alienation.
Potentiality of Meaning
Genealogy makes us think about the nature of time and space, our own deepest nature, and cosmos -- and our relationship to it. Entering our genealogy with a sensitivity to the phenomena that might arise means we are more attuned, more likely to notice when they arise within us and what they call forth.
Genealogy becomes our altar to the sacred -- to the Great
Mystery that surrounds ideas of primordial mind, ancestral and shamanic wisdom, visionary transpersonal experiences, and other numinosum. As we become more keenly attuned to the psychophysical sensations of arising emotions, we become more keenly attuned to our ancestry, wholeness, and deep history. At the informational level, our bones are their bones, our nerve pathways are their nerves, our blood is their blood.
Information Storage & Retrieval
Akash and the Akashic Records have been linked to primordial informational fields. Even Tesla says, “All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena.” (Man’s Greatest Achievement, 1907)
Radical new proposals from physics are arising for vectors of information. Ervin Laszlo has linked it with psi phenomena and an integral theory recognizing the self-organizing interconnection of all things. He bootstraps from the Sanskrit, calling non-local interaction the Akasha Paradigm -- an entangled self-actualizing cosmos not limited to the here and now. We can connect and feel into each other. Laszlo shows the cosmos of the Akasha to be a self-actualizing, self-organizing whole. Each part is in coherence with all others and all parts together create the conditions for the emergence of life and consciousness. (2007; 2014).
http://manifestdestinytriforce.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-akashic-records-what-are-they-do.html
Igor V. Limar (2012) proposes linking synchronicity, correlated mental processes, and quantum entanglement. Mental processes of two different persons correlate not just when the subjects are located at a distance from each other, but also when both persons are alternately (and sequentially, one after the other) located in the same point of space. In this case, there is a time gap between manifestation of mental process in one person and manifestation of mental process in the other person.
NeuroQuantology, Sept. 2012, Vol. 10, Issue 3, Page 489-491.
"A Version of Jung’s Synchronicity in the Event of Correlation of Mental Processes in the Past and the Future: Possible Role of Quantum Entanglement in Quantum Vacuum"
http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/article/view/477/535
Approaching the Ancestors
We begin our genealogy knowing there is an art of approaching. We may yearn for that which we cannot name; we may find unspeakable secrets. Jung spoke of it poetically, "Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead. Reflect in good heart upon evil, this is the way to the ascent. But before the ascent, everything is night and Hell." (Liber Novus, Page 244).
When you step into your own Hell, never think that you come like one suffering in beauty; or as a proud pariah, but you come like a stupid and curious fool and gaze in wonder at the scraps that have fallen from your table. (Liber Novus, Page 262).
But the deepest Hell is when you realize that Hell is also no Hell, but a cheerful Heaven, not a Heaven in itself, but in this respect a Heaven, and in that respect a Hell. (Liber Novus, Page 244).
Our approach is framed with emotionally dependent perspectives, psychophysical reactions, and perceptual filters.
We become absorbed by the emotions we are feeling. Shifts in neurohormone levels affect our consciousness. They may manifest as interference patterns, psychosomatics or what might be called soma-signficance. Sometimes we "carry on" the maladies of our parents or grandparents within ourselves long after their passing. More than genetic or epigenetic inheritance, perhaps that is one way of keeping them with us.
Soma-Significance
Our bodies are simply connected with an intuitive sense of meaning, in all its implications and possibilities. Our structure encodes the recent and deep past. The physical and its significance are in no way separate but two aspects of a non-dual reality. So, some arising emotions may 'belong' to us while others arise from an empathic identification with our ancestors, or even fusions of their energies. They may appear in the pre-sensory, sensory elements and images in our dreams.
Proprioception is how we perceive ourselves physically -- our own individual orientation, moment to moment. It is how we grasp or sense of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.
Sensory information contributes to the sense of position of self and movement.
Expressing emotions amplifies them. So we can also unlock significance by moving intuitively, by "letting go," and seeing how that feels and what it brings up. That movement itself is a primal image that communicates information not only to our senses but our entire being. It helps us sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium.
Contemplation of our family tree provokes reflection on our destiny. We look to the beginning to reveal the end, since like a hologram or fractal each part reveals the whole. The initial condition is archetypal. This alchemy of multigenerational marriage bridges has come down to us in the present -- as our unique embodied being. Jung cautions that, "Individuals who believe they are masters of their fate are as a rule the slaves of destiny." (Letters Vol. II, P. 520-523)
Connection to Source is the basis of creation, which manifests something unique from formless nothing. In our mundane existence we can lose sight of the wonder of life. Genealogy manifests the marriage of matter and psyche. Our family tree is a forest doubling in numbers each generation we go back.
Those who have passed are often passed over. Recognizing them, we recognize the reality of the psyche. We contain multitudes. By the medieval period, they number in the thousands, and tens and hundreds of thousands. They outnumber themselves, leading to the phenomenon of 'pedigree collapse,' when ancestors repeat in multiple lines of our descent. Collectively, they are nevertheless our particular way of descending into the cosmos and life and carrying it forward.
Increasing knowledge of self can come by knowing the Others within and renewing ruptured relationships. We can draw an analogy between the ascending and descending pathways of our psychobiology and genealogy. Emotions have bodily effects.
"Threshold events" occur when information that was formerly profoundly unconscious arises within our somatic, emotional, mental, or spiritual perceptions. Once we can locate sensations in the body, we can get a metaphor for what that experience is "like," engaging our imaginal faculty.
Multiple streams of consciousness can participate in one perspective that frees us of our amnesia. Somato-sensory pathways are information channels. The somatosensory system is the part of the sensory system concerned with the conscious perception of touch, pressure, pain, temperature, position, movement, and vibration, which arise from the muscles, joints, skin, and fascia. Self-organizing systems of mind-body communication across all levels from the cellular-genetic to the psychosocial and behavioral affect our psychobiology and natural or spontaneous healing.
It isn't about belief but directing our awareness to a different transderivational level of the system. Richness of interactions allows systems as a whole to undergo spontaneous self-organization and reorganization at all levels. We emphasize the need to deal with illness at formative levels, i.e., at the organism's initial conditions -- perinatal states, as suggested by Grof, Tart, and Mindell. At subtle levels outer structure is only a passing reflection of this continuing deep inner evolution.
An incoming communication we cannot make any sense of whatsoever is an integral part of processing language, and of attaching meaning to communication. How we ask the question determines the information we get. For example, we can create association rather than dissociation.
One approach is to drop into the body and get a sensation for where a feeling is, following it around, if necessary. Sensory responses are evoked potentials. When we detect a response we have a place to begin noticing, remembering, and processing. At the threshold level we have a 50-50 chance of detecting our response as attention or distraction. We may feel it weakly or even wonder if we felt it at all. This way we can reactivate pretty much any feeling we've ever had or that lives in us with a new level of sensation and connection in the present. We become aware of issues by their somatic, energetic, and emotional components.
"Here, here's where we live
Here is a sea, my family
We'll always be young as we've ever been
Death will not part us again nearer to heaven than
10,000 ancestors who dream of me
Well I hear you dreaming of me
Yeah sometimes, dream of me!"
The Albatross, (Rickie Lee Jones/Leo Kottke/John Leftwich)
Exploring the unconscious through genealogy or psychogenealogy is a healing process, an uplifting engagement that is foundational to self-realization. We are no longer relegated to a single contemporary place and time. The ancestors remained an important part of daily life not so long ago, and remain so for many indigenous societies.
We Are Highly Improbable
Scientists have calculated that each unique individual is highly improbable -- apparently a rather miraculous 400 trillion to one chance. The odds of us existing, 1:400 trillion, are virtually zero. Conversely, by the 40th generation we have over a trillion ancestors. We have to consider the odds of our parents meeting relative to the number of people on Earth. Then consider the odds of contact leading further in competition with all the others we meet.
The probability dwindles of a long-term relationship and reproduction, the right sperm and egg combining, and finally the probabilities of each of our trillion+ ancestors successfully mating with all the variables of genetics that make up the chain of those all those ancestors -- the Tree of Life of perfect eternal fruits. Jung notes obviously that, "Living matter is a mystery which is beyond our understanding, if only for the reason that we ourselves consist of living matter."
You are a virtual miracle, which is simply an event so improbable it is unlikely to occur. So each life is unique and precious to the nth degree as the result of the cumulative process of increasing information. Even Jung might be challenged to call it a fortuitous series of synchronicities. We are an emergent phenomenon. There are mere chance occurrences as well as synchronicity. So, another model is self-organizing chaos in multiple systems.
Field, Form & Fate
Self-organization is the structure of creation -- a process where pattern emerges at the global (collective) level through interactions among the components of the system at the individual level. These interactions explicitly specify the global pattern. We are self-similar to our predecessors and all their reiterations. In the vernacular of chaos theory, we are “strange attractors” or patterns of order within chaos, which never exactly repeat themselves. An observer can never predict exactly what will happen, yet we display a quality of orderliness which hints at underlying “laws not yet discovered.”
As times change so do our metaphors, psychological and otherwise. Self-organization, chaos, and complexity are the basis of the new biology, but it strains the imagination to consider it operating transgenerationally. We might consider the overall effect as a transgenerational field effect -- a relationship of archetypal fields within fields. Memories are accumulating affecting the soul.
Yet here we are, unpredictable though it may be. Souls extend from other souls. Order emerges at the edge of chaos and we are that leading edge of our descent. Our life somehow dances into being. And this is precisely the Mystery of our being, formed by historical, psychosocial, and genetic forces. We are active psychophysical elements of the entire creation. Information and spiritual knowledge is accumulating if we know how to listen deeply with a close attunement to our ancestral and generational themes.
Generational Archetypes
Everything we do starts with feeling and feeling starts in the family. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe created the Strauss-Howe generational theory. It identifies a recurring generational cycle in the last five centuries of Anglo-American history. It can be explained by four generational archetypes that repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern every 80-100 years. This is the unfixed length of a long human life the ancients called a “saeculum," which can be divided into four "seasons" of approximately 22 years each; these seasons represent youth, rising adulthood, midlife, and elderhood.
Basically, this sociological generational theory describes how the era a person was born into affects the development of their view of the world. Our value systems are shaped in the first decade or so of our lives, by our families, our friends, our communities, significant events and the general era in which we are born.
All cultures are shared unconscious fantasies about how to live life. Traditional cultures viewed time as cyclical, much as the waxing and waning of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun, the birth and death of living creatures, the planting and harvesting of crops, and the seasons of the year. The idea of sacred time as an eternal round and the symbol of the ring or wheel are cross-cultural symbols. There is a repeating cycle in historical generational values. Each 20-year long generation faces similar issues and experiences.
http://www.tomorrowtoday.uk.com/articles/article001_intro_gens.htm
Beyond the modern pop nomenclature of Greatest Generation, Boomers, and Gens X, Y, Millennials, and Post-Millennials ("Homeland Generation"), their 1997 book The Fourth Turning, expands the theory focusing on a pulsating fourfold cycle of generational types and recurring mood eras in American history. Graeme Codrington summarizes the repeating cycle.
Social Cycle Theory
[Each] 80 year period of human history, we start with a crisis period, when society has to stop and deal with an issue that actually changes institutions and structures. Children born during such a time grow up to be like the Silent generation of today. This is followed by an outer directed and driven period of rebuilding, with grand visions and big dreams, giving rise to a Boomer-like generation. This idealistic world cannot be sustained, however, and a period of disillusionment and breaking down follows, with society being reconfigured and adjusted. The children of this era grow up to be like Generation X is today. This era is followed by an inner-directed era, where leaders, institutions and society itself focuses on consolidating and building new foundations, rebuilding institutions and protecting the young. This era gives rise to the type of people who are from the GI generation and the Millennial generation today. Finally, this inner-directed focus cannot be maintained, and a crisis occurs, sparking a new cycle.
If this is correct, then generational theorists are expecting a major crisis to hit global society in the next few years. This is something that will cause society to stop, reconsider and reconstitute itself. http://www.tomorrowtoday.uk.com/articles/article001_intro_gens.htm
While they focus on the history of the United States, including the Colonial era and British antecedents, they also find similar generational trends around the globe from the late Medieval period. They have defined generational archetypes in cohort groups that express the zeitgeist of their times. While such attributions are arguable they can provide a touchstone for certain eras and their collective culture.
http://www.lifecourse.com/about/method/generational-archetypes.html
They group four generations into a series of 80-year cyclic 'turnings' that include an initial 'high', followed by 'awakening,' unraveling,' and 'crisis.' Their archetypes include 'prophet,' 'nomad,' 'hero,' and 'artist' generations. We can think of such themes as collective dreams. Repeating cycles are a common theme for both individuals and whole generations.
As is the generation of leaves, so to of men:
At one time the wind shakes the leaves to the ground
but then the flourishing woods
Gives birth, and the season of spring comes
into existence;
So it is with the generations of men, which
alternately come forth and pass away.
– Homer, The Illiad, Book Six
We might benefit from the generational method in formulating our own Big Picture, as well as broad-stroke insights for our own generation within the pattern. The theory contends that each new generation entering a specific lifestage will redefine that lifestage and change it either subtly or dramatically. As generations clash there is a collision of values, expectations, ambitions, attitudes and behaviors -- the generation gap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory
Self-Generating Creativity
Prima materia is the "beginning of all," "the abyss," the primary chaotic earth, or principle of existence in general. In his 1941 ETH lecture, Jung describes how many philosophers have sought information about the prima materia from inhabitants of Hades, or in the "habitation of souls." This is the realm of psychic dark matter, what is hidden from view.
This "land of the dead" is also known as "the egg," "Adam's Earth," "Mercurial serpent," "winged dragon," and the "entrance to the West,” "the root of itself," the dark sky of night, the non-created, or eternity. Or, as Jung states, in Liber Novus, "Hell is when the depths come to you with all that you no longer are or are not yet capable of." (Page 244).
Prima materia is also called a neglected, rejected, and abandoned "orphan." The original "chaos" or "sea" constitutes all matter. Such self-organizing complexity is the beginning and end of transformation and renewal. This is the creative process Jung spoke about.
…a creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, and in elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work by giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life (CW 15, P. 82)
Edinger (1978) compares the problem of discovering the prima materia to the problem of finding what to work on in psychotherapy. He gives some hints:
(1) It is ubiquitous, to be found everywhere, before the eyes of all. This means that psychotherapeutic material likewise is everywhere, in all the ordinary, everyday occurrences of life. Moods and petty personal reactions of all kinds are suitable matter to be worked on by the therapeutic process.
(2) Although of great inward value, the primal materia is vile in outer appearance and therefore despised, rejected or thrown on the dung heap. The prima materia is treated like the suffering servant in Isaiah. Psychologically, this means that the primal materia is found in the shadow, that part of the personality which is considered most despicable. Those aspects of ourselves most painful and most humiliating are the very ones to be brought forward and worked on.
(3) It appears as multiplicity, "has as many names as there are things," but at the same time is one. This feature corresponds to the fact that initially psychotherapy makes one aware of his/her fragmented, disjointed condition. Very gradually these warring fragments are discovered to be differing aspects of ones underlying unity. It is as though one sees the fingers of a hand touching a table at first only in two dimensions, as separate unconnected fingers. With three-dimensional vision, the fingers are seen as part of a larger unity, the hand.
(4) The prima materia is undifferentiated, without definite boundaries, limits or form. This corresponds to a certain experience of the unconscious which exposes the ego to the infinite. ...It may evoke the terror of dissolution or the awe of eternity. It provides a glimpse of the pleroma. ...the chaos prior to the operation of the World-creating Logos. It is the fear of the boundless that often leads one to be content with the ego-limits he has rather than risk falling into the infinite by attempting to enlarge them.
The different operations to transform the prima materia follow as the natural consequences of finding the material to work on. The imagery associated with these operations is profuse and draws from ancestors (genetic memory), myth, religion and folklore. The symbols for all these imagery-systems comes from the collective unconscious.
Dying to be Heard
Jung implies we cannot get rid of the unconscious and its intuitions, which are rooted in our instinctual, reflexive, and parasympathic systems. But we can go from being 'herd' to being heard. We can engage in intentional multisensory dialogue with our depths. It arises from the primordial ground of the subquantal level of every quantum particle of our being. Jung likened Hades to a black hole without an outlet.
When we enter our genealogy we enter the realm of the dead, so we must find a way to reconcile that metaphor and our surrender to the process. Jung cautions, "Under certain conditions living people can descend into Hades, but it does not agree with them. One must really be dead to go there, for it is the dark land where the dead are imprisoned; and this is a place from which this marvellous substance comes." (ETH, Pages 215-223.)
In Arcadia, the ancients sought out the Necromanteion or "Oracle of Death" where they communed with their dead ancestors in a psychoactive ritual. Though there were many oracles of the dead, the Necromanteion of Ephyra was the most important. Herodotus recounts that Periander, sent emissaries in the 6th century BC to ask questions of his dead wife, Melissa. In his nekyia, Odysseus enters Hades through the Necromanteion.
We can listen to the voice that has no words --the voice of the silence. We're all connected via the interactive sea of energy that connects us to everyone and everything in our world. It seems Hades presides over our descents and perhaps our descendancy. According to Jung, "To journey to Hell means to become Hell oneself. It is all frightfully muddled and interwoven." (Liber Novus, Page 240.)
Caves always had their own gods. The underworld with its narrow jagged gaps is essential to many spiritual worldviews. We can imagine that a notion of hell arose early in mankind's emerging consciousness somewhere between the darkness of imagination and physical mazes of deep caverns that seem like uterine spaces or living, breathing internal cavities that snake for miles. Caves -- the original temples -- were worshipped and feared as the center of the earth with miles of crumbling tunnels and steep precipitous drop offs multiple-stories deep.
Mankind has journeyed deep into them and used these dark and treacherous labyrinths that tortured and twisting passages with seemingly bottomless pits, to live, to hide, to explore, and to worship with pilgrimage, art, and rituals. But all who descend into the underworld do so at their own risk. Initiatory passageways and vertical shafts have dangerous hand and footholds etched in lava and ice, and studded with magical curtains, spires, crystals and inscriptions.
In some sense, hell was our ancient dwelling place to which we returned upon death -- a metaphorical regression to the primal epoch. With its flickering fires, smoky caverns, and hidden dangers the cave gave rise to mythic and archetypal recollections and dreams of ancestral spirits. The dreamworld became a stone cold abyss and the primordial underworld was born.
The first proto-images appeared in cave art. Men and women impulsively desired to participate in the potential transforming powers of the "insides." Hades, the devouring one, could be contacted in the dark cavern of fathomless psychic force. The dismal labyrinthine complexity gave rise to the original trope. The soul is within, below, buried deep in self as within earth itself. This is the archetypal sleepworld of Hypnos and Thanatos.
If we accept that death is not the enemy but a doorway we can rest naturally in what is. The great invitation is to accept death. Lao Tzu invites us to give up the fight against death so existence is revealed as sublime relaxation. Each moment becomes a surrender, one of ‘touch and let go.’ We must not hide, but rather be open to all aspects of being. In sublime relaxation, shadow issues can emerge, some even hidden by our nondual language and cliches. All is grist for death’s mill.
In archetypal psychology, soul remains close to death -- disease, disorder, collapse. We die to the literal and concrete world of the senses for the sake of soul. Hillman imagined Hades right alongside daily life, the invisible made visible in psychic events, soul process, and revelatory meaning. It is the gaps between breaths. The dreamworld is also the underworld of Hades. From Hades perspective we are our images. By "letting be," we can allow dream images to speak for themselves, rather than forcing them toward interpretations for mundane life.
The underworld is the primal void -- the prima materia. Underworld is psyche. It is not a place but a hidden domain of liminal experience -- a dimension not available in itself. Our concern with Hades here regarding our ancestors is the spontaneous image-making of the soul. The 'ground' is a fathomless depth.
We experience dread and resistance when we delve too deeply inside ourselves -- this is the devouring darkness of death and desolation before rebirth. Death is at the heart of alchemy. We can understand the "death experience" metaphorically and psychologically, but we still must all confront it with naked awareness without the symbols and images born of nature's own workings.
Some families never forget who they are, while others struggle with a few fragments that don't seem to fit together. Either way it's a puzzle with some missing or damaged pieces. We must keep the big picture in mind to understand the smaller parts. We all have the ability to recognize and seize the deep sense of mystery that lives in our own lives.
Undoubtedly, there is a sacred dimension to the genealogical process, more so when we do the work ourselves. In our first attempts we cross the threshold of initiation. Jung suggests, "But if you know what the dead demand, temptation will become the wellspring of your best work, indeed of the work of salvation." (Liber Novus, Page 278, Footnote 188.)
"From the middle of life, only he who is willing to die with life remains living. Since what takes place in the secret hour of life's midday is the reversal of the parabola, the birth of death ..." ~Carl Jung; Soul and death, CW 8, §800.
History, Memories, Stories
With genealogy we dig below the basement of our personal unconscious to find what lies below that still haunts or calls for us. What has been buried in the past yet is not gone nor dormant because it is part of the our psychophysical being. Our adaptive survival styles can distort identity in adult life.
To reclaim our ancestral soul we suffer through the anguish of the unknown as well as the burdens of what we do find from which we wished to protect ourselves. There is shock trauma and developmental trauma. We find things that are great and things that are tragic. Genealogy gives and it takes.
The Trail That Never Ends
Such discoveries have been popularized by media: “Finding Your Roots”‘, "Who Do You Think You Are", “Roots of Faith Ancestry”, "Genealogy Roadshow", and others. Genealogy is touted as the second biggest hobby in America. People want to reconnect with their ancestral homeland to know where and how they lived. http://b.treelines.com/in-defense-of-genealogy-as-a-hobby/
Finding Yourself
Many feel compelled to take on the project. Online genealogy sites are some of the most popular on the web. It's a thrill extending the family heritage back a few more generations or discovering that your family is related to royalty, or allegedly to the legends of history. The progenitor of the clan lies at the root of the male line.
Bi-Lateral Descent
Our own bi-lateral descent includes both of our parents. But each female in our direct descent has her own bi-lateral lines, as well. We honor not only our paternal surname (patrilineal descent), but all those grandmothers whose families keep our lines invigorated with new blood.
New surnames enter the tree with each wife. These are not easy lines to follow, retrieve, or draw without the aid of computers. Maiden names often present brick walls difficult to push beyond. Pedigrees show both family-as-child and their families-as-parent.
Algorithm Genealogy
Rather than mere family trees, massive genealogical sites with billions of records have been likened to Amazonian forests of family connections of blood ties and marriage bridges. Genealogists who explore the family tree information, weeding out false or duplicate information, call themselves "forest rangers." When genealogies were digitally archived it became possible for algorithms to find lines of descent that included both male and female progenitors.
Thus, genealogy reclaimed the realm of the Mothers -- a return of the Feminine to genealogy where female lines are equally valued. Algorithm genealogy finds paths of mixed fathers and mothers to particular ancestors that might not otherwise be discernible. This is particularly so for ancient and legendary ancestors. Usually, the term “Descents from Antiquity” refers to modern efforts to find plausible lines of descent. However, it can also include traditional descents that have varying degrees of reliability.
Matrilineal descent is called a "mother line". An individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as her or his mother. The matriline of historical nobility was also called her or his enatic or uterine ancestry (corresponding to the patrilineal "agnatic" ancestry).
Family Relationships
Algorithms can find all family relationships. Data structure represents a genealogy or genealogies as a stand-alone date structure. Genealogy is considered as a finite, connected graph that enables storage of the minimum of family relationships and recognition of them and others like 'ancestor-descendant', 'sibs', 'twins', 'cousins', 'uncle/aunt-nephew/niece' or 'spouses'. Algorithms for genealogy retrieval are classified as vertical, lateral and parallel. In certain combinations, vertical and lateral algorithms become capable of finding any relatives, no matter if they are in a direct 'ancestor-descendant' relationship or if they have only the same ancestor(s). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8366693
Like miners for meaning we tunnel through our history encountering riches and danger below. But genealogy also has its own myths. As we proceed, we dig deeper into our multigenerational study. Like ancient navigators, we have to course correct along the way for errors, forgeries, and fictitious ancestors. Genealogy is not a mash-up of metaphysical percepts, concepts, and pareidolia. We begin with percepts (i.e. the senses, from which we initially
know reality), not concepts (i.e. what we imagine the world to be or, commonly, wish it would become).
Re-Cording the Ties that Bind
Genealogy directly manifests the psyche as a transpersonal field that informs our personality and sustains us. Each ancestral couple embodies psychic polarities from exaltation to the conscious and unconscious suffering that brings positive developments such as enhanced empathy, wisdom, or spiritual development. Speaking of the opposites in his 1925 Seminar (p.85), Jung says, "Life is never so beautiful as when surrounded by death."
As we engage our ancestors we engage the numinous. We discover our mythic roots, the injured feminine, sacrifice, and other powerful archetypal forces of the cauldron of generativity -- the central theme of humanity. Sexuality, love, and spirituality play through the epic ancestral drama, uniting the opposites, again and again, shaping who we are and weaving patterns of conditioning and potential wholeness.
Genealogy can help us recapture that sense through creating a sacred space that allows us to reconnect in a direct way with our ancient past. Encounters with our ancestors, historical and imaginal, are encounters with soul. The imaginal becomes virtual and probabilistic vision. We don't need to split our subjective self from the the objective perception of the world. Perhaps "the view from death" enriches and enlarges the improbability of the gift of life. More than 10,000 ancestors are dreaming of you.
Feel It, Reveal It, Heal It
The emotional brain reacts the same way to objective or virtual information. In fact, the later may prompt a stronger brain response. Even when subliminal, the brain produces a global response to the unexpected, but it is more recognition than complex cognition. The neural correlates of conscious, global processing across the entire network are also generated during unconscious activity...even when something is perceived unconsciously, or subliminally, leading to activity over the entire network. We can speculate that waves of virtual particles might indeed create real effects.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28444-leading-theory-of-consciousness-rocked-by-oddball-study/
Physics is finding that the arrow of time does not seem to follow the standard laws of physics. Now, physicists are unmasking a more fundamental source for the arrow of time: Energy disperses and objects equilibrate, they say, because of the way elementary particles become intertwined when they interact — a strange effect called “quantum entanglement.”
The Crucible of Love
It is well-known to clergy and psychologists that on their deathbeds, people don't wish to discuss God or religion, but their own families. Many are not afraid to die but don't want to leave their living families. They speak and may even call out to their parents, their sons and daughters, or see lost spouses.
Or, we may call on our 'godparents,' those whom we've chosen as nurturing allies, known or unknown, for their inspiration and succor. Hillman noted as we become old we develop character which makes us fit ancestors and mentors. Soul's Code (1997)
We are born into and create our lives in families and families we create. This is where we find meaning, where our purpose becomes clear. There we experience love and first give it, and are hurt, betrayed, or rejected by caregivers and siblings. In this crucible of love we begin asking big spiritual questions to which we come back in the very end. Jung admonishes us, "My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed dragons and devils in your heart." (The Red Book, Page 232)
Those images in the conscious mirror reflect both the material and universal soul, our spiritual essence through a "sympathy," an intelligence of spirit that reflects the animation of the material world and the union of cosmic reality.
Some confess what it feels like to know that they neglected, criticized, abandoned, or engulfed and overwhelmed their children, or that drinking destroyed their family. They lament they were physically or psychologically abusive, or failed to care for those who most needed them. It isn't difficult to understand how such behavior leaves its mark on the future. All seem to know what is missing, and what was deserved by the innocent.
On their deathbeds, people often speak of the love they felt and gave away -- or didn't receive or give, or even known how to offer unconditionally. Love may be imperfect, emotionally unavailable, or entirely missing, or full of rage and trauma -- or uncertain and ambiguous. In the end the meaning of life is concerned only with love -- lost and found. Love is what matters -- perhaps the only thing that matters in the end.
We may hope we've had a gift to give. When the love is imperfect, or a family is destructive, forgiveness can be learned. Our spiritual work as human beings is learning how to love and how to forgive. Most have a simple wish that someone will remember them fondly and that they lived and loved fully, even if they know they have not.
But it's not about fixing, or making, or doing, but being in the presence of the Mystery into which we are born and to which we return with a fully open heart. The Egyptians had a ceremony for weighing the lightness of the heart against the weight of a feather of Ma'at for balance. Thought, memory, and emotion came from the heart. Today we speak of the neurological heart-brain and gut-brain. We might imagine weighing our own hearts for such psychic and emotional balance.
Exploring our family tree helps us explore the depths of love. We never say goodbye to those we hold in our hearts. If we listen with our heart, we make a mindful journey as we wend our way along. We won't know where it is leading. As in physics, the very act of our observation disturbs and alters the whole system through our participation.
Long buried issues come up, are unburied, challenge and lay claim to us somatically, emotionally, mentally, even spiritually. Many develop self-destructive biological processes or behaviors. We may need to reconnect with Death and our own death to reorient ourselves in life and find sanctuary. Doors are opened and closed by the mysterious spirit behind life and death.
Our dreams and the body will tell us. We may come to understand that fate itself rules and as we age we have to give up our own story, our merely personal history, to find peace. We find in some sense the end is in the beginning. Even death may need to feel our love. Death becomes our medicine.
Genealogy has a dry factual basis but the imaginal dimension is also inherent in the self-unfolding dynamics. It helps us create and cultivate an imaginal sacred space where soul and spirit unfold generation after generation. It creates a wealth of energy that we find is a source of wisdom and containment. Inner guidance connects us with source. We awaken from our illusion of separateness by embracing our extended family.
We cross the threshold from the edge of the sacred, into the temenos, moving toward the numinous at the far boundaries of our mythically-rooted lines. As we stay with a family line, working our way up through the children to the parents, we get to "know" them. The sacred makes claims on us as well as offering gifts. It takes the form of personal experience.
Spontaneous fantasies with all kinds of implications will naturally arise in the genealogical process. Jung notes that such play of ideas and impression can be purposeful and valuable. Hillman says we wrestle with our spirits at night.
"The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, a characteristic also of the child, and as such it appears inconsistent with the principle of serious work. But without this playing with fantasy any creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable. It is therefore short-sighted to treat fantasy, on account of its risky or unacceptable nature, as a thing of little worth. (Psychological Types Ch. 1; Page 82).
Resonance Phenomena
Our ancestral deep field is a plenum of personalities and procreation -- a community of virtual beings and sacred space of wholeness. It pulsates with life force and the creative energy of love. We can imagine messages resonating along the many family lines -- waves of vibration that connect with the ancient past like some archaic tin-can and string 'telephone.' Such 'kindling' is an important part of our neurological process. Listening and sounding is interactive.
In The Emerald Tablet, Thoth says, "Send through thy body a wave of vibration, irregular first and regular second, repeating time after time until free. Start the wave force in thy brain center. Direct it in waves from thine head to thy foot."
The recipient then becomes a receiver and, through the process of entrainment, modulates the same frequency and the same waveform in a reversed phase. They become coupled and are no longer distinguishable from one another. In-between two physical systems, entrainment synchronizes one entity to vibrate in an identical way in metaphorical response to the Other.
"The Orphan" Soul
Nature’s ensemble of voices curiously leads to systems of increasing complexity, and hints at a collective intelligence -- the instinctual and the luminous. It may at first come as an emotional flooding or an inundation of fantasies before that massa confusa of primal material differentiates. We may experience loss and grief that things haven't worked out as we might have hoped. Powerful events can triggers such feelings.
It evokes an image of the archetypal "orphan soul" sought by alchemists to create the Philosopher's Stone. Secret fire is the "leaded" fuel that cooks under the surface from the "heat" of awareness -- that cooks it into conscious experience. This calcination is Stage 1 of our spiritual alchemy, which is followed by dissolution (solutio) and separation (coagulatio).
We begin in a state of disintegration, of insensibility, and gradually reach greater awareness. We all have a bit of the disillusioned orphan in us. Some have living parents who were never available or are now emotionally unavailable. We may be alienated but long to belong or connect in a meaningful way. Perhaps we resonate with other orphans in our lines.
The experience of "adult orphans" is often underplayed as we consider the death of our parents 'normal' in adulthood, but it is a condition worthy of attention, and genealogy is one way to address it, to deepen it, to deal with abandonment and loss. Jung says, "When one lives for a long time in great solitude, the silence or the darkness becomes visibly, audibly, and tangibly alive, and the unknown in oneself steps up in an unknown guide."
This is no seance, spiritualism, hallucination, or lunacy, and should not be approached as such. It is not supernatural. This is an involuntary flood of charged emotions arising from the unconscious. Often double binds and hyperarousal lead to emotional flooding -- that ocean of emotion. Much of the trauma is held in the body in structure, soft tissue, and symptoms.
It's All Relative
For example, we may have internalized the traits of one parent, as well as the other parent's loathing of those qualities. If you are overloaded you may feel swamped. You may dream of tsunamis. Such feelings are linked to helplessness, frustration, anger, feeling trapped, remorse, guilt, and self-hate.
Orphans have to learn to not be loyal to their suffering, the abandonment, trauma, and betrayal. But we must be willing to accept our grief and loneliness and let go. It's not just your pain or hurt, but the hurt of humanity in this vastness. We can learn mercy and forgiveness, within our Tree and for ourselves. We may transform from hating and being incensed, to the sweet fragrance of an incense tree that perfumes our sacred space.
Follow the Pain & Fear Deeper
Pain also leads us into liminal space. We can view it as an acronym for "pay attention; integrate now." When we surrender control, something genuinely new can happen. We see beyond our self-interest and security issues. The liminal opens a space for alternative consciousness to emerge.
Furio Jesi suggests the mask of pain and despair counterfeits the reality of death. He cites Dionysus as the God of pain because loss of the past is painful when the truth of the past is not mentioned. Primordial initiation was about the experience of death and rebirth -- change from one state to another, from one Time to another. The death that precedes rebirth is the abandonment of the past, but rebirth includes everything from the past that was and is alive that we don't remember.
Furio Jesi, Mythological material. Myth and anthropology in Central European culture, Einaudi , Turin 1979.
House-Burial
Some cultures wanted their dead so close to home and family, they buried them under their house. In the Neolithic era, the dead "slept" beneath the floor where their kindred continued their activities. The Greeks and Minoans interred loved ones, especially children, in jars buried in the floor. The Dravidians buried the dead in the house so their spirits could be more easily reborn as children of the same family. Poverty is another reason of under home burials.
The Cherokee buried their dead in the floor directly under the place where the person died. Some cultures later removed the bones and venerated them in the house. Sometimes only the soul of the dead is returned to the house after burial elsewhere. We likely wouldn't do so, but if we don't have an urn, we might have file boxes of photos and genealogical research "buried" in the basement or elsewhere, symbolically echoing the ancient sentiment of "housing" the dead. We may house skeletons in the basement of our subconscious.
Even grieving can be a sacred space -- a Grail space where magic can happen. We cannot get rid of the pain until we discern what it has to teach us. Much of our understandable anger is actually disguised and denied sadness, a depression.
We can learn self-compassion to carry our pain more graciously. Meditative dialogues and co-meditation with the ancestors become possible. As we penetrate the unknown we have to tolerate not knowing and maintain trust in the process and sea of people.
We are never experts in this task, as Confucious reminds us: "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." In 2009, China acknowledged a new Confucianism by publishing the genealogy of the 800-year-old Kong family on a computer database at China's National Library in Beijing.
China is trying to revive its traditional culture, including genealogy. "The Chinese have always been interested in their past -- worship of ancestors is worship of origins." (Heinz 1999:225). Kong Ming, a 33-year-old businessman from Shanghai, began researching his family in 1998. His elderly grandfather dug up the coffin in which he had hidden the family records to escape persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Heinz, Carolyn Brown, Asian Cultural Traditions (Waveland Press, Inc., 1999).
Tian, commonly translated as Heaven or Sky, but philologically meaning the Great One, the Great Whole, is a key concept in Confucianism. "Forming one body with the universe" is a neo-Confucian ideal. As we work, formlessness congeals into form. We arose from that. Such a healing space is naturally therapeutic and traditionally described as "the center of the world."
In our case this archetypal center is the Tree of Life that connects heaven and earth. It realigns us with the Cosmos with a new perspective -- a much larger story. Our personal family tree merges with the collective World Tree. We repeat the cycle of discovering and adding ancestors and the images and symbolism of their lives. We get out of it the transformed energy we put into the process.
In Letters, Vol. I, Jung suggests, "The community is nothing without the individual and if a community consists of individuals that do not fulfill their individual telos, then the community has no telos or a very wrong one" (p. 464). The only thing we need to know is ourselves, the greatest secret, the greatest gnosis.
Pleroma
In Liber Novus, (Pg. 274, Fn 75), Jung notes that life is an energetic process with its own goal. "But every energetic process is in principle irreversible and therefore unequivocally directed toward a goal, and the goal is the state of rest ..." Jung's plenum is a field of universal potential, unbound luminosity and infinite awareness. Space isn't an empty vacuum but characterized as a fullness and creative flow.
Science tells us the ultimate state of rest is the virtual vacuum of absolute space, the Zero Point, zero-phase geometry. It is the groundstate of being and has been likened to the Akashic Field and universal memory by Ervin Lazlo (2007).
This subquantum coherent field is pure information. Rather than linear lines of ancestors, we might think of them metaphorically as superpositions of our deep ancestry -- a superwave "reaching over" with interference peaks, information states with entangled and partly coherent stimulated emissions.
Jung called it the Pleroma, after the Gnostics. The non-dual is beyond all distinctions, a field that is the only reality. "Emptiness is Form, Form is Emptiness." In it thinking and being cease, because the eternal is without qualities. There is no one in it because they would be differentiated from the Pleroma, according to the Red Book. We must watch out for what we believe, but we can entertain many notions.
All These Paths Lead to You
The call to adventure is the call to the future and interiority. Genealogy makes it graphically obvious that many paths lead to the central experience and facilitate the other paths that lead there.
An underground stream runs through the hidden ground of our being. We can meander through the furthest reaches of the transpersonal imagination, purposefully seeking that which remains as-yet-unknown in the depths. It is just a matter of being present with our experience, open to what is found along the way, be it answers or ambiguity.
Mankind has wandered in the fields of reality seeking its true nature since the dawn of time. A fiercely lived life is an artform -- illumination in action, based on discipline, practice and service. The specific “Art” is alchemical, a merger of inner and outer reality in One World. Jung said, "To live what is right and to let what is false die, that is the art of life." (Liber Novus, Pg 274, Footnote 75).
