Ancestral Lineage Healing
Practices for Personal & Cultural Transformation
The leading ancestor course, developed by Daniel Foor
MONDAYS
BEGINNING MAY 11
5:30pm Los Angeles | 8:30pm New York | 12:30pm Auckland (the next day)
About the Course
We’re never truly alone, in our joy or in our struggles. The practice of learning how to connect with our ancestors – to really speak to them and understand their wisdom – reveals this to us. Join us and remember how to listen and to trust.
Through inclusive, well-crafted teachings and guided practices, explore living in conscious relationship with the many generations who came before you. The course is appropriate both for beginners and those with years of experience in the terrain of family and ancestral healing.
* please note, the video refers to 14 lessons, but the most current course is 12.
You may not think you are having a relationship with your ancestors, but they are having a relationship with you.
– Daniel Foor
Why Ancestral Healing?
Ancestral Healing is the practice of connecting with and tending to your ancestors of lineage to bring balance, insight, and healing across generations. It’s rooted in the understanding that our ancestors are not only part of our past but also present today, influencing the well-being, beliefs, and patterns in our personal lives, families, and culture. This work invites us to recognize and honor the gifts of our ancestors and repair wounds or disruptions that may have been inherited and passed down over time.
Our course is the original and longest-running course of its type online. It’s grounded, psychologically safe, and pragmatic. Coursework includes tangible processes and practices you can carry into your life. Developed through years of practice and refinement, the course grew from the book, Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing by Daniel Foor, who will personally anchor at least two of the live calls in the course’s next season.
Learn a five-step framework to safely engage with your blood ancestors
Build ritual skills including simple, effective practices for connection
Establish boundaries for ritual and psychological safety
Deepen ancestral relationships for a lifetime of nourishing connection
Course Structure
This course includes 12 live weekly calls (90 min) that expand on themes introduced in 12 pre-recorded lessons. The pre-recorded lessons lay the foundation, while live calls delve deeper—content is complementary, not duplicative. Attendance at live calls is optional, though encouraged. Additionally, a weekly support call with a trained ritualist provides a smaller, more interactive space to practice skills and receive personalized guidance.
In the May 2026 course, main calls will be anchored by Ancestral Healing Practitioners, Amber McZeal and Elah Zakarin. Michelle Tessensohn will anchor the additional practice support calls. See the FAQ and teacher bios at the bottom of this page for more.
12 live teaching calls led by Amber McZeal and Elah Zakarin
18 hours of pre-recorded lessons you’ll have access to forever
12 additional live support calls led by Michelle Tessensohn
Small breakout groups anchored by trained ritualists
More than 24 substantive guided experiential practices
35+ carefully curated resources to accompany lessons
Access to a dedicated community discussion space
Is this course for you?
This course invites participants into a way of healing that transcends the limits of the approaches you may be familiar with. Rather than placing an emphasis on identification with the self, ancestral healing aligns with animist traditions that honor connection, interdependence, and the sacred web of beingness. Here, you’ll explore a living relationship with your ancestors as energies and influences actively at play in your life. It’s a chance to move beyond duality, to heal deeply, and to remember yourself as part of something vast, timeless, and alive.
This course welcomes beginners and seasoned practitioners alike. It’s a supportive and inclusive, practice-oriented space, and the course will meet you where you’re at. Join us and discover how to create a conscious relationship with your ancestors, guided by experienced teachers in a vibrant international community.
