Ancestral karma – a curse or a blessing

Janeta Slavova
Aug 31, 2025
6 min read

According to the laws of cosmogony, when reincarnating, a conscious person chooses the most suitable physical environment and place where they can most fully realize their current program for personal development. Consequently, we choose our parents, family and lineage for our next life.

By choosing certain parents, each person becomes part of a specific ancestral line and acquires karmic affiliation to it.

Today, there is much talk about 'ancestral karma', which interacts with one's personal program for evolution and affects its realization.

Many believe that the past actions, emotions and fates of ancestors can influence present and future generations by passing on unresolved conflicts, beliefs and fears, or blessings. These influences are believed to be encoded in our DNA through epigenetic mechanisms.

A number of seminars, webinars and other events claim to provide methods and practices for 'cleansing' ancestral karma.

In this article, we will examine the concept of ancestral karma in more detail to understand what it is and what it is not.

What is “Family”?

Spiritual and Bloodline Family

There is a fundamental difference between a bloodline family and a spiritual family. They do not always coincide in a given lifetime or incarnation.

Family in the usual sense is the group of our living and deceased relatives. This is our bloodline family, into which we are born when entering the physical world.

A spiritual family refers to the collective of kindred souls with whom we share common interests, ideas, and understandings, and with whom we work and support each other in our evolutionary growth. We reunite with our spiritual family after leaving the physical world, when we return to the astral plane—that is, during the period between two incarnations, when we exist only as energy (spirit and soul).

It is important to note that most members of our spiritual family remain in a non-incarnated state, and usually only a small part of our soulmates may be incarnated at the same time as us in the present lifetime.

The importance of selecting a bloodline

If an individual has made a conscious choice prior to incarnation, they are typically able to reincarnate into a bloodline on the physical plane where some of their kindred souls from their spiritual lineage reside.

Such a person has previously worked out, developed, and ensured the opportunity to be among kindred souls who will be particularly helpful to them in their upcoming incarnation. They will create a suitable environment and, in one way or another, help them achieve their personal goals. In practice, meeting and spending our lives with kindred spirits is the best thing we can wish for in our material life.

On the contrary, in many cases, a person is in a hurry to reincarnate again in the physical world and does not carefully choose his family and ancestral environment.

There are many reasons behind such hasty reincarnations:

There are many reasons for such hasty reincarnations:

- a strong materialistic attitude - they cannot accept the idea that they can live without physical sensations and pleasures.

- refusal to accept and inability to adapt to the astral plane (rare, but there are such cases).

- strong attachment to the material world and loved ones, low level of awareness and evolutionary development.

- and others.

In such a situation, a person usually chooses a bloodline hastily and at random. As a result, they end up in one that does not include people from their spiritual family. Without kindred spirits to support them on their personal path of development, they may experience difficulties in their realization.

Depending on their level of awareness and development, such a person may:

- take an involutionary path instead of an evolutionary one, following the example and influence of their bloodline,

- lead a life that is ineffective in terms of their personal path and goals in this incarnation,

- or find a way to overcome and escape the influence of their environment.

Ancestral karma

When we talk about karma as a concept, according to the Law of Cause and Effect (the Law of Karma), we are again referring solely to primary causes (of a mental, astral, or physical nature) that produce results (on a mental, astral, or physical plane).

But how does the bloodline influence its members?

The influence of the family on you as a descendant who belongs to it is mainly through the family scenario that you have seen and learned from your parents and relatives (and they from their parents before that, and so on).

This scenario usually includes values, models, stereotypes and patterns of behaviour that are accepted and practiced in your bloodline. In this environment, these are perceived as the norm and applied as proven, effective means of survival and preservation of the family – something every such community strives for. From an early age, you witness and perceive this value system and these patterns of behaviour as unique to and normal for you.

Thus, depending on the degree of evolutionary development and awareness of the people of your bloodline, you may unconsciously acquire both positive and negative patterns and understandings in childhood.

For example, the so-called 'crown of celibacy' (the inability to form and maintain lasting relationships), failure to achieve success in life, and other destructive behaviours are usually manifestations of the patterns and values you have inherited from your family.

If a person is unaware of this and does not take personal measures to break free from such patterns, then we can rightly call the family scenario they are following a 'curse'. They will then live a life of suffering, failure and loneliness and will never be happy, just as their parents and ancestors were not when they followed the same patterns.

Conversely, if you have witnessed positive examples and absorbed useful, effective and positive understandings of life, stereotypes and patterns of behaviour and values from your parents and family, you will have the opportunity to express yourself accordingly and achieve success in this life. You will have the necessary tools to achieve success, happiness and personal development in this life. I would call such an inheritance from your bloodline, which you have embraced and which serves you well, a 'blessing'.

It is very important to note that, contrary to some views, the concept of ancestral karma cannot and does not refer to some kind of curse that is weighed upon the family or upon one of your ancestors and which is then directly transferred to you. This is impossible.

There are indeed various energetic influences and effects in the world, but they are usually rare. Moreover, even if they have reached a particular person, they apply exclusively and only to that person. Such a root cause can have results and consequences within the scope of that person's own manifestation, in their life.

Unless it is a matter of the individual's tragic karma, which also affects their surroundings, such influences do not extend to the entire family and do not determine the personal fate of all their relatives and descendants.

The ancestral scenario and us

I would say that if we accept the concept of "ancestral karma" at all, we should rather replace it with the understanding of the ancestral scenario, which is one of the root causes and determines our successful or unsuccessful manifestation in the physical plane.

Then we can conclude that, depending on the type and quality of the stereotypes, values, and behavior patterns that comprise it, we receive a "curse" or a "blessing" at the beginning of our life in this reincarnation.

This means that "ancestral karma" is the ancestral scenario and, in particular, the moral code and psycho-emotional patterns that we acquire and inherit from our ancestors.

You can deal with the concept of "ancestral karma" and try to "work through" or "clear" it, but it is far more important to know two of the basic prerequisites that generally determine the success of our personal evolutionary program in a reincarnation:

1) to make a conscious and appropriate choice of family and bloodline in our next reincarnation, and

2) to be able to shake off the "curse" of the family, as well as to be able to take full advantage of its "blessings."

Do you see what this is about? The key to creating these two prerequisites lies exclusively within our own personal responsibility and consciousness.

Ensuring these two possibilities are met is one of the things that motivates us to constantly work on ourselves and strive for evolutionary development. Only then will we be able to fulfil them. Moreover, these prerequisites are abilities acquired through experience and reincarnations.

This is because, when we understand the process of reincarnation clearly and accurately, we know the cosmogonic laws and the essence of phenomena in the three planes — mental, astral and physical — and this gives us a strong starting point, enabling us to act in an informed and effective manner. This brings us closer to achieving our goals and leads to a successful and happy life.

Without this awareness and knowledge, and without the motivation to develop ourselves, we will remain stuck in a cycle of unconscious existence. We will be subject to the flow of life, external factors and influences, and we will never achieve successful realization.

As you can see, ancestral karma is a very complex topic, and the legacy ('curse' or 'blessing') we receive from our bloodline is important, but our personal responsibility to develop, become aware and learn to manage our lives more effectively is even more important. This means perfecting our individuality and unique potential.

Fam Rei Reiki contains powerful techniques for developing our value system and personal growth, as well as practices for overcoming ineffective behavioural patterns. Find out more.