Dead Languages - First Steps in Communicating with the Ancestors

Part 2 - Who are the Ancestors?

So, in Part 1 we took a look at possible reasons for starting this work and why having problematic ancestors should not be a barrier. In this post I’m going to give a lightning quick run through of different types / classifications of ancestors - it isn’t just about your family tree, but that is a good place to start!

As mentioned, all magicians / authors / teachers mentioned will be credited at the end of this series.

The Beloved Dead - family / blood relatives

The first group most people think of when you mention ancestor work, your blood relatives, mainly, but also those who have achieved closeness through relationship - partners, family by marriage, friends. I like to think of them rather as ‘those linked through love.’ In some traditions these are known as the Beloved Dead - though of course not all may be beloved by you!

These are also the group most likely to make you want to do this work or to make you shrink from it, depending on your family history. This group are always a bit of a mixed bag - there is no family without it’s shame or dirt, however well hidden. Just like with living family members there will be helpful dead and unhelpful. Some of those bad characters will be redeemable in death and some just will not, whatever you try. We will discuss how to deal with those folk in a later post.

As mentioned above, it can often be these who lead us to the work. Grief can be a powerful motivator in wanting to contact the ancestors and here is a small warning. I would not recommend trying to work with the recent dead as they can be confused and difficult to manage soon after passing. There is nothing to stop you honouring them, in fact this is recommended. I would not, however, call on them magically until at least six months has passed.

The Mighty Dead - Lineage Ancestors

This category of ancestors includes dead humans not related to us directly but who are significant in some way. Sara Mastros describes this as them having a ‘personal coherence’ in death which I really like.

This includes ancestors of lineage, for example dead artists, craftspeople or magicians. Basically people who excelled in a field you want to excel in can be called upon to help you learn - what Dr Alexander Cummins calls ‘tutelary necromancy.’

For me personally this group is mainly made up of dead magicians, painters ans writers. Examples might be lineage founders like Gerald Gardner or Doreen Valiente for Wiccans, Aleister Crowley for Thelemites, and I know quite a few people who work with William Burroughs who seems particularly keen to aid the living in art and magic. At the moment I mainly work with King Solomon in this capacity - though he can also be seen to belong to the next category - which I refer to as the Mythic Dead.

Working with Saints in Catholicism, Hinduism and certain branches of Islam is a form of Mighty Dead ancestor veneration.

The Mythic Dead

Now, this is where my chaos magic background kicks in, I guess, though it is not a practice only used by those of us with that background. The mythic dead encompasses those made famous through myths, legends and even outright fiction. Examples witches commonly work with are King Solomon (opinion varies on if he ever lived or was purely apocryphal, he certainly didn’t pen the Ars Goetia though, despite what those occult Facebook bros will tell you), the great witches of Greek myth - Circe and Medea, and of course Merlin - often in the form of Abra-Melin the Mage.

Deep Ancestors - the collective dead

Now - here is an interesting one and an area I find particularly enriching in my own practice. Deep ancestors, to me, means anything right back to the first spark of life on the planet really, though you probably won’t get great or coherent advice from the first cells to emerge from the primordial ooze. Dr Daniel Foor calls the human contingent of this group the Collective Dead. I prefer to call on the pre-human ancestors also. The idea that spirituality and sentience exist only in humans does not sit well with my personal animist beliefs. Where magicians work with this large group of dead it is most commonly done as a collective activity - noone can trace their family tree back to times before writing or, well, before fingers… Sara Mastros mentions LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, and I have taken to using this as a name, Luca. Luca is believed to have been a single celled organism that lived around four billion years ago, who contained the first DNA. By honouring this ancient ancestor in my practice I feel connected to the all of life, and by virtue to that spark of life itself that unites us with every animal, plant and yes, even bacteria.

Thats it for now, witches and whizzes - there are a few more posts planned, covering dealing with difficult dead, setting up a simple altar, other methods of veneration and ways to understand what your dead are saying to you, so pop a follow if you want to read the rest.