Rootedness
Conscious experiences belong to slipstreams of consciousness, and these streams are part of nature’s process. They can be described in physical and psychological terms as our sacred journey.
Experience is a process rooted in the stream of consciousness and happens “to” a person in that stream of consciousness. Each person is an aspect of nature’s process whose stream can flow forth like a fountainhead to quench and nourish many over the course of time.
Whose Trauma Is It?
Whether your genealogical methods are clinical or intuitive, you face your lineage as an individual. Each ancestor relationship you form is special to you because intuition is never completely conscious. Regardless of our style of genealogy practice, we need to approach recovery of our deep identity with a sense of balance. We want to recover our ancestors, not reinvent them. We want to recontextualize them and reinvigorate that spirit. At some point all family lines fade into historical amnesia.
Trauma can be physical or psycho-emotional impact. We may seek specific trauma recovery while a variety of behavioral, emotional and physical conditions are rooted in unresolved traumatic experiences, whether in real-time crisis or post-event disorder. Anger and hate may be there but so is our inner guidance system, the capacity to love and accept.
Transgenerational Inheritance
Our inheritance from ancestors is both good and burdensome. Their issues become our issues through genetics, epigenetics, and shared trauma. Not only our emotions, but what we eat and breath affect the genes of our descendants. The environment affects up- and down-regulation of gene expression and disease development.
Upregulation and downregulation can also happen as a response to toxins or hormones. An example of upregulation in pregnancy is hormones that cause cells in the uterus to become more sensitive to oxytocin.
Transgenerational integration suggests that trauma can become displaced in time, leading to symptoms and repetition compulsion. Freud saw repetitious compulsions or symptoms as a way of “working through” or exorcising the pain of traumatic events and thoughts. But it is also re-traumatizing. Working through requires some degree of re-living of events as we re-enliven emotional and mental patterns.
Metaphors Be With You
However, we can safely use metaphors rather than the historical dimension. How we know what we know is expressed naturally in metaphor. Images arise as self-generating metaphors -- what is happening and what it's like. Thus, we can dig up our buried sorrow, or release bottled-up anger.
We can express our experiences symbolically. Metaphoric expressions are tied to our unconscious or implicit experiences. They are inherent to our language. Metaphor functions like dreams and symptoms that simultaneously express material from different dynamic, structural, and topographical psychic levels.
With metaphor we can link our experiences across diverse times and situations. Change the root, change the reaction. We treat the figurative language as real. The figures of the subconscious pictures or constructs are treated as real. Resistance is also information from which a metaphor can emerge. Such metaphors are naturally healing.
Lacan reversed Freud's conception: Symptoms help us reorganize our life so we continue to derive a secret enjoyment from something that, on a conscious level, we want to be rid of. We may not really enjoy it, but what is "familiar" from family life, even chaos, is often more comfortable than what is healthy.
Trauma Crosses Generations
Trauma in one generation can be transmitted consciously and unconsciously to later generations. For example, three or more generations can share similar traumas, such as early loss of a parent, and/or early loss of a spouse. They may all share multi-generational denial, repression, triggers, PTSD, unresolved grief and attendant depression.
The contradiction between conscious aversion and unconscious enjoyment actually warps our symbolic-imaginary spacetime, causing the strange tail-chasing, repetitive “orbiting” behavior of all neuroses and obsessive behavior. Our miseries or dreary compulsions conceal,
preserve, and protect a vital and enlivening unconscious dimension. Genealogy and therapy help us unbury these toxic attachments from our genetic tree. Expressive therapies address intergenerational trauma and psychophysical conditions.
There are numerous changes at the physical, neurobiological, emotional, and spiritual levels. There are phases of response after trauma. We can map traumas across our own lives and related others in a timeline revealing personal challenges and stress triggers. For self-care and self-regulation we can make a stress management plan. Some might choose to use expressive or genogram techniques for trauma integration.
Often it is necessary to clarify a vague content by giving it a visible form. This can be done by drawing, painting, or modeling. Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.” (Jung, CW 16, Para 181)
Cross Time Communication
Paradoxically, our most personal past is a telos. This emergent aim or purpose pulls us forward into our deep past through a process in the present. In genealogy, it is one thing to know what to look for and another to know where to look. The red thread passes through the eye of the cosmic needle.
Like Aboriginal song-lines from the Dreamtime, our genealogical lines reveal place names with their own stories. We have to sense our way along, to navigate through the terrain of the unconscious. Such dreaming-tracks cut through the wilderness of the unknown. We catch the rhythm and 'observe' the landscape. By such a path, through sacred movement of the soul we discover our Self, a dynamic emancipation of our life energies and self-actualization.
"Our concepts of space and time have only approximate validity, and there is therefore a wide field for minor and major deviations.
In view of all this, I lend an attentive ear to the strange myths of the psyche, and take a careful look at the varied events that come my way, regardless of whether or not they fit in with my theoretical postulates." (Jung, MDR, Pg. 300)
Reassume the Past
Our ancestors embody our innate unconscious metaphors and archetypal autonomy. Archetypes give form to chaos and intuition. Jung said, "An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors." In this sense, genealogy has a transcendent function, concerning the meaning of being in time -- psyche's innate purposiveness, aesthetics, and biocultural evolution.
False Trails
We must watch our conditioned responses directly. As we engage in this Great Work, we encounter merge issues, dead ends, and false trails. We cannot rewrite the past. We must be willing the surrender understanding we thought we had found if it proves fallacious.
We must frame and reframe our pictures of the past as it grows and changes each time we access our genealogy, each time we contemplate it within. In that process we will make many concretizations and assumptions, commit cultural errors, and encounter lacuna we cannot fill with any evidence. The gap in time is also a gulf in mores and ways of life, so be careful making anachronistic personal judgments from today's standpoint.
Hypnoidal Dynamics
We all have our own wounds and our ancestors did, too. The wound healing cycle is an instrument of recovery. Pathological traumatic stress (PTSD) has hypnoidal dynamics indicating unresolved trauma. Fostering resilience with direct suggestion, metaphor, and transpersonal methods that bring healing from beyond the self is another long-term recovery tool. Analytical methods help internal conflict resolution and transformation. Bio-energetics and hands on methods help the physical and energy body.
Because the brain accepts the imaginal as real, changes take place at a physical and mental level. Looking at what lies ahead becomes part of our noncausal interpretation of the past, an emotional movement from darkness to light. We live nested in two levels of personal and transpersonal being. We should be watchful for our own projections and distortions.
We must bear in mind that we do not make projections, rather they happen to us. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 563.
Of course you really don't make projections: they are; it is a mistake when one speaks of making a projection, because in that moment it is no longer a projection, but your own property. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 1493.
Ghosts and Spirits. These phenomena are projections from the background of the psyche, autonomous inner images of a subjective nature, obeying no conscious intention, but coming and going at their own volition. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Vol. 1, Page 40
Those wounds teach us something about ourselves that effects a holistic re-patterning. Going through our wound means realizing we will never again be the same once we emerge from this initiatory process. All forms are dissolved in the underground stream, the rushing stream of consciousness, in a baptism or healing immersion in the vast ocean of deep consciousness. We ride the dragon on the backs of our ancestors to the realm of the Unborn, returning to the pure creative energy of the cosmic womb for the mystery of alchemical rebirth.
Going through our wound is a genuine (ego) death experience, as our old self "dies" in the process, while a new, more expansive and empowered human potential is born. Thus, the Grail is not only about birth, it is about catalyzing transformational rebirth into a nonlinear, nonlocal expanded sense of self beyond mere ego inflation. Self-actualization or self-realization implies the stabilizing or grounding of the spiritual fruits of inner exploration. This is gnosis.
Marie-Louise Von Franz, said "the wounded healer IS the archetype of the Self (our wholeness, the God within) and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures," resulting in a more open-ended and expansive sense of who we think we are, and who we imagine others are in relation to us. The wound is not only a personal experience, but a doorway, a hyper-dimensional portal into the transpersonal / archetypal realm, which is a higher order (in terms of freedom) of our being.
Self-Compassion
Both future and past operate in the present, symbolizing our as-yet-unlived life potential, including extension into eternity. Anticipation fuels the process, but everything cannot happen at once as we need time to digest it. We tend to overlook the infinitely vast scale of time at every moment. Genealogy helps us keep such insights in sight by softening the boundaries of birth and death in our narrative, exposing us experientially to the unbound sweep of deep time.
We are neither gods nor demons, and neither were our ancestors though we are all filled by archetypal potentials, their archetypal pathologies, and symptoms. Our collective unconscious -- the primary phenomena -- informs the experience of being. Suffering merges with hopeful transcendence. Instead of dissociating, we experience it by creatively collapsing the future-past timeline, reflectively and reflexively interpreting that experience. We remember the past but not the future because of a buildup of correlations between interacting particles. From some perspective there is a single psyche and a single subject that is not acquired through personal experience.
Archetypal Merger
All individual lives are simultaneously participating in the collective unconscious, as graphically depicted in our genealogical charts. Jung links the realization of withinness with the image of the World Mother, Mother Bride, rebirth, and the archetype of vision of what is waiting to be seen and known -- a symbolic within. Our revelations express the aims and instincts of the soul which invites us into the sacred marriage with psychic life. Our story is a living symbol of eternal mystery, personal and collective.
We participate in that Royal Marriage, the telos of Jungian work, when we lovingly hold those opposites, all those couples that metaphorically and literally express the union of personal and archetypal mediators, anima and animus. Authentic and genuine relationship is complimentary.
Genealogy is thus another way to experience and integrate the concept that psyche is matter, and matter is psyche. What is-is, and it is divine. Jung says, "In this deification mystery you make yourself into the vessel, and are a vessel of creation in which the opposites reconcile." As St. Augustine said, "For it is secretly, and in the hidden depths of the spirit, that the soul of man is joined to the word of God, so that they are two in one flesh." This is the marriage of heaven and earth, the eternal and transient.
The divine is a divine couple, the father and mother of souls, who give birth to the divine child in the depth of winter. Jung speaks of the path of soul as a phenomenological path -- the soul lives and knows. This is Gnosis. It is a psychic fact we are born in the divine world to the divine couple. The divine is within the unconscious but autonomous. It gives birth to the divine child, to possibility, the potential of the soul. Our spiritual task is to protect the child.
Sacred Marriage, Sacred Feminine
Perhaps the archetypal appeal of sacred marriage -- the union of alchemical opposites, hierosgamos, or Mysterium Coniunctionis -- is one reason many people become fascinated with royal lines almost to the exclusion of others. Yet it is only the royal lines that have epic historical scope and are hypothetically traceable back to ancient times.
Spiritual marriage recalls the union of archetypal figures in the rebirth mysteries of antiquity.. These are ancient rites of fertility, regeneration, and psychophysical transformation, an archetypal drive inherent in our nature and a primordial mystery of sexuality.
Myths come to life in ways that resonate with our own lives. According to Jung, the deeper mystery of the unifying myth represents the psychological process of "individuation," the "inner marriage" of the opposites within the psyche - masculine/feminine, conscious/unconscious, divine/human - giving birth to the archetype of wholeness.
Naming Our Ancestors
When writing appeared in the 2nd and 3rd millennium BC, “a new concept of creation enters religious thinking: Nothing exists unless it has a name. The name means existence.” “Naming has profound significance in the Old Mesopotamian belief system. The name reveals the essence of the bearer; it also carries magic power . . . What is important to observe here is that the concept of creation has changed, at a certain period in history from being merely the acting out of the mystic force of female fertility to being a conscious act of creation ” by merely expressing “the name”. (Gerda Lerner, 1986)
As preparation for eternity, the ancient Egyptians made a priority not only of preserving the body but also preserving the name of the deceased. The body, a combination of the non-physical ka, ba, name and shadow, was thought to make a person complete in this life and in the next.
So, perhaps in this archaic sense, we complete our ancestors as we recollect and re-member them. Just as archaeologists can only tell so much from digging up artifacts and interpreting archival material, psychologists and genealogists can do no more.
Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood? --Jung
A Jungian Approach to Genealogy
PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY
"Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King,
a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere
in the Ocean 5000 years ago. Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul.
This is the Center, the Self." --C.G. Jung
"My soul you-are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call divine." --C.G. Jung
PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY
"Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King,
a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere
in the Ocean 5000 years ago. Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul.
This is the Center, the Self." --C.G. Jung
"My soul you-are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call divine." --C.G. Jung
“The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself,
but the wisdom and the power to serve others.”
--Excerpt From: Joseph Campbell & Bill Moyers. “The Power of Myth.”
but the wisdom and the power to serve others.”
--Excerpt From: Joseph Campbell & Bill Moyers. “The Power of Myth.”
Study what thou art,
Whereof thou art a part,
What thou knowest of this art,
This is really what thou art.
All that is without thee
Also is within,
Thus wrote Trismosin.
Whereof thou art a part,
What thou knowest of this art,
This is really what thou art.
All that is without thee
Also is within,
Thus wrote Trismosin.
Steven DaLuz, "Descent", Neo-Luminist Painting
http://stevendaluz.com/GalleryMain.asp?GalleryID=2310&AKey=8MKJWHEB
http://stevendaluz.com/GalleryMain.asp?GalleryID=2310&AKey=8MKJWHEB
"Templar Cross", Iona Miller, 2005
Walter Bruneel - Maltese Cross on Metatron's Cube
Anthony Ackrill
He sees the tree of life, whose roots reach into Hell and whose top touches Heaven. He also no longer knows differences: Who is right? What is holy? What is genuine? What is good? What is correct? He knows only one difference: the difference between below and above. For he sees that the tree of life grows from below to above, and that it has its crown at the top, clearly differentiated from the roots. To him this is unquestionable. Hence he knows the way to salvation.
To unlearn all distinctions save that concerning direction is part of your salvation. Hence you free yourself from the old curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Because you separated good from evil according to your best appraisal and aspired only to the good and denied the evil that you committed nevertheless and ailed to accept, your roots no longer suckled the dark nourishment of the depths and your tree became sick and withered.
Therefore the ancients said that after Adam had eaten the apple, the tree of paradise withered. Your life needs the dark. But if you know that it is evil, you can no longer accept it and you suffer anguish and you do not know why: Nor can you accept it as evil, else your good will reject you. Nor can you deny it since you know good and evil. Because of this the knowledge of good and evil was an insurmountable curse.
But if you return to primal chaos and if you feel and recognize that which hangs stretched between the two unbearable poles of fire, you will notice that you can no longer separate good and evil conclusively, neither through feeling nor through knowledge, but that you can discern the direction of growth only from below to above. You thus forget the distinction between good and evil, and you no longer know it as long as your tree grows from below to above. But as soon as growth stops, what was united in growth falls apart and once more you recognize good and evil.
You can never deny your knowledge of good and evil to yourself so that you could betray your good in order to live evil. For as soon as you separate good and evil, you recognize them. They are united only in growth. But you grow if you stand still in the greatest doubt, and therefore steadfastness in great doubt is' a veritable flower of life.
He who cannot bear doubt does not bear himself. Such a one is doubtful; he does not grow and hence he does not live. Doubt is the sign of the strongest and the weakest. The strong have doubt, but doubt has the weak. Therefore the weakest is close to the strongest, and if he can say to his doubt: "I have you," then he is the strongest. But no one can say yes to his doubt, unless he endures wide-open chaos. Because there are so many among us who can talk about anything, pay heed to what they live. What someone says can be very much or very little. Thus examine his life. My speech is neither light nor dark, since it is the speech of someone who is growing. ~Carl Jung, Red Book, Page 301
To unlearn all distinctions save that concerning direction is part of your salvation. Hence you free yourself from the old curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Because you separated good from evil according to your best appraisal and aspired only to the good and denied the evil that you committed nevertheless and ailed to accept, your roots no longer suckled the dark nourishment of the depths and your tree became sick and withered.
Therefore the ancients said that after Adam had eaten the apple, the tree of paradise withered. Your life needs the dark. But if you know that it is evil, you can no longer accept it and you suffer anguish and you do not know why: Nor can you accept it as evil, else your good will reject you. Nor can you deny it since you know good and evil. Because of this the knowledge of good and evil was an insurmountable curse.
But if you return to primal chaos and if you feel and recognize that which hangs stretched between the two unbearable poles of fire, you will notice that you can no longer separate good and evil conclusively, neither through feeling nor through knowledge, but that you can discern the direction of growth only from below to above. You thus forget the distinction between good and evil, and you no longer know it as long as your tree grows from below to above. But as soon as growth stops, what was united in growth falls apart and once more you recognize good and evil.
You can never deny your knowledge of good and evil to yourself so that you could betray your good in order to live evil. For as soon as you separate good and evil, you recognize them. They are united only in growth. But you grow if you stand still in the greatest doubt, and therefore steadfastness in great doubt is' a veritable flower of life.
He who cannot bear doubt does not bear himself. Such a one is doubtful; he does not grow and hence he does not live. Doubt is the sign of the strongest and the weakest. The strong have doubt, but doubt has the weak. Therefore the weakest is close to the strongest, and if he can say to his doubt: "I have you," then he is the strongest. But no one can say yes to his doubt, unless he endures wide-open chaos. Because there are so many among us who can talk about anything, pay heed to what they live. What someone says can be very much or very little. Thus examine his life. My speech is neither light nor dark, since it is the speech of someone who is growing. ~Carl Jung, Red Book, Page 301
TRANSGENERATIONAL GENEALOGY
The Argument:
After the deconstruction of the postmodern era, we need a reconstruction from the ground up -- a post-postmodern coagulatio to match that solutio. We know the whole circular alchemical opus is contained in the formula "dissolve and coagulate." The desire for meaning coagulates. In coagulatio the self-conscious ego and the transpersonal Self meet and interact. There is really no substitute for drawing one's own lines, engaging, and 'grounding' them with psychogenealogy.
A sense of metaphor is a gnosis rooted in alchemy. Our old self image dissolves as we embrace our larger being. The conscious standpoint expands in self-actualizing to accommodate a proliferation of transpersonal projections emerging from the unconscious together. They exponentially strengthen and enlarge the essence of the contracted ego.
When we form inner relationships we render a transpersonal force personal by incorporating it into our manifest world. They begin to take on form and substance for us. The concretization of psychic forces of coagulatio grounds our self-actualization -- actualizing psychic energies. We bring them back to earth as a living part of our psychophysical nature. All standard procedures of family therapy can be used to amplify the process -- psychodrama, family sculpting, empty chair, roundtables, genogram, etc.
Molecular Memories
Coagulation incites the dreambody to action, churning up the deeper dynamics which are drawn into the imaginal world, into the realm of symbols and archetypes. They manifest there as a whole continuum of dreams, emergent memories, art, and hypnagogic images.
Trends and patterns become evident as the raw prima materia cooks. Arousing our empathy and resistance, what was unconscious or elusive gains solidity. What escaped you before becomes crucial. Family logic and repeating patterns emerge. We imitate or create. Ancestors, with their accomplishments, secrets and shame, begin to take their places as part of our natural world. Image becomes manifestation in a grounded multisensory moment.
A Life of Their Own
Our descent into our genealogy may be shallow or steep, depending on our focus, rate, and capacity to integrate the genealogical material. There are major and minor inroads through which we will travel again and again. Losing and finding repeats in unending cycles. Something we thought we 'got' may later be amplified beyond our previous conception. Or, we suppress or 'forget' important points we once knew about our ancestors and ourselves. Each ancestor becomes a stepping stone. We consolidate and move deeper.
We may realize we've embraced some illusions or that emancipation, amalgamation, and transfiguration cannot be grounded. Dig deeper. Like Orpheus, our extended family narrative is a story of love, loss, descent, failure to restore what has been lost, dismemberment, and transformation. Opening to the ancestors we embrace the individuation process with open arms.
"This is how madness begins, this is madness ... You cannot get conscious of these unconscious facts without giving yourself to them. If you can overcome your fear of the unconscious and can let yourself go down, then these facts take on a life of their own." (Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Pg. 253. Fn. 211)
Heart-Caves
We make the descent into the heart-caves of our ancestors. Joseph Campbell said, "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." In MDR, Jung (pg. 88) echoes a similar statement, "My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light."
We may or may not carry certain ancestral DNA, but we are still psychophysically entangled with them whether it is deliberate or not, open to interaction or not, 'mutual unconscious' or not. We are seemingly knotted together with some ancestors, through our dysfunctions and unconscious style of perception. If the symptom ties together the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic it is beyond meaning. This might shake up our psychogenealogical assumptions and reinvigorate our practice. Glimmerings of the whole is all that can be expected. Our genealogy grows its own self, like a plant.
Lacan's debatable theory of phenomenological experience
describes mirroring as a stage with a significant symbolic dimension -- a field of radical alterity. Within our genealogical work, we can produce subjective changes at the symbolic level, resulting in imaginal and real effects. Whether such theoretical claims are true or false, changes in subjective attitudes, (including those involving our ancestors), lead to real world changes (natural consequences) in behavior, emotions, thoughts, and spirit.
For Lacan, the symptom (sinthome) is not a call for interpretation, but a preferred mode of "enjoying the unconscious." For example, depression may be an appropriate response to the world we live in, not something to medicate away. We gain personal and historical perspective seeing how our ancestors responded to the unknowns and challenges in their own lives. We don't need answers to the wrong questions but a tolerance for ambiguity, uncertainty, not-knowing and tolerating the terror of not having answers.
Hillman says, it may be easier to talk about these ideas as archetypes, the soul’s relation with death, with body, the world, other souls, love, beauty, sickness, family, ancestors, power, history, time. The gods return to us as archetypes. This may be a move beyond the Collective Unconscious to the World Unconscious.
This can be backed up by Hillman's soul-making approach that a singular interpretation of a dream stops the process cold, in a perhaps erroneous, if resonant idea of what it means. For Hillman, dreams are underworldly (from the viewpoint of death/the dead) commentaries on or critiques of our waking life. We don't need to determine how our dreams help us achieve our goals, as much as discover what the dream-self thinks of those goals.
Hillman refuses to make meaning of dreams, preferring to follow the uncertainty. There is no attempt at a cure or even enrichment. In genealogy the mythic root informs us about human behavior. This happens naturally, unconsciously and doesn't need to be driven by a therapeutic or self-development agenda. It's not about the past, present, or future but about the soul-world. In the Red Book, Jung says, "Dreams pave the way for life, and they determine you without your understanding their language."
Hillman locates dreams in the mysterious and hidden House of Hades (Pluto), a journey through the Underworld much like Orpheus. He deals with the dream in relation to the soul and death. He considers them messengers of the Underworld and of soul that first dissolve and then transform us. There is inherent multiplicity of perspectives and meaning in the images themselves, rather than a single truth. It is the soul that takes on meaning, rather than an image that reveals meaning to the ego or narrative. The dream remains alive.
We sense that dreams mean well for us, back us up and urge us on, understand us more deeply than we understand ourselves, expand our sensuousness and spirit, continually make up new things to give us … It is like the love of an old man, the usual personal content of love voided by coming death, yet still intense, playful, and tenderly, carefully close.
— James Hillman, The Dream And The Underworld
We might draw an analogy between dreams and our ancestral phenomenology. Awake or asleep, it is the dreaming that is important. If we dream of the ancestors, they may dream of us right back - perhaps, poetically they dream unceasingly. In some sense we are that dream. This catalytic process may be more than a metaphor -- some sort of psychic synchronization or interwovenness, resonance, empathy, intersubjectivity, transference of unconscious material, or even mystic unity.
Modus Vivendi
As in life, when we interact with someone, we effect each other by sharing certain unconscious contents. We may or may not attribute it to the other, but we transcend our individual self with a bridge to the universal, the dynamic tension of opposites -- conscious/ unconscious, body and mind, self and world. The sense of separate selves dissolves in that solutio. The drop merges in the ocean of consciousness.
In the weird world of quantum physics, two linked particles can share a single fate, even when they’re miles apart. Two physicists have mathematically described how this spooky 'entanglement' effect could also bind particles across time. “You can send your quantum state into the future without traversing the middle time,” says lead author S. Jay Olson of Australia’s University of Queensland. Curiously, they plan to use it to encrypt messages.
The metadata coded in our genealogy and genetics can supply such information hidden in the cognitive and emotional unconscious as wave, structure, embodied memory, lineage, and collective wisdom. The body remembers everything. Genetics has even revealed seemingly improbable tales where a biological mother or father does not test positive as the parent of their known biological children.
Unknown to anyone they absorbed a twin in the womb who's DNA is found in their offspring, rather than their own. The parent has two sets of DNA. These chimeras with a vanishing twin, also known as fetal resorption, were undetectable and unimaginable in the last decade.
Even the DNA of former lovers whose cells have colonized another can show up in otherwise unrelated children. Identical and fraternal twins can become chimeras, trading chromosomes in the womb, including from another gender. A sense of destiny may reveal previously unintegrated reality potentials -- a glimpse of the ground or absolute field of being.
Attitudes and beliefs about genealogy are related to general beliefs and spirituality. Naturally, some will approach the psychogenealogical aspects with more purposiveness than others. Thus, it is one thing to a Mormon and another to a Jungian, genealogical societies, new ager, heritage group member, or bloodline zealot. There are religious factors, generational divides, scientific understanding, gender, and ethnicity.
In breezy noetic terms, we could call genealogy a transformative technology for hacking consciousness...but it hacks us back! High-tech tools help us expedite the research and discovery process. Though they take the Spirit World literally, Mormons imagine that dead family members are already doing missionary work "on the other side of the veil." And we participate in that work on "this side of the veil" through genealogy and other means.
Significant knowledge can enlighten our whole being. We can participate with it or remain unconscious of it. Jung said that "Dissolving an image means that you become that image." Jung noted that we are losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us. The creative force and renewal of cycles are universal. Few forces are as strong in the psyche as genetics, sex and death. Ancestor veneration was one of the first primordial sacred notions to emerge in human culture.
The World Tree is the global genealogical tree. Shamanic initiation requires multiple ascents and descents of the World Tree, a central axis that provides access to the other realms. Each time we gain greater consciousness of the unified reality of the transcendent dimension.
Unified experience relies on the brain's ability to fuse together (or integrate) all that incoming sensory information as a whole. In everyday life, we each must make a descent in order to gain experience, encounter deeper aspects of ourselves, and emerge again, transformed, in the experiential process of initiation.
The Argument:
After the deconstruction of the postmodern era, we need a reconstruction from the ground up -- a post-postmodern coagulatio to match that solutio. We know the whole circular alchemical opus is contained in the formula "dissolve and coagulate." The desire for meaning coagulates. In coagulatio the self-conscious ego and the transpersonal Self meet and interact. There is really no substitute for drawing one's own lines, engaging, and 'grounding' them with psychogenealogy.
A sense of metaphor is a gnosis rooted in alchemy. Our old self image dissolves as we embrace our larger being. The conscious standpoint expands in self-actualizing to accommodate a proliferation of transpersonal projections emerging from the unconscious together. They exponentially strengthen and enlarge the essence of the contracted ego.
When we form inner relationships we render a transpersonal force personal by incorporating it into our manifest world. They begin to take on form and substance for us. The concretization of psychic forces of coagulatio grounds our self-actualization -- actualizing psychic energies. We bring them back to earth as a living part of our psychophysical nature. All standard procedures of family therapy can be used to amplify the process -- psychodrama, family sculpting, empty chair, roundtables, genogram, etc.
Molecular Memories
Coagulation incites the dreambody to action, churning up the deeper dynamics which are drawn into the imaginal world, into the realm of symbols and archetypes. They manifest there as a whole continuum of dreams, emergent memories, art, and hypnagogic images.
Trends and patterns become evident as the raw prima materia cooks. Arousing our empathy and resistance, what was unconscious or elusive gains solidity. What escaped you before becomes crucial. Family logic and repeating patterns emerge. We imitate or create. Ancestors, with their accomplishments, secrets and shame, begin to take their places as part of our natural world. Image becomes manifestation in a grounded multisensory moment.
A Life of Their Own
Our descent into our genealogy may be shallow or steep, depending on our focus, rate, and capacity to integrate the genealogical material. There are major and minor inroads through which we will travel again and again. Losing and finding repeats in unending cycles. Something we thought we 'got' may later be amplified beyond our previous conception. Or, we suppress or 'forget' important points we once knew about our ancestors and ourselves. Each ancestor becomes a stepping stone. We consolidate and move deeper.
We may realize we've embraced some illusions or that emancipation, amalgamation, and transfiguration cannot be grounded. Dig deeper. Like Orpheus, our extended family narrative is a story of love, loss, descent, failure to restore what has been lost, dismemberment, and transformation. Opening to the ancestors we embrace the individuation process with open arms.
"This is how madness begins, this is madness ... You cannot get conscious of these unconscious facts without giving yourself to them. If you can overcome your fear of the unconscious and can let yourself go down, then these facts take on a life of their own." (Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Pg. 253. Fn. 211)
Heart-Caves
We make the descent into the heart-caves of our ancestors. Joseph Campbell said, "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." In MDR, Jung (pg. 88) echoes a similar statement, "My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light."
We may or may not carry certain ancestral DNA, but we are still psychophysically entangled with them whether it is deliberate or not, open to interaction or not, 'mutual unconscious' or not. We are seemingly knotted together with some ancestors, through our dysfunctions and unconscious style of perception. If the symptom ties together the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic it is beyond meaning. This might shake up our psychogenealogical assumptions and reinvigorate our practice. Glimmerings of the whole is all that can be expected. Our genealogy grows its own self, like a plant.
Lacan's debatable theory of phenomenological experience
describes mirroring as a stage with a significant symbolic dimension -- a field of radical alterity. Within our genealogical work, we can produce subjective changes at the symbolic level, resulting in imaginal and real effects. Whether such theoretical claims are true or false, changes in subjective attitudes, (including those involving our ancestors), lead to real world changes (natural consequences) in behavior, emotions, thoughts, and spirit.
For Lacan, the symptom (sinthome) is not a call for interpretation, but a preferred mode of "enjoying the unconscious." For example, depression may be an appropriate response to the world we live in, not something to medicate away. We gain personal and historical perspective seeing how our ancestors responded to the unknowns and challenges in their own lives. We don't need answers to the wrong questions but a tolerance for ambiguity, uncertainty, not-knowing and tolerating the terror of not having answers.
Hillman says, it may be easier to talk about these ideas as archetypes, the soul’s relation with death, with body, the world, other souls, love, beauty, sickness, family, ancestors, power, history, time. The gods return to us as archetypes. This may be a move beyond the Collective Unconscious to the World Unconscious.
This can be backed up by Hillman's soul-making approach that a singular interpretation of a dream stops the process cold, in a perhaps erroneous, if resonant idea of what it means. For Hillman, dreams are underworldly (from the viewpoint of death/the dead) commentaries on or critiques of our waking life. We don't need to determine how our dreams help us achieve our goals, as much as discover what the dream-self thinks of those goals.
Hillman refuses to make meaning of dreams, preferring to follow the uncertainty. There is no attempt at a cure or even enrichment. In genealogy the mythic root informs us about human behavior. This happens naturally, unconsciously and doesn't need to be driven by a therapeutic or self-development agenda. It's not about the past, present, or future but about the soul-world. In the Red Book, Jung says, "Dreams pave the way for life, and they determine you without your understanding their language."
Hillman locates dreams in the mysterious and hidden House of Hades (Pluto), a journey through the Underworld much like Orpheus. He deals with the dream in relation to the soul and death. He considers them messengers of the Underworld and of soul that first dissolve and then transform us. There is inherent multiplicity of perspectives and meaning in the images themselves, rather than a single truth. It is the soul that takes on meaning, rather than an image that reveals meaning to the ego or narrative. The dream remains alive.
We sense that dreams mean well for us, back us up and urge us on, understand us more deeply than we understand ourselves, expand our sensuousness and spirit, continually make up new things to give us … It is like the love of an old man, the usual personal content of love voided by coming death, yet still intense, playful, and tenderly, carefully close.
— James Hillman, The Dream And The Underworld
We might draw an analogy between dreams and our ancestral phenomenology. Awake or asleep, it is the dreaming that is important. If we dream of the ancestors, they may dream of us right back - perhaps, poetically they dream unceasingly. In some sense we are that dream. This catalytic process may be more than a metaphor -- some sort of psychic synchronization or interwovenness, resonance, empathy, intersubjectivity, transference of unconscious material, or even mystic unity.
Modus Vivendi
As in life, when we interact with someone, we effect each other by sharing certain unconscious contents. We may or may not attribute it to the other, but we transcend our individual self with a bridge to the universal, the dynamic tension of opposites -- conscious/ unconscious, body and mind, self and world. The sense of separate selves dissolves in that solutio. The drop merges in the ocean of consciousness.
In the weird world of quantum physics, two linked particles can share a single fate, even when they’re miles apart. Two physicists have mathematically described how this spooky 'entanglement' effect could also bind particles across time. “You can send your quantum state into the future without traversing the middle time,” says lead author S. Jay Olson of Australia’s University of Queensland. Curiously, they plan to use it to encrypt messages.
The metadata coded in our genealogy and genetics can supply such information hidden in the cognitive and emotional unconscious as wave, structure, embodied memory, lineage, and collective wisdom. The body remembers everything. Genetics has even revealed seemingly improbable tales where a biological mother or father does not test positive as the parent of their known biological children.
Unknown to anyone they absorbed a twin in the womb who's DNA is found in their offspring, rather than their own. The parent has two sets of DNA. These chimeras with a vanishing twin, also known as fetal resorption, were undetectable and unimaginable in the last decade.
Even the DNA of former lovers whose cells have colonized another can show up in otherwise unrelated children. Identical and fraternal twins can become chimeras, trading chromosomes in the womb, including from another gender. A sense of destiny may reveal previously unintegrated reality potentials -- a glimpse of the ground or absolute field of being.
Attitudes and beliefs about genealogy are related to general beliefs and spirituality. Naturally, some will approach the psychogenealogical aspects with more purposiveness than others. Thus, it is one thing to a Mormon and another to a Jungian, genealogical societies, new ager, heritage group member, or bloodline zealot. There are religious factors, generational divides, scientific understanding, gender, and ethnicity.
In breezy noetic terms, we could call genealogy a transformative technology for hacking consciousness...but it hacks us back! High-tech tools help us expedite the research and discovery process. Though they take the Spirit World literally, Mormons imagine that dead family members are already doing missionary work "on the other side of the veil." And we participate in that work on "this side of the veil" through genealogy and other means.
Significant knowledge can enlighten our whole being. We can participate with it or remain unconscious of it. Jung said that "Dissolving an image means that you become that image." Jung noted that we are losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us. The creative force and renewal of cycles are universal. Few forces are as strong in the psyche as genetics, sex and death. Ancestor veneration was one of the first primordial sacred notions to emerge in human culture.
The World Tree is the global genealogical tree. Shamanic initiation requires multiple ascents and descents of the World Tree, a central axis that provides access to the other realms. Each time we gain greater consciousness of the unified reality of the transcendent dimension.
Unified experience relies on the brain's ability to fuse together (or integrate) all that incoming sensory information as a whole. In everyday life, we each must make a descent in order to gain experience, encounter deeper aspects of ourselves, and emerge again, transformed, in the experiential process of initiation.
Tree arising! O pure ascendance!
Orpheus Sings! Towering tree within the ear!
Everywhere stillness, yet in this abeyance:
seeds of change and new beginnings near.
Creatures of silence emerged from the clear
unfettered forest, from dens, from lairs.
Not from shyness, this silence of theirs;
nor from any hint of fear,
simply from listening. Brutal shriek and roar
dwindled in their hearts. Where stood a mere
hut to house the passions of the ear,
constructed of longing darkly drear,
haphazardly wrought from front to rear,
you built them a temple at listening's core.
~Rainer Rilke
Orpheus Sings! Towering tree within the ear!
Everywhere stillness, yet in this abeyance:
seeds of change and new beginnings near.
Creatures of silence emerged from the clear
unfettered forest, from dens, from lairs.
Not from shyness, this silence of theirs;
nor from any hint of fear,
simply from listening. Brutal shriek and roar
dwindled in their hearts. Where stood a mere
hut to house the passions of the ear,
constructed of longing darkly drear,
haphazardly wrought from front to rear,
you built them a temple at listening's core.
~Rainer Rilke
The Conclusion:
Not one title of Christian law is abrogated, but instead we are adding a new one: accepting the lament of the dead. ~Jung, Liber Novus, Page 298, Footnote 187.
One creates inner freedom only through the symbol.
~Carl Jung,The Red Book , Page. 311.
Obviously, all genealogy is transgenerational. So long as our ancestry remains unconscious, we are marginalizing Nature and our nature. Yet, nature encompasses us. Jung notes that dreams are pure nature. He was concerned for our culture if we lost our roots. The same holds true at the personal level. Joseph Campbell declares, "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." “A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.”
Genealogy can be approached as a clinical science but remains more of an art -- a hermeneutic art, a shamanic art or self-initiation, as well as the art of relationship. We thread our way through a labyrinth of light and dark characters. Our charts are catacombs of our forebearers. We might have a different attitude to our lines in the process of discovery than we do once we have fully traced our descent from antiquity.
Subliminal Psychology
Our noble lineage becomes a royal road to ancient ancestors. But such a labyrinth of projections in the charts of a fantasist can produce self-delusion or over-heated zealotry. In the chart of a realist it may remain cold facts. Fabulists embellish, while pragmatists may be dry or stale.
A middle way might be both enlivened and informed. Jung urged, "For the understanding of the unconscious we must see our thoughts as events, as phenomena." (Liber Novus, p. 249) Genealogy mediates between the conscious and unconscious as we struggle to reveal what has so long been hidden. We also gain a reflective vantage point between ourselves and events we perceive. We allow the transcendent function to mold and re-shape us.
He [Philemon] confronted me in an objective manner, and I understood that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend, things which may even be directed against me. (Jung, MDR, Page 183)
We Re-Collect
While some people may deeply pursue formal therapy, complex genogram relationships, or workshops, the vast majority will not. Those genealogical explorers will experience a spectrum of spontaneous effects, developing their own theories, interpretations, and directions from their ancestral encounters and revelations, conflated with their own beliefs. It may be, as Jung suggests, that through dreams the ancestors compensate our ego attitudes. Even then, we make subjective and objective observations and interpretations. In the blink of an eye, we can change our feelings about culture and human nature.
