Good to hear from you again Dan.
Some South Africans and Namibians are already part of Constellation Talk. Just
send me the practitioners' emails and names and I will invite the ones who
aren't yet part of the group.
Please send it privately to info@xxxxxxxxx
You might like to know that there are some well researched anthropological
articles on the Ancestor belief system in different parts of Africa at this
site; http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/ERA/Ancestors/
They state these belief systems are fairly similar throughout Africa. So
reading about the ones described here, should give us some idea as to what
influenced Bert Hellinger. Indeed I found many of Bert's ideas such as the
importance of acknowledging parent's previous partners in these articles.
It is also worth noting that they also state that the term "Ancestor worship"
applies more to the Chinese system than the African one. The Africans don't
seem to worship their ancestors like the Chinese but rather respect them and
call for their support. That was portrayed reasonably accurately - as far as I
can tell - in the movie Gladiator with Russel Crowe. The hero, Maximus had an
African friend who talked about imagining his ancestors standing behind him and
supporting him when he had to fight.
hasta la vista
Chris Walsh
An Australian Constellation Website:
www.constellationflow.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel Booth Cohen
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 8 May 2004 8:16 AM
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Constellations and Zulu Ancestor Worship
Friends - I recently completed my Masters degree in psychology at Saybrook
Graduate School. My culminating project was a paper titled, "Bert Hellinger's
Family Constellation and Its Place in the Psychotherapeutic Tradition." In the
section that discussed the lineages that led the development of the method, I
focused on three primary sources: existential-phenomenology, family systems
theory and Zulu ancestor worship.
While doing research on a related topic, I came across the website of the
Bert Hellinger Institute Africa. In looking at their site, I saw the standard
blurb about Bert's 16 years living among the Zulu, but nothing more. I wrote
them members of the Institute the following question:
"You make passing mention in the Introduction page of Hellinger's 16 years
living among the Zulus in South Africa. Otherwise, you do not seem to connect
his work to Zulu culture. My question is whether you agree that Hellinger's
stance towards parents and ancestors is closely related to Zulu ancestor
worship? If you do agree, can you reflect on why this connection is not
featured on your website?
I am a member of Chris Walsh's Constellation Talk Yahoo group. If you would
like to respond to the larger community let me know and I will submit this
question to the group.
I look forward to your responses."
I quickly received two very interesting responses. The second included a
request to circulate our exchanges to the Constellation Talk group. One thing
we all share in common is we are English speaking people living oceans away
from England on land originally settled by native peoples. To me this is a
ripe area for discussion.
Chris - Can you assist in having these South African practitioners gaining
access to the Yahoo group?
In the meanwhile, I will forward their responses to me in separate emails.
Dan
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