Ancestors and Ancestor Worship are significant to many practitioners, religious people, and scholars of religion. They highlight how and if a line is drawn between the world of the living and that of the dead and how living beings can relate to those who are not within our mundane reach anymore.

I hope you’re interested and that you’ll follow me to learn more about it.

Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and Religious Studies scholar and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Esotericism, Paganism, Shamanism and all things occult.

This video is a special one because it’s a “spirit collab” with the channels Esoterica, Let’s Talk Religion and The Modern Hermeticist. I’ll tell you more about it at the end of the video. So, make sure to stick around for that!

As Nicola Harrington highlights, there is a difference between Ancestor Worship or Cult and Cult of the Dead. (Harrington, 2016)

Ancestors are believed to be people within one or two generations of their living successors. Meaning parents, grandparents and, at most great grandparents. They are usually addressed by name and called upon by their descendants for assistance on domestic matters. Differently, the Cult of the Dead is directed towards the collective deceased or non-linear ancestors. Often, yet not in all cases, there may be kinship involved. For instance, a familial relationship acquired through marriage or being part of the same community or land. This type of ancestor is often considered responsible for inexplicable harmful events, such as sudden deaths and droughts. Propitiatory offerings are made to gain their favour, or execration rites are performed against them.

Differently, the reason why a revered dead causes distress to the descendant is not capriciousness but a moral transgression that prompts them to withdraw the ancestral protection, without which the descendant is left vulnerable. The ancestral dead can be placated and become benevolent again. So, basically, non-linear ancestral spirits play an active role in harming the living, bringing death, accidents, and misfortune. In contrast, the familial Ancestors may cause harm through inertia and protection withdrawal instigated by perceived neglect or moral misconduct.

Now that we have clarified the distinction between Ancestor Worship and the Cult of the Dead, we can dive deeper into the concept and practice of Ancestor Worship. Interestingly, the two concepts of ‘ancestor’ and ‘worship’ could be seen and more rooted in a Western understanding of both. On the matter, the scholar Igor Kopytofff (1971) highlighted that some African cultures don’t distinguish between living and dead elders and that ‘worship’ sounds too reverential, as the deceased are treated with contentiousness rather than respect.

On the other hand, another scholar, John McCall reminds us that the types and dynamics of power attributed to the dead are very different from those attributed to living elders. In any case, it is interesting how the distinction between living and dead predecessors creates, in the Western perception of ancestors, a dichotomy where in other cultures, there might be a continuum as well as an appreciation of all our predecessors, those – living or dead – who entered this physical realm of existence before us. Regardless of whether a given culture would include within their concept of Ancestors, living elders or solely those who have passed away, it’s still the case that the ways of interaction, reverence, contention or indeed worship will vary significantly depending on whether the predecessor is still alive or not. Communication with someone alive can be as direct as a conversation, whereas, with a predecessor who’s passed, it will require bridging that gap of incommunicability created by their absence in the physical world.

All that said, if we understand “worship” as “respect” and “acknowledgement” rather than, more narrowly, as “adulation,” then “ancestor worship” and “ancestor cult” may be suitable terms for a range of cultures, and ancestor worship may very well be universal. (Scheffler et al., 1966; Sheils, 1975; Steadman, Palmer and Tilley, 1996)

In contemporary discourse among magic practitioners, especially those who identify as Pagans or have been influenced by Pagan religions, there are five types of ancestors that are worshipped, honoured or even acknowledged for their relevance to the person’s life or the sheer fact that they exist on the earth in a given form. In all cases, the term Ancestors is used to refer to spirits or entities that are not currently inhabiting the physical realm and that have come into existence before us and whose existence has shaped or is somewhat contributing to our current being into existence. (Uzzell, 2018)

The first type is ANCESTORS OF BLOOD OR FAMILY
These are ancestors within our bloodline or linked through a familial connection, as in the case of people who have been adopted.

Second ANCESTORS OF HEART
These refer to people who have had a significant emotional impact on us and have passed, yet still, feel present and influence our life.

The third is ANCESTORS OF SPIRIT
These usually refer to people who have had a spiritual connection with us and have passed away. Examples are a teacher or a member of our same tradition or a fellow Witch we have practised with.

The fourth type is CULTURAL ANCESTORS
The predecessors who have been part of and have shaped our cultural heritage and help, by remembering them and acknowledging their contribution, to ensure the cohesiveness of a given culture.

The fifth type is ANCESTORS OF PLACE
These are spirits linked to the place we were born, raised, live in, or move to. They can be entities inhabiting the place or spirits of the dead who remain linked to a specific location.

The Genius Loci (or Genii Locorum, in the plural), is a Latin term and an example of this type of spirit and was believed by the Romans to be the guardian spirit of a specific place.