How little must the root-ancestors of each of our hoary lines have imagined in their own day for their millions of descendants? Even our "dead end" ancestors had antecedents; we just cannot know them, at least not through history. Genetic genealogy tells us our ancient tribes and ancestral lands, but not the names of any of them or their families. But seeds of knowledge in the head blossom in the fertile soil of the heart. We are formed directly from within.
Our Genesis
Genealogy used to be largely a quest for the father's direct line. But with today's algorithms we can find numerous distaff lines back through the ancestral field into the Heart of the Feminine and our mitochondrial inheritance, shared genetically by all genders. This type of DNA, stored in the cell's "batteries," is inherited from the mother, more or less unchanged. Like Y-DNA, distinct mtDNA lineages, are known as "haplogroups".
Often these matriarchal lines reach further back in time than the paternal line. This is the realm of the mothers and their families brought to the tree -- our gateway into the unconscious. We descend from it, and like Faust, into initiation in this womb of potentiality from which the world is continuously born as the creative flow of the unconscious.
The Distaff Line is an old Craft term, the Mother's Line, as opposed to the Father's Line (called the Spear Line). The Matrilineal bloodline contains the spiritual, true essence of a person's "self", by which the spirits of the departed leave the Unseen world and re-enter into their families on earth. The Old Dame, as the Mother of Creation and the Supreme Being, and the Spinner of Fate, holds the "Distaff" by which she Spins the threads of creation. Since all ‘lines’ or threads begin with her and return to her, the Mother's Line is called the "Distaff Line." Mitochondrial DNA remains strong, persisting in the cells of both sexes longer than nuclear DNA.
The ancients often incorporated images of death in their funeral rites, on mummy cases, the walls of tombs, and death masks. Some might find death photos macabre and yet they are simply a final remembrance of the beloved, which can help us personify that relative.
Imagistically, the dead continue their very long journey in the afterlife. The unconscious believes in the afterlife. Their events become our meaningful experiences -- their actions our ideas and reflections, insights alive with creativity and fantasy. Our persistent search for Who? leads us down and back. Each one strikes a different part of us. From this churning, this dialectical tension, creativity emerges -- a myriad of intoxicating things, including the archetypal images of immortality.
Psychological effects of the genealogical pursuit will be different for everyone, with certain commonalities, such as symptoms, identification, projection, participation mystique, etc.
Without guidelines much of this natural personal process remains unconscious and can be problematical -- individually, in the family, and in genealogical and heritage groups. At a cultural level, we also assimilate the shock of a personal descent from historical figures -- the historical burden. Myths have a vital meaning, linking us with psychic processes and experiences "beyond consciousness in the dark hinterland of the psyche," as Jung notes (CW 9ii, Pg. 154). The collective is mythic and archetypal, while the cosmological is integrative.
The deeper we work into the World Tree the more widely shared the ancestry becomes. Chances are that most individuals seeking their ancestry will not seek treatment but can benefit from a contextualization of those experiences. We can jump to wrong conclusions from too little information. It happens to our beliefs and our cognitive interpretations.
They also will not stop at the Fourth Generation. What distinguishes de facto Transgenerational Genealogy from conventional or Jungian approaches is plunging deeper into the Medieval, legendary, and mythic layers of one's pedigree, rather than just the first few generations. But we can not concentrate only on the royal lines, because many other descents far out number them. Genetically, they have no priority; we may carry none of their genes.
Mythic Genealogy
Emerging from pre-conscious psyche, myths are our deep background and connect us with our instincts. Myth bridges conscious and unconscious cognition with an archaic quality and networks of symbols and imagery. It represents the meaning of being. They help us interpret the world. We need myth because it speaks emotionally of and to the soul, giving meaning to loss and suffering. It may be a painful struggle that reminds us we are very much alive. For example, in Wotan we find the ecstatic experience of fighting as well as the ecstatic joy of death.
English kings claimed descent from Wotan or Odin. Medieval monks pushed Woden’s ancestry back to Troy, then connected the Trojans to the Jewish scriptures and the lost tribe of Dan. They linked the Franks to the kings of Troy and the Merovingian descent from the family of Jesus. The Chronicle of Fredegar (7th century) mentions the legend. It was elaborated in the Liber historiae Francorum (probably 727). Such legends grew over time.
Our genealogy shows us how these stories migrated between cultures over time. We can imagine our descent from Aphrodite herself. Descending through Macedonians and Ptolemaic Egyptians, then Spanish and English nobility, she would be somewhere around a 100th great-grandmother. A pedigree prepared for Philip II of Spain traces his paternal descent from Hercules Lybius, said to have been a son of Dodanim / Rodanim, who is said to have been a great grandson of Noah (Genesis 10:4, 1 Chronicles 1:7).
The confabulations of the Welsh royals made them descendants of Joseph of Arimathea. They included a legendary cycle of Fisher Kings, and culminated in the Grail Cycle and stories of King Arthur's court and the magic of Avalon. Given the right gateway ancestors and royal lineage, all of these lines will show up in the standard genealogies of millions of people.
Many accept their fabulous descent from antiquity as literally true, while scholars know it to be false. But neither view is accurate. Even though confabulated at some point for political purposes, such mythical genealogies linking man to the divine are actually traditional, and considered 'best practice' for eras of history.
Even 'fictious' genealogies and medieval forgeries have a place in our lines, if only to show us how these connections used to be made. Medieval genealogies connecting ancient kings to Adam are pure invention. In the Historia Brittonum, the Welsh monk Nennius (9th century) grafted northern Europeans onto the classical tradition by making them not only descended from Noah, but the brothers of Romulus, legendary founder of Rome.
Modern genealogists want to cut "fictitious" connections, but myth is the DNA of our psyche. That is like killing the root of the tree. This is genealogy without proof, so it must be mythic. How about the mighty Zeus himself, king of the gods? With over 200 offspring, divine and demigods, there are many lines of potential descent. Or, the venerable Isis? She may be 100 - 150 generations back.
We find myth not only at the root of our ancient lines but in each and every life between, in the roles and archetypal patterns that constitute our direct heritage. Jung suggests the dynamic is the same whether we think of them as instincts or gods and goddesses. We can re-enchant our world by saying a prayer to the lords and ladies, by whatever names they wish to be known. In a prayer to all our relations, invisible spirits are made visible. Eternal being lies within each and every one of us.
Grail Bearers
The Holy Grail and the Blood Royal are twin myths. In that myth Arthur is the product of sorcery and rape yet rises to the highest station. Bron and the Fisher Kings link the Grail to the vales of Avalon and the Hidden Stream of the Merovingian Franks.
We must be careful not to misconstrue the Grail for our own purposes, from a medieval retrieval, to spiritual literalism, to reactionary ideologies. We can't take it literally, realizing the genealogies are made up. We certainly can't return to either the politics or religion of a legendary era or new age revisionist theories like "the evil Archons" and proliferating self-styled incarnations of Mary Magdalene. We retain a psychological approach to the subject.
"We have to finish it. We have to carry it on. Even though we don't talk about grails and castles and enchanted maidens, still it is our myth to be completed in our lives. The myth has taken us to exactly the point where modern people are now. Collectively speaking we are stuck at the point where the French poem ends. So if you want a quest, if you want something meaningful for your life, pick up the grail myth where it now lies in you." (Robert Johnson)
When he first finds the Grail Castle, Perceval fails to ask the crucial questions about the origins of evil, the king's wound, and the Grail's meaning. He does get another chance to find wholeness -- to redeem the divine in matter. That doesn't mean he had a cognition of the whole but it is said to be so. Emma Jung and M-L von Franz describe how The Grail is brought to the Old Grail King; the goal of the quest is death to the old king, who 'dies' to the dominant collective consciousness of the day with its one-sided god image and is restored.
Encountering the Grail is an emotional readiness for reflective experience and to receive numinous experience. With the secret words spoken and Perceval’s royal ancestry revealed, the Grail is placed in his care. The Grail disappeared with his death, went back into concealment in the unconscious of each living person, available as an inner guide, the voice of the divine, inviting each of us to our individual completeness.
The genealogical Quest for the Grail shares something in common with the quest for the Philosopher's Stone, which forms itself. The magic of genealogy as the magic of the Stone is in the seeking after it. The Grail is our own transformation.
We are filled by the Grail when we point ourselves toward it. The Grail serves the whole community.
The Philosopher's Stone declares,
"My light, exceeds every light, and my good things are better than all other good things. I give freely and reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory, riches, delights; and them that "seek" after me I make to know and understand, and to posses divine things." --Golden Tractates of Hermes
In the search for the stone, it is the work that counts. One should not worry too much about the right way. The right way with the wrong person will never succeed. The wrong way with the right person will eventually right itself, for the stone is found at the crossroads of Heaven and Earth. Those who seek the Stone with true heart, shall be found by the Stone itself.
As someone's descendant we answer the call. Like the Fisher King, we seek the Salmon of Knowledge. The transgenerational group is integrated within the individual. Much of the effect is intrinsic. For Jung, fantasy is an integrative function.
Imaginative expressions of hidden forces appear spontaneously as the direct expression of psychic life, creative and imaginative activity inherent in each and every moment. We meet each wondrous, wild moment by relating to it, not controlling it. We really can't separate the past from the present.
Relationship is created and recreated from what has been and what is yet to be. Our challenge is to claim a place for our own imagination and intellect. We learn to see and bear the pain of seeing and suffering. Healing and wounding alternate in a rhythm echoing a sense of transience and death.
"You will feel me with you even from the Land of the Dead."
Our lineage is our own, personal Mystery Play. You can only enter into your own mysteries. We can allow the phenomena to speak - the multitude of personalities to speak, to be personified. Images are also voices -- messages from the dead. We need a sense of the ancestors. For most, that sense may be more poetic than clinical...the poetry of everyday life as it stretches back into the mists before time.
From the earliest societies to contemporary civilizations, genealogical methods have traced ancestries back to gods, animal totems, and legendary heroes. Originally the oral history narratives of clan or tribe bequeathed the lineage. In ancient Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, India and China, kings and heads of state claimed their rights to the throne through genealogy. Royal totems include dragon, eagle, lion, wolf, serpent, boar, etc.
The Old Testament recounts the "begats" of Adam, Noah and Abraham, and later the royal bloodline of the House of David. Muslims trace their descent from Muhammed, while the Greeks and Romans and Vikings linked their heritage to the gods. The importance of ancestry to soul appears in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian genealogies. In Germanic folklore the soul was considered, in certain respects, something inherited.
What is the power of the individual against the voice of the whole people in him? ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 365.
There is essentially no difference between doing genealogy or psychogenealogy, except perhaps the addition of a few evocative techniques. We don't just study it, but interact with it -- with the ancestors. It may be less what we think about it and more its effect on us. Information is naturally excited in the genealogical process as images, sensations, intuitions, synchronicities, insights, and more.
But psychogenealogy attempts to find workable answers when elements embedded in the family memory are now limiting an individual in a particular way.
Individual and collective consciousness is shaped in crucial ways by cognition of collective family experiences. What tends to get passed on is the overwhelming, unbearable, unthinkable. Much of history has been lost, distorted, or blotted out. We can focus on genetics, culture, spirit, and emotion as keys to the ancestral door. We can break our identification with a traumatic or unresolved past and still honor and consciously grieve our ancestors.
Genealogy is a tool for family therapy and self-knowledge. We carry secret stories from before our lifetime. The entire family tree is both a trauma archive and a resource for healing. Yet children raised in difficult circumstances often show enhanced mental flexibility. Much of what is unconscious to us is revealed in our lines. We still have to amplify, work with, interpret, and integrate that information.
We can reframe our relationship with pain, fear, and grief at the familial and ancestral level. Current research on well-being describes two perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. The later may be more important. Composed of the words "eu" ("good") and "daimōn" ("spirit") it fits the ancestral theme.
This spirit is an autonomous psychic happening, a hush that follows the storm, a reconciling light in the darkness of man’s mind, secretly bringing order into the chaos of his soul. ~Carl Jung; CW 11; Paragraph 260.
This is part of the Genealogical Journey.
In this way we follow Nature and our nature back to our Origin.
We can pursue both a psychological and genealogical approach to wisdom. Realizations and self-actualization arise naturally in the process of compiling such a genealogy, as we recall exactly who we are, thereby approaching our wholeness...
for a 21st century Renaissance.
Spiritually, genealogy can strengthen our faith in the ancestors. We may find spiritual meaning in reconstructions of suppressed ancient religions or eclectic practices. In conducting Celtic genealogical research we rediscover the folk stories of our ancestors or the ancient deities once worshipped in other lands. The precise meaning and value of the old gods and goddesses will vary between listeners, but some find spiritual meaning in reclaiming ancient mysteries nearly lost to the modern ages.
Subjective mental life is a primary metaphor of
subjective Experience;
Primary Metaphor Becomes Embodied
and maps across generations.
The Grounding of the Whole is the grounding of its parts.
We reason with such metaphors.
(Lakoff & Johnson)
This argument against expunging legend and myth
from traditional genealogy practice is simple:
What happens outside us in these days is the image that the peoples live in events, to bequeath this image immemorially to far-off times so that they might learn from it for their own way; just as we learned from the images that the ancients had lived before us in events. ~Carl Jung, The Red book, Page 239.
"But if the believer without religion now thinks that he has got rid of mythology he is deceiving himself: he cannot get by without "myth."
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
Psychology Today: Why do people spend decades tracing their lineages? Thinking about one's ancestors provides comfort, improves one's ability to deal with challenges and actually boosts cognitive performance, new research shows.
In a simple experiment, researchers asked people to think about their ancestors (or something else) and then measured their beliefs about their own performance on several cognitive tests. People who had been made to think about their ancestors expected to do better on the tests.
But did they actually do better? Yes. Researchers Peter Fischer, Anne Sauer, Claudia Vogrincic and Silke Weisweiler found that people who had recently thought about their ancestors actually did better on cognitive tests of intelligence than people who had been made to think of other things.
Therapeutic Initiation
Inner Voices: Reverence Toward the Souls of the Ancestors
"Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead. Reflect in good heart upon evil, this is the way to the ascent. But before the ascent, everything is night and Hell." ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 244.
Psychologically this means that the souls of the ancestors (potential factors, qualities, talents, possibilities, and so on, which we have inherited from all the lines of our ancestry) are waiting in the unconscious, and are ready at any time to begin a new growth.
~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 230.
These are, so to speak, the re-animated souls of the ancestors which have been lying dormant in the unconscious, and the alchemists call these units or souls the sleepers or the dead in Hades who are resurrected by the "holy waters" (that is the miraculous water of alchemy, the fertilizing Mercury). ~Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 230.
Learning Objectives:
To understand the significance of our genealogy as more than
a metaphor for the cyclical unfolding of our life story
To understand the timing of transgenerational patterns throughout
different eras of history, and times of transition
To apply the timing of great cycles to our genealogy and life events
and reflect on the unfolding of our goals
If his individual experience is a living thing, it will share the quality of all life, which does not stagnate but, being in continual flux, brings ever new aspects to light.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
History often reveals who underwent trauma:
wars; plague; torture; physical and mental abuse; abandonment; disowning; miscarriage; stillbirth; orphaning; kidnapping; birth trauma and defects; neglect; arson; homelessness; migration; toxic caregivers; suicide; murder; terror; spiritual abuse; divorce or never marrying; family secrets; attachment disorder; banishing; grief; dependence; incest; rape; affairs, separation; isolation; "mystery ancestors"; addictions; exhaustion; hypochondria; obsession; paranoia; personality disorder; schizophrenia; depression; emotional numbness; heresy; chronic anxiety; crime; social, financial, legal, displacement; zealotry; excommunication; poverty; famine; humiliation; internment; fanaticism; bigotry; cults; expulsion; eviction; slavery; betrayal; genocide; revenge; anger; execution; molestation; extortion; conquering;
natural disasters; catastrophes, cataclysm; cultural and ethical issues, forced migration, etc.
Not one title of Christian law is abrogated, but instead we are adding a new one: accepting the lament of the dead. ~Jung, Liber Novus, Page 298, Footnote 187.
One creates inner freedom only through the symbol.
~Carl Jung,The Red Book , Page. 311.
Obviously, all genealogy is transgenerational. So long as our ancestry remains unconscious, we are marginalizing Nature and our nature. Yet, nature encompasses us. Jung notes that dreams are pure nature. He was concerned for our culture if we lost our roots. The same holds true at the personal level. Joseph Campbell declares, "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." “A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.”
Genealogy can be approached as a clinical science but remains more of an art -- a hermeneutic art, a shamanic art or self-initiation, as well as the art of relationship. We thread our way through a labyrinth of light and dark characters. Our charts are catacombs of our forebearers. We might have a different attitude to our lines in the process of discovery than we do once we have fully traced our descent from antiquity.
Subliminal Psychology
Our noble lineage becomes a royal road to ancient ancestors. But such a labyrinth of projections in the charts of a fantasist can produce self-delusion or over-heated zealotry. In the chart of a realist it may remain cold facts. Fabulists embellish, while pragmatists may be dry or stale.
A middle way might be both enlivened and informed. Jung urged, "For the understanding of the unconscious we must see our thoughts as events, as phenomena." (Liber Novus, p. 249) Genealogy mediates between the conscious and unconscious as we struggle to reveal what has so long been hidden. We also gain a reflective vantage point between ourselves and events we perceive. We allow the transcendent function to mold and re-shape us.
He [Philemon] confronted me in an objective manner, and I understood that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend, things which may even be directed against me. (Jung, MDR, Page 183)
We Re-Collect
While some people may deeply pursue formal therapy, complex genogram relationships, or workshops, the vast majority will not. Those genealogical explorers will experience a spectrum of spontaneous effects, developing their own theories, interpretations, and directions from their ancestral encounters and revelations, conflated with their own beliefs. It may be, as Jung suggests, that through dreams the ancestors compensate our ego attitudes. Even then, we make subjective and objective observations and interpretations. In the blink of an eye, we can change our feelings about culture and human nature.
How little must the root-ancestors of each of our hoary lines have imagined in their own day for their millions of descendants? Even our "dead end" ancestors had antecedents; we just cannot know them, at least not through history. Genetic genealogy tells us our ancient tribes and ancestral lands, but not the names of any of them or their families. But seeds of knowledge in the head blossom in the fertile soil of the heart. We are formed directly from within.
Our Genesis
Genealogy used to be largely a quest for the father's direct line. But with today's algorithms we can find numerous distaff lines back through the ancestral field into the Heart of the Feminine and our mitochondrial inheritance, shared genetically by all genders. This type of DNA, stored in the cell's "batteries," is inherited from the mother, more or less unchanged. Like Y-DNA, distinct mtDNA lineages, are known as "haplogroups".
Often these matriarchal lines reach further back in time than the paternal line. This is the realm of the mothers and their families brought to the tree -- our gateway into the unconscious. We descend from it, and like Faust, into initiation in this womb of potentiality from which the world is continuously born as the creative flow of the unconscious.
The Distaff Line is an old Craft term, the Mother's Line, as opposed to the Father's Line (called the Spear Line). The Matrilineal bloodline contains the spiritual, true essence of a person's "self", by which the spirits of the departed leave the Unseen world and re-enter into their families on earth. The Old Dame, as the Mother of Creation and the Supreme Being, and the Spinner of Fate, holds the "Distaff" by which she Spins the threads of creation. Since all ‘lines’ or threads begin with her and return to her, the Mother's Line is called the "Distaff Line." Mitochondrial DNA remains strong, persisting in the cells of both sexes longer than nuclear DNA.
The ancients often incorporated images of death in their funeral rites, on mummy cases, the walls of tombs, and death masks. Some might find death photos macabre and yet they are simply a final remembrance of the beloved, which can help us personify that relative.
Imagistically, the dead continue their very long journey in the afterlife. The unconscious believes in the afterlife. Their events become our meaningful experiences -- their actions our ideas and reflections, insights alive with creativity and fantasy. Our persistent search for Who? leads us down and back. Each one strikes a different part of us. From this churning, this dialectical tension, creativity emerges -- a myriad of intoxicating things, including the archetypal images of immortality.
Psychological effects of the genealogical pursuit will be different for everyone, with certain commonalities, such as symptoms, identification, projection, participation mystique, etc.
Without guidelines much of this natural personal process remains unconscious and can be problematical -- individually, in the family, and in genealogical and heritage groups. At a cultural level, we also assimilate the shock of a personal descent from historical figures -- the historical burden. Myths have a vital meaning, linking us with psychic processes and experiences "beyond consciousness in the dark hinterland of the psyche," as Jung notes (CW 9ii, Pg. 154). The collective is mythic and archetypal, while the cosmological is integrative.
The deeper we work into the World Tree the more widely shared the ancestry becomes. Chances are that most individuals seeking their ancestry will not seek treatment but can benefit from a contextualization of those experiences. We can jump to wrong conclusions from too little information. It happens to our beliefs and our cognitive interpretations.
They also will not stop at the Fourth Generation. What distinguishes de facto Transgenerational Genealogy from conventional or Jungian approaches is plunging deeper into the Medieval, legendary, and mythic layers of one's pedigree, rather than just the first few generations. But we can not concentrate only on the royal lines, because many other descents far out number them. Genetically, they have no priority; we may carry none of their genes.
Mythic Genealogy
Emerging from pre-conscious psyche, myths are our deep background and connect us with our instincts. Myth bridges conscious and unconscious cognition with an archaic quality and networks of symbols and imagery. It represents the meaning of being. They help us interpret the world. We need myth because it speaks emotionally of and to the soul, giving meaning to loss and suffering. It may be a painful struggle that reminds us we are very much alive. For example, in Wotan we find the ecstatic experience of fighting as well as the ecstatic joy of death.
English kings claimed descent from Wotan or Odin. Medieval monks pushed Woden’s ancestry back to Troy, then connected the Trojans to the Jewish scriptures and the lost tribe of Dan. They linked the Franks to the kings of Troy and the Merovingian descent from the family of Jesus. The Chronicle of Fredegar (7th century) mentions the legend. It was elaborated in the Liber historiae Francorum (probably 727). Such legends grew over time.
Our genealogy shows us how these stories migrated between cultures over time. We can imagine our descent from Aphrodite herself. Descending through Macedonians and Ptolemaic Egyptians, then Spanish and English nobility, she would be somewhere around a 100th great-grandmother. A pedigree prepared for Philip II of Spain traces his paternal descent from Hercules Lybius, said to have been a son of Dodanim / Rodanim, who is said to have been a great grandson of Noah (Genesis 10:4, 1 Chronicles 1:7).
The confabulations of the Welsh royals made them descendants of Joseph of Arimathea. They included a legendary cycle of Fisher Kings, and culminated in the Grail Cycle and stories of King Arthur's court and the magic of Avalon. Given the right gateway ancestors and royal lineage, all of these lines will show up in the standard genealogies of millions of people.
Many accept their fabulous descent from antiquity as literally true, while scholars know it to be false. But neither view is accurate. Even though confabulated at some point for political purposes, such mythical genealogies linking man to the divine are actually traditional, and considered 'best practice' for eras of history.
Even 'fictious' genealogies and medieval forgeries have a place in our lines, if only to show us how these connections used to be made. Medieval genealogies connecting ancient kings to Adam are pure invention. In the Historia Brittonum, the Welsh monk Nennius (9th century) grafted northern Europeans onto the classical tradition by making them not only descended from Noah, but the brothers of Romulus, legendary founder of Rome.
Modern genealogists want to cut "fictitious" connections, but myth is the DNA of our psyche. That is like killing the root of the tree. This is genealogy without proof, so it must be mythic. How about the mighty Zeus himself, king of the gods? With over 200 offspring, divine and demigods, there are many lines of potential descent. Or, the venerable Isis? She may be 100 - 150 generations back.
We find myth not only at the root of our ancient lines but in each and every life between, in the roles and archetypal patterns that constitute our direct heritage. Jung suggests the dynamic is the same whether we think of them as instincts or gods and goddesses. We can re-enchant our world by saying a prayer to the lords and ladies, by whatever names they wish to be known. In a prayer to all our relations, invisible spirits are made visible. Eternal being lies within each and every one of us.
Grail Bearers
The Holy Grail and the Blood Royal are twin myths. In that myth Arthur is the product of sorcery and rape yet rises to the highest station. Bron and the Fisher Kings link the Grail to the vales of Avalon and the Hidden Stream of the Merovingian Franks.
We must be careful not to misconstrue the Grail for our own purposes, from a medieval retrieval, to spiritual literalism, to reactionary ideologies. We can't take it literally, realizing the genealogies are made up. We certainly can't return to either the politics or religion of a legendary era or new age revisionist theories like "the evil Archons" and proliferating self-styled incarnations of Mary Magdalene. We retain a psychological approach to the subject.
"We have to finish it. We have to carry it on. Even though we don't talk about grails and castles and enchanted maidens, still it is our myth to be completed in our lives. The myth has taken us to exactly the point where modern people are now. Collectively speaking we are stuck at the point where the French poem ends. So if you want a quest, if you want something meaningful for your life, pick up the grail myth where it now lies in you." (Robert Johnson)
When he first finds the Grail Castle, Perceval fails to ask the crucial questions about the origins of evil, the king's wound, and the Grail's meaning. He does get another chance to find wholeness -- to redeem the divine in matter. That doesn't mean he had a cognition of the whole but it is said to be so. Emma Jung and M-L von Franz describe how The Grail is brought to the Old Grail King; the goal of the quest is death to the old king, who 'dies' to the dominant collective consciousness of the day with its one-sided god image and is restored.
Encountering the Grail is an emotional readiness for reflective experience and to receive numinous experience. With the secret words spoken and Perceval’s royal ancestry revealed, the Grail is placed in his care. The Grail disappeared with his death, went back into concealment in the unconscious of each living person, available as an inner guide, the voice of the divine, inviting each of us to our individual completeness.
The genealogical Quest for the Grail shares something in common with the quest for the Philosopher's Stone, which forms itself. The magic of genealogy as the magic of the Stone is in the seeking after it. The Grail is our own transformation.
We are filled by the Grail when we point ourselves toward it. The Grail serves the whole community.
The Philosopher's Stone declares,
"My light, exceeds every light, and my good things are better than all other good things. I give freely and reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory, riches, delights; and them that "seek" after me I make to know and understand, and to posses divine things." --Golden Tractates of Hermes
In the search for the stone, it is the work that counts. One should not worry too much about the right way. The right way with the wrong person will never succeed. The wrong way with the right person will eventually right itself, for the stone is found at the crossroads of Heaven and Earth. Those who seek the Stone with true heart, shall be found by the Stone itself.
As someone's descendant we answer the call. Like the Fisher King, we seek the Salmon of Knowledge. The transgenerational group is integrated within the individual. Much of the effect is intrinsic. For Jung, fantasy is an integrative function.
Imaginative expressions of hidden forces appear spontaneously as the direct expression of psychic life, creative and imaginative activity inherent in each and every moment. We meet each wondrous, wild moment by relating to it, not controlling it. We really can't separate the past from the present.
Relationship is created and recreated from what has been and what is yet to be. Our challenge is to claim a place for our own imagination and intellect. We learn to see and bear the pain of seeing and suffering. Healing and wounding alternate in a rhythm echoing a sense of transience and death.
"You will feel me with you even from the Land of the Dead."
Our lineage is our own, personal Mystery Play. You can only enter into your own mysteries. We can allow the phenomena to speak - the multitude of personalities to speak, to be personified. Images are also voices -- messages from the dead. We need a sense of the ancestors. For most, that sense may be more poetic than clinical...the poetry of everyday life as it stretches back into the mists before time.
From the earliest societies to contemporary civilizations, genealogical methods have traced ancestries back to gods, animal totems, and legendary heroes. Originally the oral history narratives of clan or tribe bequeathed the lineage. In ancient Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt, India and China, kings and heads of state claimed their rights to the throne through genealogy. Royal totems include dragon, eagle, lion, wolf, serpent, boar, etc.
The Old Testament recounts the "begats" of Adam, Noah and Abraham, and later the royal bloodline of the House of David. Muslims trace their descent from Muhammed, while the Greeks and Romans and Vikings linked their heritage to the gods. The importance of ancestry to soul appears in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian genealogies. In Germanic folklore the soul was considered, in certain respects, something inherited.
What is the power of the individual against the voice of the whole people in him? ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 365.
There is essentially no difference between doing genealogy or psychogenealogy, except perhaps the addition of a few evocative techniques. We don't just study it, but interact with it -- with the ancestors. It may be less what we think about it and more its effect on us. Information is naturally excited in the genealogical process as images, sensations, intuitions, synchronicities, insights, and more.
But psychogenealogy attempts to find workable answers when elements embedded in the family memory are now limiting an individual in a particular way.
Individual and collective consciousness is shaped in crucial ways by cognition of collective family experiences. What tends to get passed on is the overwhelming, unbearable, unthinkable. Much of history has been lost, distorted, or blotted out. We can focus on genetics, culture, spirit, and emotion as keys to the ancestral door. We can break our identification with a traumatic or unresolved past and still honor and consciously grieve our ancestors.
Genealogy is a tool for family therapy and self-knowledge. We carry secret stories from before our lifetime. The entire family tree is both a trauma archive and a resource for healing. Yet children raised in difficult circumstances often show enhanced mental flexibility. Much of what is unconscious to us is revealed in our lines. We still have to amplify, work with, interpret, and integrate that information.
We can reframe our relationship with pain, fear, and grief at the familial and ancestral level. Current research on well-being describes two perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. The later may be more important. Composed of the words "eu" ("good") and "daimōn" ("spirit") it fits the ancestral theme.
This spirit is an autonomous psychic happening, a hush that follows the storm, a reconciling light in the darkness of man’s mind, secretly bringing order into the chaos of his soul. ~Carl Jung; CW 11; Paragraph 260.
This is part of the Genealogical Journey.
In this way we follow Nature and our nature back to our Origin.
We can pursue both a psychological and genealogical approach to wisdom. Realizations and self-actualization arise naturally in the process of compiling such a genealogy, as we recall exactly who we are, thereby approaching our wholeness...
for a 21st century Renaissance.
Spiritually, genealogy can strengthen our faith in the ancestors. We may find spiritual meaning in reconstructions of suppressed ancient religions or eclectic practices. In conducting Celtic genealogical research we rediscover the folk stories of our ancestors or the ancient deities once worshipped in other lands. The precise meaning and value of the old gods and goddesses will vary between listeners, but some find spiritual meaning in reclaiming ancient mysteries nearly lost to the modern ages.
Subjective mental life is a primary metaphor of
subjective Experience;
Primary Metaphor Becomes Embodied
and maps across generations.
The Grounding of the Whole is the grounding of its parts.
We reason with such metaphors.
(Lakoff & Johnson)
This argument against expunging legend and myth
from traditional genealogy practice is simple:
What happens outside us in these days is the image that the peoples live in events, to bequeath this image immemorially to far-off times so that they might learn from it for their own way; just as we learned from the images that the ancients had lived before us in events. ~Carl Jung, The Red book, Page 239.
"But if the believer without religion now thinks that he has got rid of mythology he is deceiving himself: he cannot get by without "myth."
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
Psychology Today: Why do people spend decades tracing their lineages? Thinking about one's ancestors provides comfort, improves one's ability to deal with challenges and actually boosts cognitive performance, new research shows.
In a simple experiment, researchers asked people to think about their ancestors (or something else) and then measured their beliefs about their own performance on several cognitive tests. People who had been made to think about their ancestors expected to do better on the tests.
But did they actually do better? Yes. Researchers Peter Fischer, Anne Sauer, Claudia Vogrincic and Silke Weisweiler found that people who had recently thought about their ancestors actually did better on cognitive tests of intelligence than people who had been made to think of other things.
Therapeutic Initiation
Inner Voices: Reverence Toward the Souls of the Ancestors
"Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead. Reflect in good heart upon evil, this is the way to the ascent. But before the ascent, everything is night and Hell." ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 244.
Psychologically this means that the souls of the ancestors (potential factors, qualities, talents, possibilities, and so on, which we have inherited from all the lines of our ancestry) are waiting in the unconscious, and are ready at any time to begin a new growth.
~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 230.
These are, so to speak, the re-animated souls of the ancestors which have been lying dormant in the unconscious, and the alchemists call these units or souls the sleepers or the dead in Hades who are resurrected by the "holy waters" (that is the miraculous water of alchemy, the fertilizing Mercury). ~Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 230.
Learning Objectives:
To understand the significance of our genealogy as more than
a metaphor for the cyclical unfolding of our life story
To understand the timing of transgenerational patterns throughout
different eras of history, and times of transition
To apply the timing of great cycles to our genealogy and life events
and reflect on the unfolding of our goals
If his individual experience is a living thing, it will share the quality of all life, which does not stagnate but, being in continual flux, brings ever new aspects to light.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 482-488
History often reveals who underwent trauma:
wars; plague; torture; physical and mental abuse; abandonment; disowning; miscarriage; stillbirth; orphaning; kidnapping; birth trauma and defects; neglect; arson; homelessness; migration; toxic caregivers; suicide; murder; terror; spiritual abuse; divorce or never marrying; family secrets; attachment disorder; banishing; grief; dependence; incest; rape; affairs, separation; isolation; "mystery ancestors"; addictions; exhaustion; hypochondria; obsession; paranoia; personality disorder; schizophrenia; depression; emotional numbness; heresy; chronic anxiety; crime; social, financial, legal, displacement; zealotry; excommunication; poverty; famine; humiliation; internment; fanaticism; bigotry; cults; expulsion; eviction; slavery; betrayal; genocide; revenge; anger; execution; molestation; extortion; conquering;
natural disasters; catastrophes, cataclysm; cultural and ethical issues, forced migration, etc.
Carlo Dolci, 1640s
It's Good to Bee Queen
"When I worked in my family tree, I understood the strange communion of the destiny that unites me to my ancestors. I had the strong feeling that it was under the influence of events and problems that were incomplete and unresolved by my parents, my grandparents, and my other ancestors. I had the impression that there is often in the family an impersonal Karma transmitted from parents to children. I always knew that I had to answer questions already asked by my ancestors or I had to conclude, or continue on the previously unresolved issues". ~Carl Jung
[At the Dawn of the 21st Century what do we do for our Dead?]
What the ancients did for their dead! You seem to believe that you can absolve yourself from the care of the dead, and from the work that they so greatly demand, since what is dead is past. You excuse yourself with your disbelief in the immortality of the soul. Do you think that the dead do not exist because you have' devised the impossibility of immortality? You believe in your idols of words. The dead produce effects, that is sufficient. In the inner world there is no explaining away, as little as you can explain away the sea in the outer world. You must finally understand your purpose in explaining away, namely to seek protection. ~Carl Jung; Red Book.
What the ancients did for their dead! You seem to believe that you can absolve yourself from the care of the dead, and from the work that they so greatly demand, since what is dead is past. You excuse yourself with your disbelief in the immortality of the soul. Do you think that the dead do not exist because you have' devised the impossibility of immortality? You believe in your idols of words. The dead produce effects, that is sufficient. In the inner world there is no explaining away, as little as you can explain away the sea in the outer world. You must finally understand your purpose in explaining away, namely to seek protection. ~Carl Jung; Red Book.
David Howard Johnson; http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/
Our Genealogical Lines are Our Labyrinth
Piero di Cosimo - St. Mary Magdalene, 1500-10
William Savage Cooper (1896) Phantasy
Who Do You Think You Are?
GENEALOGY IS A WAY OF KNOWING
Your Genetic Matrix, Archetypes & the Collective Unconscious
Your Own 'Book of the Dead'
"My name is not my own, it is borrowed from my ancestors. I must return it unstained. My honor is not my own, it is borrowed from my descendants, I must give it to them unbroken. Our blood is not our own, it is a gift to generations yet unborn. We should carry it with responsibility." --Vincent Fund
KNOW THYSELF
On the portals of the Temple of Delphi it is written,
"My advice to you, whoever you may be, Oh you who desire to explore the Mysteries of Nature; if you do not discover within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it without. If you ignore the excellence of your own house, how can you aspire to find excellence elsewhere? Within you is hidden the treasure of treasures. Oh Man! Know thyself, and you will know the universe and the Gods.
But the more we become conscious of ourselves through self-knowledge, and act accordingly, the more the layer of the personal unconscious that is superimposed on the collective unconscious will be diminished. In this way there arises a consciousness which is no longer imprisoned in the petty, oversensitive, personal world of the ego, but participates freely in the wider world of objective interests. ~Carl Jung
"Reflection should be understood not simply as an act of thought, but rather as an
attitude. It is privilege born of human freedom in contradistinction to the compulsion of
natural law. As the word itself testifies reflection means literally bending back, reflection is
a spiritual act that runs counter to the natural process; an act whereby we stop, call
something to mind, form a picture, and take up a relation to and come to terms with what
we have seen. It should, therefore, be understood as an act of becoming conscious."
--C.G. Jung
Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books
but lives in our very blood? ~Carl Jung
The Unconscious believes in Life after Death. ~Carl Jung
"The body as a whole, so it seems to me, is a pattern of behavior, and man as a whole is an archetype." ~Carl Jung; Letter to Medard Boss June 27, 1947l
"You are an image of the unending world, all the last mysteries of becoming and passing away live in you. If you did not possess all this, how could you know?"
~Jung, Red Book
"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us." ~Joseph Campbell
“When you look inside yourself, you see the universe and all its stars in infinity. The result is an infinite mystery within yourself as great as the one without. “ --Arthur Eddington
"The self is like a crowd", says Jung (Jung 1988, p. 102) "when people integrate their unconscious (...) it is as if one man were becoming a whole town." (Jung 1988, p. 827). I could think of no better way of starting a presentation on the theme of "multiplicity" than with this quotation of Jung taken from his Seminars on Zarathustra. Inner multiplicity is a natural state of any human psyche. Individuation consequently can be understood as a process of engaging in a dynamic relationship with the elements of one's "inner village", thereby responding to the psyche’s natural tendency towards wholeness." --Diane Cousineau Brutsche
The mind which is in each of us is able to comprehend all other things, but has not the capability of understanding itself. For as the eye sees all other things, but cannot see itself, so also the mind perceives the nature of other things but cannot understand itself. For if it does, let it tell us what it is, or what kind of thing it is, whether it is a spirit, or blood, or fire, or air, or any other substance: or even only so much whether it is a substance at all, or something incorporeal. Are not those men then simple who speculate on the essence of God? For how can they who are ignorant of the nature of the essence of their own soul, have any accurate knowledge of the soul of the universe? For the soul of the universe is according to our definition, -- God.