Course Curriculum
Lesson One: Foundations of Ancestor Reverence
- Explore the animist and cross-cultural basis of ancestor reverence
- Learn the origins and framework for this approach to lineage healing
- Address ritual safety and differences between ancestors and ghosts
- Consider family inquiry, DNA ancestry tests, and historical research
- Enjoy resources on animism, ancestor reverence, and family research
Topic of the live call in week one: Intuitive and Historical Honesty
Lesson Two: Assessment of Four Blood Lineages
- Assess the current condition of four of your ancestral lineages
- Establish any necessary boundaries for you and your family
- Explore ways to trust your intuition and reclaim direct knowing
- Determine the focus of your ancestral repair work
- Enjoy resources on epigenetics, psychology, and epistemology
Topic of the live call in week two: Boundaries and Ritual Safety
Lesson Three: Contacting Ancestral Guides
- Learn a framework for sustained connection with older ancestors
- Safely seek direct connection with wise and kind ancestral guides
- Invite blessings and support for your life from these ancestral elders
- Explore ways to nurture and expand into new ancestral connections
- Enjoy resources on West and Central African ancestral traditions
Topic of the live call in week three: Trusting Intuition and Direct Knowing
Lesson Four: Deepening with Lineage Elders
- Learn about offering practices and ways to tend an ancestral altar
- Expand into spirit-guided historical inquiry and cultural recovery
- Practice attuning, listening, and following the lead of the lineage elders
- Ask the guides to surround the generations between in healing prayer
- Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in Celtic cultures and Ireland
Topic of the live call in week four: Altar Tending and Feeding Relationships
Lesson Five: Ancestral Blessings and Burdens
- Learn to conceptualize, identify, and transform ancestral legacies
- Consider six major types of cultural trouble and their antidotes
- Seek understanding from the ancestors on lineage gifts and burdens
- Embody blessings and transform burdens with ancestral support
- Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in Mayan and Nahua cultures
Topic of the live call in week five: Aligning with What is Healing
Lesson Six: Assisting Older Lineage Ancestors
- Explore causes of ancestral wounding and pathways for healing
- Support as needed in the ancestralization of older lineage ancestors
- Practice allowing the guides to oversee and enact the healing
- Reinforce previous steps and focus on stoking what feeds life
- Enjoy resources on ancestral traditions in China, Mongolia, and Korea
Topic of the live call in week six: Deepening Trust in the Sacred
Lesson Seven: Grieving and Forgiveness
- Consider the importance and benefits of grieving for and with the dead
- Practice regulating the intensity of collective ancestrally infused states
- Seek to balance emotional courage, cultural awareness, and ritual safety
- Partner with the ancestors for potent grieving and forgiveness practices
- Enjoy resources on prehistoric ancestors and others in the genus Homo
Topic of the live call in week seven: Welcoming Strong Emotion
Lesson Eight: Assisting the Recent Dead
- Learn important differences when assisting more recent generations
- Invite the guides to intervene on behalf of recent generations in need
- Reinforce safety protocols in cases of serious lineage disturbance
- Reflect on tales of trouble and healing from this stage of the process
- Enjoy resources on LGBTQ+ ancestors and diverse types of families
Topic of the live call in week eight: Inviting Big Shifts and Healing
Lesson Nine: Tending the Bones
- Learn a framework and additional protocols for worst-case scenarios
- Explore ways to support lineage ancestors to shift from well to vibrant
- Consider the ongoing relationship of the ancestors to this dimension
- Practice caring for remains, ancestral objects, and inheritances
- Enjoy resources on Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormomism
Topic of the live call in week nine: Caring for the Body and Physical Remains
Lesson Ten: Embodying Ancestral Blessings
- Consider the impacts of ancestral wounding and healing on living relatives
- Invite the guides to bring healing and goodness to your extended family
- Request physical healing and optimizing of your blood, bones, and DNA
- Embody lineage blessings and pray with the ancestors for your relations
- Enjoy resources on decolonization and select Indigenous traditions
Topic of the live call in week ten: Becoming the Face of Your Ancestors
Lesson Eleven: Harmonizing the Lineages
- Learn new ways to celebrate well and healed ancestral lineages
- Reflect on personal shifts with respect to family, identity, and purpose
- Consider a ritual dedication to care for family ancestral wellness
- Practice the harmonization of multiple well lineages if possible
- Enjoy resources on ancestral traditions of Europe and North Africa
Topic of the live call in week eleven: Embracing Complexity and Nuance
Lesson Twelve: Pathways for Deepening
- Learn ways to safely engage other-than-blood family ancestors
- Consider blood ancestors in conversation with ancestors of place
- Review pathways for cultural healing and tangible acts of repair
- Practice engaging ancestors of vocation or other shared identities
- Enjoy resources on ancestor reverence in popular culture
Topic of the live call in week twelve: Grounding Changes in Daily Life
Register for Ancestral Lineage Healing
Please check back in a few days, as registration will be opening soon. Stay tuned for updates, and be sure to secure your spot once registration becomes available!
3 and 6 month payment plans available at checkout at 0% interest.
Early Registration | 32% Off
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Discount rate available for a limited time or until capacity is reached.
Supporter
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This rate helps us make our work accessible to those with modest means and applies if you have investments, a retirement plan, and/or access to economic abundance.
Standard
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Our standard rate allows us to sustain our work. This typically applies if you’re employed in the Global North, and you’re able to provide for your needs in a consistent way.
Reduced
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This rate applies if you’re relatively less economically advantaged in the ways listed under “standard rate” or that cost is simply out of reach for you financially.
