Berna Kavuk
We have all witnessed conversations about who young children look like or from whom they get their habits. Or if there is a profession or skill that is practiced in the family, we have thought that “it is in the genes”. Anyway, it is not possible to accept that human beings exist and can exist separately from the social environment and society in which they grow up. However, is what movements such as ancestral transmission tell us similar to the examples I have mentioned? Are the things that these movements present to us and try to make us accept compatible with our culture and beliefs? Sometimes it doesn’t occur to us to look at the source and veracity of such ideas that we cling to for dear life, or they are presented to us in a convenient guise.
Meeting people from different parts of the world, their languages and cultures, and benefiting from their experiences is one of the best opportunities our age offers us. Being interested in the different, experiencing the new and benefiting from it are among the most natural feelings of human beings. However, sometimes we get so caught up in these feelings that we forget who we are and turn our backs on our values, denying the value of what we have. When it comes to this point, we – unconsciously – become part of the target group that someone sees as a source of income. Especially when we have difficulty coping with situations in which we feel guilty and unsuccessful, we look for a harbor to shelter, a branch to hold on to, or even someone to blame, and some of the people and institutions we target claim to be the cure for our troubles. I would like to talk about a trend that is more famously known as “ancestral transmission or family lineage.” People who adopt this trend claim that the current “me” has been shaped by their ancestors’ illnesses, traumas, failures, disappointments, injustices, anxieties and fears, famine and victim consciousness, root beliefs, judgments, curses, blessings, curses, and even karma.
We have all witnessed conversations about who young children look like or from whom they get their habits. Or if there is a profession or skill that is practiced in the family, we have thought that “it is in the genes”. Anyway, it is not possible to accept that human beings exist and can exist separately from the social environment and society in which they grow up. However, is what movements such as ancestral transmission tell us similar to the examples I have mentioned? Are the things that these movements present to us and try to make us accept compatible with our culture and beliefs? Sometimes it does not occur to us to look at the source and veracity of such ideas that we cling to for dear life, or they are presented to us in a convenient cover. And at prices that cannot be called reasonable!
First of all, it should be stated that the source of such movements is Indian beliefs and Shamanic origin. As such, karma, spirits and their energies come into play. They believe that the physical events and psychological wounds experienced by all their ancestors, starting with their parents, have a clear and directive effect on the physical and psychological structure of the person (!) in other words, they accept that these are passed down from generation to generation. So much so that the experiences of ancestors sometimes manifest in us as an energy and sometimes as a blockage, a knot. It even determines our destiny. The whole point is to get rid of these things that are passed on to us. If we can do that, there’s nothing we can’t do in life! I don’t need to tell you that there is no scientific reality.
So how is the service of cleaning these “bad energies” that have been passed down from our ancestors who have lived for generations provided? How do they save us from the fog clouds we are in, from the dead soil sprinkled on us, from the wells we cannot get out of?
First of all, you have to attend the sessions for a fee. In these sessions, they believe that ancestral transmission has created a blockage on you in terms of fate and karma, and they purify these things. By first forgiving and releasing the burden that previous generations have passed on to you through body memory, by honoring their existence, you end the alleged bond between you and untie the knot. You do all this with the sentences you speak. Then you replace these emptied emotions with new ones. This is how the process of affirmation and healing is completed. Of course, as in every subject, there are areas of specialization here. Different problem areas such as relationship problems, financial problems that you cannot overcome require you to work with different experts(!).
Participants in the healing camps say that they have found themselves and even accessed their way of being. So what is done in these camps? People who come together in more primitive conditions such as tents say that they heal by closing their eyes, joining their hands, directing their thoughts, dancing and using some herbal products(!). They go into a trance state accompanied by rhythmic sounds like drums. They even express this as a state of ecstasy. You will also notice the difference in the clothing of those who are engaged in this work. All this is nothing more than an effort to create a perception of naturalness on people with a bohemian style and to look different beyond personal preferences, that is, to attract attention.
Another method used in healing sessions is family alignment. In the energy field created, your family members are portrayed by the people in the environment. In other words, your inner traumas, feelings and thoughts caused by your family members are represented. The angles, positions and facial expressions in the field show where your problems are. For example, in the session, a foreign person representing your emotion suddenly starts to walk with a limp because your father is lame. Isn’t that unusual and surprising? Yes, this is exactly one of the marketing techniques. They invite you to this activity with the claim of offering you an experience you have never had before and a miracle.
In these sessions, they solve for you situations that you sometimes experience but cannot understand why. For example, in a regression session, a person who does not receive love from his mother learns that his father cheated on his mother while she was pregnant with him. It turns out that the reason why she didn’t love the child was that she thought her husband was cheating on her because she was pregnant. Leaving aside how they got this information, did this information, which suddenly appeared in the hands of a stranger without any evidence, solve their problem? Did it cure the lack of love they felt? Did the affirmations work?
The most important point to emphasize about movements such as ancestral transmission and family lineage is that the belief in karma is at the heart of such assumptions. Any system based on an understanding that Islam firmly rejects is unacceptable. The sessions they practice also contain expressions that do not coincide with our religious and cultural values. In meditations of shamanic origin, the person tries to purify himself from the energy given by the spirits of dead and departed ancestors; he expresses that he expects healing, goodness and miracles from the healing source. If you think that the healing source is God, you are wrong. In this system, the universe, with all its elements and spirits, has a cosmic energy that affects your life.
Ideas that we might have dismissed as absurd if they were presented to us with such clarity have now taken on a religious guise. Some people belonging to such movements support their speeches with verses and present them by saying that this is Islam’s belief in fate. They say that you can get rid of your fate, which has been passed down from your ancestors, by asking for forgiveness from our Lord and that only He can purify us. (However, we believe that every baby is born with a pure nature and without sin. No one bears the sins of anyone else.) They approach us with concepts that belong to our Sufi culture, such as self-cultivation, pure intentions, openness of heart, and they claim that all these things actually exist in our culture. By abusing human emotions on many issues such as marriage, fortune, money, success, etc., they access serious wealth both through sessions and social media.
Apart from the fact that we are deceived and become their means of enrichment, an understanding whose basic principles are contrary to our sacredness will cause bigger problems in the long run, even if it provides some temporary benefits – whether it is beneficial or not is a matter of debate. Moreover, I don’t believe that we will be healed by a method that is not part of our daily lives. What kind of a solution can it offer us to believe that mountains, stones, trees and the various objects we use have spirits, that we can contact them through an intermediary and thus get rid of bad energy and the knots and blockages created in us by the experiences of our ancestors! A person who has been disconnected or cut off from the divine power is trying to overcome his lack of experience in these ways, unaware of what his problem and remedy are. However, if one is aware of oneself, one’s abilities and inadequacies, one can live one’s life, struggle for what one wants to achieve, and accept failure when necessary, without blaming anyone, without bearing this anger and hiding behind it. In this way, the human being will be able to manifest with his/her whole being.