~Philo the Jew; Allegorical Interpretations I.
"And just as in the past each civilization was the vehicle of its own mythology, developing in character as its myth became progressively interpreted, analyzed, and elucidated by its leading minds, so in this modern world – where the application of science to the fields of practical life has now dissolved all cultural horizons, so that no separate civilization can ever develop again – each individual is the center of a mythology of his own, of which his own intelligible character is the Incarnate God, so to say, whom his empirically questing consciousness is to find. The aphorism of Delphi, 'Know thyself,' is the motto. And not Rome, not Mecca, not Jerusalem, Sinai, or Benares, but each and every 'thou' on earth is the center of the world, in the sense of that formula quoted from the twelfth century 'Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers,' of God 'as an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere.'" --Joseph Campbell, "The Masks of God, Volume IV: Creative Mythology," p. 36
GENEALOGY IS A WAY OF KNOWING
Your Genetic Matrix, Archetypes & the Collective Unconscious
Your Own 'Book of the Dead'
"My name is not my own, it is borrowed from my ancestors. I must return it unstained. My honor is not my own, it is borrowed from my descendants, I must give it to them unbroken. Our blood is not our own, it is a gift to generations yet unborn. We should carry it with responsibility." --Vincent Fund
KNOW THYSELF
On the portals of the Temple of Delphi it is written,
"My advice to you, whoever you may be, Oh you who desire to explore the Mysteries of Nature; if you do not discover within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it without. If you ignore the excellence of your own house, how can you aspire to find excellence elsewhere? Within you is hidden the treasure of treasures. Oh Man! Know thyself, and you will know the universe and the Gods.
But the more we become conscious of ourselves through self-knowledge, and act accordingly, the more the layer of the personal unconscious that is superimposed on the collective unconscious will be diminished. In this way there arises a consciousness which is no longer imprisoned in the petty, oversensitive, personal world of the ego, but participates freely in the wider world of objective interests. ~Carl Jung
"Reflection should be understood not simply as an act of thought, but rather as an
attitude. It is privilege born of human freedom in contradistinction to the compulsion of
natural law. As the word itself testifies reflection means literally bending back, reflection is
a spiritual act that runs counter to the natural process; an act whereby we stop, call
something to mind, form a picture, and take up a relation to and come to terms with what
we have seen. It should, therefore, be understood as an act of becoming conscious."
--C.G. Jung
Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books
but lives in our very blood? ~Carl Jung
The Unconscious believes in Life after Death. ~Carl Jung
"The body as a whole, so it seems to me, is a pattern of behavior, and man as a whole is an archetype." ~Carl Jung; Letter to Medard Boss June 27, 1947l
"You are an image of the unending world, all the last mysteries of becoming and passing away live in you. If you did not possess all this, how could you know?"
~Jung, Red Book
"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us." ~Joseph Campbell
“When you look inside yourself, you see the universe and all its stars in infinity. The result is an infinite mystery within yourself as great as the one without. “ --Arthur Eddington
"The self is like a crowd", says Jung (Jung 1988, p. 102) "when people integrate their unconscious (...) it is as if one man were becoming a whole town." (Jung 1988, p. 827). I could think of no better way of starting a presentation on the theme of "multiplicity" than with this quotation of Jung taken from his Seminars on Zarathustra. Inner multiplicity is a natural state of any human psyche. Individuation consequently can be understood as a process of engaging in a dynamic relationship with the elements of one's "inner village", thereby responding to the psyche’s natural tendency towards wholeness." --Diane Cousineau Brutsche
The mind which is in each of us is able to comprehend all other things, but has not the capability of understanding itself. For as the eye sees all other things, but cannot see itself, so also the mind perceives the nature of other things but cannot understand itself. For if it does, let it tell us what it is, or what kind of thing it is, whether it is a spirit, or blood, or fire, or air, or any other substance: or even only so much whether it is a substance at all, or something incorporeal. Are not those men then simple who speculate on the essence of God? For how can they who are ignorant of the nature of the essence of their own soul, have any accurate knowledge of the soul of the universe? For the soul of the universe is according to our definition, -- God.
~Philo the Jew; Allegorical Interpretations I.
"And just as in the past each civilization was the vehicle of its own mythology, developing in character as its myth became progressively interpreted, analyzed, and elucidated by its leading minds, so in this modern world – where the application of science to the fields of practical life has now dissolved all cultural horizons, so that no separate civilization can ever develop again – each individual is the center of a mythology of his own, of which his own intelligible character is the Incarnate God, so to say, whom his empirically questing consciousness is to find. The aphorism of Delphi, 'Know thyself,' is the motto. And not Rome, not Mecca, not Jerusalem, Sinai, or Benares, but each and every 'thou' on earth is the center of the world, in the sense of that formula quoted from the twelfth century 'Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers,' of God 'as an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere.'" --Joseph Campbell, "The Masks of God, Volume IV: Creative Mythology," p. 36
Ingrid Silva
“There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.” ― Hazrat Inayat Khan
"When we must deal with problems, we instinctively resist trying the way that leads through obscurity and darkness. We wish to hear only of unequivocal results, and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from the darkness. But to penetrate the darkness we must summon all the powers of enlightenment that consciousness can offer." ~Carl Jung; "The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.752
SANGREALITY
The Gods & the Grail Family Now
~The Art & Science of Ancestral Retrieval~
"What is the Grail and whom does it serve?"
The Labyrinth of Our Lines of Descent
Symbol of Wholeness
The early maze was a figurative vortex; a tornado or whirlpool. The Chartres Maze is associated with Melusine and Sheba and their vortex, source of life and life's blood. The Maze is associated with the root word from which we derive the adjective "to amaze". The maze represented the shamanic "Spiral Dance of the Vortex" (sacrificial sword dance), and on another level "The Quest for the Holy Grail". It can be associated with the name Mazda or Ormuzd, the principle of light, suggesting that whatever was at the center of a Maze rendered enlightenment and that ecstatic amazement, or wonder, accompanied it.
A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. It represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools. A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. Walking the labyrinth can be considered an initiation in which one awakens the knowledge encoded within their DNA.
A labyrinth contains embedded geometric and numerological prompts that create a multi-dimensional holographic field. These unseen patterns are referred to as sacred geometry. They allegedly reveal the presence of a cosmic order as they interface the world of material form and the subtler realms of higher consciousness.The contemporary resurgence of labyrinths in the west stems from our deeply rooted urge to honor again the Sacredness of All Life. A labyrinth can be experienced as the birthing womb of the Great Goddess. Thus, the labyrinth experience is a potent practice of Self-Integration as it encapsulates the spiraling journey in and out of incarnation. On the journey in, towards the center, one cleanses the dirt from the road. On the journey out, one is born anew to consciously dwell in a human body, made holy by having got a taste of the Infinite Center.
A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. It represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools. A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. Walking the labyrinth can be considered an initiation in which one awakens the knowledge encoded within their DNA.
A labyrinth contains embedded geometric and numerological prompts that create a multi-dimensional holographic field. These unseen patterns are referred to as sacred geometry. They allegedly reveal the presence of a cosmic order as they interface the world of material form and the subtler realms of higher consciousness.The contemporary resurgence of labyrinths in the west stems from our deeply rooted urge to honor again the Sacredness of All Life. A labyrinth can be experienced as the birthing womb of the Great Goddess. Thus, the labyrinth experience is a potent practice of Self-Integration as it encapsulates the spiraling journey in and out of incarnation. On the journey in, towards the center, one cleanses the dirt from the road. On the journey out, one is born anew to consciously dwell in a human body, made holy by having got a taste of the Infinite Center.
'Metamorphosis' by Kenneth Rougeau
The Living Grail: Ancient Lines Today & Tomorrow
We Know a Tree by Its Fruit
We Know a Tree by Its Fruit
I am the Queen of Heaven, as you are the King of Earth.Each of us a force.
“The place of magic transformation and rebirth… are presided over by the mother.”
(Carl Jung, 9i, para. 157)
"Apparently in every sphere of human search and experience the mystery of the ultimate nature of being breaks into oxymoronic paradox, and the best that can be said of it has to be taken simply as metaphor—whether as particles and waves or as Apollo and Dionysus, pleasure and pain. Both in science and in poetry, the principal of the anagogical metaphor is thus recognized today; it is only from the pulpit and the press that one hears of truths and virtues definable in fixed terms." --Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Volume IV: Creative Mythology, p. 190
The Grail is a metaphor for connection to the mystical Source of everything,
the ever-renewing Fountain of all manifestation. Archetypes are Nature's constants. “The question is—can the ego hear the generative voice of Wisdom, or will it be possessed by unassimilated archetypal contents of the unconscious?”
In order for an ego to serve the mandates of the Self (that life be lived, that humans and God partner in the evolution of the Creation), there has to be a relationship. Relationality is the feminine aspect of the Self. Invite the story back into your life. Wisdom requires sacrifice and the courage to take action, regardless of how the collective views it or what the consequences might be.
Wisdom is always available to the ego and both Wisdom and ego are in relationship with God (the Self). The question is—can the ego hear the generative voice of Wisdom, or will it be possessed by unassimilated archetypal contents of the unconscious? Myths matter because they are the collective dreams that wed inner and outer, people and places, known and unknown.
Alchemy facilitates our personal development by amplifying natural processes heated by conscious intention, love, and a personal confrontation with the unconscious. Jung says this leads to self-knowledge: a transcendent relationship with the unconscious and freedom from the duality of the opposites, such as time and space.
Spirituality is not a religion but means you are in touch with your own self. The spiritual path is not to be followed by rising upward through one's head toward a heaven in the sky, but through the personal and then tribal and then collective unconscious, downward and inward, through deeper and deeper layers of our own inner darkness, finally breaking through to eternity and light.
We become our authentic self – the true gold of the alchemists. Jung saw the psyche as an inherently more spiritual and fluid place, an ocean that could be fished for enlightenment and healing. The purpose is to give life back to someone who’s lost it.
Our conscious mind is limited to the sequential flow of words and their corresponding ideas which arise from our subconscious. Our subconscious mind being formed from knowledge and experiences gathered over our lifetime (and possibly from the lives of our ancestors where knowledge is stored in genetic structures). Thus if we are to have harmony between our conscious and sub-conscious minds and the external world we experience, we must unite these apparently separate things. To do to this at a fundamental level requires understanding what matter is and thus what we are (as humans) and how we are necessarily connected to all other matter in the universe. ~Carl Jung.
"My life often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and no end. I had the feeling that I was a historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me.” --Carl Jung.
"Life wants to be real. If you love life you want to live really, not as a mere promise hovering above things. Life inevitably leads down into reality. Life is of the nature of water: it always seeks the deepest place, which is always below in the darkness and heaviness of the earth." --Carl Jung
''The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves''.~Carl Jung
I: And the crown? Solve the riddle of the crown for me!"
Soul Bird: "The crown and serpent are opposites, and are one. Did you not see the serpent that crowned the head of the crucified?"
I: "What, I don't understand you."
Soul Bird: "What words did the crown bring you?
"Love never ends" - that is the mystery of the crown and the serpent."
~Carl Jung; Red Book.
The stages of psychological development progress like this:
1. Discovery of opposites - the conscious (& Ego) is born
2. Preference of opposites - the Shadow is born
3. Out of opposites comes a distinction between I and not-I. The qualities identified with at this stage are not uniquely individual, but identified with the collective - beginning of the development of the Persona.
4. Persona development - copying others in order to ‘fit in’.
5. Re-cognizing the Persona (become conscious of the MASK).
6. Dissolution of the Persona - strictly by ‘act of will’.
7. Persona complex gets replaced by Archetypes
8. Re-cognizing the Archetypes:
9. Dissolution of the Archetypes: (the Shadow, the Anima or Animus, and the Self)
10. Individuation (self-realization)
(Carl Jung, 9i, para. 157)
"Apparently in every sphere of human search and experience the mystery of the ultimate nature of being breaks into oxymoronic paradox, and the best that can be said of it has to be taken simply as metaphor—whether as particles and waves or as Apollo and Dionysus, pleasure and pain. Both in science and in poetry, the principal of the anagogical metaphor is thus recognized today; it is only from the pulpit and the press that one hears of truths and virtues definable in fixed terms." --Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Volume IV: Creative Mythology, p. 190
The Grail is a metaphor for connection to the mystical Source of everything,
the ever-renewing Fountain of all manifestation. Archetypes are Nature's constants. “The question is—can the ego hear the generative voice of Wisdom, or will it be possessed by unassimilated archetypal contents of the unconscious?”
In order for an ego to serve the mandates of the Self (that life be lived, that humans and God partner in the evolution of the Creation), there has to be a relationship. Relationality is the feminine aspect of the Self. Invite the story back into your life. Wisdom requires sacrifice and the courage to take action, regardless of how the collective views it or what the consequences might be.
Wisdom is always available to the ego and both Wisdom and ego are in relationship with God (the Self). The question is—can the ego hear the generative voice of Wisdom, or will it be possessed by unassimilated archetypal contents of the unconscious? Myths matter because they are the collective dreams that wed inner and outer, people and places, known and unknown.
Alchemy facilitates our personal development by amplifying natural processes heated by conscious intention, love, and a personal confrontation with the unconscious. Jung says this leads to self-knowledge: a transcendent relationship with the unconscious and freedom from the duality of the opposites, such as time and space.
Spirituality is not a religion but means you are in touch with your own self. The spiritual path is not to be followed by rising upward through one's head toward a heaven in the sky, but through the personal and then tribal and then collective unconscious, downward and inward, through deeper and deeper layers of our own inner darkness, finally breaking through to eternity and light.
We become our authentic self – the true gold of the alchemists. Jung saw the psyche as an inherently more spiritual and fluid place, an ocean that could be fished for enlightenment and healing. The purpose is to give life back to someone who’s lost it.
Our conscious mind is limited to the sequential flow of words and their corresponding ideas which arise from our subconscious. Our subconscious mind being formed from knowledge and experiences gathered over our lifetime (and possibly from the lives of our ancestors where knowledge is stored in genetic structures). Thus if we are to have harmony between our conscious and sub-conscious minds and the external world we experience, we must unite these apparently separate things. To do to this at a fundamental level requires understanding what matter is and thus what we are (as humans) and how we are necessarily connected to all other matter in the universe. ~Carl Jung.
"My life often seemed to me like a story that has no beginning and no end. I had the feeling that I was a historical fragment, an excerpt for which the preceding and succeeding text was missing. I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had been born again because I had not fulfilled the task given to me.” --Carl Jung.
"Life wants to be real. If you love life you want to live really, not as a mere promise hovering above things. Life inevitably leads down into reality. Life is of the nature of water: it always seeks the deepest place, which is always below in the darkness and heaviness of the earth." --Carl Jung
''The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves''.~Carl Jung
I: And the crown? Solve the riddle of the crown for me!"
Soul Bird: "The crown and serpent are opposites, and are one. Did you not see the serpent that crowned the head of the crucified?"
I: "What, I don't understand you."
Soul Bird: "What words did the crown bring you?
"Love never ends" - that is the mystery of the crown and the serpent."
~Carl Jung; Red Book.
The stages of psychological development progress like this:
1. Discovery of opposites - the conscious (& Ego) is born
2. Preference of opposites - the Shadow is born
3. Out of opposites comes a distinction between I and not-I. The qualities identified with at this stage are not uniquely individual, but identified with the collective - beginning of the development of the Persona.
4. Persona development - copying others in order to ‘fit in’.
5. Re-cognizing the Persona (become conscious of the MASK).
6. Dissolution of the Persona - strictly by ‘act of will’.
7. Persona complex gets replaced by Archetypes
8. Re-cognizing the Archetypes:
9. Dissolution of the Archetypes: (the Shadow, the Anima or Animus, and the Self)
10. Individuation (self-realization)
APOCALIVING
YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THIS
An Archetypally Informed Rediscovery of the Grail-Carriers
Self-Rooted, Self-Growth, Self-Renewal
YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THIS
An Archetypally Informed Rediscovery of the Grail-Carriers
Self-Rooted, Self-Growth, Self-Renewal
It all starts with the Blood - "If it bleeds, it leads".
“Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end… The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.”--Joseph Campbell
Our blight is ideologies - they are the long-expected Antichrist! --Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)
Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. —Aldous Huxley
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." --Plutarch
Sovereignty: It is the individual's task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities . . . interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible. . . .--Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)
“Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end… The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.”--Joseph Campbell
Our blight is ideologies - they are the long-expected Antichrist! --Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)
Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. —Aldous Huxley
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." --Plutarch
Sovereignty: It is the individual's task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities . . . interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible. . . .--Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)
We can call anyone of Sangreal blood who has yet to discover or prove their dynastic heritage, a "crypto-grail carrier." Over and over the phenomenon and transformative reaction repeats itself. We call it "the Grail Effect," which kindles an archaic revival and a recursive cycle of self-amplification -- a virtual awakening to a new order of reality, deep time, and sense of self-identity.
We are endowed with a genetic lust for life. Each new birth reminds us that life is a miracle. Genealogy is a Gnosis, a Way of Knowing that only comes with the names that carry one's lineage back into the mists of pre-history. It is a hermeneutic requiring interpretation and discretion between the literal, mythic, and symbolic.
We are involved in a pioneering project in the overlap of arts, sciences, humanities, network research, data science, and information design to log and archive our research. That which rings true, resonates. Imagination is a way of engaging reality. The flow of images creates thinking and the thinker -- the "seen" and the "seer". The wholeness of the Self is more than the sum of psyche's components. What was once only imagined is being proven with genetic genealogy. Dreams and philosophy make up myths.
It all begins when a seemingly ordinary person somehow develops an interest in their family genealogy, finds a historical Gateway Ancestor, whose pedigree leads them back to medieval times where they find they descend from multinational nobility and royalty. Because of intensive intermarriage among nobles in past eras, finding one royal usually means tapping into several blueblood lines.
Much like in dreamwork, where we are all parts of the dream, we are literally all of our ancestors incarnate -- male and female -- only this is a dream dreamt aloud in the manifest world, birth after noble birth. We are all the Fisher King. We go fishing for our ancestral legacies and voices in the deep lake of the unconscious, bringing them to the surface. We "fish" with our ancestral "lines", which tie us directly to our deep past.
When the Lady of the Lake responds spontaneously with the treasure of the magic sword, our intellects are sharpened and steeled, as well as our intuition. The 'fishing' is drawing these things up from the unconscious, but the 'fishing lines' are our progenitors, you might say -- the Fisher Kings and queens. And, the King and the land are one - that is our divinity and our materiality are synonymous. We exist and in that sense we are 'divine' to the extent that we realize and actualize that blessing of our deepest Nature, balancing symbolic and material.
"It is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he finds on his voyage of discovery, be it cooling water for the thirsty or the sandy wastes of unfruitful error. The one helps, the other warns. Not the criticism of individual contemporaries will decide the truth or falsity of his discoveries, but future generations. There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be. So every man whose fate it is to go his individual way must proceed with hopefulness and watchfulness, ever conscious of his loneliness and its dangers." (C.G. Jung)
At first we are struck with the richness of our personal family story, but soon come to realize many of our noble lines are intimately crossed with those already well-aware of their Sangreal heritage today. We learn to understand our lineage is that of the ancient dynastic houses, who are already deeply involved in their own historical reclamation and heritage projects. We begin to see that this is, indeed, our true extended family.
As the seeker's online search widens, sooner or later they come across some material on the Sangreal legend, legacy, or its many subcultures. Given a few hints on where and who to look for, suddenly they are faced with the mind-blowing distinction that they descend arguably from the oldest royal line on the planet, and that there is a deeper 'reality' to the mythic stories -- a living reality we each embody.
The God-Kings are rooted in mythic prehistory and extended their rule well into the Classical Period, before they were deposed and separated from their divine-rights by socio-political machinations. Looking to their own family lines and/or genetic genealogy reports, modern Grail-carriers come face to face with the revelation of their true being.
Thus awakened, they draw new energy from the collective unconscious and their Sangreal companions on the same journey to pursue the depths of their being and connection to Cosmos. So it has been, from the dawn of time. Suddenly their 'differences' make sense, possibly for the first time. They may experience an infusion of wisdom or Knowledge welling up from the Plenum within.
Genealogists now use molecular genealogy, comparing and matching people by matrilineal DNA lineages -- matrilineal mtDNA or patrilineal Y-chromosome ancestry, SNP, and/or autosomal tests. People interested in ancestry now look at genetic markers to trace the migrations of the human species. You can trace your genealogy by DNA from your grandparents back 10,000 or more years.
Anyone can be interested in DNA for ancestry research, learning how different populations from a mosaic of communities reached their current locations. From who are you descended? What markers shed light on your deepest ancestry? You can study DNA for medical reasons or to discover the geographic travels and dwelling places of some of your ancestors. DNA does not target specific ancestors by name but does reveal rare genetic markers. Specifically, you can interpret your DNA test and/or genealogy for family history.
Particular genetic markers are called ancestry informative markers (AIM). They correlate with populations of specific geographical areas. Autosomal DNA shows the "genetic percentages" of a person's ancestry from particular continents/regions or identify the countries and "tribes" of origin. SNPs are locations on DNA where nucleotides have "mutated" or "switched" to a different nucleotide. Tests listing geographical places of origin use alleles. Individual and family variations on various chromosomes across the genome are analyzed with the aid of population databases.
Initiation opens a communication link between the aspirant and divine guiding principle -- our inner genius -- fostering balance in the personality as the firm foundation for spiritual development. Maat or 'Balance' was the prime expression of the Egyptian Mystery Schools, because it gave order and meaning to life. In the East, it is called the Tao, a dynamic blending of yin and yang. In Kabbalah, it is the Middle Way. Balance helps us to achieve the goals we want in life and to manifest our dreams. You can easily integrate this wisdom tradition in your own householder life. Empowerment comes through grounding and centering
Such knowledge transforms and activates a new level of Being, internally and in the world, at large. The Grail has come calling and collected its own, informing our sparks of consciousness with a connection to hyperdimensional depth, with a sense of mission and purpose, with a commitment to the recovery of our self-awareness and inherent potential of genius for clarity. This is the Path of Return.
We've had glimpses of a way of being human that embodies rare integrity, freedom, wholeness and beauty--and we dream of the life and world that could result from sustaining that ideal. Most of us are held back from our greater potential by a deep-rooted undertow pulling us down from the heights we could achieve. This persistent barrier to our optimal growth is the ancient, hardwired programming of our evolutionary past, the "software" of our primitive ancestry.
We operate (often unconsciously) from "inherited" instincts, assumptions, and responses that have been encoded into humankind for millennia--vestiges of an ancient animal past.
These unproductive patterns form an invisible ceiling preventing us from reaching our true potential. In fact, this innate and primitive "conditioning" is the key reason that most of our efforts at change fail--whether as individuals or as a society.
The key to breaking this "sound barrier" in consciousness is learning how to awaken and activate a latent spiritual capacity. It lives within each of us, but often remains dormant, just beneath the surface of our awareness. This often hidden dimension of our being is a boundless source of inspiration, passion, creativity and clarity--and when we learn how to tap into it, we rapidly find ourselves on the other side of everything that previously stood in our way.
We have reclaimed our voice on the world stage. We are speaking out, in part, because of the needful state of the world and because whole industries and memes are based on misapprehensions, out-right lies, and exploitation of our ancestral legacy. We are awakened.
We are engaged in a transpersonal, metaphysical method of knowing Truth. Namely, that Necessity binds us to our destiny, which is not to be confused with linear pre-ordination. The Underground Stream honors the Feminine. Cultural Transformation can only come through the cultural evolution toward partnership. We are here to set the record straight and define ourselves with our own narratives in today's world, as the stewards we rightfully claim to be.
We are endowed with a genetic lust for life. Each new birth reminds us that life is a miracle. Genealogy is a Gnosis, a Way of Knowing that only comes with the names that carry one's lineage back into the mists of pre-history. It is a hermeneutic requiring interpretation and discretion between the literal, mythic, and symbolic.
We are involved in a pioneering project in the overlap of arts, sciences, humanities, network research, data science, and information design to log and archive our research. That which rings true, resonates. Imagination is a way of engaging reality. The flow of images creates thinking and the thinker -- the "seen" and the "seer". The wholeness of the Self is more than the sum of psyche's components. What was once only imagined is being proven with genetic genealogy. Dreams and philosophy make up myths.
It all begins when a seemingly ordinary person somehow develops an interest in their family genealogy, finds a historical Gateway Ancestor, whose pedigree leads them back to medieval times where they find they descend from multinational nobility and royalty. Because of intensive intermarriage among nobles in past eras, finding one royal usually means tapping into several blueblood lines.
Much like in dreamwork, where we are all parts of the dream, we are literally all of our ancestors incarnate -- male and female -- only this is a dream dreamt aloud in the manifest world, birth after noble birth. We are all the Fisher King. We go fishing for our ancestral legacies and voices in the deep lake of the unconscious, bringing them to the surface. We "fish" with our ancestral "lines", which tie us directly to our deep past.
When the Lady of the Lake responds spontaneously with the treasure of the magic sword, our intellects are sharpened and steeled, as well as our intuition. The 'fishing' is drawing these things up from the unconscious, but the 'fishing lines' are our progenitors, you might say -- the Fisher Kings and queens. And, the King and the land are one - that is our divinity and our materiality are synonymous. We exist and in that sense we are 'divine' to the extent that we realize and actualize that blessing of our deepest Nature, balancing symbolic and material.
"It is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he finds on his voyage of discovery, be it cooling water for the thirsty or the sandy wastes of unfruitful error. The one helps, the other warns. Not the criticism of individual contemporaries will decide the truth or falsity of his discoveries, but future generations. There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be. So every man whose fate it is to go his individual way must proceed with hopefulness and watchfulness, ever conscious of his loneliness and its dangers." (C.G. Jung)
At first we are struck with the richness of our personal family story, but soon come to realize many of our noble lines are intimately crossed with those already well-aware of their Sangreal heritage today. We learn to understand our lineage is that of the ancient dynastic houses, who are already deeply involved in their own historical reclamation and heritage projects. We begin to see that this is, indeed, our true extended family.
As the seeker's online search widens, sooner or later they come across some material on the Sangreal legend, legacy, or its many subcultures. Given a few hints on where and who to look for, suddenly they are faced with the mind-blowing distinction that they descend arguably from the oldest royal line on the planet, and that there is a deeper 'reality' to the mythic stories -- a living reality we each embody.
The God-Kings are rooted in mythic prehistory and extended their rule well into the Classical Period, before they were deposed and separated from their divine-rights by socio-political machinations. Looking to their own family lines and/or genetic genealogy reports, modern Grail-carriers come face to face with the revelation of their true being.
Thus awakened, they draw new energy from the collective unconscious and their Sangreal companions on the same journey to pursue the depths of their being and connection to Cosmos. So it has been, from the dawn of time. Suddenly their 'differences' make sense, possibly for the first time. They may experience an infusion of wisdom or Knowledge welling up from the Plenum within.
Genealogists now use molecular genealogy, comparing and matching people by matrilineal DNA lineages -- matrilineal mtDNA or patrilineal Y-chromosome ancestry, SNP, and/or autosomal tests. People interested in ancestry now look at genetic markers to trace the migrations of the human species. You can trace your genealogy by DNA from your grandparents back 10,000 or more years.
Anyone can be interested in DNA for ancestry research, learning how different populations from a mosaic of communities reached their current locations. From who are you descended? What markers shed light on your deepest ancestry? You can study DNA for medical reasons or to discover the geographic travels and dwelling places of some of your ancestors. DNA does not target specific ancestors by name but does reveal rare genetic markers. Specifically, you can interpret your DNA test and/or genealogy for family history.
Particular genetic markers are called ancestry informative markers (AIM). They correlate with populations of specific geographical areas. Autosomal DNA shows the "genetic percentages" of a person's ancestry from particular continents/regions or identify the countries and "tribes" of origin. SNPs are locations on DNA where nucleotides have "mutated" or "switched" to a different nucleotide. Tests listing geographical places of origin use alleles. Individual and family variations on various chromosomes across the genome are analyzed with the aid of population databases.
Initiation opens a communication link between the aspirant and divine guiding principle -- our inner genius -- fostering balance in the personality as the firm foundation for spiritual development. Maat or 'Balance' was the prime expression of the Egyptian Mystery Schools, because it gave order and meaning to life. In the East, it is called the Tao, a dynamic blending of yin and yang. In Kabbalah, it is the Middle Way. Balance helps us to achieve the goals we want in life and to manifest our dreams. You can easily integrate this wisdom tradition in your own householder life. Empowerment comes through grounding and centering
Such knowledge transforms and activates a new level of Being, internally and in the world, at large. The Grail has come calling and collected its own, informing our sparks of consciousness with a connection to hyperdimensional depth, with a sense of mission and purpose, with a commitment to the recovery of our self-awareness and inherent potential of genius for clarity. This is the Path of Return.
We've had glimpses of a way of being human that embodies rare integrity, freedom, wholeness and beauty--and we dream of the life and world that could result from sustaining that ideal. Most of us are held back from our greater potential by a deep-rooted undertow pulling us down from the heights we could achieve. This persistent barrier to our optimal growth is the ancient, hardwired programming of our evolutionary past, the "software" of our primitive ancestry.
We operate (often unconsciously) from "inherited" instincts, assumptions, and responses that have been encoded into humankind for millennia--vestiges of an ancient animal past.
These unproductive patterns form an invisible ceiling preventing us from reaching our true potential. In fact, this innate and primitive "conditioning" is the key reason that most of our efforts at change fail--whether as individuals or as a society.
The key to breaking this "sound barrier" in consciousness is learning how to awaken and activate a latent spiritual capacity. It lives within each of us, but often remains dormant, just beneath the surface of our awareness. This often hidden dimension of our being is a boundless source of inspiration, passion, creativity and clarity--and when we learn how to tap into it, we rapidly find ourselves on the other side of everything that previously stood in our way.
We have reclaimed our voice on the world stage. We are speaking out, in part, because of the needful state of the world and because whole industries and memes are based on misapprehensions, out-right lies, and exploitation of our ancestral legacy. We are awakened.
We are engaged in a transpersonal, metaphysical method of knowing Truth. Namely, that Necessity binds us to our destiny, which is not to be confused with linear pre-ordination. The Underground Stream honors the Feminine. Cultural Transformation can only come through the cultural evolution toward partnership. We are here to set the record straight and define ourselves with our own narratives in today's world, as the stewards we rightfully claim to be.
"Jung found further that the mandala does not only mirror an inner state of order, but that its harmony or disharmony encompasses also the surroundings of the individual. Thus a mandala needs a symbol in which the outer and inner world merge. There is for Jung a ultimate reality beyond matter and psyche which he called the unus mundus, its empirical manifestation is the principle of synchronicity because in synchronistic events the inner world behaves as if it were outside and the outer world as if it were inside. As the mandala symbolism expresses the holistic order of matter and psyche it should have been investigated by physicists as well as psychologists because the mandala reappears in their hypothetical models of the atomic world. The atomic model of Niels Bohr is already a cosmic mandala and the models which the physicists construct nowadays to visualize the quarks are also mandalas." --M-L von Franz
Imagine for a moment that the fate of the entire human race rested on your shoulders alone. That humanity's evolution out of brute self-interest depended entirely on your willingness to transform your consciousness.
What if you knew that the human race could advance past its smallness and negative conditioning --if you only became an exemplar of humanity's highest potential for the world? Imagine that for you, evolving beyond ego became an evolutionary imperative. Would you approach your path any differently?
Would the energy you bring to your spiritual practice intensify? Would the quality of awareness and care with which you approached your interactions with others become more profound? Would you find yourself reaching with inner muscles you didn't even know you had to actually stay awake to the depth you've tasted in your most profound spiritual moments? If you knew it all rested on you, would you have any choice but to change?
The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi once said that the spiritual aspirant must want liberation like a drowning person wants air. Why? Because the challenges of authentic spiritual growth and transformation are so great that most of us will choose to continue suffering in our smallness, rather than feel the pain of allowing that smallness to die forever.
Modern science has in recent decades been verifying what the ancient traditions intuited long ago: that, in both tangible and mysterious ways, we are all interconnected. Any one of us can have a profound effect on the whole. Add to that the reality that we are evolving beings living in an evolving universe. We are all part of a grand, cosmic evolutionary process. Then the question of our obligation to the whole starts to cut close to the bone.
To reframe the earlier question: What if you realized that the entire human endeavor, the evolution of consciousness itself, depended on your willingness to evolve your own consciousness? How would it affect the choices you make every day if you knew that in a very real sense, those choices were either contributing to the evolution of the whole--or holding it back?
At this time when it seems that our very future depends on our willingness to evolve as a species, would you have any choice but to act in alignment with the greatest evolutionary good? The point is that when we take a closer look at what spiritual work and growth is actually for, it quickly becomes clear that the path of awakening is not primarily about freeing ourselves from suffering or securing our own happiness. Sure, that's a nice by-product. But, as long as that's all we're seeking, we probably won't get very far.
Where the spiritual path really begins to get interesting is when we recognize that transforming ourselves in the deepest possible way is in fact an evolutionary imperative, with profound consequences far beyond ourselves.
If we begin to embrace the fact that our lives are not simply our own to do with as we please--that in everything we do, we are in fact accountable to the Whole--something truly miraculous begins to happen. Faced with the palpable responsibility to evolve for a greater good, we find that we suddenly have access to a seemingly infinite source of energy, intention, passion and courage to confront whatever challenges present themselves on our path.
What's more, all of the personal issues and problems--all of the fears and doubts and resistances that once seemed so insurmountable--begin to seem a lot less significant. Why? Because our attention is now captivated by something much bigger than ourselves. This is the power of context. We see our individual concerns, the worries we fret over day to day, from a different vantage point. Held up against this larger picture and greater purpose, those concerns suddenly seem very small indeed. Realizing "it's not all about me," and ignited by a noble calling to participate in the grand adventure of conscious evolution, we find we no longer even want to give those worries the time of day.
And in this freedom from self-concern, before long we discover that the deep inner peace and joy we were seeking all along has become the very ground we are walking on. To get a taste of the liberating context I'm pointing to, try the following experiments:
1) Before you meditate or engage in any spiritual practice, take 10 minutes to reflect on the profound significance of your practice. Ask yourself:
-Why do I need to awaken for myself?
-Why do other people need me to awaken?
-Why does God/evolution/humanity (your choice) need me to awaken?
Allow yourself to feel deeply into the most authentic answer you can find. Then, invite that deeper answer to come forward as a clear and present intention to engage your spiritual practice wholeheartedly, as if the universe depended on it. And engage your practice from this deeper intention. Notice how this exercise impacts the quality of your spiritual practice.
2) When you encounter a challenging and emotionally charged situation in your life, before you respond, take a few minutes to ask yourself:
-What is the most enlightened or evolved response I could have in this situation?
-Why is it important for my own evolution that I respond in the most enlightened, evolved way I can?
-Why does God/evolution/humanity (your choice) need me to respond in the most enlightened, evolved way I can?
Allow yourself to feel into the larger significance of your response to this challenging moment. Ground yourself in an intention to show up as an exemplar of humanity's potential. And then respond from this deeper intention. Notice how this approach changes your perspective on the situation and your ability to meet it. There is deep and powerful work that can be done to cultivate this perspective, to truly ground your life in this way of seeing--and even more importantly, acting.
Imagine for a moment that the fate of the entire human race rested on your shoulders alone. That humanity's evolution out of brute self-interest depended entirely on your willingness to transform your consciousness.
What if you knew that the human race could advance past its smallness and negative conditioning --if you only became an exemplar of humanity's highest potential for the world? Imagine that for you, evolving beyond ego became an evolutionary imperative. Would you approach your path any differently?
Would the energy you bring to your spiritual practice intensify? Would the quality of awareness and care with which you approached your interactions with others become more profound? Would you find yourself reaching with inner muscles you didn't even know you had to actually stay awake to the depth you've tasted in your most profound spiritual moments? If you knew it all rested on you, would you have any choice but to change?
The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi once said that the spiritual aspirant must want liberation like a drowning person wants air. Why? Because the challenges of authentic spiritual growth and transformation are so great that most of us will choose to continue suffering in our smallness, rather than feel the pain of allowing that smallness to die forever.
Modern science has in recent decades been verifying what the ancient traditions intuited long ago: that, in both tangible and mysterious ways, we are all interconnected. Any one of us can have a profound effect on the whole. Add to that the reality that we are evolving beings living in an evolving universe. We are all part of a grand, cosmic evolutionary process. Then the question of our obligation to the whole starts to cut close to the bone.
To reframe the earlier question: What if you realized that the entire human endeavor, the evolution of consciousness itself, depended on your willingness to evolve your own consciousness? How would it affect the choices you make every day if you knew that in a very real sense, those choices were either contributing to the evolution of the whole--or holding it back?
At this time when it seems that our very future depends on our willingness to evolve as a species, would you have any choice but to act in alignment with the greatest evolutionary good? The point is that when we take a closer look at what spiritual work and growth is actually for, it quickly becomes clear that the path of awakening is not primarily about freeing ourselves from suffering or securing our own happiness. Sure, that's a nice by-product. But, as long as that's all we're seeking, we probably won't get very far.
Where the spiritual path really begins to get interesting is when we recognize that transforming ourselves in the deepest possible way is in fact an evolutionary imperative, with profound consequences far beyond ourselves.
If we begin to embrace the fact that our lives are not simply our own to do with as we please--that in everything we do, we are in fact accountable to the Whole--something truly miraculous begins to happen. Faced with the palpable responsibility to evolve for a greater good, we find that we suddenly have access to a seemingly infinite source of energy, intention, passion and courage to confront whatever challenges present themselves on our path.
What's more, all of the personal issues and problems--all of the fears and doubts and resistances that once seemed so insurmountable--begin to seem a lot less significant. Why? Because our attention is now captivated by something much bigger than ourselves. This is the power of context. We see our individual concerns, the worries we fret over day to day, from a different vantage point. Held up against this larger picture and greater purpose, those concerns suddenly seem very small indeed. Realizing "it's not all about me," and ignited by a noble calling to participate in the grand adventure of conscious evolution, we find we no longer even want to give those worries the time of day.