If none of these rates are accessible to you and you’re called to this work, we offer a limited number of scholarships.
Applications will close on DATE. Replies may take time due to high volume, but all replies will be sent by DATE.
Course Schedule
MAIN TEACHING CALLS WITH Amber McZeal and Elah Zakarin
- 12 Tuesdays beginning Mondays May 11 – July 27
- 5:30pm Los Angeles | 8:30pm New York | 12:30pm Auckland (the next day)
You’ll enjoy 60 minutes with the teacher in the large room, followed by 30 minute small-group breakout sessions led by trained ritualists.
RITUAL PRACTICE & SUPPORT CALLS WITH Michelle Tessensohn
- 12 Wednesdays with Michelle Tessensohn May 13 – July 29
- 8:30pm New York | 8:30am Singapore (the next day)
These calls are 60 minutes with Michelle Tessensohn in a more intimate and casual setting.
PRE-RECORDED LESSONS
- Lessons are released in batches approximately every four weeks. We’ll announce new releases in your call reminder emails.
- Lessons are about 90 minutes and include resources and guided practice
- Recorded lessons are supportive if viewed weekly before the live calls, as the live calls expand on the themes explored deeply in the recordings.
We recommend you experience them sequentially: that week’s recording followed by the live call, the next week’s recording followed by the live call. If you don’t have time, that’s okay. You’ll have access to course materials indefinitely, and all live calls are recorded and posted in the portal.
About the Instructors
Amber McZeal
Lead Teacher & Main Call Anchor
Writer, vocalist, & sacred scholar Amber McZeal utilizes sound therapy and guided somatic imagery to engage the knowledge of the body within an interactive and liberatory arts practice. Amber weaves somatic praxis with social justice and spirituality, in an approach that centers the psyche as foundational in movements to end oppression and create more humane social & cultural relationships. She holds an M.A. in Somatic Depth psychology and a Ph.D. in Depth psychology with a specialization in Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Ecological psychologies. Her ancestors are from Louisiana, with roots in Haiti, Cameroon, Congo, Nigeria, Benin, France, Spain, and Indigenous North America. Amber lives on the Indigenous lands of the Ohlone people in Oakland, CA.
Elah Zakarin
Lead Teacher & Main Call Anchor
Elah Zakarin is animated by a passion and commitment to remember our connection with the living Earth, heal the wounds in our bodies and souls, and create a more just and beautiful world. Elah’s current offerings include ancestral lineage healing, emergence counseling, writing, coaching, & editing. Elah’s grounded, dynamic and heart-centered approach rests on a fundamental trust in our innate wholeness and draws from animist Jewish spirituality, Buddhist training, Internal Family Systems and various other traditions. Their beloved ancestors are Ashkenazi Jews most recently from Poland, Russia and France.
Michelle Tessensohn
Practice Support Call Leader
Michelle Ayn Tessensohn is a healer, ritualist, and contributing author to Ancestral Wisdom: Sacred Stories of Contact, Healing, and Care, who brings deep reverence for the unseen, holding space for transformative encounters with the wisdom of the ancestors. She has over two decades of professional experience in healing arts, bridging animist and Eastern wisdom with Western psychology. She speaks with clarity, compassion, and a deep commitment to healing across time. As a fifth-generation Singaporean Eurasian, she lives on the ancestral lands of the Orang Laut. Her ancestors are from countries including Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, England, Ireland, Holland and Germany.
Daniel Foor
Lead Teacher & Pre-Recorded Lessons
Daniel is a doctor of psychology, experienced ritualist, and the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. He is an initiate in the Òrìṣà tradition of Yoruba-speaking West Africa and has learned from teachers of Mahayana Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and the older ways of his English and German ancestors. Daniel is passionate about training aspiring leaders and change makers in the intersections of cultural healing, animist ethics, and applied ritual arts. He lives with his wife and two daughters near Granada, Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Frequently Asked Questions
Pre-recorded lessons are released in three batches:
- Lessons 1-4 will be released one week before the course begins, on May 4.
- Lessons 5-8 will be available after Main Call #4.
- Lessons 9-12 will be available after Main Call #8.
