Ancestral Lineage Healing Online Course

Ancestral lineage healing refers to a process of coming into direct relationship with one’s recent and more ancient blood ancestors for personal, family, and cultural healing. This course is led by Daniel Foor, PhD and closely follows the lineage healing method developed through trainings and sessions from 2005 to present and featured in Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. The online course includes and also expands upon material covered in both the in-person trainings and book.

The approach is non-dogmatic, ritually informed, and inclusive to people of diverse ancestries. Lessons emphasize psychological and energetic safety as well as participants’ ability to relate directly and beneficially with their own ancestors. Although this course provides a strong conceptual framework for ancestral engagement, the work itself is experiential. No need for a spiritual calling or prior experience with the ancestors to participate. This course is for personal growth and is not a practitioner training.

Learn about the Course

How the Course Works

The course is divided into Part One and Part Two, each consisting of seven lessons (see below for full descriptions). New lessons are released on Monday mornings (Eastern Time) and can be accessed for a year beyond when the course ends. Lessons are released mostly every other week (detailed schedule here), and Part One and Part Two are each eleven weeks in duration.

Winter 2018 – Spring 2019 Offering:

  • Part One: Dec 3, 2018 – Feb 11, 2018
  • Part Two: Feb 18, 2019 – Apr 29, 2019

Lessons include a 25-35 minute instructional video (closed captioning optional) with guided exercises, homework, and questions for reflection, as well as PDFs of encouraged readings (drawn from the book and other sources). Participants will be able to communicate and share experiences with other learners through a discussion board and private Facebook group for those inclined. Participants can also ask questions of Dr. Foor directly for the duration of the course, including the opportunity to join eight live 90-minute online group support sessions with Dr. Foor throughout the course.

This course can be understood as a companion to the ancestral lineage healing work at the heart of the book. Part One of the course draws strongly from Chapters One-Six, and Part Two draws from Chapters Seven-Nine. Having a personal copy of the book is supportive to the coursework, however, relevant PDF excerpts from the book will accompany each lesson.

See testimonials from 2017-2018 course participants here.

How to Register

Cost is $400 for the full course (Part One and Two) and $225 for Part One only. If participants decide after completing Part One to then enroll in Part Two, the additional cost is $225. By registering you’ll enjoy:

  • Access to the instructional course videos (about 30min per lesson)
  • Option to download accompanying audio files of course content
  • Opportunity to engage in course participant discussion spaces for course duration
  • Invitation during course to ask Dr. Foor directly for support with the material
  • Eight live 90-minute group support conferences with Dr. Foor (three in each Part and recorded for playback)
  • Ongoing access to accompanying readings and course content for one year after course concludes

Winter 2018 – Spring 2019

Part One: December 3, 2018 – February 11, 2019

Part Two: February 18 – April 29, 2019

Register Now

I am strongly committed to keeping the work accessible to people of diverse backgrounds and variable means  while also supporting this organization. If you need financial assistance to be able to join, please see our application for payment plans and partial scholarship spaces. If you would like to join us in keeping this work accessible or if you have enjoyed financial assistance previously and now wish to extend this gift to others, please consider a donation to our scholarship fund.