And in this freedom from self-concern, before long we discover that the deep inner peace and joy we were seeking all along has become the very ground we are walking on. To get a taste of the liberating context I'm pointing to, try the following experiments:
1) Before you meditate or engage in any spiritual practice, take 10 minutes to reflect on the profound significance of your practice. Ask yourself:
-Why do I need to awaken for myself?
-Why do other people need me to awaken?
-Why does God/evolution/humanity (your choice) need me to awaken?
Allow yourself to feel deeply into the most authentic answer you can find. Then, invite that deeper answer to come forward as a clear and present intention to engage your spiritual practice wholeheartedly, as if the universe depended on it. And engage your practice from this deeper intention. Notice how this exercise impacts the quality of your spiritual practice.
2) When you encounter a challenging and emotionally charged situation in your life, before you respond, take a few minutes to ask yourself:
-What is the most enlightened or evolved response I could have in this situation?
-Why is it important for my own evolution that I respond in the most enlightened, evolved way I can?
-Why does God/evolution/humanity (your choice) need me to respond in the most enlightened, evolved way I can?
Allow yourself to feel into the larger significance of your response to this challenging moment. Ground yourself in an intention to show up as an exemplar of humanity's potential. And then respond from this deeper intention. Notice how this approach changes your perspective on the situation and your ability to meet it. There is deep and powerful work that can be done to cultivate this perspective, to truly ground your life in this way of seeing--and even more importantly, acting.
--Jung, Visions
Quinotaur Sea Bull & Basina, Legendary Merovingian Progenitors, (c) Io, 2013
We all originate in the sea, literally and figuratively. Life has come out of the sea, and as it did so millions of years ago, it emerged in tiny forms of exquisite design. The geometric web by which creation lifted life into being was preexistent. Its counterpart lies in the seas of our own personal and collective unconscious, as Carl Jung pointed out.
The Night-Sea Journey is a classic passage of the hero's journey of transformation. By struggling with and confronting inner obstacles, we can come closer to the Divine. Contemplation has a fertilizing effect.
If we can open to the imaginal, all this richness can come up and be mobilized and can enrich he way we approach things that at times might be quite troublesome. But the more the unconscious (monsters of the deep) and the more of myth we are capable of making conscious, the more life we integrate. The collective unconscious is composed of archetypes, which personify the dynamics of the unconcious.
The Self is "not only the center but also the whole circumference, which embraces both consciousness and unconsciousness". Psychic totality is a transcendental concept, which necessarily encompasses our ancestry. The collective unconscious, which provides the archetypal "geological" structure and that myths, fairy tales, legends, fantasies, and dreams give content to the events in our psyches, at the same time placing them in historical continuity and in a timeless, transcendent dimension.
The placement of mythic elements in our genealogies makes such stories personal -- they are a living part of us, of our imaginal life and psychobiological reality. It may not be historically accurate but it is psychologically real and a golden path to integration. The unconscious is both vast and inexhaustible, depicting an extremely fluid state of affair. It is not simply the unknown or the repository of conscious thoughts and emotions that have been repressed, but includes contents that may or will become conscious.
Everything we know, but are not at the moment thinking; everything which was once conscious but now forgotten; everything perceived by the senses, but not noted by the conscious mind. It is everything which, involuntarily and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future things that are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness: all this is the content of the unconscious. ["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 382.]
The Merovingians were Sicambrian or Frankish god-kings. Between the fifth and seventh centuries they ruled large portions of what are now France and Germany. The period of their rise corresponds to the time frame of the king in Britain who ultimately became known as Arthur, though the stories of Arthur didn’t become widespread for several more centuries.
As with Arthur, the king from whom the Merovingian dynasty derives its name has his historical reality obscured by legend. Merovee (or Merovech or Meroveus), like Jesus and Vergil, has a miraculous origin and character. And his name echoes the French word for “mother” and the French and Latin words for “sea.” According to the leading Frankish chronicler of the time and to tradition, Merovee had two fathers.
While the queen was already pregnant by her husband King Clodio, Merovee’s mother supposedly went swimming in the ocean where she was either seduced or raped by a marine creature called a Quinotaur—“bestea Neptuni Quinotauri similes”—who also impregnated the lady. When Merovee was born, the blood in his veins commingled that of the Frankish ruler and the mysterious sea creature.
Usually, when this kind of legend existed during the Middle Ages it was an effort to mask some concrete historic fact with an allegory. In this case, the façade might have covered an intermarriage between two dynastic lines, whereby the Franks became commingled with the blood of some other source, possibly from “beyond the sea.”
Like the Egyptian pharaohs, the Merovingian kings seem to have been priest-kings, with the acknowledgement that semi-divine blood flowed through their veins. They did not rule simply by God’s grace, but were apparently deemed the living embodiment of God’s grace, a status usually reserved for Jesus. And they engaged in rituals that partook more of priesthood than of kingship. For example, skulls found of Merovingian monarchs bear what appears to be a ritual incision or hole in the crown, similar to those found in the skulls of high priests of early Tibetan Buddhism, made to allow the soul to escape on death and to open contact with the divine.
The Merovingians claimed descent from Noah, whom they regarded more than Moses as the source of all biblical wisdom. The Merovingians also claimed direct descent from ancient Troy, which explains the occurrence in France of Trojan names like Troyes and Paris. Some authors have attempted to trace the Merovingians to Arcadia; according to Homer a substantial contingent of Arcadians was present at the siege of Troy, and in early Greek histories Troy was founded by settlers from Arcadia. (The Galatians, to whom St. Paul wrote one of his epistles, were in the vicinity of the ancient city of Troy, and were related to the Gauls of France.
The Night-Sea Journey is a classic passage of the hero's journey of transformation. By struggling with and confronting inner obstacles, we can come closer to the Divine. Contemplation has a fertilizing effect.
If we can open to the imaginal, all this richness can come up and be mobilized and can enrich he way we approach things that at times might be quite troublesome. But the more the unconscious (monsters of the deep) and the more of myth we are capable of making conscious, the more life we integrate. The collective unconscious is composed of archetypes, which personify the dynamics of the unconcious.
The Self is "not only the center but also the whole circumference, which embraces both consciousness and unconsciousness". Psychic totality is a transcendental concept, which necessarily encompasses our ancestry. The collective unconscious, which provides the archetypal "geological" structure and that myths, fairy tales, legends, fantasies, and dreams give content to the events in our psyches, at the same time placing them in historical continuity and in a timeless, transcendent dimension.
The placement of mythic elements in our genealogies makes such stories personal -- they are a living part of us, of our imaginal life and psychobiological reality. It may not be historically accurate but it is psychologically real and a golden path to integration. The unconscious is both vast and inexhaustible, depicting an extremely fluid state of affair. It is not simply the unknown or the repository of conscious thoughts and emotions that have been repressed, but includes contents that may or will become conscious.
Everything we know, but are not at the moment thinking; everything which was once conscious but now forgotten; everything perceived by the senses, but not noted by the conscious mind. It is everything which, involuntarily and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future things that are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness: all this is the content of the unconscious. ["On the Nature of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 382.]
The Merovingians were Sicambrian or Frankish god-kings. Between the fifth and seventh centuries they ruled large portions of what are now France and Germany. The period of their rise corresponds to the time frame of the king in Britain who ultimately became known as Arthur, though the stories of Arthur didn’t become widespread for several more centuries.
As with Arthur, the king from whom the Merovingian dynasty derives its name has his historical reality obscured by legend. Merovee (or Merovech or Meroveus), like Jesus and Vergil, has a miraculous origin and character. And his name echoes the French word for “mother” and the French and Latin words for “sea.” According to the leading Frankish chronicler of the time and to tradition, Merovee had two fathers.
While the queen was already pregnant by her husband King Clodio, Merovee’s mother supposedly went swimming in the ocean where she was either seduced or raped by a marine creature called a Quinotaur—“bestea Neptuni Quinotauri similes”—who also impregnated the lady. When Merovee was born, the blood in his veins commingled that of the Frankish ruler and the mysterious sea creature.
Usually, when this kind of legend existed during the Middle Ages it was an effort to mask some concrete historic fact with an allegory. In this case, the façade might have covered an intermarriage between two dynastic lines, whereby the Franks became commingled with the blood of some other source, possibly from “beyond the sea.”
Like the Egyptian pharaohs, the Merovingian kings seem to have been priest-kings, with the acknowledgement that semi-divine blood flowed through their veins. They did not rule simply by God’s grace, but were apparently deemed the living embodiment of God’s grace, a status usually reserved for Jesus. And they engaged in rituals that partook more of priesthood than of kingship. For example, skulls found of Merovingian monarchs bear what appears to be a ritual incision or hole in the crown, similar to those found in the skulls of high priests of early Tibetan Buddhism, made to allow the soul to escape on death and to open contact with the divine.
The Merovingians claimed descent from Noah, whom they regarded more than Moses as the source of all biblical wisdom. The Merovingians also claimed direct descent from ancient Troy, which explains the occurrence in France of Trojan names like Troyes and Paris. Some authors have attempted to trace the Merovingians to Arcadia; according to Homer a substantial contingent of Arcadians was present at the siege of Troy, and in early Greek histories Troy was founded by settlers from Arcadia. (The Galatians, to whom St. Paul wrote one of his epistles, were in the vicinity of the ancient city of Troy, and were related to the Gauls of France.
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"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." --Wendell Berry
"The goal of the hero's journey is to discover, defend, declare and establish our Self in the world. The great achievement of the feminine quest is communion, connection and relatedness to the other in order to make meaning of our existence. There, it isn't grit or physical prowess that gives the feminine her heroic stature. It is her courageous ability to descend into the dark, forbidding places that lie within each of us in order to retrieve our essence. Strong stories aren't masculine or feminine; they are a balance of both, and understanding how to engage the feminine heroic is essential for exposing the soul of a narrative and making it whole." -Dara Marks
"In any given culture... I mean let us face it, we are at once the beneficiaries and the victims of our culture, without our culture we just couldn't do anything at all, we should be baboons, apes. But any given culture is ambivalent. It permits one to be fully human, but at the same time it limits our humanity, I mean... it imposes certain kinds of prejudices, certain kinds of likes and dislikes upon us. But I think it's perfectly true to say that any self-actualizing human being is one who, to some extent, breaks out of his culture. After all one sees that in fact all the great seers and religious prophets have always broken out of their culture. I mean... needless to say that "love thy neighbor as thyself" is breaking out of a narrow culture that insists that you should love only this person and that everybody else is not your neighbor. And I think we have too see that these people who have broken out of their culture, the seers and the prophets, are essentially right!" -Aldous Huxley
"In any given culture... I mean let us face it, we are at once the beneficiaries and the victims of our culture, without our culture we just couldn't do anything at all, we should be baboons, apes. But any given culture is ambivalent. It permits one to be fully human, but at the same time it limits our humanity, I mean... it imposes certain kinds of prejudices, certain kinds of likes and dislikes upon us. But I think it's perfectly true to say that any self-actualizing human being is one who, to some extent, breaks out of his culture. After all one sees that in fact all the great seers and religious prophets have always broken out of their culture. I mean... needless to say that "love thy neighbor as thyself" is breaking out of a narrow culture that insists that you should love only this person and that everybody else is not your neighbor. And I think we have too see that these people who have broken out of their culture, the seers and the prophets, are essentially right!" -Aldous Huxley
Universal Tree of Life, Creative Fire
Robert Pope, Australia
The Rose Bower
Keywords:
Grail Lineage, holy grail, Sangreal, sang real, Bloodline, God-Kings, Merovingian Dynasty, Gnostics, Carolingian Dynasty, Ulvungar Dynasty, Desposyni, House of Poitiers, Plantagenet Dynasty, Capetian Dynasty, Bourbon Dynasty, Valois Dynasty, Philippine Dynasty, House of Basarab, Aviz Dynasty, House of Braganza, Bergundian Dynasty, Kiev Dynasty, Hapsburg Dynasty, Franks, Goths, Visigoths, House of Lorraine, Ostrogoths, Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Norman, Picts, Welsh Kings, English High Kings, Scottish Kings, Irish Kings, Plantagenet, Anjou, Cathars, Templars, Lombardys, Anglo-Saxons, Byzantines, Holy Roman Empire, Boyars, Magna Carta Barons, Crusaders, Anunnaki, Sumerian Kings, Egyptian Pharaohs, Babylonian Kings, Nephilim, Celtic Christianity, Scythians, Dal Riada, Tribe of Dan, Davidic Line, Tribe of Benjamin, Tribe of Levi, Royal Ashina-Khazar, Trojans, Freemasons, Druids, Pendragon Dynasty, Messianic Legacy, Dragon Legacy, Tuatha de Danaan, Fir Bolg, Sidhe, Transylvania, Vinca, Dacia, Kush, Ethiopia, Saka, Scythians, Xiongnu, White Huns, Han Dynasty, Turkic Clans, Lusignan, Toulouse, Rennes le Chateau, Wave Genetics, Roman Emperors, Spanish Royal Houses, Norse Viking Kings, Danes, Frankish Kings.
Grail Lineage, holy grail, Sangreal, sang real, Bloodline, God-Kings, Merovingian Dynasty, Gnostics, Carolingian Dynasty, Ulvungar Dynasty, Desposyni, House of Poitiers, Plantagenet Dynasty, Capetian Dynasty, Bourbon Dynasty, Valois Dynasty, Philippine Dynasty, House of Basarab, Aviz Dynasty, House of Braganza, Bergundian Dynasty, Kiev Dynasty, Hapsburg Dynasty, Franks, Goths, Visigoths, House of Lorraine, Ostrogoths, Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Norman, Picts, Welsh Kings, English High Kings, Scottish Kings, Irish Kings, Plantagenet, Anjou, Cathars, Templars, Lombardys, Anglo-Saxons, Byzantines, Holy Roman Empire, Boyars, Magna Carta Barons, Crusaders, Anunnaki, Sumerian Kings, Egyptian Pharaohs, Babylonian Kings, Nephilim, Celtic Christianity, Scythians, Dal Riada, Tribe of Dan, Davidic Line, Tribe of Benjamin, Tribe of Levi, Royal Ashina-Khazar, Trojans, Freemasons, Druids, Pendragon Dynasty, Messianic Legacy, Dragon Legacy, Tuatha de Danaan, Fir Bolg, Sidhe, Transylvania, Vinca, Dacia, Kush, Ethiopia, Saka, Scythians, Xiongnu, White Huns, Han Dynasty, Turkic Clans, Lusignan, Toulouse, Rennes le Chateau, Wave Genetics, Roman Emperors, Spanish Royal Houses, Norse Viking Kings, Danes, Frankish Kings.
Ultimately, every individual life is at the same time the eternal life of the species.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light
in the darkness of mere being. —C. G. Jung
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light
in the darkness of mere being. —C. G. Jung
Genealogy and Genetic Genealogy are now the second most popular subject online. The trail back through history is contained in the lineage of our own descent. Large numbers of people are discovering their Colonial histories and following their ancestors back to the homelands. Around the globe, some were never transplanted; others never forgot who they are or where they are from. Whatever the Grail is, we embody that. Some deny the Sangreal, yet here we are in the flesh.
What makes us free is the Gnosis
of who we were
of what we have become
of where we were
of wherein we have been thrown
of whereto we are hastening
of what we are being freed
of what birth really is
of what rebirth really is.
—Valentinus (Gnostic)
of who we were
of what we have become
of where we were
of wherein we have been thrown
of whereto we are hastening
of what we are being freed
of what birth really is
of what rebirth really is.
—Valentinus (Gnostic)
“My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited.
It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”
--Carl Jung, “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious”
It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”
--Carl Jung, “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious”
The main thrust of the Grail stories remains roughly similar. The hero arrives at a castle where the Lord of the land is seriously injured in the groin; in other words, he is sterile. The hero views the Grail, which is usually in the possession of a beautiful woman, and this character frequently has a Christian name that can be identified with flowers or vegetation. The vision of the Grail is often accompanied by a view of the bleeding spear.
If the hero asks the correct question, "Whom does the Grail serve?,"
or "Whom do these things serve?,"
the Lord of the land, who is identified as the Fisher King, is healed.
As a result, the barren land returns to fruitfulness. The King and the land are reborn.
Finally the all-important question remains regarding the Grail.
"Whom does one serve with it?"
If the hero asks the correct question, "Whom does the Grail serve?,"
or "Whom do these things serve?,"
the Lord of the land, who is identified as the Fisher King, is healed.
As a result, the barren land returns to fruitfulness. The King and the land are reborn.
Finally the all-important question remains regarding the Grail.
"Whom does one serve with it?"
Last Sleep of Arthur
King Arthur is healed when he consciously reclaims his psychological projections and his wholeness.
Reclaiming Your Ancestors, Wholeness, & Healing the Wounded Self
We are the Archetypal Seeker and the Sick King.
Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, writes of the triple life force released by the universal hero upon completion of his struggle with the internal monster; the bestowing of the secret treasure, the Holy Grail:
The effect of the successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the world. The miracle of this flow may be represented in physical terms as a circulation of food substance, dynamically as a stream of energy, or spiritually as a manifestation of Grace. Such varieties of image alternate easily, representing three degrees of condensation of the one life force.
Now imaginatively, archetypally, this wounded father is the Fisher King, the guardian of the holy Grail, himself a priest, passing on the necessity of the spiritual quest to the next generation. A young knight, a Parcival, is needed to restore both the Fisher King and the kingdom, which has become a waste land. We have been cut off from our roots, with a deep need to restore that gnostic connection for Wholeness. Part of wholeness is knowing and never forgetting precisely who you (and your ancestors) are. When we enact the Myth of Parcival's Quest for the Holy Grail, we open ourselves to the possibility of being brave, lost, alone and finally saved. The Holy Grail (a unity with the sacred) bestows life and love upon the kingdom.
Reclaiming Your Ancestors, Wholeness, & Healing the Wounded Self
We are the Archetypal Seeker and the Sick King.
Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, writes of the triple life force released by the universal hero upon completion of his struggle with the internal monster; the bestowing of the secret treasure, the Holy Grail:
The effect of the successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the world. The miracle of this flow may be represented in physical terms as a circulation of food substance, dynamically as a stream of energy, or spiritually as a manifestation of Grace. Such varieties of image alternate easily, representing three degrees of condensation of the one life force.
Now imaginatively, archetypally, this wounded father is the Fisher King, the guardian of the holy Grail, himself a priest, passing on the necessity of the spiritual quest to the next generation. A young knight, a Parcival, is needed to restore both the Fisher King and the kingdom, which has become a waste land. We have been cut off from our roots, with a deep need to restore that gnostic connection for Wholeness. Part of wholeness is knowing and never forgetting precisely who you (and your ancestors) are. When we enact the Myth of Parcival's Quest for the Holy Grail, we open ourselves to the possibility of being brave, lost, alone and finally saved. The Holy Grail (a unity with the sacred) bestows life and love upon the kingdom.
HACKING THE HOLY GRAIL
Generally speaking, the Holy Grail is something of great psycho-spiritual value, a transpersonal source of abundance and/or healing. We get this sense from the legends of King Arthur and the adventure of Percival and the Fisher King, in which the Grail appears. But there are many different kinds of sickness, and many different kinds of cure. The longevity and flexibility of this image suggests that it is archetypal. The Holy Grail dates back to medieval times and we are still fascinated by it. Jung would call this symbol “numinous,” an archetype which points at something sacred. Archetypes are manifestations of psychic patterns. They articulate some aspect of the mysterious, awe-full transpersonal dimension of the psyche. Potency is important. So is flexibility or open-endedness. James Hillman defines the “archetypal” as “productive.” In his view, profundity is linked to fecundity. An archetypal image gives birth to multiple meanings and interpretations. This is how we experience the Holy Grail, as a multifaceted image of wholeness, healing, and abundance.
Generally speaking, the Holy Grail is something of great psycho-spiritual value, a transpersonal source of abundance and/or healing. We get this sense from the legends of King Arthur and the adventure of Percival and the Fisher King, in which the Grail appears. But there are many different kinds of sickness, and many different kinds of cure. The longevity and flexibility of this image suggests that it is archetypal. The Holy Grail dates back to medieval times and we are still fascinated by it. Jung would call this symbol “numinous,” an archetype which points at something sacred. Archetypes are manifestations of psychic patterns. They articulate some aspect of the mysterious, awe-full transpersonal dimension of the psyche. Potency is important. So is flexibility or open-endedness. James Hillman defines the “archetypal” as “productive.” In his view, profundity is linked to fecundity. An archetypal image gives birth to multiple meanings and interpretations. This is how we experience the Holy Grail, as a multifaceted image of wholeness, healing, and abundance.
The Two-Million-Year-Old-Self, Stevens
What are you seeking in your life?
What knowledge informs your life?
What is your source of wisdom?
Where and how can you access your purpose?
What help is available to you?
What foresight do you possess?
What is your personal myth and how do you live it?
Whom do these things serve?
What knowledge informs your life?
What is your source of wisdom?
Where and how can you access your purpose?
What help is available to you?
What foresight do you possess?
What is your personal myth and how do you live it?
Whom do these things serve?
“My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak. I call you—are you there? I have returned. I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you again.” --Jung, The Red Book, p. 232
The Antique World, the Medieval World and all the following eras found themselves among the quest of trying to answer this most vital question: what does it mean to be human? The Quest for the Holy Grail is about self transformation and personal liberation. It shares a remarkable similarity with kabbalistic and hermetic traditions. There is a unifying principle that is at the heart of all of these ways of thought, which can only be grasped by symbols, analogies and myths, pointing to the underlying principle of unity.
The heart of the problem is that there is a causal relationship between the well-being and health of the king on the one part and the fertility of the land on the other. In legal/political terms, this relationship is called sovereignty. In the case of the Quest, the wounded king is not fit to rule. He has lost sovereignty. Since Guinevere is the earthly representative of the divine feminine, Arthur's failure to unite with his queen means that he has failed to exercise sovereignty and has caused the land to become waste.
The heart of the problem is that there is a causal relationship between the well-being and health of the king on the one part and the fertility of the land on the other. In legal/political terms, this relationship is called sovereignty. In the case of the Quest, the wounded king is not fit to rule. He has lost sovereignty. Since Guinevere is the earthly representative of the divine feminine, Arthur's failure to unite with his queen means that he has failed to exercise sovereignty and has caused the land to become waste.
Self Rooted Nobility
Louis XV Rug
SangREALITY NOW
Holy Blood, Holy Trail
Iona Miller, (c)2013
Holy Blood, Holy Trail
Iona Miller, (c)2013
“The key to the Grail is compassion, 'suffering with,' feeling another’s sorrow as if it were your own. The one who finds the dynamo of compassion is the one who’s found the Grail.” --Joseph Campbell
Genealogy and Genetic Genealogy are now the second most popular subject online. The trail back through history is contained in the lineage of our own descent. Large numbers of people are discovering their Colonial histories and following their ancestors back to the homelands. Around the globe, some were never transplanted; others never forgot who they are or where they are from.
Whatever the Grail is, we embody that. Some deny the Sangreal, yet here we are in the flesh. Synergy is the behavior of the whole system unpredicted by the behavior or integral characteristics of any parts of the system when the parts are considered only separately. We live in a Grail castle of awareness. Knowledge is inside all of us.
Some question our archaic heritage but arguments pale alongside the results of our own genealogies, which include the proofs of best practice in that field. Your own genealogy and "gifts" are very compelling evidence. Despite the fact that some ancestors are fictionalized or mythologized, our trees are still one of the best indicators of our origins. Genetic tests tend to confirm the pedigrees, not in terms of ancestral names but through the evolution and mutation of genetic markers and tribal migrations. http://www.dnatribes.com/sampleresults.html
Many of those find that their lines of descent go back to certain Royal Families and nobles, who made a point of intermarrying to keep their heritage in the family. But what happens when an otherwise ordinary person finds that they are now essentially wed to the vast historical epic of mankind in a very personal way? Time seems to simultaneously shrink and dilate. It may be the closest we can ever come to time travel -- awakening ancient memories, intuitions, and inclinations that draw us into a vortex of new meaning and connections.
This discovery can come as a conscious shock. We can approach the subject lightly or with gravitas. It takes time to embrace a new self-image. Some fall prey to common psychological pitfalls -- zealotry, grandiosity, identification, or possession by archetypal forces or ancestral resonance. Some overlay their own beliefs, delusions, and wishful thinking on the universal symbolic material. Others seek questionable glorification or act-out their immaturities.
There is no shortage of claimants to reincarnations of the famous, or being Mary Magdalene, Jesus, the Antichrist, the Men Who Would Be King, Don Quixotes, or other characters. Others bury themselves in deciphering hidden codes or endlessly searching for treasure or relics, even bodies. Some research projects are more plausible than others. All the symbolism of the unconscious can mobilize in a fugue, overwhelming the ego. Different memes (popular disinformation) capture our attention, sometimes to the point of obsession.
A grounded approach with discrimination and wisdom helps moderate such behavior. Individually inspired, we may walk where others cannot or will not go. Trouble arises when we take mythical material literally, rather than symbolically, and try to concretize it. This is how fraudulent movements and personality cults arise as societies, subcultures, courts, schools, churches, and fraternities, recapitulating history and contending powers with competing agendas. This is the Game of Thrones, which is always in play, locally, globally, and nonlocally.
Judgment and knowledge are objects of the soul. Jung suggested a provisional or "as if" reality for the universal forces of the psyche. Otherwise self-delusion will invade our perspective and distort our worldview. With that proviso we are free to enjoy the "Avalon" of our heart and perhaps work toward the new "Camelot" of a Once and Future King. The nature of myth is that it is always happening but never occurs. Sacred Unity is the archetype of archetypes.
Our aim is to explore the Sangreal bloodline with archetypal psychology, history, mythology, art, science, and spirituality in traditional, academic and popular formats. Our lives are opportunities to create meaning by our deeds, our actions and how we manage and transform our operational portion of infinity -- including our essential nature.
The purpose of life is the fullest possible realization of the archetypal meta-program. Archetypal dynamics seek to actualize themselves in structure, psyche and behavior. Our mental health and adjustment correlate with fulfillment of archetypal goals.
Symptoms are exaggerations of natural psychophysical responses. Mental illness is the desynchronization or splitting of subjective and objective, conscious and unconscious psyche, ego and self. Archetypal intent can be frustrated at any point in the life cycle, twisting or stalling the transformative process. Jung said, "The Gods have become diseases." To enter the archetypal world, we have to begin to know the unknowable.
"Occult phenomena" are central to this process. We often find ourselves somehow "knowing" more than we know. Traditionally, we are seekers, empaths, seers, healers, and visionaries. Synchronicities are the meaningful coincidences that guide our wandering path.
This is The Quest that many take up, including traveling the world to the castles, sacred landscapes, and burials of our ancestors. Compassion is the glue that connects us with others along the Way -- the signs in the Wilderness of mundane life.
We hope to flesh out a multidisciplinary immanent approach to the sacred, which values spirituality as a subjective truth and spiritual arcana as psychic facts. The coin of our realm is myth, dreams, and fairytales. We are willing to take myth and symbolism seriously. We also recognize sometimes we have to just stand in the naked Mystery of our being.
Any psychophysical reactions can be met with tried-and-true techniques from the depth psychologies which encourage individuation and personal transformation. We can develop a conscious relationship with what has been unconscious. These techniques can be adapted for self-care and self-regulation to maintain balance while self-identity widens out to embrace a qualitatively larger sense of self. Because of the nature of our heritage some of us may be called to a destiny beyond our personal sphere.
The problem in adjustment and digestion of such a massive influx of meaningful information is compounded by the mythical and legendary material of numerous cultures. The entanglement is our madness. This is the conflict between our personal and absolute lives. It is not easy to assimilate. So, many turn to others online who are already familiar with the scope and mythic landscape. Some of our best learning comes through our foreign kin who know their local lore and traditions best.
Some new acquaintances fit and some do not. Different groups and subcultures who share the Sangreal descent may help them sort out their self-discovery projects and further their own quests or vocation. Several of them have hidden or commercial agendas. Everyone with a book is a stakeholder in the spiritual supermarket. Each of them have something new to add to the dialogue but some of it needs the proverbial "grain of salt".
Many are called but few respond to the ancestors. Some of us may be gifted with 'second sight', which we could call telepathy, ESP, or nonlocal communication in modern terms. Some may be healers, sages, or dreamworkers. Some are shamanic; others deeply religious or spiritual. Our foundation is in centering and listening from within, reflection, creative expression, and community sharing.
No particular practice is recommended but originally the family was a shamanic ancestry worship cult of the Sun as Sky Father and the Earth Mother. Today we need greater respect for the incandescence of the Sun and the vulnerabilities of Earth. The four quarters of the equal-armed cross mark the four elements as well as the four directions that map the tangible and sacred landscape which the Sun and Moon illuminate.
Even with all these factors, we can respond to one another and together as family, near and far, expanding our understanding to create new bonds. This alone creates a new form of consciousness that is our shared awareness. Our rich descent is not only about the past; it is about NOW, and how we can transform ourselves and our families today to meet the challenges of tomorrow, individually and together.
We suggest our ancestral memories can aid us, and that we can develop a conscious relationship with our deepest essence through remembrance. We've found that in this journey our lines of descent, which migrate across continents and cultures, are our best guides to the history and mystery that form the very fabric of our sacred being.
After journeying so far in the psychic adventure of ourselves, after being the hero or heroine of so many battles, we come to the Holy Grail, inner sanctum of ourselves. We meet not a treasure but an empty cave. Paradoxically, only death is there waiting for us.
This primordial emptiness, this loss of self, holds the center of ourselves. With the dying of our ordinary selves, a self-existent radiance emerges in us. The meeting with nothing, the void, is the great treasure itself that penetrates and transforms us. We realize our intimate oneness with life and are reborn. Death/Rebirth is the ever shifting mystery that is life itself. The Grail has become the Philosopher's Stone.
Entitlement
To transcend our small selves we need bigger stories. The deep context of our global heritage is it -- a mythic perspective suited to our age, culture, and sensibilities. Symbols are the currency of consciousness and the highest symbol and value is the Grail.
Carl Jung used the term Individuation for the process of becoming whole, solid or indivisible. He likened it to the elusive philosopher's stone, the Elixir of Immortality, the Mandala, or the Holy Grail of the mystics. We enter into a conscious dialogue with the psyche, natural world, and the collective unconscious.
The unconscious informs and guides us through this process with a unique, objective wisdom. Symbols of unity and the emergence of Self are the tree, the jewel, the crystal, the flower and the chalice or Grail. The Holy Grail is the vessel, the mechanism, the place, the consciousness, the Self that integrates the Round Table of individuated Grail Knights.
A Quest is a meaningful system of self-transformation. The Grail undergoes many miraculous changes. Its form is not fixed, it is in constant flux. Further, it is a catalytic agent of change, though unchangeable in its essential nature. But what does it mean?
Simply this: just as the Quest happens in our own heart and mind, the Great Work of transmutation happens in our body - our psychic body. Both the Grail and Alchemy relate to our psychic centers, but not in a one to one relationship and not in a linear relationship. Once these points are understood, both the Quest and the Great Work become clear.
Whatever the Grail is, we embody that. Some deny the Sangreal, yet here we are in the flesh. Synergy is the behavior of the whole system unpredicted by the behavior or integral characteristics of any parts of the system when the parts are considered only separately. We live in a Grail castle of awareness. Knowledge is inside all of us.
Some question our archaic heritage but arguments pale alongside the results of our own genealogies, which include the proofs of best practice in that field. Your own genealogy and "gifts" are very compelling evidence. Despite the fact that some ancestors are fictionalized or mythologized, our trees are still one of the best indicators of our origins. Genetic tests tend to confirm the pedigrees, not in terms of ancestral names but through the evolution and mutation of genetic markers and tribal migrations. http://www.dnatribes.com/sampleresults.html
Many of those find that their lines of descent go back to certain Royal Families and nobles, who made a point of intermarrying to keep their heritage in the family. But what happens when an otherwise ordinary person finds that they are now essentially wed to the vast historical epic of mankind in a very personal way? Time seems to simultaneously shrink and dilate. It may be the closest we can ever come to time travel -- awakening ancient memories, intuitions, and inclinations that draw us into a vortex of new meaning and connections.
This discovery can come as a conscious shock. We can approach the subject lightly or with gravitas. It takes time to embrace a new self-image. Some fall prey to common psychological pitfalls -- zealotry, grandiosity, identification, or possession by archetypal forces or ancestral resonance. Some overlay their own beliefs, delusions, and wishful thinking on the universal symbolic material. Others seek questionable glorification or act-out their immaturities.
There is no shortage of claimants to reincarnations of the famous, or being Mary Magdalene, Jesus, the Antichrist, the Men Who Would Be King, Don Quixotes, or other characters. Others bury themselves in deciphering hidden codes or endlessly searching for treasure or relics, even bodies. Some research projects are more plausible than others. All the symbolism of the unconscious can mobilize in a fugue, overwhelming the ego. Different memes (popular disinformation) capture our attention, sometimes to the point of obsession.
A grounded approach with discrimination and wisdom helps moderate such behavior. Individually inspired, we may walk where others cannot or will not go. Trouble arises when we take mythical material literally, rather than symbolically, and try to concretize it. This is how fraudulent movements and personality cults arise as societies, subcultures, courts, schools, churches, and fraternities, recapitulating history and contending powers with competing agendas. This is the Game of Thrones, which is always in play, locally, globally, and nonlocally.
Judgment and knowledge are objects of the soul. Jung suggested a provisional or "as if" reality for the universal forces of the psyche. Otherwise self-delusion will invade our perspective and distort our worldview. With that proviso we are free to enjoy the "Avalon" of our heart and perhaps work toward the new "Camelot" of a Once and Future King. The nature of myth is that it is always happening but never occurs. Sacred Unity is the archetype of archetypes.
Our aim is to explore the Sangreal bloodline with archetypal psychology, history, mythology, art, science, and spirituality in traditional, academic and popular formats. Our lives are opportunities to create meaning by our deeds, our actions and how we manage and transform our operational portion of infinity -- including our essential nature.
The purpose of life is the fullest possible realization of the archetypal meta-program. Archetypal dynamics seek to actualize themselves in structure, psyche and behavior. Our mental health and adjustment correlate with fulfillment of archetypal goals.
Symptoms are exaggerations of natural psychophysical responses. Mental illness is the desynchronization or splitting of subjective and objective, conscious and unconscious psyche, ego and self. Archetypal intent can be frustrated at any point in the life cycle, twisting or stalling the transformative process. Jung said, "The Gods have become diseases." To enter the archetypal world, we have to begin to know the unknowable.
"Occult phenomena" are central to this process. We often find ourselves somehow "knowing" more than we know. Traditionally, we are seekers, empaths, seers, healers, and visionaries. Synchronicities are the meaningful coincidences that guide our wandering path.
This is The Quest that many take up, including traveling the world to the castles, sacred landscapes, and burials of our ancestors. Compassion is the glue that connects us with others along the Way -- the signs in the Wilderness of mundane life.
We hope to flesh out a multidisciplinary immanent approach to the sacred, which values spirituality as a subjective truth and spiritual arcana as psychic facts. The coin of our realm is myth, dreams, and fairytales. We are willing to take myth and symbolism seriously. We also recognize sometimes we have to just stand in the naked Mystery of our being.
Any psychophysical reactions can be met with tried-and-true techniques from the depth psychologies which encourage individuation and personal transformation. We can develop a conscious relationship with what has been unconscious. These techniques can be adapted for self-care and self-regulation to maintain balance while self-identity widens out to embrace a qualitatively larger sense of self. Because of the nature of our heritage some of us may be called to a destiny beyond our personal sphere.
The problem in adjustment and digestion of such a massive influx of meaningful information is compounded by the mythical and legendary material of numerous cultures. The entanglement is our madness. This is the conflict between our personal and absolute lives. It is not easy to assimilate. So, many turn to others online who are already familiar with the scope and mythic landscape. Some of our best learning comes through our foreign kin who know their local lore and traditions best.
Some new acquaintances fit and some do not. Different groups and subcultures who share the Sangreal descent may help them sort out their self-discovery projects and further their own quests or vocation. Several of them have hidden or commercial agendas. Everyone with a book is a stakeholder in the spiritual supermarket. Each of them have something new to add to the dialogue but some of it needs the proverbial "grain of salt".
Many are called but few respond to the ancestors. Some of us may be gifted with 'second sight', which we could call telepathy, ESP, or nonlocal communication in modern terms. Some may be healers, sages, or dreamworkers. Some are shamanic; others deeply religious or spiritual. Our foundation is in centering and listening from within, reflection, creative expression, and community sharing.
No particular practice is recommended but originally the family was a shamanic ancestry worship cult of the Sun as Sky Father and the Earth Mother. Today we need greater respect for the incandescence of the Sun and the vulnerabilities of Earth. The four quarters of the equal-armed cross mark the four elements as well as the four directions that map the tangible and sacred landscape which the Sun and Moon illuminate.
Even with all these factors, we can respond to one another and together as family, near and far, expanding our understanding to create new bonds. This alone creates a new form of consciousness that is our shared awareness. Our rich descent is not only about the past; it is about NOW, and how we can transform ourselves and our families today to meet the challenges of tomorrow, individually and together.
We suggest our ancestral memories can aid us, and that we can develop a conscious relationship with our deepest essence through remembrance. We've found that in this journey our lines of descent, which migrate across continents and cultures, are our best guides to the history and mystery that form the very fabric of our sacred being.
After journeying so far in the psychic adventure of ourselves, after being the hero or heroine of so many battles, we come to the Holy Grail, inner sanctum of ourselves. We meet not a treasure but an empty cave. Paradoxically, only death is there waiting for us.
This primordial emptiness, this loss of self, holds the center of ourselves. With the dying of our ordinary selves, a self-existent radiance emerges in us. The meeting with nothing, the void, is the great treasure itself that penetrates and transforms us. We realize our intimate oneness with life and are reborn. Death/Rebirth is the ever shifting mystery that is life itself. The Grail has become the Philosopher's Stone.
Entitlement
To transcend our small selves we need bigger stories. The deep context of our global heritage is it -- a mythic perspective suited to our age, culture, and sensibilities. Symbols are the currency of consciousness and the highest symbol and value is the Grail.
Carl Jung used the term Individuation for the process of becoming whole, solid or indivisible. He likened it to the elusive philosopher's stone, the Elixir of Immortality, the Mandala, or the Holy Grail of the mystics. We enter into a conscious dialogue with the psyche, natural world, and the collective unconscious.