Main Teaching Calls | 90 min | Mondays
- 12 Mondays beginning May 11 through July 27
- 5:30pm Los Angeles | 8:30pm New York | 12:30pm Auckland (the next day)
Call Structure
- 60 min teachings with time for guided practice and Q&A
- 30 min of small breakout groups
- No break
Call 1: May 11 w/ Amber
Call 2: May 18 w/ Elah
Call 3: May 25 w/ Amber
Call 4: June 1 w/ Elah
Call 5: June 8 w/ Amber
Call 6: June 15 w/ Elah
Call 7: June 22 w/ Amber
Call 8: June 29 w/ Elah
Call 9: July 6 w/ Amber
Call 10: July 13 w/ Elah
Call 11: July 20 w/ Amber
Call 12: July 27 w/ Elah
Practice Support Calls | 60min | Wednesdays
- All 12 calls will be anchored by Michelle Tessensohn
- 8:30pm New York | 8:30am Singapore (the next day)
Call 1: May 13
Call 2: May 20
Call 3: May 27
Call 4: June 3
Call 5: June 10
Call 6: June 17
Call 7: June 24
Call 8: July 1
Call 9: July 8
Call 10: July 15
Call 11: July 22
Call 12: July 29
The timing of the main calls favor participants in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Practice and Ritual Support calls favor the Americas, Asia, and Oceania. Thanks to our international community of learners for your understanding around the challenges of time-zone inclusivity. All who register get lifetime access to recordings, and you’re welcome to send in questions for our teaching team to answer during live calls or in written form.
All live teaching calls will be recorded, and all recordings will be made available 48 hours later in the course portal to watch and listen to at your leisure, with access in perpetuity.
These calls focus on the core content of the course and will generally reference the most recent lessons released. The Practice and Ritual Support calls offer time for specific questions and support and will also be recorded.
This is a 12-week course. Each pre-recorded lesson requires approximately 90 minutes per week and live weekly teaching calls are an additional 60-90 minutes. We also offer additional optional practice and ritual skills calls for one hour. Lessons are sequenced in an intentional way, so it’s recommended to create time for yourself to follow the lessons in order.
That said, the emphasis of this course is ritual skill building to support your daily life and practice well beyond these 12 weeks. So don’t let the feeling of “falling behind” keep you from joining the calls or enjoying the community, course material, and resources. There aren’t goals to hit within this course, and there’s no test; the lineage repair process simply needs space and time to unfold.
You’ll have access to course materials indefinitely, and all live calls will be recorded and placed into your course dashboard in the days following each call. So every moment of every teaching, including practice calls, can be returned to later.
In early 2023 we made significant updates to the structure of Ancestral Lineage Healing. If you took Ancestral Lineage Healing before, we think you’ll enjoy the updated focus on skill-building. The heart of the material is the same, but the outcomes and learning objectives are more clear. Some of the changes enabled us to offer this course at a lower cost, which makes it more accessible overall, which is a core value.
To the very best of our ability, yes. All Ancestral Medicine offerings seek to embody an anti-racist, feminist, LGBTQ-celebrating, decolonizing, and Earth-honoring ethic. They are also class-aware and internationally conscious. We offer a heartfelt, non-dogmatic approach that seeks to honor each participant’s unique life experiences and ancestral storylines. Resources included with each lesson favor ancestrally and geographically diverse voices. Additionally, the course will include ancestrally and culturally diverse call anchors, guest teachers, and break-out group supporters with the option of being in a BIPOC, LGBTQ, or SWANA small group breakout when coverage is available.
While the course and the lineage repair process are designed with ritual safety and self-paced practice in mind, this tender journey with your ancestors can bring up challenging emotions. If at any point in this course you feel overwhelmed, consider starting with participation in the Practice Support call.
If additional support is useful, you’re also welcome to reach out to someone in the Ancestral Medicine Practitioner Network for one-on-one sessions. This additional service is not included in the course, but many practitioners offer low-cost personal sessions to support financial accessibility and most are available for remote/online work.
Yes, indeed. We’re pleased to offer you a past participant rate of $215 which is more than 50% off the standard price. You’ll receive access to all 12 live main calls and 12 live Practice & Ritual calls. You should receive a discount email to take advantage of this offer. If not, please email info@ancestralmedicine.org and explain that you’ve taken the course previously and would like to request a past participant discount code to re-enroll.
All of our lesson videos have auto-generated English subtitles, as well as downloadable audio-only versions of the lessons. If you have needs not met here, please feel free to reach out to us with suggestions at info@ancestralmedicine.org.
Should you wish to withdraw from an online course or shift your registration to a future iteration, please contact us at info@ancestralmedicine.org to request a full refund within the refund window of that specific course. For our 12-week courses, you can request a refund up to 2 weeks after the course start date.
Have a question that’s not answered here?