Inherited potential in magic?

Astral and paranormal experiences, dreams and visions.
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Nefastos
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Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Nefastos »

In his novel Zanoni, Bulwer-Lytton suggested that only those in whose veins flow the blood of ancestors interested in magic are the right material for adepthood. Likewise in the works of Lovecraft, it's usually one's ancestors who have practised magic & thus sparked one's interest - or doomed their soul, that's just semantics! - in it.

Personally I believe in reincarnation, and so I take this as a symbol for former births: one who wishes to succeed must have done occult work in his previous incarnations, because the whole of the process demands so much work put together. But it's possible, of course, to take this - in addition or as a separate fact - in a way that one's ancestors actually should have gained some insight in order for us to be able to sparkle that interest anew in our own life.

Do any of us actually know of some relatives (parents, grandparents, forefathers) who had been interested in occult arts? Have you heard rumours?

Or alternatively, you may tell whether you think it's important or not to have something in your blood to attain magical development. Is a gift (or a curse...) of clairvoyance something that needs to be inherited?
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Insanus
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Insanus »

I don't know much about any of my relatives, but my mother once told me an interesting story about my grandfather. Apparently he was connected to some "deeper circles" of the local church & had forbidden her from ever entering her parents' bedroom. Of course, as a teenager, my mother went there out of curiosity and checked every desk looking for something interesting, finding the black bible & a handgun. Other than that she hasn't told me anything except her father has "his darker side". I know he was well-known in the church's circles, but I don't know how much I believe in the black bible part of the story. Nowadays having that book is no big deal, but back then it wasn't even published in Finnish.

Yet, »Tarinan kertoja sanoi paljon kuulleensa sellaista puhetta, että Mooseksen kirjoja on seitsemän, mutta kuudetta ja seitsemättä ei näytetä eikä anneta muille kuin korkeasti oppineille pappismiehille.»
("The storyteller had heard lots of talk about there being seven books of Moses, but that the sixth & seventh are not shown nor given to others but highly trained priests")

(Myytillisiä tarinoita, toim. Lauri Simonsuuri, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1947)

So, in the end, I have no clue.
Jumalan synnit ovat kourallinen hiekkaa ihmisen valtameressä
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Nefastos
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Nefastos »

Heck, that's interesting. When you started with priests & forbidden bedrooms, I had a bad hunch, but I'm glad the story had a happy ending, haha. Or a happy cliffhanger, at least...
Insanus wrote:I don't know how much I believe in the black bible part of the story. Nowadays having that book is no big deal, but back then it wasn't even published in Finnish.


Oh, but it was. I have a Finnish copy from year 1912.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Fomalhaut
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Fomalhaut »

Nefastos wrote:
Do any of us actually know of some relatives (parents, grandparents, forefathers) who had been interested in occult arts? Have you heard rumours?
I heard rumours about my grandmother's (father's side) interest in magic but I do not have any detailed information about it.
"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."
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Nox
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Nox »

From since I was born my mother used to wake up because of a nightmare that visited her dreams around 2-4 times a year, always looking pretty much the same. In that dream she always woke up smelling intense smoke and hearing me crying in a nursery room. Then she starts running there and when opening the door, she sees that whole room is blazing in fire, with me and my cradle in the middle. When she attempts to picks me up from the cradle, she sees that my left eye is blind/mutilated and there is a third eye grown to my forehead. There were slight varieties in these symbols each time, but that is the basic line.

She used to see those dreams for 19 years until our family was struck by information of my satanism. After that crisis the nightmares vanished.

I also know that all women in my mothers familyline are very sensitive and their ability to see precognitive dreams is extremely accurate. And what I feel especially interesting is that my mother+her sisters all share the same kind of enviroment in those dream and very often see the exactly same things happening in that collective dream space they have.

I also know that my mother and my grandmother have both done in their younger age some experiments with ouija-board with very scary results, "learning by fear to respect the spirit world" as my mother told me. It seems that this thing is especially inherited in my family, because always when mother tells her child not to ever do that, they do it and learn it by that way. This has gone at least 3-4 generations now, heh.

Especially my mother's nightmare has given me a lot of reason to believe that there might be something quite more-or-less dramatic/occult within our familyline that is inherited in way or another. I also remember how clearly some stories of hauntings and quite dark 'superstition' in the Finnish countryside have stuck to my mind already since a childhood when they were at times told by my mother.
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Heith
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Heith »

No, I don't think it necessarily need run in the family so to say. But of course this would help. If for nothing else, then for the simple reason that in such a environment the phenomenon is recognized, and hopefully nurtured in a good way. I do think that most (if not all) children are sensitive and observant enough to notice things, but this is later on taught out of people. It becomes "imagination", or "unreal", and the child-like simple knowing how things are is forgotten. Also genetically speaking, as our DNA never forgets anything, go back far enough and there is a witch, occultist or shaman in everyone's family tree. It's a rather nice thought. We're not alone, even if in our close genetic pool people wouldn't share our mindset.