The unconscious informs and guides us through this process with a unique, objective wisdom. Symbols of unity and the emergence of Self are the tree, the jewel, the crystal, the flower and the chalice or Grail. The Holy Grail is the vessel, the mechanism, the place, the consciousness, the Self that integrates the Round Table of individuated Grail Knights.
A Quest is a meaningful system of self-transformation. The Grail undergoes many miraculous changes. Its form is not fixed, it is in constant flux. Further, it is a catalytic agent of change, though unchangeable in its essential nature. But what does it mean?
Simply this: just as the Quest happens in our own heart and mind, the Great Work of transmutation happens in our body - our psychic body. Both the Grail and Alchemy relate to our psychic centers, but not in a one to one relationship and not in a linear relationship. Once these points are understood, both the Quest and the Great Work become clear.
We know that the Grail has different forms.
However, we are still entitled to seek its ultimate nature.
However, we are still entitled to seek its ultimate nature.
GRAIL WISDOM REVIVAL
Sacred Blood; Sacred Path
The image reflects a reality whose properties resemble "participation mystique" where the cosmos, other beings and most importantly our collective psyche are seamlessly interconnected. It is within this realm where "the noetic and the imaginal no longer oppose each other" ("Silver" 22).
The Grail Quest is essentially about restoring life to that condition known as the "wasteland," which is a metaphor for an inauthentically lived life, which is role-bound and therefore sterile. It is a search for the deeper Reality which underlies the mundane.
The Grail Quest is part of the Arthurian legends, and one of its foremost characters is Parcival. In asking, "Where is the Grail?," he asks in essence, "where is the supreme reality, the essence, the source of existence, the creative potency, the holy kingdom."
Parcival is the fool, or innocent, who stumbles through life's adventures and follies, never quite getting it, and getting caught as a result in a passionless life. In mythic journeys such as Parcival's the shadow plays a large role. In psychological terms, the shadow is the repressed, disowned and unacknowledged aspects of the self.
When these qualities are recognized and reconciled, a person often experiences a movement toward greater wholeness, depth, and maturity. Mythic knowing balances shadow and light in individuals and cultures. When liberated, this shadow energy is the fount of our finest qualities and taproot of our Essence. According to Joseph Campbell, myth plays four major functions in our psychology and social functioning:
The Grail Quest is part of the Arthurian legends, and one of its foremost characters is Parcival. In asking, "Where is the Grail?," he asks in essence, "where is the supreme reality, the essence, the source of existence, the creative potency, the holy kingdom."
Parcival is the fool, or innocent, who stumbles through life's adventures and follies, never quite getting it, and getting caught as a result in a passionless life. In mythic journeys such as Parcival's the shadow plays a large role. In psychological terms, the shadow is the repressed, disowned and unacknowledged aspects of the self.
When these qualities are recognized and reconciled, a person often experiences a movement toward greater wholeness, depth, and maturity. Mythic knowing balances shadow and light in individuals and cultures. When liberated, this shadow energy is the fount of our finest qualities and taproot of our Essence. According to Joseph Campbell, myth plays four major functions in our psychology and social functioning:
- facilitates communication with the transcendent realms and the eternal form;
- gives us the art, music, and poetry to express the realization that we belong to the universal with meaning and purpose;
- produces rituals of living and dying which have spiritual and moral roots (alienation leads to the desperate quest for meaning to restore or replace the lost mythology);
- fosters the centering and unfolding of the individual in integrity with the self, culture and universe--the ultimate creative Mystery.
Mankind's search for purpose and meaning has been characterized since the middle ages as the quest for the Holy Grail. "What is the Grail, and Whom does it serve?" is the question science has pondered, sometimes implicitly since we have sought answers about the nature of our existence. The Holy Grail of Natural Science may be embodied in our DNA, the fundamental basis of our enlivened embodiment.
Our primal purpose may be seen in one sense, simply as the replication and continued survival of DNA in the multitude of forms it may take throughout the cosmos. One test of the Truth of our theories is induction where we take one class of facts and coincide them with an induction obtained from another different class, such as natural science and metaphysics.
Epistemological confusion in "how we know what we know" arises when we mistake one world of experience for another. Theoretically, conceptual unity (consilience) ends such confusion by reaching across many levels of complexity, dissolving artificial boundaries between natural sciences.
In the Enlightenment, science sought to map the entire cosmos in a disinterested objectivity...but even a holistic map of flatland is far from an experience of that vast territory. Bacon proclaimed a pyramid of disciplines, with natural history forming the base, physics above and subsuming it, and metaphysics at the peak, explaining everything below. He founded the discipline of the philosophy of science.
Descarte gave us a three-dimensional world, but he actually dreamed up his system of rationality where matter is seen as pure mechanism (causality), and systematic doubt is the first principle of learning. His separation of mind and matter carried humanity's self-image further from its perception of the remainder of the universe, and the full reality of the universe actually seemed to grow progressively more alien, and alienation is what the Grail Quest is all about.
Modern quantum theory and chaos theory have shown us that reality is not constructed to be easily grasped by the human mind and may be, in some cases, counter-intuitive. Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution (DNA), but not the purpose of evolution. Yet, science travels its own way, from Romanticism to the Postmodern ennui which currently infecting us. Most scientists are no more than highly-specialized prospectors.
Enlightenment thinkers believed we could know everything, and radical postmodernists believe we can know nothing. Reality is a state constructed by the mind. Thus, we have a postmodern prohibition against universal truth, and all becomes a deconstructed metaphor of reality. These "root metaphors" are ruling images in the thinker's mind whereby he designs theories and experiments.
Diversity of metaphors is found in the hereditary orderliness that has borne our species through geological time and stamped it with the residues of deep history. Original thinking either views disorder and tries to create order, or encountering order tries to protest it by creating disorder. This tension is what drives learning forward -- the dance at the edge of chaos.
Our primal purpose may be seen in one sense, simply as the replication and continued survival of DNA in the multitude of forms it may take throughout the cosmos. One test of the Truth of our theories is induction where we take one class of facts and coincide them with an induction obtained from another different class, such as natural science and metaphysics.
Epistemological confusion in "how we know what we know" arises when we mistake one world of experience for another. Theoretically, conceptual unity (consilience) ends such confusion by reaching across many levels of complexity, dissolving artificial boundaries between natural sciences.
In the Enlightenment, science sought to map the entire cosmos in a disinterested objectivity...but even a holistic map of flatland is far from an experience of that vast territory. Bacon proclaimed a pyramid of disciplines, with natural history forming the base, physics above and subsuming it, and metaphysics at the peak, explaining everything below. He founded the discipline of the philosophy of science.
Descarte gave us a three-dimensional world, but he actually dreamed up his system of rationality where matter is seen as pure mechanism (causality), and systematic doubt is the first principle of learning. His separation of mind and matter carried humanity's self-image further from its perception of the remainder of the universe, and the full reality of the universe actually seemed to grow progressively more alien, and alienation is what the Grail Quest is all about.
Modern quantum theory and chaos theory have shown us that reality is not constructed to be easily grasped by the human mind and may be, in some cases, counter-intuitive. Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution (DNA), but not the purpose of evolution. Yet, science travels its own way, from Romanticism to the Postmodern ennui which currently infecting us. Most scientists are no more than highly-specialized prospectors.
Enlightenment thinkers believed we could know everything, and radical postmodernists believe we can know nothing. Reality is a state constructed by the mind. Thus, we have a postmodern prohibition against universal truth, and all becomes a deconstructed metaphor of reality. These "root metaphors" are ruling images in the thinker's mind whereby he designs theories and experiments.
Diversity of metaphors is found in the hereditary orderliness that has borne our species through geological time and stamped it with the residues of deep history. Original thinking either views disorder and tries to create order, or encountering order tries to protest it by creating disorder. This tension is what drives learning forward -- the dance at the edge of chaos.
LABYRINTH OF OUR WHOLENESS
“Then turn to the dead, listen to their lament
and accept them with love.” --C.G. Jung, The Red Book, Chapter XV
One of the key themes in ‘The Lament for the Dead’ is the denial of death by contemporary, secular Western culture. Our ancestors are not properly recognized and given their due weight – there is no real place for the dead in our culture. Shamdasani says on p.176:
“The first task that Jung finds himself confronted with [as I think anyone engaged in this descent is] is reanimating the dead, acknowledging that the dead are, and they have presences, they have effects. We turn our eyes away from future-oriented living and to what has gone before, in the shape of animated history, history that is not simply a record but history that is active.”
Therefore, by denying the dead we are denying ourselves.
Jung believed that the foundations of personality are ancestral and universal. Because much of genealogical best-practice includes mythic and fictional characters, the process is best approached with a Jungian orientation, rather than as hard historical fact, except where lines are clearly curated. In terms of collective unconscious, genealogy has "as if" psychic reality.
Jungian and post-Jungian practices allow us to interact with such material in a deeply meaningful way that helps us integrate such knowledge and self-knowledge, that enhances integration and individuation. Post-Jungians are committed to an approach that does not focus exclusively on psychic reality but also takes into account the realities of the outer world. Genealogy helps us adapt to both external or internal realities. This practice raises into conscious awareness what was formerly subconscious or unconscious -- the lives of our direct ancestors.
Outside in the courtyard, adjacent to the Tower, stand three stone tablets upon which, as Jung tells it in MDR, "I chiseled the names of my paternal ancestors." [3] The imaginal world of the ancestors, Jung's inner fatherland, was a living presence in Jung's everyday experience. Ahnenerbe, "ancestral inheritance," is the ground of all subjective experience within every individual, according to Jung. We find this idea at the epicenter of his worldview from a very early age, in an alien part of his child-self that he called his "number two personality" -- an elderly gentleman of the eighteenth century-allowing him to imagine he was "living in two ages simultaneously, and being two different persons." [4] He is an individual, yet a second heart beats in his breast, a sacred heart that squeezes the lifeblood of the ancestors through his veins.
"When I was working on the stone tablets," Jung confided, "I became aware of the fateful links between me and my ancestors .... It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family, which is passed from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished." [5]
What questions did Jung's paternal ancestors leave unanswered? What did Jung feel compelled to complete or to continue? What was the family karma that bound Jung to a specific fate? These questions already contain the seeds of their answers. What we must listen for here are the assumptions behind the queries, the brand of reality that would allow the possibility of such statements or questions in the first place. It is an arcane reality that Jung was destined to keep alive for millions in the twentieth century.
In a seminar he gave in Zurich in 1925, Carl Jung expressed his belief in the idea of "ancestor possession" -- that is, that certain hereditary units would become activated under certain circumstances in one's life, allowing the spirit of one's ancestor to then "take over" one's actions. Jung gave the example of an "imaginary normal man" who, on the surface, never indicated a capacity for leadership but in whom, when put in a position of power, the "ancestral unit" of a leader somewhere in the family past was awakened.
"I know no answer to the question of whether the karma which I live is the outcome of my past lives, or whether it is not rather the achievement of my ancestors, whose heritage comes together in me," Jung confessed in MDR. "Am I a combination of the lives of these ancestors and do I embody these lives again? Have I lived before in the past as a specific personality, and did I progress so far in that life that I am now able to seek a solution? I do not know."--Aryan Christ, Chapter 1
“Then turn to the dead, listen to their lament
and accept them with love.” --C.G. Jung, The Red Book, Chapter XV
One of the key themes in ‘The Lament for the Dead’ is the denial of death by contemporary, secular Western culture. Our ancestors are not properly recognized and given their due weight – there is no real place for the dead in our culture. Shamdasani says on p.176:
“The first task that Jung finds himself confronted with [as I think anyone engaged in this descent is] is reanimating the dead, acknowledging that the dead are, and they have presences, they have effects. We turn our eyes away from future-oriented living and to what has gone before, in the shape of animated history, history that is not simply a record but history that is active.”
Therefore, by denying the dead we are denying ourselves.
Jung believed that the foundations of personality are ancestral and universal. Because much of genealogical best-practice includes mythic and fictional characters, the process is best approached with a Jungian orientation, rather than as hard historical fact, except where lines are clearly curated. In terms of collective unconscious, genealogy has "as if" psychic reality.
Jungian and post-Jungian practices allow us to interact with such material in a deeply meaningful way that helps us integrate such knowledge and self-knowledge, that enhances integration and individuation. Post-Jungians are committed to an approach that does not focus exclusively on psychic reality but also takes into account the realities of the outer world. Genealogy helps us adapt to both external or internal realities. This practice raises into conscious awareness what was formerly subconscious or unconscious -- the lives of our direct ancestors.
Outside in the courtyard, adjacent to the Tower, stand three stone tablets upon which, as Jung tells it in MDR, "I chiseled the names of my paternal ancestors." [3] The imaginal world of the ancestors, Jung's inner fatherland, was a living presence in Jung's everyday experience. Ahnenerbe, "ancestral inheritance," is the ground of all subjective experience within every individual, according to Jung. We find this idea at the epicenter of his worldview from a very early age, in an alien part of his child-self that he called his "number two personality" -- an elderly gentleman of the eighteenth century-allowing him to imagine he was "living in two ages simultaneously, and being two different persons." [4] He is an individual, yet a second heart beats in his breast, a sacred heart that squeezes the lifeblood of the ancestors through his veins.
"When I was working on the stone tablets," Jung confided, "I became aware of the fateful links between me and my ancestors .... It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family, which is passed from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished." [5]
What questions did Jung's paternal ancestors leave unanswered? What did Jung feel compelled to complete or to continue? What was the family karma that bound Jung to a specific fate? These questions already contain the seeds of their answers. What we must listen for here are the assumptions behind the queries, the brand of reality that would allow the possibility of such statements or questions in the first place. It is an arcane reality that Jung was destined to keep alive for millions in the twentieth century.
In a seminar he gave in Zurich in 1925, Carl Jung expressed his belief in the idea of "ancestor possession" -- that is, that certain hereditary units would become activated under certain circumstances in one's life, allowing the spirit of one's ancestor to then "take over" one's actions. Jung gave the example of an "imaginary normal man" who, on the surface, never indicated a capacity for leadership but in whom, when put in a position of power, the "ancestral unit" of a leader somewhere in the family past was awakened.
"I know no answer to the question of whether the karma which I live is the outcome of my past lives, or whether it is not rather the achievement of my ancestors, whose heritage comes together in me," Jung confessed in MDR. "Am I a combination of the lives of these ancestors and do I embody these lives again? Have I lived before in the past as a specific personality, and did I progress so far in that life that I am now able to seek a solution? I do not know."--Aryan Christ, Chapter 1
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Longing for the Lost Other
Here is the book of thy descent,
Here is the book of the Sangreal,
Here begin the terrors,
Here begin the miracles.
The History of the Grail – 12th Century, Anonymous
"Everywhere the virgin earth causes at least the unconscious of the conqueror to sink to the level of its indigenous inhabitants. Thus, in the American, there is a discrepancy between conscious and unconscious that is not found in the European, a tension between an extremely high conscious level of culture and an unconscious primitivity. This tension forms a psychic potential which endows the American with an indomitable spirit of enterprise and an enviable enthusiasm which we in Europe do not know. The very fact that we still have our ancestral spirits, and that for us everything is steeped in history, keeps us in contact with our unconscious, but we are so caught in this contact and held so fast in the historical vice that the greatest catastrophes are needed in order to wrench us loose and to change our political behavior from what it was five hundred years ago. Our contact with the unconscious chains us to the earth and makes it hard for us to move, and this is certainly no advantage when it comes to progressiveness... . [...] Plurimi pertransibunt- but he who is rooted in the soil endures. Alienation from the unconscious and from its historical conditions spells rootlessness. That is the danger that lies in wait for the conqueror of foreign lands, and for every individual who, through one-sided allegiance to any kind of -ism, loses touch with the dark, maternal, earthly ground of his being." -Jung, 'Mind and Earth', 1931
CHAIN OF GENERATIONS
Infinite Regress
Only a Jungian approach to traditional genealogy keeps the historic/mythic gestalt of The World Tree alive as a symbol of wholeness -- a holistic resonant field pattern. According to Jung, trees are a symbolic reference to the self, so family tree is self-defining. As well as our lineage, our ancestors also form a vast symbol chain.
The symbolic function is beyond innate impulse and ideological bias. Through introversion, we are fertilized, inspired, regenerated, and reborn. Self-incubation, self-castigation, and introversion are closely related ideas. Immersion in oneself (introversion) is a penetration into the unconscious, the imaginal world of psyche.
The World Tree is the Axis Mundi of genealogy, a worldwide database of genealogical connectivity. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.
The earliest mythologies are of the World-Tree, or Tree of Life. Aspects of the same image, sacred trees are the most common motif from the ancient world. The Tree connects our psychophysical aspects from sub-nuclear to macrocosmic scales. The trunk is the axis of psychic growth that unites Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter.
The major branch points on our shared paternal lineage trace back through genealogy, history, antiquity, and ancient anthropology through myth to reach our early hominid ancestors. The branches on the paternal tree are haplogroups. SNP markers on the Y-Chromosome define them. Deep ancestry research depends on recognizing and analyzing patterns in Y-STR marker values for discovering Y-SNPs.
The serpents of our family lines are entwined like Celtic knots in and around the World Tree. Celtic snakes symbolize the notion of rebirth. They still promise us primordial Knowledge -- unverified personal gnosis. Jung said, "the serpent is the earthly essence of man of which he is not conscious. Its character changes according to peoples and lands, since it is the mystery that flows to him from the nourishing earth-mother."
The healer traversing the axis mundi to bring back knowledge from the other world is a common shamanic concept. Anyone or anything suspended on the axis between heaven and earth becomes a repository of potential knowledge. The Tree is the means of communication with spiritual realms. It is our Tree of Voices -- Tree of Souls. Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history.
On the global-level, spiritual experiences have been shown to buffer against the negative effects of stress on well-being for older adults. Spiritual experience potentially moderates the deleterious impact of a given day’s perceived stress on that day’s positive and negative affect. Thus, it relates to self-care, well being, and healing. Sometimes physical pain is a substitute for psychic pain. Healing is not always physical: it can occur in the emotional, mental and spiritual life, moderating immunity and neurochemistry.
Genealogy contains a spiritual healing potential, the living sap of the Tree, a manifestation of the sacred. It is a Grail banquet of cultures, customs and symbolism. We see in many manuscripts that wings are used to mark progress or advancement of an alchemical solution toward perfection. Crowns mark the final stage of a spirit or solution: perfection, completion, ascension. The spirit, by death or enlightenment, will produce the pure, perfected, incorruptible spirit. In alchemical terms, the incorruptible body is the potential of the philosopher's stone
Some branches of the World Tree are pruned (extinct). Others still thrive. Data entry is not fun, but it makes information analysis and pattern recognition much easier. By engaging in genealogy we create a sacred space, a sacred center. There is a deep ecology to the flow of relationships. Our return to the womb of the Mothers is a creative regression. Experientially it manifests within us as a spiritualizing instinct, a recursive "bending back" toward the primordial and divine.
We link backward to the bond that transcends the limitations of the physical form. Consciousness turns back on itself, reiterating each level of organization, de-structuring each strata as it dives deeper toward the unconditioned, formless beginning, or "unborn" state -- the Void of the Cosmic Womb. In essence, we re-enter the womb as we are initiated in the mysteries of the psyche. We re-conceive our primal self image, healed by communion with the creative Source - - our own Royal Wedding.
Religious myths give us the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the universe. "Belief is no adequate substitute for inner experience, and where this is absent even a strong faith which came miraculously as a gift of grace may depart equally miraculously. People call faith the true religious experience, but they do not stop to consider that actually it is a secondary phenomenon arising form the fact that something happened to us in the first place which instilled pistis into us — that is, trust and loyalty." --Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self," CW vol. 10, par. 521
In the Red Book, Jung said this is the way:
“An opus is needed, that one can squander decades on, and do it out of necessity. I must catch up with a piece of the Middle Ages-within myself. We have only finished the Middle Ages of-others. I must begin early, in that period when the hermits died out. Asceticism, inquisition, torture are close at hand and impose themselves. The barbarian requires barbaric means of education. My I, you are a barbarian. I want to live with you, therefore I will carry you through an utterly medieval Hell, until you are capable of making living with you bearable. You should be the vessel and womb of life, therefore I shall purify you.
The touchstone is being alone with oneself."
Genealogy can be seen as a way of honoring the ancestors with a ritual from ancient times when lists of god-kings described the natural order of things. The only way to revision and interact with it as a gestalt matrix includes the fictional, legendary, and mythological lines of this traditional World Tree. It is but one way to acknowledge our divinity, nobility, and humanity. Genealogy is a sure path to the heart. We can "gather our ancestors" before we are gathered unto them.
Mythology lost its role of explaining the forces of nature. But its role of delivering insights into the hidden, deep endeavors and fears of any human seems more alive than ever. It is a Mystery how our ancestors pass memories to us across the generations. They relate us to our ontological questions about space, time, and eternity, the deep structure of the human mind and perception, life and death -- what exists and what doesn't. Time concerns the existential nature of things -- temporal relationships.
The mythology of our ancestors is as important as their cosmology. We can explore the mystic in ourselves and in our ancestors. Our worldview is the root of our identity and relationship to Nature and our own deep nature. Researching the cosmologies of our direct ancestors in the historical era provides a quick path into dream shamanism, as these ways are still half-remembered. Our common destiny lies beyond any worldview.
"You could study the ancestors, but without a deep feeling of communication with them it would be surface learning and surface talking. Once you have gone into yourself and have learned very deeply, appreciate it, and relate to it very well, everything will come very easily." (Ellen White, Nanaimo)
Psyche creates reality every day. We have a mystical connection with our primitive ancestors. The primordial ancestors are still alive within the depths of our psyches and reach out to us with their ancient wisdom. We instinctively behave and feel the same ways as generations of our ancestors have in their lives.
This is also a relationship to the collectivity of the dead; for the unconscious corresponds to the mythic land of the dead, the land of the ancestors. Jung was the first to link the concept of ancestors to unconscious thinking. We learn to remember what our soul already knows. Our personality is literally expressed through our ancestors.
The gods and goddesses have 'gone to seed', and we are that -- their seed, their progeny. As James Hillman says, their minds and powers are living us in poetic moments of fantasy, insight and intuition. Nature, psyche and life are unfolding divinity. We are only cut off from the dead by what we have buried and forgotten. Working with our ancestral connection means connecting to everything around us and how we are placed in the world.
“Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. Having once experienced the mystery, plenitude, contradiction, and composure of a work of art, we afterward have a built-in resistance to the slogans and propaganda of oversimplification that have often contributed to the destruction of human life. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization.” ―A.R. Ammons
Jung said transpersonal psychic life "is the mind of our ancient ancestors, the way in which they thought and felt, the way in which they conceived of life and the world, of gods and humans beings. The existence of these historical layers is presumably the source of belief in reincarnation and in memories of past lives” (Jung, 1939, p.24).
In 'Extending the Family' (1985), Hillman says, "With the passing of time a sense of its power grows within one's psyche, like the movements of its skeleton inside one's flesh, which keeps one in servitude to patterns entombed in our closest attitudes and habits. From this interior family we are never free. This service keeps us bonded to the ancestors." Some report a sort of
"calling illness" until they respond to the ancestors calling them to do the work.
Genealogy is the science and art of what is emerging into the collective consciousness in one of the biggest hobbies of our era. It is a vast reclamation and reconstruction of our holographic connections, and certain emotionally toned experiences and images inherited from our ancestors, our spiritual guides. We translate meaning into life.
The entire gestalt of the World Tree is an iconic image -- a multidimensional symbol requiring hermeneutics as much as history for best practice. Genealogy has the problem of only focusing on the ancestors with surviving records, not all your ancestors. Of course, all the expansive aspects of the ancestors leave their shadow traces. With the light comes darkness. Ancestral blessings are not unaccompanied by ancestral curses.
The shadow is transmitted in a million subtle gestures and intonations. As you become aware of them in yourself, you can look back over your shoulder at your ancestors and see where these patterns came from. The family shadow is not the sole answer, but it's a place to do some work. It's a realm that is within our means to influence. When we stop passing the shadow on to the next generation, we spare them and break the chain. They don't pass it on either.
We can cut through the Fog of Lore to the mythic core. Clan ancestors are more than euphemisms. They may well be more than legends, being actual progenitors or composites of the ancient lineage. Some myths may have developed after the destruction of powerful lineages, displays of majesty, culture heroes, and ancestral temples. Royal family ancestor cults probably drew on a number of ancestral lineages.
Lament of the Dead
Differences in ancestral worldviews highlight the problem of synthesis. Conceptual and symbolic frameworks arise in different periods of history. The classical vision is not absent from the modern world; we can argue both transcendence and immanence. Much depends on which century your soul inhabits, metaphorically. The dead are given greater reality by the memory that the living keep alive of them. But they are invoked to participate on important occasions such as births, naming, and marriages.
Our deep polytheistic background has been buried with the ancestors, along with their voices which we can talk to and imagine in posthumous reality. When thinking stops, words slip in. Within our subconscious mind is a history of our ancestors which includes their experiences and emotions. Do the dead cry that they are misunderstood? They are The Watchers. We are always being watched by the ancestral spirits. To be cut off from relationships with one's ancestors is to cease being a whole person. Unconsciously we still think like our distant ancestors.
The Quest for Transcendence
Jung describes Individuation as a process of transformation that incorporates the personal and collective unconscious into consciousness (by means of dreams, active imagination, or free association) to be assimilated into the whole personality. This natural process facilitates the integration of the psyche. The pursuit of self-knowledge is a pilgrimage to our deep center with its divine inner spark or Light.
We seek to remember what our soul has always known. When the psyche heals it produces mandala-type images, balancing dark and light, male and female, yin and yang aspects of nature. The genealogical image is more than a metaphor: you are the center of multiple radiant lines of descent, all of which converge in your unique manifestation.
It can be combined with transpersonal techniques, including hypnotherapy, regressions, shamanic healing, vison quest, mystic arts, seasonal celebrations, spirit journeying, psychodrama, bodywork, trauma release, meditation, soul retrieval, kin contact, and personal mythology. We consider using healing therapies on our ancestors in special cases. Woolger's Deep Memory Process suggests you can use such therapies to:
• clearly recognize the core issues or complexes running your life
• journey in time to resolve childhood and other traumas
• vividly relive and resolve emotional conflicts through a healing psychodrama
• develop somatic awareness of deep memories to release them from your body
• let go of old unwanted ancestral patterns and influences
• integrate wounded soul fragments (“past lives”)
• clear your energy field of negative influences
• open up with love to higher spiritual resources within yourself
We have to find and heal the Grail King within, reowning the projections and meaning we have conveniently let others carry for us, for good and evil. In that process we may glimpse and lose the Grail many times over. Genetic descent is amplified creatively by a recursive psychological descent into the unconscious to retrieve our lost soul and lost ancestors. It establishes an intergenerational feedback loop.
Individuation has a holistic healing effect on the person, both mentally and physically. Individuation is a self analysis, a self discovery, analyzing your own psyche. It serves as the guide or goal of a quest—the Holy Grail, the Elixir of Immortality, the Philosopher's Stone.
Like genealogy, individuation is the story of you as the unique individual you are. Genealogy, like a dragon's hoard, is a treasure hard to attain, yet priceless to the person who holds it. This most collective situation becomes the most individual experience because no two individuals incorporate it in exactly the same way.
We all search for something. In genealogy we narrow that search for the Holy Grail and the Precious Blood. In this case, in genealogy the blood is precious because it is our own lifegiving blood. Legend tells us the Blood and the Grail are united. In medieval literature the Grail is often associated with a feast -- it is, indeed, a great feast of metaphors attached to the primary icon.
Legend has it there is a fellowship or underground Family of the Grail that furthers and protects its interests in all worlds. The "underground stream" is yet another symbol of the Grail. The Grail appears in many forms, including radiant light and the sangreal of the Holy Bloodline that flows from the Davidic line, including the Desposyni descendants of the Holy Family, perhaps including offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdalene -- or so they say.
Genealogies bring revelations, which may belong to millions of descendants but feel extremely important because they are part of our own personal heritage. It comes with strong spiritual and mythic overtones from the elder god-kings, the royal Davidic/Solomonic line, the family of Jesus, the Merovingians, Gnostics, Grail Kings, Camelot, and crusading Templars. Internal conflict may arise when loyalties are torn between opposing forces, each of which are ancestral lines.
In fact, the symbolic treasure of genealogy is that it encodes the entire transformational process from the war of opposites to the reconciling royal marriage. Genealogy show s graphically just how intimately our very existence is through those who gave us faces. This knowledge, more than a pedigree on paper, is the treasure hard to attain that nourishes and sustains us in our intergenerational Being. This is, in fact, The Grail, which serves the divine spark within.
Phillip Stephen Lansky concludes, “Interestingly, the “chymical wedding” of alchemy was a symbol for the simultaneous constellation of psychic opposites, which we have already suggested concurs with a state of physiological paradox. Might not the contents of the two archetypal flasks represent two amines, serotonin and noradrenalin, being poured simultaneously into a marriage bath in the hypothalamus?”
The Grail symbolizes life, spirituality, youth, health, joy, purity, creativity, the unconscious, and generativity [Jung and von Franz 1970, 114]. Spirituality means the perception of transcendent meaning and participation in a higher purpose and numinous experiences. It harmonizes the conflicting opposites of male-female, rationality and emotion, dark and light, good and evil, etc. [Jung and von Franz 1970, 194]. Wholeness requires a coniunctio oppositorum (conjunction of opposites).
William Blake describes it paradoxically: "Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good and evil is Heaven just as evil and good is Hell."
The conflict of opposites in Parsifal's psyche needed to be discovered for him to get back into the Grail Castle. He needs to expand his consciousness and travel, psychologically speaking, far beyond the naive fool, to find the Grail Castle and discover himself, to be conscious of and reconcile the opposites in his psyche.
The Fisher King, or the Grail King, represents a limited consciousness, one who is too rational and is incapable of solving the real problem his kingdom faces [Jung and von Franz 1970, 212]. The successor who will free him was prophesied to be a wholly innocent fool who would ask a specific question. "The myth is telling us that it is the naive part of a man that will heal him and cure his Fisher King wound. It suggests that if a man is to be cured he must find something in himself about the same age and about the same mentality as he was when he was wounded" [Johnson 1989, 11].
Jung himself experienced this woundedness after his break with Freud that opened his deep unconscious, flooding him with imagery that took a lifetime to assimilate and analyze. He speaks of his soul-loss and efforts to retrieve it in his visionary tome, The Red Book, which has only recently been published, many years after his death.
The Red Book illuminates all of his theories of unconscious dynamics. As in dreams, we are all of the characters in mythological tales, and their stories hold deep meaning for us when they are activated by our own life experiences. They call us into the hero's adventure and one of their ways of doing so is the call to trace our genealogical roots.
Jung and the Ancestors
The long-awaited release in the 21st century of Jung's RED BOOK (2009) reveals just how much of a role his ancestors and inner figures played in his own psychic life. They led directly to the formation of many of his theories of psychic dynamics.
Historically, in Western societies the focus of genealogy was on the kinship and descent of rulers and nobles, often arguing or demonstrating the legitimacy of claims to wealth and power. The term often overlapped with heraldry, in which the ancestry of royalty was reflected in their coats of arms. Modern scholars consider many claimed noble ancestries to be fabrications, such as the Anglo-Saxon chronicles that traced the ancestry of several English kings to the god Woden.
But Jung healed and transformed his own fragmentation by taking up imaginal relationships with his inner figures. He developed what might be called a Dialogical Gnosis -- a Way of Knowing informed by the wisdom of the Collective Unconscious, the plenum of inherent knowledge and experience.
Jung was engaged in the process of individuation -- cognitive, empathic engagement with the living and discarnate.Engagement implies committment, rather than participation, per se. Respect for the freedom of others and the intention toallow their personhood expression is a basic tenet of engagement
One does not choose the path of individuation, but rather is chosen by it. Individuation seems to be the innate urge of life to realize itself consciously. The transpersonal life energy, in the process of self-unfolding, uses human consciousness, a product of itself, as an instrument for its own self-realization.
New discoveries must not only be made, but assimilated with concurrent experience and meaningful psychological insight. The individual meaningfulness of an experience is what creates unique personality. The instinctive feeling of significance is expanded by rooting experiences in their mythical patterns.
If the ego can withstand the irrational temptations, ordeals, and peril at the hands of the unknown, it is eventually rewarded with an expanded experience of self and a rejuvenation, or rebirth. In his essay on the "Relationship between the Ego and the Unconscious," Jung has stated that,
It is impossible to achieve individuation by conscious intention, because conscious intention invariably leads to a typical attitude that excludes whatever does not fit in with it. This assimilation of the unconscious contents leads, on the contrary to a condition in which the conscious intention is excluded and supplanted by a process of development that seems irrational. This process alone signifies individuation, and its product is individuality as we have defined it; particular and universal at once....Only when the unconscious is assimilated does the individuality emerge more clearly, together with the psychological phenomenon which links the ego with the non-ego and is designated by the word attitude.
But this time it is no longer a typical attitude but an individual one.
What the conscious ego can do in regard to individuation is make the commitment to work in harmony with the unfolding subconscious process, to give it constant attention, and to place proper value on the experience. This creates a resonance, the experience of "being in harmony with the cosmos", reflecting the Hermetic Axiom, "As Above, So Below."
The Rose in mysticism and Hermetic Philosophies is a profound symbol of consciousness and the soul personality. It symbolizes consciousness projected into the material form. Consciousness is symbolized in a very apt and beautiful way as a flowering process and an unfolding manifestation. This flowering , blooming and unfolding of its petals in a perfect
mandalic symmetry, represents man's divine inner consciousness being revealed as layers of his being open up to reveal its ever becoming center, the Inner Self. To the Rosicrucians the symbol of the Rosy Cross is sacred. The Rose crucified on the cross is the symbol of the true divinity of humanity. The cross represents the four cardinal points of being in a
balanced state. The crossing of the vertical and the horizontal lines represent the conjunction of the opposites. The vertical, being the positive and active, conjuncts the horizontal, the negative and passive. It is at this conjunction point, representing balance nd harmony, that the rose flowers and unfolds itself. The cross also represents the body of man with
outstretched arms as his whole earthly plane and his heart being again at a conjunction between the superiors and inferiors, head or heaven, feet or earth, and also between left and right as opposition between the forces of light and darkness, life and death .
To the initiates this symbol of divine consciousness crucified or infused upon and in his physical body is a most profound and sacred mystery of the incarnation of the soul.
A beautiful Hermetic saying of the Rosicrucians is,
"Ad Rosam per crucem, ad crucem per Rosam."
-Steve Kalec
More and legends and myths of the rose:
http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/rose.htm
ROSA MUNDI
http://www.clanoftubalcain.org.uk/rosamundi.html
"Take the fayer Roses, white and red / And joyne them well in won bed. /
So betwixt these Roses mylde / Thou shalt bring forth a Gloriuse chylde."
(Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image, Bollingen C, Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 254)
Cult of the Archetypal Feminine
The Mother of us all is also the Earth, as the light of the divine womb (primal source) and the mystery of divine light that informs and transforms into matter. The Sangreal is a cult of bloodline. Many who are of it are unaware or unawakened to that genealogical and gnostic awareness.
Many who think they are 'awake' are merely enthralled with the fugue state or eruption of symbolic material which is actually a form of dissociation. Dissociative disorders are typically experienced as startling, autonomous intrusions into the person's usual ways of responding or functioning. Due to their unexpected and largely inexplicable nature, they tend to be quite unsettling. Jung theorized that theorized that dissociation is a natural necessity for consciousness to operate in one faculty unhampered by the demands of its opposite.
Much of the magic and mystery enters our lines through our grandmothers, from the distaff side of our physical inheritance. It is carried in the mitochondrial DNA, inherited only from the mother on the x chromosome. It is very persistent through generations in both men and women, which helps us determine the relationship of populations.
About 360 years, or just short of 15 generations mtDNA peters out. At 15 generations, an individual living today would carry only three thousands of 1% (00.003052%) of the DNA of an ancestor who was “pure” anything 15 generations ago. So even if one ancestor was indeed Mediterranean or whatever 15 generations ago, unless they continuously intermarried within a pure Mediterranean population, the amount would drop by 50% with each generation to the miniscule amount that would be found in today’s current generation. With today’s technology, this is simply untraceable in autosomal DNA.
The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables genealogical researchers to trace maternal lineage far back in time. The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve is based on the same type of analysis, attempting to discover the origin of humanity by tracking the lineage back in time.
In the medieval era, a cult of the Feminine arose with a persistent theme of gender reunion in the Great Rite of the ancient bloodline, mystical eroticism known as the Mysterium Coniunctionis or Royal Marriage, in the underground Church of Love. Jung wrote a large book with that title describing "the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy".
The opposites to be reconciled were Venus and Mars. It's about healing sexual woundedness, the pathless Wasteland of male-female relationships (literal and psychic), with a mystical inner marriage. Like Isis and Horus, when the Madonna holds the infant Jesus, he represents the Future, and he continues to do so as the future is always coming.
The Sacred Heart and Mary Magdalene are twin symbols of the Grail. She has been used to symbolize the hidden teachings of Jesus. The cult of Mary Magdalene and the Cult of the Black Virgin survive in many forms to this day. The meeting of the sun-god and the earth-mother brings forth the miracle of birth, death, and rebirth from her dark creative womb. The god comes through the goddess.
We find that balance in Individuation, after facing the Shadow and connecting with inner wisdom. Through his relationship with the feminine a man gains access to his own soul, to the deeper layers of his "heart". His sensitive quest for his "queen" makes him wiser, more sensitive, more scrupulous as a person. AMOR is a spiritual development. The courage to persist is the hallmark of loyalty.
The Rosy Cross is a symbol of the human process of reproduction elevated to the spiritual: The fundamental symbols are the female rose and the male cross. As generation is the key to material existence, those symbols exemplify the reproductive processes. As regeneration is the key to spiritual existence, the symbolism of the rose and the cross typifies redemption through the union of our lower temporal nature with our higher eternal nature.
The Rosy Cross is equivalent to the Philosopher's Stone or Holy Grail, and refined Gold. All represent the Grail of Self-Realization. As an image The Grail was a symbol of not just spiritual transcendence but also the Divine Immanence in creation. In Jewish mysticism, every woman is an earthly embodiment of the celestial Shekinah. The Grail Temple is the body, our sacred vessel. We need to learn again that the family is a being, a goddess.