Part One Course Overview

Lesson One: Foundations of Ancestor Reverence and Ritual

  • Overview of animist traditions and worldview

  • Cross-cultural basis for ancestor reverence

  • Distinguishing ancestors from ghosts

  • Five steps of the lineage healing work

  • Additional resources on ancestor reverence and ritual

Lesson Two: Assessment of Four Primary Blood Lineages

  • Assess wellness of four primary lineages

  • Determine each lineage’s impact on your life

  • Decide with which lineage to begin the repair work

  • Introduction to energetic boundaries

  • Additional resources on epigenetics and Chinese ancestral traditions

Lesson Three: Boundaries, Family Research, and Ancestral Guides 

  • Further skills for establishing energetic boundaries

  • Learn about ancestral lineage guides

  • Importance of trusting your connection with the ancestors

  • Genealogy, historical research, and DNA testing

  • Additional resources on Mexican and Central American traditions

Lesson Four: Contacting Ancestral Lineage Guides

  • Make connection with older ancestral guides

  • Safely assess which guides to work with

  • Receiving blessings from ancestral guides

  • Ways to start to honor guides

  • Additional resources on West African and African-American wisdoms

Lesson Five: Offering Practice and Deepening with the Guides

  • Practice deepening relationship with guides

  • Learn lineage preferences and affinities

  • Explore guides’ worldview and experience of the sacred

  • The basics of making offerings

  • Additional resources on the many layers of Irish history

Lesson Six: Prayer for the Lineage Between 

  • Move into healing with the lineage

  • Ask the ancestral guides to surround the lineage in prayer

  • Learning to get ritual results by trusting the guides

  • Going deeper with the practice of making offerings

  • Additional resources on ancient humans and our hominid relatives

Lesson Seven: Altars, Regular Tending, and Cultural Healing

  • Practice attunement and deepen relationships with ancestral guides

  • Expand into connection and prayer with guides

  • Cultivate relationships with the well ancestors in daily life

  • Create and learn to tend an ancestor altar

  • Additional resources on Buryat Mongol tradition and shamanism

Part Two Course Overview

Lesson One: Understanding Ancestral Blessings and Burdens

  • Identify the six major types of cultural wounding

  • Explore different ways you might perceive a lineage

  • Ask ancestral guides about gifts and troubles in the lineage

  • Learn ways to ritually work with blessings and burdens

  • Additional resources on Yoruba traditions and cyclic time

Lesson Two: Assisting Older Lineage Ancestors

  • Learn different ways unwell ancestors become well

  • Witness and support ancestral guides leading the healing

  • Directly assist the healing of older lineage ancestors

  • Learn how to stay safely on track with lineage repair work

  • Additional resources on the Abrahamic faiths and the dead

Lesson Three: Grief, Forgiveness, and Emotional Embodiment

  • Explore the importance of grieving for you and your ancestors

  • Practice consciously regulating ancestrally charged grief

  • Tend to ritual safety when working with ancestral grief

  • Consider engaging in forgiveness practices

  • Additional resources on LGBTQI ancestors throughout time

Lesson Four: Assisting the Recent and the Very Troubled Dead

  • Understand differences when working with older and recent dead

  • Directly assist in healing with remembered ancestors

  • Learn to work safely with especially troubled ancestors

  • Discern different types of trouble among the unwell ones

  • Additional resources on Southern Africa and decolonization work

Lesson Five: Honoring the Bones and Strengthening the Positive

  • Help ancestors transition from fairly good to radiant

  • Explore effects of ancestral disturbance on living family

  • Learn practices for assisting recent and living family

  • Explore ritual care for physical remains and ancestral objects

  • Additional resources on Native traditions and ancestors of place

Lesson Six: Extending and Embodying Ancestral Blessings

  • Extend ancestral blessings through the family tree

  • Ask for a personal physical healing of your blood, bones, and DNA

  • Embody lineage blessings and pray with the ancestors for living family

  • Weave together embodied ancestral gifts and active healing prayers

  • Additional resources on European and North African revival traditions

Lesson Seven: Harmonizing Lineages and Family Ancestor Practice

  • Learn ritual for embodying and celebrating well and healed lineages

  • Review steps for tending to remaining lineages

  • Practice the harmonization of multiple well lineages

  • Consider crafting an Ancestral Dedication Ritual

  • Additional resources on the ancestors and popular culture

Register Now

Course Dates:

Part One: December 3, 2018 – February 11, 2019

Part Two: February 18 – April 29, 2019

About the Instructor

Daniel Foor, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist and a doctor of psychology. He has led ancestral and family healing intensives throughout the United States since 2005 and helped thousands of people to restore healthy and empowering relationships with their ancestors. He is the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing (Inner Traditions, 2017).

Over the past 25 years Daniel has trained with teachers of Mahayana Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and diverse indigenous paths, including the older ways of his English, Irish, and German ancestors. He is a student of Yoruba culture and makes regular pilgrimages to work with elders in West Africa as an initiate (ọmọ awo) of Ifá, Ọbàtálá, Ọ̀ṣun, and Egúngún in the lineage of Olúwo Fálolú Adésànyà Awoyadé from Òdè Rẹ́mọ. For more info see: Daniel’s full bio.