With that said, some abilities seem to run in the family from my mother's side. All my female cousins from that side of the family have experienced strange events, and with my youngest cousin who is near my age, we sometimes seem to have some kind of a link. My brother sees omens, especially in the forms of animals. My mother from time to time senses spirits, as do I. We also both have powerful dreams, and sometimes entities appearing when we are awake, though this is very rare. I think she always had some kind of interest towards magic, so she seems content when I mention I'm going drumming etc. I guess she is able to see the good it does for me, bless her heart :)

When I was little, I recall my mother applied some folk magic on me when I got warts (how witchy? harr!) but that didn't help at all so we turned to doctors for help- and I tend to think that her real goal was to psychologically coach me into destroying the warts with my willpower (or some such) or otherwise to amuse me, or to just give me a nice experience. Just mentioning this as it's a "attempt" to do magic, even if it probably wasn't serious.

I frequently discuss "magical" topics with my mother, and my youngest cousin. I'm the only one of the lot that has taken a conscious step to learn magic (mostly at this point runic), but this ability is clearly in others as well. But I do think that my ability differs from others, or at least no one has mentioned anything corresponding to my experiences.

We're slightly superstitious as well, but I think in a good way, such as omens. These mostly happen around when someone has just died. As my mother is from the north there it's nothing out of the ordinary for people to discuss these topics, everyone there knows that some people get hunches or seem to know things that other people don't know. But not everyone likes or accepts that, of course.

For me the concept and idea of magic has always felt quite natural, it's just something that happens. During my teenage years as my abilities started to peak I was really scared as I didn't know what was going on, but it's a lot easier now, and I've begun to understand a little bit of myself. Very little, but a mouse step is a step nevertheless! It's funny when one writes this kind of things, they seem to be oddly out of proportion- I'm not trying to make it sound like we're Ye Olde Witch tribe or Warlocks United, most certainly we aren't. It's just a part of life.
obnoxion
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by obnoxion »

Nefastos wrote:Do any of us actually know of some relatives (parents, grandparents, forefathers) who had been interested in occult arts? Have you heard rumours?
My great grandfather (i don't konow if the term is correct, and i mean my father's father's fatehr) was a traveling preacher. But his wife was a known witch of a sort. She had the ability to stop the blood bleeding from the wounds. In finnish she was a verenseisauttaja, wich means "she who can make the blood stand still".

My fatehr's father was a professional soldier. I never knew him, as he died before i was born. But my father tells how he was in very bad terms with his neighbour. Once he had decleared to his family that he will obtain "The Black Bible" (=this is the name of the 6th and 7th boks of Moses, the most legendary grimoire in Finnish folklore), and avange his neighbour by witchcraft. This episode had a lasting negative effect on my father, who has since loathed everything that has to do with occult.

My mother's roots are in Karelia from the father's side, and in Lappland from the mother's side. My mother is a professional shamanist, and has sympathies toward the left hand path.

One of the most important occult concepts for me is the Kula or "the Clan", but this goes far beyond the physical bloodline.

And anyway, i suppose there always has to be the first one in the family...
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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Jiva
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Jiva »

I know almost nothing about family on my mother's side other than a supposed link to Scotland. On my father's side I only have information until my grandfather as my great grandfather deserted his family. My surname and my mother's maiden name are both unusual, so tracing ancestors wouldn't be hard, although I've never been encouraged by either of my parents due to various family tensions. Aside from broad religious belief (Church of England, Quaker) there is no occult leaning that I'm aware of amongst my recent ancestors. Although as Heith said, if anyone goes back in time far enough there'll be at least one witch and shaman.

My thoughts regarding the possibility of reincarnation are in their infancy. However if I adopt the position of a proponent of the theory I don't see any particular reason inheriting a specific lineage within the brotherhood/sisterhood of humanity should benefit someone in this context. Contrary to that though, there are also recent Lamarckist evolutionary re-evaluations that suggest learned skills and so on are capable of being passed onto children.

Either way I'm of the opinion that family rumours and legends can be massively important as developmental tools, although they are also problematic as rumours and legends are often not entirely true. I've seen a few examples of people who've attached legends of Irish and Welsh heritages to the countryside of those respective countries on an almost mystical level, only to have them completely shattered after researching their heritage to discover no link whatsoever. Naturally this has made some very upset about “living a lie” and also upset with their ancestry for propagating the legend.

However any time I read, see, or even experience with an acquaintance something like the above I interpret it as something similar to the general consensus of the ancestor worship thread: that ancestor archetypes provide a close link to the unconscious, but that they should be discarded at some point. Perhaps the shock experienced by the examples above could have been used in a hermetic sense instead of a literal one by realising that it's irrelevant what country their family originated from and that their ancestry had in fact been projected onto the countryside as unconscious archetypes shared by humanity. In other words, the countryside had become a key or gateway. Perhaps this is a subtle difference between the words "legend" and "myth".
'Oh Krishna, restless and overpowering, this mind is overwhelmingly strong; I think we might as easily gain control over the wind as over this.'
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Noname
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Noname »

The will is inherited, and as long as people continue to pursue it's meaning, it will never cease to be.
Explore until epiphany, and beyond.
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Invitus
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Re: Inherited potential in magic?

Post by Invitus »

Haven't found any sign of magical potential in my family, but I have observed some friends of mine who have ancestry and living relatives with this "potential".

Would be intresting to learn how much of this is actually only psychological and subconscious. Also if found that deeply religious or fanatic families have some inherited aptitude for magick and psychic powers.
"And so he who looks down at his feet will not know the truth, but he who discerns by the sun which way to go." -Tolstoi
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