There are many icons of Mary that show black faces and hands. In France, these are called Vierge Noires—Black Virgins. Elsewhere, they may be called Black Madonnas or the "other Mary." Jung called her Isis, while others claim she is the symbolic remains of a prehistoric worship of the Earth Mother. She is generally connected with Cybele, Diana, Isis, and Venus, as well as with Kali, Inanna, and Lilith. Historically she is connected with the Crusades, the Islamic occupation of Spain, the Conquistadors, the Kabbala, as well as the Merovingians and Knights Templar, who viewed her as Mary Magdalene.
Courtly Love (courtezia) and Troubadours were institutions that compensated the misogyny of medieval times. The contemplation of beauty in its feminine incarnation opens the Middle Way between debauchery and self-abnegation. Transcendent beauty is reflected in a beautiful face or body. Contact with the beautiful is a sacrament. The culture of l'amour courtois flourished in Anjou and the Languedoc. The House of Anjou remains the senior Grail family.
The Crusades, the so-called 'holy war', filled the need for collective Shadow projection. In this scenario, Venus and the cult of the Feminine played counterpoint to the Martian cult of warrior-knighthood, with its chivalric code of honor. This Quest for a lost sacred object, the Holy Grail, appears out of a deep and urgent need to counteract the brutality of the rapacious crusading, murderous military oppression. AMOR was a gnostic and esoteric doctrine of the divinity of the Mother and the higher meaning of the chivalric quest.
The persecuted became persecutors in a collective defensive strategy known as identification with the aggressor and the splitting-off of the victim. Whether personal or collective the consequence is the same. A need arises to find and project the shadow onto an external victim who opposes the newly found power of the aggressor. The real problem was and remains how to reconcile the two warring extremes of human nature: spirituality and sexuality. Men met the challenge by becoming more rigid and investing women and the Grail with the powers of generation and regeneration.
The historical origin for the collective resurgence of the sacred feminine is most likely derived from ancient cults of the Great Goddess—the mysteries of Isis, of Diana of Ephesus or Cybele, and especially the Sophia of the Gnostics. They were carried to Europe through the artistic contacts of troubadours who had been to the East.
Above all, the Cathars revered a version of Isis-Sophia and ordained women as priestesses equally with men. However, their Gnosticism also vilified the flesh and therefore all matter. Their archetypes, The Archons, were likewise demonized, being stunted by duality.
The Gnosticism of the second-century sects involves a coherent series of characteristics that can be summarized in the idea of a divine spark in man, deriving from the divine realm, fallen into this world of fate, birth, and death, and needing to be awakened by the divine counterpart of the self in order to be finally reintegrated (into the divine realm). (Filoramo, 1990, p. 143)
It is likely that the troubadour aubades or songs to the lady in spring ultimately derive from remnants of the old cults of Demeter, the Mother Goddess and her daughter Persephone. The Greeks brought this worship to Provence when they colonized Marseille and the south of Gaul in early times.
In the ancient Basilica of St. Victor in Marseille, on the 2nd of February each year thousand of candles are lit to attend the raising of the famous Black Madonna from the infernal darkness of the crypt up into the upper air. Persephone returned to the upper world every spring in Greek times, with masses of torches, to re-unite with her mother Demeter.
So in many of the noble courts of the South of France in the 11th-12th centuries there is a kind of revival of the pagan substrate that has been buried, but not entirely, by Christianity. What re-emerges is Christianity’s pagan shadow, to use Jung’s terms. What we see is the upsurge from the unconscious of the repressed pagan archetypal energies of the Dionysian-Venusian. Ecstatic use of art, music, and the body led to communion with the godhead within the body. (Woolger) http://www.deepmemoryprocess.com/page33.html
The Fisher King is the wounded father principle, the weakened, unproductive and spiritually desolate father-world of medieval times. The waters of life have dried up both within and without laving a damaged consciousness, cut off from Mother Earth.
Jung said that today "the Gods have become diseases," and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) describes not only the psychological victims of war and brutality but says something about our own "hostage" culture. It is a kind of stuckness where the trauma seems to be continuously recurring, a torturous victimization without relief. The war comes home in chaos, flashbacks, dark futures, and suicidal impulses. We can imagine that the old warrior-knights were not immune from such human frailties. http://ptsdpolitics.iwarp.com/
“Peace for veterans is not an ‘absence of war’ but its living ghost in the bedroom, at the lunch counter, on the highway. The trauma is not ‘post’ but acutely present, and the ‘syndrome’ is not in the veteran but in the dictionary, in the amnesiac’s idea of peace that colludes with an unlivable life.” “The return from the killing fields is more than a debriefing; it is a slow ascent from hell. …The veteran needs a rite de sortie that belongs to every initiation as its normal conclusion, making possible an intact return.” (James Hillman)
In contrast, the passion of the troubadours was earthy, bodily and sensual no matter how sentimentalists would later portray it. Dali quipped, "The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot." There is no longer any excuse to see the ladies of the troubadours through rose-tinted spectacles of the early Romantic poets and the Pre-Raphaelite painters, as purely ethereal disembodied “spiritual” anima figures.
The troubadours celebrated the incarnation of the feminine every bit as much as its spiritualization. Some say fins amor, or pure love of a woman as a form of spiritual initiation through a forbidden but transcendent love affair, was practiced not for procreation but contemplation. http://www.deepmemoryprocess.com/page209.html
Woolger, Roger, The Holy Grail: Healing the Sexual Wound in the Western Psyche (1983/2010)
Rose Line Descent
The Da Vinci Code made much of the so-called Roseline marking sacred sites in the European landscape. But the real Rose Lines are revealed in the royal genealogies with which it is interwoven. The Grail is the source of life, of generativity, of the primordial Eros. The Grail belongs to all that is soft, yielding, yin, of the body, of the earth, of the Mother: full, rich, gentle, and infinitely abundant.
Certain images, such as the Garden of the Rose, the Fountain, the Loathly Bride, the Damsel in distress, and above all the Holy Grail recur in all kinds of variations. The symbol of the Rose, for example, finds its way from the Sufis to the Roman de la Rose, to Dante's Paradiso, to the windows of Chartres Cathedral, and eventually to the mystical Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians. The underground tradition of alchemy and esoteric arts kept the spiritual Mysteries and Great Goddess discipline alive in the Underground Stream.
Great Rite
1180 and 1230 AD. This is the same prolific and fertile time period that saw the peak of the great cathedral building era; the rise to power of the Templar Knights; the rise and fall of Catharism in southern France; the formation of Kabbalistic and mystical schools in Spain. The Grail symbol first emerges in history in a series of remarkable writings that appear in France over a span of about half a century between the years 1180 and 1230 AD. This is the same prolific and fertile time period that saw the peak of the great cathedral building era; the rise to power of the Templar Knights; the rise and fall of Catharism in southern France; the formation of Kabbalistic and mystical schools in Spain in which Jews, Christians and Muslims all participated in relative harmony; the emergence of the Troubadours as channels for the diffusion and circulation of sacred knowledge; the rise of Sufism and the transmission of Hermetic knowledge to Europe via Islamic scholars and mystics.
Self-Reflection:
Mental activity that concentrates on a particular content of consciousness, an instinct encompassing religion and the search for meaning.
Ordinarily we do not think of "reflection" as ever having been instinctive, but associate it with a conscious state of mind. Reflexio means "bending back" and, used psychologically, would denote the fact that the reflex which carries the stimulus over into its instinctive discharge is interfered with by psychization. . . . Thus in place of the compulsive act there appears a certain degree of freedom, and in place of predictability a relative unpredictability as to the effect of the impulse.["Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," CW 8, par. 241.]
In Jung’s view, the richness of the human psyche and its essential character are determined by the reflective instinct.
Reflection is the cultural instinct par excellence, and its strength is shown in the power of culture to maintain itself in the face of untamed nature.[Ibid., par. 243.]
Self-reflection, or – what comes to the same thing – the urge to individuation, gathers together what is scattered and multifarious and exalts it to the original of the One, the Primordial Man.
In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious, the sources of conflict are dried up. ~Carl Jung; Collected Works 11; Transformation Symbolism in the Mass; par. 401
To concern ourselves with dreams is a way of reflecting on ourselves-a way of self-reflection. It is not our ego-consciousness reflecting on itself; rather, it turns its attention to the objective actuality of the dream as a communication or message from the unconscious, unitary soul of humanity. It reflects not on the ego but on the self; it recollects that strange self, alien to the ego, which was ours from the beginning, the trunk from which the ego grew. It is alien to us because we have estranged ourselves from it through the aberrations of the conscious mind. ~"The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man" (1933). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. pg. 318
If we do not fashion for ourselves a picture of the world, we do not see ourselves either, who are the faithful reflections of that world. Only when mirrored in our picture of the world can we see ourselves in the round? Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete. Never shall we put any face on the world other than our own, and we have to do this precisely in order to find ourselves. For higher than science or art as an end in itself stands man, the creator of his instruments. ~"Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung" (1928). CW 8: Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.737
Here is the book of thy descent,
Here is the book of the Sangreal,
Here begin the terrors,
Here begin the miracles.
The History of the Grail – 12th Century, Anonymous
"Everywhere the virgin earth causes at least the unconscious of the conqueror to sink to the level of its indigenous inhabitants. Thus, in the American, there is a discrepancy between conscious and unconscious that is not found in the European, a tension between an extremely high conscious level of culture and an unconscious primitivity. This tension forms a psychic potential which endows the American with an indomitable spirit of enterprise and an enviable enthusiasm which we in Europe do not know. The very fact that we still have our ancestral spirits, and that for us everything is steeped in history, keeps us in contact with our unconscious, but we are so caught in this contact and held so fast in the historical vice that the greatest catastrophes are needed in order to wrench us loose and to change our political behavior from what it was five hundred years ago. Our contact with the unconscious chains us to the earth and makes it hard for us to move, and this is certainly no advantage when it comes to progressiveness... . [...] Plurimi pertransibunt- but he who is rooted in the soil endures. Alienation from the unconscious and from its historical conditions spells rootlessness. That is the danger that lies in wait for the conqueror of foreign lands, and for every individual who, through one-sided allegiance to any kind of -ism, loses touch with the dark, maternal, earthly ground of his being." -Jung, 'Mind and Earth', 1931
CHAIN OF GENERATIONS
Infinite Regress
Only a Jungian approach to traditional genealogy keeps the historic/mythic gestalt of The World Tree alive as a symbol of wholeness -- a holistic resonant field pattern. According to Jung, trees are a symbolic reference to the self, so family tree is self-defining. As well as our lineage, our ancestors also form a vast symbol chain.
The symbolic function is beyond innate impulse and ideological bias. Through introversion, we are fertilized, inspired, regenerated, and reborn. Self-incubation, self-castigation, and introversion are closely related ideas. Immersion in oneself (introversion) is a penetration into the unconscious, the imaginal world of psyche.
The World Tree is the Axis Mundi of genealogy, a worldwide database of genealogical connectivity. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms. Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.
The earliest mythologies are of the World-Tree, or Tree of Life. Aspects of the same image, sacred trees are the most common motif from the ancient world. The Tree connects our psychophysical aspects from sub-nuclear to macrocosmic scales. The trunk is the axis of psychic growth that unites Heaven and Earth, spirit and matter.
The major branch points on our shared paternal lineage trace back through genealogy, history, antiquity, and ancient anthropology through myth to reach our early hominid ancestors. The branches on the paternal tree are haplogroups. SNP markers on the Y-Chromosome define them. Deep ancestry research depends on recognizing and analyzing patterns in Y-STR marker values for discovering Y-SNPs.
The serpents of our family lines are entwined like Celtic knots in and around the World Tree. Celtic snakes symbolize the notion of rebirth. They still promise us primordial Knowledge -- unverified personal gnosis. Jung said, "the serpent is the earthly essence of man of which he is not conscious. Its character changes according to peoples and lands, since it is the mystery that flows to him from the nourishing earth-mother."
The healer traversing the axis mundi to bring back knowledge from the other world is a common shamanic concept. Anyone or anything suspended on the axis between heaven and earth becomes a repository of potential knowledge. The Tree is the means of communication with spiritual realms. It is our Tree of Voices -- Tree of Souls. Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history.
On the global-level, spiritual experiences have been shown to buffer against the negative effects of stress on well-being for older adults. Spiritual experience potentially moderates the deleterious impact of a given day’s perceived stress on that day’s positive and negative affect. Thus, it relates to self-care, well being, and healing. Sometimes physical pain is a substitute for psychic pain. Healing is not always physical: it can occur in the emotional, mental and spiritual life, moderating immunity and neurochemistry.
Genealogy contains a spiritual healing potential, the living sap of the Tree, a manifestation of the sacred. It is a Grail banquet of cultures, customs and symbolism. We see in many manuscripts that wings are used to mark progress or advancement of an alchemical solution toward perfection. Crowns mark the final stage of a spirit or solution: perfection, completion, ascension. The spirit, by death or enlightenment, will produce the pure, perfected, incorruptible spirit. In alchemical terms, the incorruptible body is the potential of the philosopher's stone
Some branches of the World Tree are pruned (extinct). Others still thrive. Data entry is not fun, but it makes information analysis and pattern recognition much easier. By engaging in genealogy we create a sacred space, a sacred center. There is a deep ecology to the flow of relationships. Our return to the womb of the Mothers is a creative regression. Experientially it manifests within us as a spiritualizing instinct, a recursive "bending back" toward the primordial and divine.
We link backward to the bond that transcends the limitations of the physical form. Consciousness turns back on itself, reiterating each level of organization, de-structuring each strata as it dives deeper toward the unconditioned, formless beginning, or "unborn" state -- the Void of the Cosmic Womb. In essence, we re-enter the womb as we are initiated in the mysteries of the psyche. We re-conceive our primal self image, healed by communion with the creative Source - - our own Royal Wedding.
Religious myths give us the security and inner strength not to be crushed by the monstrousness of the universe. "Belief is no adequate substitute for inner experience, and where this is absent even a strong faith which came miraculously as a gift of grace may depart equally miraculously. People call faith the true religious experience, but they do not stop to consider that actually it is a secondary phenomenon arising form the fact that something happened to us in the first place which instilled pistis into us — that is, trust and loyalty." --Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self," CW vol. 10, par. 521
In the Red Book, Jung said this is the way:
“An opus is needed, that one can squander decades on, and do it out of necessity. I must catch up with a piece of the Middle Ages-within myself. We have only finished the Middle Ages of-others. I must begin early, in that period when the hermits died out. Asceticism, inquisition, torture are close at hand and impose themselves. The barbarian requires barbaric means of education. My I, you are a barbarian. I want to live with you, therefore I will carry you through an utterly medieval Hell, until you are capable of making living with you bearable. You should be the vessel and womb of life, therefore I shall purify you.
The touchstone is being alone with oneself."
Genealogy can be seen as a way of honoring the ancestors with a ritual from ancient times when lists of god-kings described the natural order of things. The only way to revision and interact with it as a gestalt matrix includes the fictional, legendary, and mythological lines of this traditional World Tree. It is but one way to acknowledge our divinity, nobility, and humanity. Genealogy is a sure path to the heart. We can "gather our ancestors" before we are gathered unto them.
Mythology lost its role of explaining the forces of nature. But its role of delivering insights into the hidden, deep endeavors and fears of any human seems more alive than ever. It is a Mystery how our ancestors pass memories to us across the generations. They relate us to our ontological questions about space, time, and eternity, the deep structure of the human mind and perception, life and death -- what exists and what doesn't. Time concerns the existential nature of things -- temporal relationships.
The mythology of our ancestors is as important as their cosmology. We can explore the mystic in ourselves and in our ancestors. Our worldview is the root of our identity and relationship to Nature and our own deep nature. Researching the cosmologies of our direct ancestors in the historical era provides a quick path into dream shamanism, as these ways are still half-remembered. Our common destiny lies beyond any worldview.
"You could study the ancestors, but without a deep feeling of communication with them it would be surface learning and surface talking. Once you have gone into yourself and have learned very deeply, appreciate it, and relate to it very well, everything will come very easily." (Ellen White, Nanaimo)
Psyche creates reality every day. We have a mystical connection with our primitive ancestors. The primordial ancestors are still alive within the depths of our psyches and reach out to us with their ancient wisdom. We instinctively behave and feel the same ways as generations of our ancestors have in their lives.
This is also a relationship to the collectivity of the dead; for the unconscious corresponds to the mythic land of the dead, the land of the ancestors. Jung was the first to link the concept of ancestors to unconscious thinking. We learn to remember what our soul already knows. Our personality is literally expressed through our ancestors.
The gods and goddesses have 'gone to seed', and we are that -- their seed, their progeny. As James Hillman says, their minds and powers are living us in poetic moments of fantasy, insight and intuition. Nature, psyche and life are unfolding divinity. We are only cut off from the dead by what we have buried and forgotten. Working with our ancestral connection means connecting to everything around us and how we are placed in the world.
“Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. Having once experienced the mystery, plenitude, contradiction, and composure of a work of art, we afterward have a built-in resistance to the slogans and propaganda of oversimplification that have often contributed to the destruction of human life. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization.” ―A.R. Ammons
Jung said transpersonal psychic life "is the mind of our ancient ancestors, the way in which they thought and felt, the way in which they conceived of life and the world, of gods and humans beings. The existence of these historical layers is presumably the source of belief in reincarnation and in memories of past lives” (Jung, 1939, p.24).
In 'Extending the Family' (1985), Hillman says, "With the passing of time a sense of its power grows within one's psyche, like the movements of its skeleton inside one's flesh, which keeps one in servitude to patterns entombed in our closest attitudes and habits. From this interior family we are never free. This service keeps us bonded to the ancestors." Some report a sort of
"calling illness" until they respond to the ancestors calling them to do the work.
Genealogy is the science and art of what is emerging into the collective consciousness in one of the biggest hobbies of our era. It is a vast reclamation and reconstruction of our holographic connections, and certain emotionally toned experiences and images inherited from our ancestors, our spiritual guides. We translate meaning into life.
The entire gestalt of the World Tree is an iconic image -- a multidimensional symbol requiring hermeneutics as much as history for best practice. Genealogy has the problem of only focusing on the ancestors with surviving records, not all your ancestors. Of course, all the expansive aspects of the ancestors leave their shadow traces. With the light comes darkness. Ancestral blessings are not unaccompanied by ancestral curses.
The shadow is transmitted in a million subtle gestures and intonations. As you become aware of them in yourself, you can look back over your shoulder at your ancestors and see where these patterns came from. The family shadow is not the sole answer, but it's a place to do some work. It's a realm that is within our means to influence. When we stop passing the shadow on to the next generation, we spare them and break the chain. They don't pass it on either.
We can cut through the Fog of Lore to the mythic core. Clan ancestors are more than euphemisms. They may well be more than legends, being actual progenitors or composites of the ancient lineage. Some myths may have developed after the destruction of powerful lineages, displays of majesty, culture heroes, and ancestral temples. Royal family ancestor cults probably drew on a number of ancestral lineages.
Lament of the Dead
Differences in ancestral worldviews highlight the problem of synthesis. Conceptual and symbolic frameworks arise in different periods of history. The classical vision is not absent from the modern world; we can argue both transcendence and immanence. Much depends on which century your soul inhabits, metaphorically. The dead are given greater reality by the memory that the living keep alive of them. But they are invoked to participate on important occasions such as births, naming, and marriages.
Our deep polytheistic background has been buried with the ancestors, along with their voices which we can talk to and imagine in posthumous reality. When thinking stops, words slip in. Within our subconscious mind is a history of our ancestors which includes their experiences and emotions. Do the dead cry that they are misunderstood? They are The Watchers. We are always being watched by the ancestral spirits. To be cut off from relationships with one's ancestors is to cease being a whole person. Unconsciously we still think like our distant ancestors.
The Quest for Transcendence
Jung describes Individuation as a process of transformation that incorporates the personal and collective unconscious into consciousness (by means of dreams, active imagination, or free association) to be assimilated into the whole personality. This natural process facilitates the integration of the psyche. The pursuit of self-knowledge is a pilgrimage to our deep center with its divine inner spark or Light.
We seek to remember what our soul has always known. When the psyche heals it produces mandala-type images, balancing dark and light, male and female, yin and yang aspects of nature. The genealogical image is more than a metaphor: you are the center of multiple radiant lines of descent, all of which converge in your unique manifestation.
It can be combined with transpersonal techniques, including hypnotherapy, regressions, shamanic healing, vison quest, mystic arts, seasonal celebrations, spirit journeying, psychodrama, bodywork, trauma release, meditation, soul retrieval, kin contact, and personal mythology. We consider using healing therapies on our ancestors in special cases. Woolger's Deep Memory Process suggests you can use such therapies to:
• clearly recognize the core issues or complexes running your life
• journey in time to resolve childhood and other traumas
• vividly relive and resolve emotional conflicts through a healing psychodrama
• develop somatic awareness of deep memories to release them from your body
• let go of old unwanted ancestral patterns and influences
• integrate wounded soul fragments (“past lives”)
• clear your energy field of negative influences
• open up with love to higher spiritual resources within yourself
We have to find and heal the Grail King within, reowning the projections and meaning we have conveniently let others carry for us, for good and evil. In that process we may glimpse and lose the Grail many times over. Genetic descent is amplified creatively by a recursive psychological descent into the unconscious to retrieve our lost soul and lost ancestors. It establishes an intergenerational feedback loop.
Individuation has a holistic healing effect on the person, both mentally and physically. Individuation is a self analysis, a self discovery, analyzing your own psyche. It serves as the guide or goal of a quest—the Holy Grail, the Elixir of Immortality, the Philosopher's Stone.
Like genealogy, individuation is the story of you as the unique individual you are. Genealogy, like a dragon's hoard, is a treasure hard to attain, yet priceless to the person who holds it. This most collective situation becomes the most individual experience because no two individuals incorporate it in exactly the same way.
We all search for something. In genealogy we narrow that search for the Holy Grail and the Precious Blood. In this case, in genealogy the blood is precious because it is our own lifegiving blood. Legend tells us the Blood and the Grail are united. In medieval literature the Grail is often associated with a feast -- it is, indeed, a great feast of metaphors attached to the primary icon.
Legend has it there is a fellowship or underground Family of the Grail that furthers and protects its interests in all worlds. The "underground stream" is yet another symbol of the Grail. The Grail appears in many forms, including radiant light and the sangreal of the Holy Bloodline that flows from the Davidic line, including the Desposyni descendants of the Holy Family, perhaps including offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdalene -- or so they say.
Genealogies bring revelations, which may belong to millions of descendants but feel extremely important because they are part of our own personal heritage. It comes with strong spiritual and mythic overtones from the elder god-kings, the royal Davidic/Solomonic line, the family of Jesus, the Merovingians, Gnostics, Grail Kings, Camelot, and crusading Templars. Internal conflict may arise when loyalties are torn between opposing forces, each of which are ancestral lines.
In fact, the symbolic treasure of genealogy is that it encodes the entire transformational process from the war of opposites to the reconciling royal marriage. Genealogy show s graphically just how intimately our very existence is through those who gave us faces. This knowledge, more than a pedigree on paper, is the treasure hard to attain that nourishes and sustains us in our intergenerational Being. This is, in fact, The Grail, which serves the divine spark within.
Phillip Stephen Lansky concludes, “Interestingly, the “chymical wedding” of alchemy was a symbol for the simultaneous constellation of psychic opposites, which we have already suggested concurs with a state of physiological paradox. Might not the contents of the two archetypal flasks represent two amines, serotonin and noradrenalin, being poured simultaneously into a marriage bath in the hypothalamus?”
The Grail symbolizes life, spirituality, youth, health, joy, purity, creativity, the unconscious, and generativity [Jung and von Franz 1970, 114]. Spirituality means the perception of transcendent meaning and participation in a higher purpose and numinous experiences. It harmonizes the conflicting opposites of male-female, rationality and emotion, dark and light, good and evil, etc. [Jung and von Franz 1970, 194]. Wholeness requires a coniunctio oppositorum (conjunction of opposites).
William Blake describes it paradoxically: "Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good and evil is Heaven just as evil and good is Hell."
The conflict of opposites in Parsifal's psyche needed to be discovered for him to get back into the Grail Castle. He needs to expand his consciousness and travel, psychologically speaking, far beyond the naive fool, to find the Grail Castle and discover himself, to be conscious of and reconcile the opposites in his psyche.
The Fisher King, or the Grail King, represents a limited consciousness, one who is too rational and is incapable of solving the real problem his kingdom faces [Jung and von Franz 1970, 212]. The successor who will free him was prophesied to be a wholly innocent fool who would ask a specific question. "The myth is telling us that it is the naive part of a man that will heal him and cure his Fisher King wound. It suggests that if a man is to be cured he must find something in himself about the same age and about the same mentality as he was when he was wounded" [Johnson 1989, 11].
Jung himself experienced this woundedness after his break with Freud that opened his deep unconscious, flooding him with imagery that took a lifetime to assimilate and analyze. He speaks of his soul-loss and efforts to retrieve it in his visionary tome, The Red Book, which has only recently been published, many years after his death.
The Red Book illuminates all of his theories of unconscious dynamics. As in dreams, we are all of the characters in mythological tales, and their stories hold deep meaning for us when they are activated by our own life experiences. They call us into the hero's adventure and one of their ways of doing so is the call to trace our genealogical roots.
Jung and the Ancestors
The long-awaited release in the 21st century of Jung's RED BOOK (2009) reveals just how much of a role his ancestors and inner figures played in his own psychic life. They led directly to the formation of many of his theories of psychic dynamics.
Historically, in Western societies the focus of genealogy was on the kinship and descent of rulers and nobles, often arguing or demonstrating the legitimacy of claims to wealth and power. The term often overlapped with heraldry, in which the ancestry of royalty was reflected in their coats of arms. Modern scholars consider many claimed noble ancestries to be fabrications, such as the Anglo-Saxon chronicles that traced the ancestry of several English kings to the god Woden.
But Jung healed and transformed his own fragmentation by taking up imaginal relationships with his inner figures. He developed what might be called a Dialogical Gnosis -- a Way of Knowing informed by the wisdom of the Collective Unconscious, the plenum of inherent knowledge and experience.
Jung was engaged in the process of individuation -- cognitive, empathic engagement with the living and discarnate.Engagement implies committment, rather than participation, per se. Respect for the freedom of others and the intention toallow their personhood expression is a basic tenet of engagement
One does not choose the path of individuation, but rather is chosen by it. Individuation seems to be the innate urge of life to realize itself consciously. The transpersonal life energy, in the process of self-unfolding, uses human consciousness, a product of itself, as an instrument for its own self-realization.
New discoveries must not only be made, but assimilated with concurrent experience and meaningful psychological insight. The individual meaningfulness of an experience is what creates unique personality. The instinctive feeling of significance is expanded by rooting experiences in their mythical patterns.
If the ego can withstand the irrational temptations, ordeals, and peril at the hands of the unknown, it is eventually rewarded with an expanded experience of self and a rejuvenation, or rebirth. In his essay on the "Relationship between the Ego and the Unconscious," Jung has stated that,
It is impossible to achieve individuation by conscious intention, because conscious intention invariably leads to a typical attitude that excludes whatever does not fit in with it. This assimilation of the unconscious contents leads, on the contrary to a condition in which the conscious intention is excluded and supplanted by a process of development that seems irrational. This process alone signifies individuation, and its product is individuality as we have defined it; particular and universal at once....Only when the unconscious is assimilated does the individuality emerge more clearly, together with the psychological phenomenon which links the ego with the non-ego and is designated by the word attitude.
But this time it is no longer a typical attitude but an individual one.
What the conscious ego can do in regard to individuation is make the commitment to work in harmony with the unfolding subconscious process, to give it constant attention, and to place proper value on the experience. This creates a resonance, the experience of "being in harmony with the cosmos", reflecting the Hermetic Axiom, "As Above, So Below."
The Rose in mysticism and Hermetic Philosophies is a profound symbol of consciousness and the soul personality. It symbolizes consciousness projected into the material form. Consciousness is symbolized in a very apt and beautiful way as a flowering process and an unfolding manifestation. This flowering , blooming and unfolding of its petals in a perfect
mandalic symmetry, represents man's divine inner consciousness being revealed as layers of his being open up to reveal its ever becoming center, the Inner Self. To the Rosicrucians the symbol of the Rosy Cross is sacred. The Rose crucified on the cross is the symbol of the true divinity of humanity. The cross represents the four cardinal points of being in a
balanced state. The crossing of the vertical and the horizontal lines represent the conjunction of the opposites. The vertical, being the positive and active, conjuncts the horizontal, the negative and passive. It is at this conjunction point, representing balance nd harmony, that the rose flowers and unfolds itself. The cross also represents the body of man with
outstretched arms as his whole earthly plane and his heart being again at a conjunction between the superiors and inferiors, head or heaven, feet or earth, and also between left and right as opposition between the forces of light and darkness, life and death .
To the initiates this symbol of divine consciousness crucified or infused upon and in his physical body is a most profound and sacred mystery of the incarnation of the soul.
A beautiful Hermetic saying of the Rosicrucians is,
"Ad Rosam per crucem, ad crucem per Rosam."
-Steve Kalec
More and legends and myths of the rose:
http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/rose.htm
ROSA MUNDI
http://www.clanoftubalcain.org.uk/rosamundi.html
"Take the fayer Roses, white and red / And joyne them well in won bed. /
So betwixt these Roses mylde / Thou shalt bring forth a Gloriuse chylde."
(Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image, Bollingen C, Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 254)
Cult of the Archetypal Feminine
The Mother of us all is also the Earth, as the light of the divine womb (primal source) and the mystery of divine light that informs and transforms into matter. The Sangreal is a cult of bloodline. Many who are of it are unaware or unawakened to that genealogical and gnostic awareness.
Many who think they are 'awake' are merely enthralled with the fugue state or eruption of symbolic material which is actually a form of dissociation. Dissociative disorders are typically experienced as startling, autonomous intrusions into the person's usual ways of responding or functioning. Due to their unexpected and largely inexplicable nature, they tend to be quite unsettling. Jung theorized that theorized that dissociation is a natural necessity for consciousness to operate in one faculty unhampered by the demands of its opposite.
Much of the magic and mystery enters our lines through our grandmothers, from the distaff side of our physical inheritance. It is carried in the mitochondrial DNA, inherited only from the mother on the x chromosome. It is very persistent through generations in both men and women, which helps us determine the relationship of populations.
About 360 years, or just short of 15 generations mtDNA peters out. At 15 generations, an individual living today would carry only three thousands of 1% (00.003052%) of the DNA of an ancestor who was “pure” anything 15 generations ago. So even if one ancestor was indeed Mediterranean or whatever 15 generations ago, unless they continuously intermarried within a pure Mediterranean population, the amount would drop by 50% with each generation to the miniscule amount that would be found in today’s current generation. With today’s technology, this is simply untraceable in autosomal DNA.
The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables genealogical researchers to trace maternal lineage far back in time. The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve is based on the same type of analysis, attempting to discover the origin of humanity by tracking the lineage back in time.
In the medieval era, a cult of the Feminine arose with a persistent theme of gender reunion in the Great Rite of the ancient bloodline, mystical eroticism known as the Mysterium Coniunctionis or Royal Marriage, in the underground Church of Love. Jung wrote a large book with that title describing "the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy".
The opposites to be reconciled were Venus and Mars. It's about healing sexual woundedness, the pathless Wasteland of male-female relationships (literal and psychic), with a mystical inner marriage. Like Isis and Horus, when the Madonna holds the infant Jesus, he represents the Future, and he continues to do so as the future is always coming.
The Sacred Heart and Mary Magdalene are twin symbols of the Grail. She has been used to symbolize the hidden teachings of Jesus. The cult of Mary Magdalene and the Cult of the Black Virgin survive in many forms to this day. The meeting of the sun-god and the earth-mother brings forth the miracle of birth, death, and rebirth from her dark creative womb. The god comes through the goddess.
We find that balance in Individuation, after facing the Shadow and connecting with inner wisdom. Through his relationship with the feminine a man gains access to his own soul, to the deeper layers of his "heart". His sensitive quest for his "queen" makes him wiser, more sensitive, more scrupulous as a person. AMOR is a spiritual development. The courage to persist is the hallmark of loyalty.
The Rosy Cross is a symbol of the human process of reproduction elevated to the spiritual: The fundamental symbols are the female rose and the male cross. As generation is the key to material existence, those symbols exemplify the reproductive processes. As regeneration is the key to spiritual existence, the symbolism of the rose and the cross typifies redemption through the union of our lower temporal nature with our higher eternal nature.
The Rosy Cross is equivalent to the Philosopher's Stone or Holy Grail, and refined Gold. All represent the Grail of Self-Realization. As an image The Grail was a symbol of not just spiritual transcendence but also the Divine Immanence in creation. In Jewish mysticism, every woman is an earthly embodiment of the celestial Shekinah. The Grail Temple is the body, our sacred vessel. We need to learn again that the family is a being, a goddess.
There are many icons of Mary that show black faces and hands. In France, these are called Vierge Noires—Black Virgins. Elsewhere, they may be called Black Madonnas or the "other Mary." Jung called her Isis, while others claim she is the symbolic remains of a prehistoric worship of the Earth Mother. She is generally connected with Cybele, Diana, Isis, and Venus, as well as with Kali, Inanna, and Lilith. Historically she is connected with the Crusades, the Islamic occupation of Spain, the Conquistadors, the Kabbala, as well as the Merovingians and Knights Templar, who viewed her as Mary Magdalene.
Courtly Love (courtezia) and Troubadours were institutions that compensated the misogyny of medieval times. The contemplation of beauty in its feminine incarnation opens the Middle Way between debauchery and self-abnegation. Transcendent beauty is reflected in a beautiful face or body. Contact with the beautiful is a sacrament. The culture of l'amour courtois flourished in Anjou and the Languedoc. The House of Anjou remains the senior Grail family.
The Crusades, the so-called 'holy war', filled the need for collective Shadow projection. In this scenario, Venus and the cult of the Feminine played counterpoint to the Martian cult of warrior-knighthood, with its chivalric code of honor. This Quest for a lost sacred object, the Holy Grail, appears out of a deep and urgent need to counteract the brutality of the rapacious crusading, murderous military oppression. AMOR was a gnostic and esoteric doctrine of the divinity of the Mother and the higher meaning of the chivalric quest.
The persecuted became persecutors in a collective defensive strategy known as identification with the aggressor and the splitting-off of the victim. Whether personal or collective the consequence is the same. A need arises to find and project the shadow onto an external victim who opposes the newly found power of the aggressor. The real problem was and remains how to reconcile the two warring extremes of human nature: spirituality and sexuality. Men met the challenge by becoming more rigid and investing women and the Grail with the powers of generation and regeneration.
The historical origin for the collective resurgence of the sacred feminine is most likely derived from ancient cults of the Great Goddess—the mysteries of Isis, of Diana of Ephesus or Cybele, and especially the Sophia of the Gnostics. They were carried to Europe through the artistic contacts of troubadours who had been to the East.
Above all, the Cathars revered a version of Isis-Sophia and ordained women as priestesses equally with men. However, their Gnosticism also vilified the flesh and therefore all matter. Their archetypes, The Archons, were likewise demonized, being stunted by duality.
The Gnosticism of the second-century sects involves a coherent series of characteristics that can be summarized in the idea of a divine spark in man, deriving from the divine realm, fallen into this world of fate, birth, and death, and needing to be awakened by the divine counterpart of the self in order to be finally reintegrated (into the divine realm). (Filoramo, 1990, p. 143)
It is likely that the troubadour aubades or songs to the lady in spring ultimately derive from remnants of the old cults of Demeter, the Mother Goddess and her daughter Persephone. The Greeks brought this worship to Provence when they colonized Marseille and the south of Gaul in early times.
In the ancient Basilica of St. Victor in Marseille, on the 2nd of February each year thousand of candles are lit to attend the raising of the famous Black Madonna from the infernal darkness of the crypt up into the upper air. Persephone returned to the upper world every spring in Greek times, with masses of torches, to re-unite with her mother Demeter.
So in many of the noble courts of the South of France in the 11th-12th centuries there is a kind of revival of the pagan substrate that has been buried, but not entirely, by Christianity. What re-emerges is Christianity’s pagan shadow, to use Jung’s terms. What we see is the upsurge from the unconscious of the repressed pagan archetypal energies of the Dionysian-Venusian. Ecstatic use of art, music, and the body led to communion with the godhead within the body. (Woolger) http://www.deepmemoryprocess.com/page33.html
The Fisher King is the wounded father principle, the weakened, unproductive and spiritually desolate father-world of medieval times. The waters of life have dried up both within and without laving a damaged consciousness, cut off from Mother Earth.
Jung said that today "the Gods have become diseases," and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) describes not only the psychological victims of war and brutality but says something about our own "hostage" culture. It is a kind of stuckness where the trauma seems to be continuously recurring, a torturous victimization without relief. The war comes home in chaos, flashbacks, dark futures, and suicidal impulses. We can imagine that the old warrior-knights were not immune from such human frailties. http://ptsdpolitics.iwarp.com/
“Peace for veterans is not an ‘absence of war’ but its living ghost in the bedroom, at the lunch counter, on the highway. The trauma is not ‘post’ but acutely present, and the ‘syndrome’ is not in the veteran but in the dictionary, in the amnesiac’s idea of peace that colludes with an unlivable life.” “The return from the killing fields is more than a debriefing; it is a slow ascent from hell. …The veteran needs a rite de sortie that belongs to every initiation as its normal conclusion, making possible an intact return.” (James Hillman)
In contrast, the passion of the troubadours was earthy, bodily and sensual no matter how sentimentalists would later portray it. Dali quipped, "The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot." There is no longer any excuse to see the ladies of the troubadours through rose-tinted spectacles of the early Romantic poets and the Pre-Raphaelite painters, as purely ethereal disembodied “spiritual” anima figures.
The troubadours celebrated the incarnation of the feminine every bit as much as its spiritualization. Some say fins amor, or pure love of a woman as a form of spiritual initiation through a forbidden but transcendent love affair, was practiced not for procreation but contemplation. http://www.deepmemoryprocess.com/page209.html
Woolger, Roger, The Holy Grail: Healing the Sexual Wound in the Western Psyche (1983/2010)
Rose Line Descent
The Da Vinci Code made much of the so-called Roseline marking sacred sites in the European landscape. But the real Rose Lines are revealed in the royal genealogies with which it is interwoven. The Grail is the source of life, of generativity, of the primordial Eros. The Grail belongs to all that is soft, yielding, yin, of the body, of the earth, of the Mother: full, rich, gentle, and infinitely abundant.