Modern practitioners will usually honour Ancestors through rituals. Some may have shrines or altars or a specific place on their altar to honour or remember or acknowledge their ancestors. In other cases, they will perform rituals in sacred places, hills or megalithic monuments (Butler, 2015). Some practitioners might not have a dedicated space for ancestors all year round but dedicated offerings and rituals at specific times of the year. Typical times to remember and/or honour ancestors are on their birthdays, on the anniversary of their death or indeed, during Samhain or Halloween or All Hallows Eve. During this time of the year, various cultures worldwide have a dedicated festivity for the Dead.

Contemporary Pagans, following the Wheel of the Year established by Wicca, call this time of the year – between the 31st of October and the 1st of November – Samhain. I have a dedicated video on that if you want to know more about it, as here we will focus more on what is related to ancestors. Since Pagans believe that the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest during this time of the year, contacting the Dead is believed to be more accessible, and offerings made to ancestors are deemed to be more readily available to them.

On this occasion, there are Pagans who hold a ‘Dumb Supper’ or a silent evening meal, where they create a sacred space and have a silent meal with the ancestors they want to connect with. The meal meant for the ancestor is often left as an offering when the living participants attending have finished eating, and the ritual is completed. Offerings and rituals to ancestors vary across different cultures and traditions, but offerings of food and drinks are very common, especially food and drinks the deceased used to enjoy when they were alive. Ancestor worship is thus about acknowledging, remembering, and honouring those who have made, in any way, possible our existence or have shaped our identity.

On this note, many practitioners who have had a problematic relationship with their predecessors or are not in line with their value system, resolve this conflict by acknowledging the ancestor’s role in their life – even the sheer biological contribution – leaving the honouring part aside or reserving it to other ancestors or indeed other types of ancestors. In my understanding, Pagans and magic practitioners believe in a web of connections and relations in which we are all immersed. And, if you see your ancestors as contributing factors to your existence in this web of life, then it makes sense to have an afflatus of respect towards them as they allowed you to be here, to live and breathe and make your own choices.

In a way, if you don’t look at it from a non-anthropocentric point of view, ancestors are the closest net around you that allows you to be grounded and indeed exist in this web of life. And there are those who have contributed in different ways and to different extents to make you the person you are now.

Harrington offers us an interesting analysis of the social dimension of ancestor worship, highlighting the process of re-socialisation that occurs through these practices. In our understanding of a lack of continuum between the world of the living and that of the dead, the former is re-introducing the latter in the social fabric through honouring and remembering the deceased.

Instances that make this element particularly clear are reintroducing the recently deceased into the home, through the provision of household shrines, visiting graves to commune with them, and activating rituals – such as bell ringing – to ensure that the dead are present when offerings are made or reciting invocations to call upon spirits to partake of the offerings provided for them. The sentiment that Ancestor Worship perhaps underlies is that death does not extinguish the relationship with those who were close to us but rather transforms it.

Death creates the need for a new form of participation, with a corresponding alteration in the means of communication, primarily through objects imbued or used by the spirit. In the belief system of many different cultures, ancestors have the potential to inform the past, influence the present, and affect the future. They are a dynamic guiding force through whom the fears, hopes, and customs of a society may be expressed.

This is it for today’s video. Don’t forget to check out Justin’s video on Esoterica. He’ll talk about The Origins of the Dybbuk – How the Kabbalah Transformed Possession & Exorcism of the Evil Dead. Also, check out Filip’s video over on Let’s Talk Religion will be making a video on Demons in Ancient Mesopotamia and last, but not least Dan on The Modern Hermeticism, who has released an audiobook on the Latin grimoire Arbatel de magia veterum, which in English would be Arbatel of the Magic of the Ancients.

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Bye for now.

REFERENCES
Butler, J. (2015) ‘Remembrance of the ancestors in contemporary paganism: Lineage, identity, and cultural belonging in the Irish context’, Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions, 2(1), pp. 94–118.

Ellis, B. (2014) Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture. University Press of Kentucky.

Harrington, N. (2016) ‘Ancestors and Ancestor Worship’, Vocabulary for the Study of Religion. Brill. Available at: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/vocabulary-for-the-study-of-religion/ancestors-and-ancestor-worship-COM_00000199 (Accessed: 21 October 2022).

Scheffler, H.W. et al. (1966) ‘Ancestor Worship in Anthropology: or, Observations on Descent and Descent Groups’, Current Anthropology, 7(5), pp. 541–551. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/200770.

Sheils, D. (1975) ‘Toward A Unified Theory of Ancestor Worship: A Cross-Cultural Study’, Social Forces, 54(2), pp. 427–440. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/54.2.427.

Steadman, L.B., Palmer, C.T. and Tilley, C.F. (1996) ‘The Universality of Ancestor Worship’, Ethnology, 35(1), pp. 63–76. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/3774025.

Uzzell, J.S. (2018) ‘Gods, wights and ancestors: the varieties of pagan religious experience at ancient sacred sites.’, Journal for the study of religious experience., 4, pp. 64–80.

Uploaded 22 Oct 2022