Certain images, such as the Garden of the Rose, the Fountain, the Loathly Bride, the Damsel in distress, and above all the Holy Grail recur in all kinds of variations. The symbol of the Rose, for example, finds its way from the Sufis to the Roman de la Rose, to Dante's Paradiso, to the windows of Chartres Cathedral, and eventually to the mystical Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians. The underground tradition of alchemy and esoteric arts kept the spiritual Mysteries and Great Goddess discipline alive in the Underground Stream.
Great Rite
1180 and 1230 AD. This is the same prolific and fertile time period that saw the peak of the great cathedral building era; the rise to power of the Templar Knights; the rise and fall of Catharism in southern France; the formation of Kabbalistic and mystical schools in Spain. The Grail symbol first emerges in history in a series of remarkable writings that appear in France over a span of about half a century between the years 1180 and 1230 AD. This is the same prolific and fertile time period that saw the peak of the great cathedral building era; the rise to power of the Templar Knights; the rise and fall of Catharism in southern France; the formation of Kabbalistic and mystical schools in Spain in which Jews, Christians and Muslims all participated in relative harmony; the emergence of the Troubadours as channels for the diffusion and circulation of sacred knowledge; the rise of Sufism and the transmission of Hermetic knowledge to Europe via Islamic scholars and mystics.
Self-Reflection:
Mental activity that concentrates on a particular content of consciousness, an instinct encompassing religion and the search for meaning.
Ordinarily we do not think of "reflection" as ever having been instinctive, but associate it with a conscious state of mind. Reflexio means "bending back" and, used psychologically, would denote the fact that the reflex which carries the stimulus over into its instinctive discharge is interfered with by psychization. . . . Thus in place of the compulsive act there appears a certain degree of freedom, and in place of predictability a relative unpredictability as to the effect of the impulse.["Psychological Factors in Human Behaviour," CW 8, par. 241.]
In Jung’s view, the richness of the human psyche and its essential character are determined by the reflective instinct.
Reflection is the cultural instinct par excellence, and its strength is shown in the power of culture to maintain itself in the face of untamed nature.[Ibid., par. 243.]
Self-reflection, or – what comes to the same thing – the urge to individuation, gathers together what is scattered and multifarious and exalts it to the original of the One, the Primordial Man.
In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious, the sources of conflict are dried up. ~Carl Jung; Collected Works 11; Transformation Symbolism in the Mass; par. 401
To concern ourselves with dreams is a way of reflecting on ourselves-a way of self-reflection. It is not our ego-consciousness reflecting on itself; rather, it turns its attention to the objective actuality of the dream as a communication or message from the unconscious, unitary soul of humanity. It reflects not on the ego but on the self; it recollects that strange self, alien to the ego, which was ours from the beginning, the trunk from which the ego grew. It is alien to us because we have estranged ourselves from it through the aberrations of the conscious mind. ~"The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man" (1933). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. pg. 318
If we do not fashion for ourselves a picture of the world, we do not see ourselves either, who are the faithful reflections of that world. Only when mirrored in our picture of the world can we see ourselves in the round? Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete. Never shall we put any face on the world other than our own, and we have to do this precisely in order to find ourselves. For higher than science or art as an end in itself stands man, the creator of his instruments. ~"Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung" (1928). CW 8: Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.737
DNA cross-section; computer graphic of the crystalline structure of DNA as viewed from the top of the molecule –
by Professor Robert Langridge at UCSF.
by Professor Robert Langridge at UCSF.
On February 29, 1919, Jung wrote a letter to Joan Corrie and commented on the
Seven Sermons of the Dead, with particular reference to the last one:
"The primordial creator of the world, the blind creative libido, becomes transformed in man through individuation & out of this process, which is like pregnancy, arises a divine child, a reborn God, no more (longer) dispersed into the millions of creatures, but being one & this individual, and at the same time all individuals, the same in you as in me.
Dr. L[ong] has a little book: VII sermones ad mortuous. There you find the description of the Creator dispersed into his creatures, & in the last sermon you find the beginning of individuation, out of which, the divine child arises ... The child is a new God, actually born in many individuals, but they don't know it. He is a spiritual God. A spirit in many people, yet one and the same everywhere. Keep to your time and you will experience His qualities" (Copied in Constance Long's diary, Countway Library of
Medicine, pp. 21-22) ~The Red Book, Footnote 123.
Birth is an act of physical and psychological separation – the first decisive and abrupt,the latter more gradual. We learn to think of ourselves as discrete, separate individuals. We have our bodies, distinct from other bodies, with its boundary of skin,and a separate and unique mind, also separated from other minds, with which we think our own private thoughts and hold internal conversations. Neuroscience is beginning to track the location of some of these thoughts in the brain, and to help those without speech to turn images, ideas and preverbal signals into language. If we are spiritually minded we may also envisage a unique individual soul or spirit. The soul may be conceived of as pre-existent and capable of surviving the death of the physical body. It may retain some aspects of its individuality outside the physical realm, and even carry experiences and characteristics through successive incarnations.This unique, separate experience of embodied human existence constitutes the Self. We may be in relation to other selves, share many of their genes, and be mutually interdependent, but even in the case of identical twins, each Self is bounded and grounded in an individual body, mind and spirit. The sensation of not being so grounded and separate is commonly treated in Western medical terms as a pathology...
--Fiona Bowie
Approaches to Genealogy
Your own BOOK OF THE DEAD is written in your DNA. Deciphering its inherent meaning is a Quest for the Grail and the journey of psychological transformation. We instinctively engage in semi-conscious conversations with these ephemeral figures from our past that feed our conceptions of the ineffable and our own extended self.
We find, perhaps to our surprise, that upon reflection they inform us with a hitherto unknown wisdom or perplex us with unsolvable riddles. The intangible world interacts with the tangible one through their effects on us. Ancestral spirits have their own histories, motivations, and social interactions and are traditionally viewed as agents in a rich network of social trajectories, not symbols.
A pedigree is a symbolic hologram of our intertwined histories and structure -- interacting waves upon waves of generations in the ocean of humanity. Because the ancestors number literally in the thousands, we come to understand the transformation is within the unfolding therapeutic practice, rather than contained only in each of the historical or fictional figures.
Genealogical research is a complex process that uses historical records and sometimes genetic analysis to demonstrate kinship. Reliable conclusions are based on the quality of sources, ideally original records, the information within those sources. Ideally evidence is drawn, directly or indirectly from primary or firsthand information.
Genealogy forces you to move through history in steps of 20-30 years, generation after generation, filling in every step. Whereas history often compresses or "telescopes" time, so that two hundred years in the medieval period is covered in far less space than two hundred years in the modern period. We know very well that we need a lot of generations to get from 1720 to 1950. Genealogy reminds us that we need exactly the same number of generations to get from 1220 to 1450. It forces us to pick our way step by step through those long unchanging medieval years. http://humphrysfamilytree.com/meaning.html
In many instances, genealogists must skillfully assemble indirect or circumstantial evidence to build a case for identity and kinship. All evidence and conclusions, together with the documentation that supports them, is then assembled to create a cohesive genealogy or family history. Overall patterns contains meaning.
Genealogist Mark Humphreys says, "Your ancestors were the same mix of bullies, fools, bigots, incompetents, cowards, and occasional smart and admirable people that always make up society. You exist because of many people who you would despise if you met them. Genealogy is about finding out who they were, it should have no interest in whether they were admirable or not.
Indeed, it's more fun when they murder each other, marry descendants of their ancestors' bitter enemies, conceive your ancestor as a result of sordid and regretted affairs, die before their child is born, and so on. It makes us realize how precarious our existence is, and how messy and unlikely our genetic inheritance. Anyone who believes they belong to one race, or that their ancestors were fine people, hasn't done enough genealogy.
This is especially true when applied to the nobility and royalty, who are often the only ancestors you are left with in the more distant past. Why should you admire some noble, or take their side, just because you descend from them? The nobility of the past were often no more than the most successful robbers, stealing other people's land, and living off other people's work. They weren't Appointed By God, but were the survivors of a long process of selection among the most aggressive and best-organized Strong Men, aided by the greatest thieves of them all, the Royal family.
No, the desire for a Royal Descent is quite different. It's because most of us exist in little islands of peasants and farmers, interconnected to each other but to no one else, and for all we know we would still exist no matter what had happened in mainstream history in the big world outside.
And the only way to break out of this island is to find a connection to one of these Strong Men, after which things explode and history becomes full of events on which our existence provably depends. The peer, the heiress, the gent, the precious link to the World Family Tree, is your goal, but to expect to actually like him or her, or be proud of them, is to rather miss the point." http://humphrysfamilytree.com/meaning.html
Genealogists begin their research by collecting family documents and stories. This creates a foundation for documentary research, which involves examining and evaluating historical records for evidence about ancestors and other relatives, their kinship ties, and the events that occurred in their lives. As a rule, genealogists begin with the present and work backward in time.
- Rational
- Spiritual
- Psychological
- Psychic
- Legendary
- Mythological
- Irrational
- Delusional
The Prophet Mohammad often appears in Western royal lines, as do the emperors of the Han Dynasty, Attila the Hun, Turks, Khazars, and Xiongnu shamans of Siberia. We share roots with the Basque, Moors, Turks, Pashtun, and sub-Saharan Africa. A balanced approach to the heritage will not obsess on particular areas of the lineage to the exclusion of others, nor veer off into cos-play like fantasies of legendary beings. Genealogy shows your multi-ethnic heritage as well as a range of spiritual beliefs.
'Messianic complex' describes the phenomenon where individuals claim self-awareness of their proclaimed role as a 'savior'. Like those who claim to be Jesus, non-religious "Magdalene addicts" are prone to channeling her, or even claiming to be her. But most of these channelings are highly idealized and full of truisms.
The phenomenon is a complicated psychological problematic developed within a cultural group. In Jungian psychology a complex is a cluster of psychological energy that centers around a particular element that has developed partly through the disposition of a personality and partly through life experience (Jacobi). These energy clusters act as partial personalities within the psyche and are often unconscious and somewhat autonomous.
They don't reflect the deeply Gnostic belief in the evil of matter, the drive to perfection, or the demonic dominion of the Archons. Or, if they do embrace such ideas, they likely heard it on some internet show from a highly idiosyncratic speaker, invariably trying to sell his or her book. Somehow they all have a theory. But no one has made good on such claims yet.
They may be the victims of misguided inner authority. We can pick up misconceptions and self-delusions in the search for the soul. The faddish appearance of such identifications (a lived trance-state) is a social trend, and the meme-like nature of the Feminine proclamations reveal that this is a collective phenomena, not true individuation. It shows the collective influence of pop culture and the archetype on the psyche, no matter what you call "Her".
A relationship with the archetype can be primitive or sophisticated. James Hillman expands the concept of complex by adding a concept called personification to individual complexes, treating complexes as characters or entities within the psyche, with the proviso that it is not meant to be literal.
Jung’s complexes and James Hillman’s concept of personification permit the unconscious images to converse with the individual psyche in 'imaginal dialogue'. They manage to incorporate feelings, imagination, and metaphor, which other sciences reject. Imagination can alter our actual perceptions.
Sociological identification, including intense physical reactions, and relationships between the body and the psyche, can be independent of linear historical inheritance in a culture that is a product of ideas rather than location or blood inheritance and also experimental. Emergent imaginal content is metaphor for thinking about experience, including experiences tied to intense belief structures.
When you don't know what a symbol is, it appears split-off, as 'other'. It attempts to enter consciousness in the expressive arts. Collectively, spiritual conflict is worldview warfare -- irreconcilable differences in belief, including the structure of the Cosmos. But only creative emotional and cognitive comprehension of the inherent meaning of experience leads to individuation and self-realization -- the Grail.
Jung spoke of such creativity:
"The creative process has feminine quality, and the creative work arises from unconscious depths--we might say, from the realm of the mothers. Whenever the creative force predominates, human life is ruled and molded by the unconscious as against the active will, and the conscious ego is swept along on a subterranean current, being nothing more than a helpless observer of events.
The work in process becomes the poet's fate and determines his psychic development. It is not Goethe who creates Faust, but Faust which creates Goethe....The archetypal image of the wise man, the savior or redeemer, lies buried and dormant in man's unconscious since the dawn of culture; it is awakened whenever the times are out of joint and a human society is committed to a serious error.
When people go astray they feel the need of a guide or teacher or even of the physician. These primordial images are numerous, but do not appear in the dreams of individuals or in works of art until they are called into being by the waywardness of the general outlook.
When conscious life is characterized by one-sidedness and by a false attitude, then they are activated--one might say, 'instinctively'--and come to light in the dreams of individuals and the visions of artists and seers, thus restoring the psychic equilibrium of the epoch." (Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul).
"Every creative person is a duality or a synthesis of contradictory aptitudes. On the one side he is a human being with a personal life, while on the other side he is an impersonal, creative process...The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is 'man' in a higher sense--he is 'collective man'--one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being."
Worldview
Emotionally appealing truths are sandwiched into idiosyncratic notions ranging from the speculative to the fantastical, and trap many individuals like flypaper, because our minds love a good story. The brain feeds on stories, but the wrong stories just lead us down the garden path into ancient worlds that never happened, and mythic scenarios that were never meant to be taken literally. Accepting such beliefs uncritically is precisely the opposite of what Jung recommended as individuation.
Such false beliefs tend to cluster around an individual's personal issues and complexes, but are mistaken for and confounded with historical, philosophical and scientific 'reality'. Much of the "self-delusion" can be linked to exposure to memes functioning as emotional strange attractors or cultural artifacts or fallout,, as well as pre- and pseudo-scientific notions of by-gone centuries, and lack of understanding of standards and discernment.
The self-narrative may not match the reality. It's a truism that mediocrity (gaps and gaffs in awareness) boasts the loudest. Through hysteria, lack of critical judgment, and naive enthusiasm, a false idea can be hyped by the mainstream media to the point of not only looking entirely plausible, but even certain.
A world view is a set of presuppositions (or assumptions) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously) about the basic makeup of our world. Everyone has a world view, whether he can explain it or not. It can be likened to a pair of glasses through which one views the world. It is important to have the right prescription, or reality will be distorted. Modem man is faced with a supermarket of world views; all of them claim to represent reality, but they are points of view about reality -- mental constructs, beliefs.
To construct our own worldview we are still confronted with the old formula - the cosmological creative and destructive cycles of time. Cosmology is the study of the origin and nature of the universe. Ontology studies the nature of being as being and existence. We have to fit the pieces together from epistemologies and psychodynamics into some sort of cumulative understanding. Some basic epistemological agreement about the phenomena under examination is needed. Metaphysics abstracts universal conceptions. Some of these grand narratives are more fanciful than others.
We can be sincerely convinced of the utterly wrong. Why do we continue to accommodate the irrelevant and easily falsifiable? Are we conscientious about our own self-delusions or simply unconsciously immersed in them due to a delusional perspective on our own misguided "gnosis" and obsessions with misguided theoretical perspectives? Even conscience is no ineffable guide to inner authority. There is no shortage of new myths to capture our attention. Dreams tell us who we are, collectively and individually.
If Inner Authority is linked to authentic power and wisdom, we need to examine our personal interaction with inner wisdom figures (archetypes) and values in order to create lives of positive action that arise from deep inner wisdom. Most of us shirk such important inner work, substituting a fantasy of transformation and mindfulness. Delusional self-improvement projects are aimed at adorning the ego.
People claim to hear messages that ring in their hearts as truth, or 'resonate' with material that confirms their own tacit or recognized beliefs, but most it originates in cultural conditioning and memetic patterning. All we hold is a piece of the Mystery. Buzzwords such as True Nature, intentionality, and mis-identified integrity compound the situation. Premature spiritual fixation can just as readily be a form of transcendental escapism.
Both the strategies of "transcendence" and "reduction" are expressions of bad faith — i.e., forms of self-deception and escapism that seek to deny the realities of the human existential situation. Self-delusion may be self-evident but few give themselves a reality check on it and doing so is compounded by our own psychological blindspots. This is a form of escapism or neo-mythology.
The depth psychological approach is about psyche, which brings with it a sense of the sacred. It is a way of incorporation that assimilates what has been considered the "Not-I" into the core of being. It is informed by the Hero's Journey and many of the iconic tropes of the royal genealogical lines. Archetypal psychology has experience dealing with parental images and ego development, as well as life passages that might intertwine with genealogical interest and the predictable crises such as childbearing, mid-life, aging and confronting mortality.
Jungians claim that, "A psychologically-oriented approach to spirituality and a new God-image are emerging alongside the Judeo-Christian tradition. This form of spirituality expresses itself from the depths of the psyche, and stresses personal experience rather than belief or sacred texts. Depth psychology gives us a contemporary way to express this evolving step in the history of religious consciousness. Sometimes a new language enables things to be said that have yet to be articulated, and depth psychology is providing this voice."
Traditional ideas about God and religion do not always express the individual’s personal spirituality, because one may experience the sacred in ways that are not fully articulated in the traditional teachings. For people who are committed to a traditional religious practice, depth psychology can deepen their relationship to the tradition and their understanding of its archetypal underpinning. (Corbett)
Surviving in the Wilderness
The Grail Quest took place in the vast Wasteland of the alienated soul.
In his book Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales describes what it’s like to be lost in a wilderness, and how to survive the experience. Here are the stages he identifies in his description of the process:
1. You’re lost, but persist in thinking that everything will work out just fine if you continue along the same path.
2. You realize you’re lost, but you don’t have a clue what to do, so you continue on the wrong path, hoping against hope that home will be just over the next hill—even though somewhere within you, you know it’s not.
3. The knowledge that you are finally, irredeemably and undeniably lost causes makes you to panic—you run desperately through scrub and trees, burning yourself up, getting even more lost.
4. Exhausted by panic, you stop. You realize that wherever you are, you’re somewhere. You sit down where you are and take stock, making wherever you are your temporary home. What you do here is the key to whether or not you survive.
5. You rest, and take stock of the resources you have, and the information the landscape offers. With this, you begin to make a plan for the continuation of your life.
http://sangreality.weebly.com/index.html
Steven DaLuz, "Descent", Neo-Luminist Painting
http://stevendaluz.com/GalleryMain.asp?GalleryID=2310&AKey=8MKJWHEB
The House of Our Flesh
Each generation has added to the historical account of our progenitors. The story drifts back into the mythos of pre-history -- the neolithic era of the Goddess, legends of Atlantis and other lost civilizations, catastrophe theories, cryptozoological fantasies, and displaced scifi themes. Paranormal powers lurk just behind the mystic veil separating the Known from deep Mystery.
What we think we knew gets profoundly revisioned. The great symbols of mankind, the iconic symbols, are mostly attached to ancient royalty in some way or another, so we encounter and activate them in our generational viewing. They include animal, vegetable, and mineral images, as well as personifications.
Marriage is a psychological relationship. The Hieros Gamos is the Holy Grail of sexual rites. Jung addressed the symbolism of cross-cousin marriages, lived out in the bloodline, which tended to overlook the taboos of incest. There was ritualized brother/sister pairing prior to the days of Sumeria, where the priest-king of the country marries “the land” – in the form of a high priestess – to rejuvenate it. The Great Rite is blessed by the gods who participate in it as a sacred act -- a sexual sacrament uniting the Sun and the Moon.
This mystic marriage or union stands for conjunction of conscious and unconscious. The joining together of conscious ego and shadow is the end result of the penetration of the conscious mind by the unconscious and/or the penetration of the unconscious by consciousness.
Symbolically - in myths and in dreams - consciousness is usually represented as male, the unconscious as female; and the sexual penetration of female by male is therefore a common symbol of the descent of consciousness into the dark cave-like depths of the unconscious.
Cross-cousin marriage, designed to keep power and assets in the family, is based on the archetype of the quaternio. This early form of mating that ensured that endogenous (kinship) libido--incest--held the family together but didn't overpower exogamous libido. The endogamous side wants a sister, the exogamous a stranger, so marrying a cousin balances the two. Marriage of a man's sister to his brother's wife is a relic of the "sister-exchange marriage" of many primitive tribes.
Today's pure exogamy leaves the kinship-libido demands largely unsatisfied and increases their power, which expresses itself in the formation of religions and sects and nations--but only individuation will contain the still-rising force. The incest prohibition, with help from the urge to individuate, created the self-conscious individual, who previously had been mindlessly one with the tribe.
Prepare to be astonished, amazed, and repulsed by the overwhelming burdonsome knowledge of history experienced as the behavior of one's great-grandparents. You will be confronted with unbridled power, pathologizing, perversions, and mental illness (narcissism, sociopathy, sadism, bipolarity, schizophrenia, etc.) that spreads through some lines like a virus.
There are some real monsters in there, as well as marriages made in hell, not above sacrifice and murder within as well as without the family. If you know the histories of these regions it may provide some orientation, but the story reads differently from the inside out. You have entered the panoply of history. Everything you ever imagined or feared you might be is there, somewhere in time. You may also find the physiological disorders and illnesses that have plagued the bloodline from earliest recorded times.
Even as an imaginal exercise -- an "as-if" reality -- such revisioning helps us reown the shadow of mankind by making a place for it within our own being. This is much easier said than done, but forewarned is fore-armed.
Marriage is a psychological relationship. The Hieros Gamos is the Holy Grail of sexual rites. Jung addressed the symbolism of cross-cousin marriages, lived out in the bloodline, which tended to overlook the taboos of incest. There was ritualized brother/sister pairing prior to the days of Sumeria, where the priest-king marries “the land” – in the form of a high priestess – to rejuvenate it. The Great Rite is blessed by the gods who participate in the sacred act -- a sexual sacrament uniting the Sun and the Moon.
This marriage symbolizes the joining together of conscious ego and shadow, which is the end result of the penetration of the conscious mind by the unconscious and/or the penetration of the unconscious by consciousness. Symbolically - in myths and in dreams - consciousness is usually represented as male, the unconscious as female; and the sexual penetration of female by male is therefore a common symbol of the descent of consciousness into the dark cave-like depths of the unconscious.
Cross-cousin marriage, designed to keep power and assets in the family, is based on the archetype of the quaternio. It subconsciously recognizes that the anima and animus of both parties are involved in the archetypal relationship dynamic.
This early form of mating that ensured that endogenous (kinship) libido--incest--held the family together but didn't overpower exogamous libido. The endogamous side wants a sister, the exogamous a stranger, so marrying a cousin balances the two. Marriage of a man's sister to his brother's wife is a relic of the "sister-exchange marriage" of many primitive tribes.
Today's pure exogamy leaves the kinship-libido demands largely unsatisfied and increases their power, which expresses itself in the formation of religions and sects and nations--but only individuation will contain the still-rising force. The incest prohibition, with help from the urge to individuate, created the self-conscious individual, who previously had been mindlessly one with the tribe.
Prepare to be astonished, amazed, and repulsed by the overwhelming burdonsome knowledge of history experienced as the behavior of one's gr-grandparents. You will be confronted with unbridled power, pathologizing, perversions, and mental illness (narcissism, sociopathy, sadism, bipolarity, schizophrenia, etc.) that spreads through some lines like a virus. You may also find the physiological disorders and illnesses that have plagued the bloodline from earliest recorded times.
Even as an imaginal exercise -- an "as-if" reality -- such revisioning helps us re-own the shadow of mankind by making a place for it within our own being. This is much easier said than done, but forewarned is fore-armed.
But Is It Real?
The bloodline as real as the psyche. Some say genealogy without proofs is meaningless, but that is certainly not true in the Jungian context which is happy to continue exploration within the mythic and imaginal realms, understanding them as such. There is a psychic if not historical truth to including archetypes in the lines, usually at the root. It is also possible that real culture heroes became ennobled as divinities over the eons.
Monks in the the Middle Ages constructed royal genealogies from Bardic tales that linked rulers not only to the dawn of time but to the legendary heroes and gods that inhabit that mystical realm. We all have an unconscious and conscious relationship to this world of the hyperdimensional imagination. How we choose to interact with it and what we call those processes characterizes our experience of it -- and how toxic, haphazard or sophisticated it is.
At first, genealogy served a purely serious purpose in determining the legal rights of related individuals to land and goods. Genealogy was cultivated since at least the start of the early Irish historic era. Upon inauguration, Bards and poets are believed to have recited the ancestry of an inaugurated king to emphasize his hereditary right to rule. With the transition to written culture, oral history was preserved in the monastic settlements. Over time, genealogy was pursued for its own merits.
Today, genealogy is second only to the topic of sex online. Humanity is re-discovering its roots and creating a BIG TREE in the Sky -- in the Cloud that describes our interconnections. Genetic Genealogy adds information to that big story -- filling in the migration patterns and tribal affiliations with molecular certainties. But it cannot provide the connective list of names -- the royal lines of descent -- that come from the pedigree. Both are equally important, but genetic genealogy may or may not add to what you already know. Genealogies always add new information.
Amateurs are demystifying the process by using rapid technological aids and open-source genealogical sites to help plug them into the "Motherboards". Experts continue their scholarly efforts within the crowd-sourced material to analyze and correct the public record. Thus, most ancestors have Master Profiles which have been vetted by experts, though the stubs and dead ends of amateurs can also be found. Be very careful to prove undocumented conclusions because many blind alleys have been created and deserted. Sometimes mistakes remain and get repeated.
The trend now is to disconnect lines from their legendary and mythic roots, and start a discussion with the last reliably known ancestor. Therefore, you may not be able to imagine how you ever connected with these mythic figures. Surely, this has psychological overtones perhaps as grave as literally believing in the descents created by the medieval Church after repeated efforts to suppress the Bloodline with genocidal crusades and witchhunts in Europe.
Even without erroneous digressions, our genealogical lines constitute a labyrinth of our soul. We can become lost within our ancestral lines, with an uncanny felt-sense of time travel as the time dimension seemingly collapses. The labyrinth is the Collective Unconscious and genealogy is but one method of entry into it.
The Internet is another labyrinth full of genealogical information colored by the beliefs of the writers. Often lies are hidden between two truths, so you have to exercise great discretion in separating the informational wheat from the chaff of fallacious material claiming to be truth. "Spin" or even popular memes are no substitute for objective scholarship.
The Red Thread Bloodline (Lost Tribes) of our ancestral lines keeps us from losing our way. Throughout the Bible 'scarlet' speaks of sacrifice made on the behalf of the believer, and it is seen in the vestments of the tabernacle and in the priestly garments in Exodus" (ibid., note on Joshua 2:18-21).
The scarlet thread running through the Bible is a picture of the Blood of Jesus. "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus" (Hebrews 10:19). "For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:11).
http://the-red-thread.net/
http://israelect.com/ChurchOfTrueIsrael/emahiser/emirishscott.html
Prepare to be A-Mazed
The early maze was a figurative vortex; a tornado or whirlpool. The Chartres Maze is associated with Melusine and Sheba and their vortex, source of life and life's blood. The Maze is associated with the root word from which we derive the adjective "to amaze".
The maze represented the shamanic "Spiral Dance of the Vortex" (sacrificial sword dance), and on another level "The Quest for the Holy Grail". It can be associated with the name Mazda or Ormuzd, the principle of light, suggesting that whatever was at the center of a Maze rendered enlightenment and that ecstatic amazement, or wonder, accompanied it.
A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. It represents a journey or Quest to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools. A living labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. Walking the labyrinth can be considered an initiation in which you awaken the knowledge encoded within your DNA.
A labyrinth contains embedded geometric and numerological prompts that create a multi-dimensional holographic field. These unseen patterns are referred to as sacred geometry. They allegedly reveal the presence of a cosmic order as they interface the world of material form and the subtler realms of higher consciousness.
The contemporary resurgence of labyrinths in the west stems from our deeply rooted urge to honor again the Sacredness of All Life. A labyrinth can be experienced as the birthing womb of the Great Goddess. Thus, the labyrinth experience is a potent practice of Self-Integration as it encapsulates the spiraling journey in and out of incarnation. On the journey in, towards the center, one cleanses the dirt from the road. On the journey out, one is born anew to consciously dwell in a human body, made holy by having got a taste of the Infinite Center.
The Grail Effect
Sovereignty: It is the individual's task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities . . . interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible. . . .--Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)
We can call anyone of Sangreal blood who has yet to discover or prove their dynastic heritage, a "crypto-grail carrier." Over and over the phenomenon and transformative reaction repeats itself. We call it "the Grail Effect," which kindles an archaic revival and a recursive cycle of self-amplification -- a virtual awakening to a new order of reality, deep time, and sense of self-identity.
We are endowed with a genetic lust for life. Each new birth reminds us that life is a miracle. Genealogy is a Gnosis, a divine revelation, a Way of Knowing that only comes with the names that carry one's lineage back into the mists of pre-history. Our lines contain sacred mysteries.
Genealogy is a hermeneutic requiring interpretation and discretion between the literal, mythic, and symbolic. Gnosis is divine revelation not just philosophical reasoning. It is instantaneous spiritual understanding of the nature of man -- primordial awareness, the space of the mind itself where mental events arise and dissolve -- a direct experience of enlightenment -- luminous, empty, nonduality.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama described the Great Perfection:
“Any given state of consciousness is permeated by the clear light of primordial awareness. However solid ice may be, it never loses its true nature, which is water. In the same way, even very obvious concepts are such that their ‘place’, as it were, their final resting place, does not fall outside the expanse of primordial awareness. They arise within the expans
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Who Do These Things Serve?
The Grail Serves Us & We Serve the Grail
Our new myth is the Creation of Consciousness.
The individual is a vessel for consciousness bringing to mind the symbolism of the Holy Grail. The Grail carries the divine essence extracted by the ultimate experience of the opposites. The new myth postulates that the created universe and its exquisite human flower make up a vast enterprise for the creation of consciousness; that each individual is a unique experiment in that process; and that the sum total of consciousness created by each individual in his lifetime is deposited as a permanent addition in the collective treasury of the archetypal psyche.
A viable legend might be manifested by one person, or from "group-dreaming". But it will not be produced by the rational lineal process of fictional narrative. We don't write scripture; scripture is written. Legends pre-exist realization as texts. Writers act as "treasure finders".
Oneiric and visionary texts reflect the extreme subjectivity of the "objectivity" of the "subconscious" where the archetypes or Gods reside. Rituals kindle fire in the minds of certain hearers. The link between the intentions and the actions is the text and context -- the legend and the cause it represents. The text draws out the actions from the sea of potential energy and gives them their specific shape, their "style".
For centuries an idea has existed that there once was a language, or a particular word, which perfectly expressed the nature of things. This language, called the Language of the Birds, was spoken in the Garden of Eden, but was lost. This is the alchemical language of sound and meaning for the community. We know that the names connect across cultures and continents, and welcome 'The Beloved', 'Friend', 'the Sun', bringing to the fore those ecstatic loving qualities we find in the Grail Romances and Sufi tradition with their wonderful poetry.
The unconscious lends itself to the language of chaos. The whirling, twisting motion of a molecule of water in the chaotic world of non-laminar flow through a pipe is analogous to chaos consciousness. The disorienting, dizzying surrender to the vortex, tornado, or whirlpool is a surrender to chaos, an experience of no form and total confusion and disorientation. We penetrate deeper into the psyche -- into the vortex of the internal structuring process -- through progressively de-structuring patterns of organization.
Chaos is self-organizing, self-iterating, and self-generating. It is an evolutionary force. The tendency of new forms emerging from chaos is toward a higher degree of adaptation, hence evolution. This "recycling" of consciousness leads to a self-referential vortex. Chaotic systems revolve around nexus points, known as strange attractors, because of their unpredictable quality. Rather than being "point-like," they are more like vortices within vortices. The Philosopher's Stone is like a psychic lodestone (or vortex). It acts like an inner magnet, ordering the contents of our consciousness around it (through feedback loops) in chaotic, yet meaningful fashion.
Legends are the greatest poems of our age and the Grail is the mightiest among them. Like magic incantations they sing new realities into being, as the shaman sings rain, or health, or abundant game from potentiality to actuality. These poems are meaningless without the actions they invoke. An Imaginal City or Grail Castle is a dream-space which will be manifested more and more clearly until finally the Grail is restored. It will call a world into being, even if only for a few moments, in which our desires are articulated and satisfied.
Attention to the inner workings of our psyche can help us make creativity central to our lives. It is a search for the patterns and the solutions that will solve the extraordinary number of problems and answer the complexity of our time while speaking to our own inner sourcing. We have the power of psychogenesis. But we don't have a story that's adequate to take on this kind of stewardship.
Thus, the Grail Tradition is a meta-mythology, resonating through history, woven by metaphor to give lived experience a universal purpose. A Ruler with royal ancestry is deified as King or Queen, dependent on gender. In Sumerian culture 'kingship' was identical with 'kinship' - and 'kin' means 'blood relative'.
The Grail story tells us about our strengths and inadequacies. Part of the new Grail myth is that we are all Parcival. We are all piercers of the veil that used to be the membrane that separated us from moving together to create new orders of knowledge and even new orders of society. A great myth can transpose to another society because it always speaks to eternal verities. Archetypes, myth and dream are the mirrors of change in our personal mythology. The Grail Mystery remains alive in our quest for personal and planetary renewal.
Like Parcival you learn how to fulfill your true purpose.
Consciousness, ab origine, is intuitive. Primordial Awareness is the groundstate of the human mindbody, seeing through illusion to primal reality and emptiness. Uniting Above and Below, we mirror Transcendent Consciousness. The uninterrupted narrative of self is embodied as short and longterm memory and genetic memory. The Mystery level of consciousness or abyss of consciousness includes prophetic intuition. An abyss of consciousness opens the way for intellectual freedom as liberation from the outer limits and internal biological determinism.
The Grail Serves Us & We Serve the Grail
Our new myth is the Creation of Consciousness.
The individual is a vessel for consciousness bringing to mind the symbolism of the Holy Grail. The Grail carries the divine essence extracted by the ultimate experience of the opposites. The new myth postulates that the created universe and its exquisite human flower make up a vast enterprise for the creation of consciousness; that each individual is a unique experiment in that process; and that the sum total of consciousness created by each individual in his lifetime is deposited as a permanent addition in the collective treasury of the archetypal psyche.
A viable legend might be manifested by one person, or from "group-dreaming". But it will not be produced by the rational lineal process of fictional narrative. We don't write scripture; scripture is written. Legends pre-exist realization as texts. Writers act as "treasure finders".
Oneiric and visionary texts reflect the extreme subjectivity of the "objectivity" of the "subconscious" where the archetypes or Gods reside. Rituals kindle fire in the minds of certain hearers. The link between the intentions and the actions is the text and context -- the legend and the cause it represents. The text draws out the actions from the sea of potential energy and gives them their specific shape, their "style".
For centuries an idea has existed that there once was a language, or a particular word, which perfectly expressed the nature of things. This language, called the Language of the Birds, was spoken in the Garden of Eden, but was lost. This is the alchemical language of sound and meaning for the community. We know that the names connect across cultures and continents, and welcome 'The Beloved', 'Friend', 'the Sun', bringing to the fore those ecstatic loving qualities we find in the Grail Romances and Sufi tradition with their wonderful poetry.
The unconscious lends itself to the language of chaos. The whirling, twisting motion of a molecule of water in the chaotic world of non-laminar flow through a pipe is analogous to chaos consciousness. The disorienting, dizzying surrender to the vortex, tornado, or whirlpool is a surrender to chaos, an experience of no form and total confusion and disorientation. We penetrate deeper into the psyche -- into the vortex of the internal structuring process -- through progressively de-structuring patterns of organization.
Chaos is self-organizing, self-iterating, and self-generating. It is an evolutionary force. The tendency of new forms emerging from chaos is toward a higher degree of adaptation, hence evolution. This "recycling" of consciousness leads to a self-referential vortex. Chaotic systems revolve around nexus points, known as strange attractors, because of their unpredictable quality. Rather than being "point-like," they are more like vortices within vortices. The Philosopher's Stone is like a psychic lodestone (or vortex). It acts like an inner magnet, ordering the contents of our consciousness around it (through feedback loops) in chaotic, yet meaningful fashion.
Legends are the greatest poems of our age and the Grail is the mightiest among them. Like magic incantations they sing new realities into being, as the shaman sings rain, or health, or abundant game from potentiality to actuality. These poems are meaningless without the actions they invoke. An Imaginal City or Grail Castle is a dream-space which will be manifested more and more clearly until finally the Grail is restored. It will call a world into being, even if only for a few moments, in which our desires are articulated and satisfied.
Attention to the inner workings of our psyche can help us make creativity central to our lives. It is a search for the patterns and the solutions that will solve the extraordinary number of problems and answer the complexity of our time while speaking to our own inner sourcing. We have the power of psychogenesis. But we don't have a story that's adequate to take on this kind of stewardship.
Thus, the Grail Tradition is a meta-mythology, resonating through history, woven by metaphor to give lived experience a universal purpose. A Ruler with royal ancestry is deified as King or Queen, dependent on gender. In Sumerian culture 'kingship' was identical with 'kinship' - and 'kin' means 'blood relative'.
The Grail story tells us about our strengths and inadequacies. Part of the new Grail myth is that we are all Parcival. We are all piercers of the veil that used to be the membrane that separated us from moving together to create new orders of knowledge and even new orders of society. A great myth can transpose to another society because it always speaks to eternal verities. Archetypes, myth and dream are the mirrors of change in our personal mythology. The Grail Mystery remains alive in our quest for personal and planetary renewal.
Like Parcival you learn how to fulfill your true purpose.
Consciousness, ab origine, is intuitive. Primordial Awareness is the groundstate of the human mindbody, seeing through illusion to primal reality and emptiness. Uniting Above and Below, we mirror Transcendent Consciousness. The uninterrupted narrative of self is embodied as short and longterm memory and genetic memory. The Mystery level of consciousness or abyss of consciousness includes prophetic intuition. An abyss of consciousness opens the way for intellectual freedom as liberation from the outer limits and internal biological determinism.
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Collage by Matt Atkinson
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Magdalene Altar, Renne Le Chateau
(c)2013-2016; All Rights Reserved, Iona Miller, Sangreality Trust
iona_m@yahoo.com
iona_m@yahoo.com
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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
