There's a strong emphasis on ancestors needing to be, if not propitiated, at least acknowledged in this tradition. While it is uncomfortable and politically incorrect, it would be foolhardy to deny that there is power in the bloodline. In our work, we have this whole concept of the Lines, and the Lines are basically genetic, and they are what control and have guardianship over the heavy power in the land. There are some lines that are very strong over here in Europe; they just periodically incarnate again and again into the same family; there's always one of them back. And the families know that; these are the great matriarchs. Number One matriarch will bear Number Two matriarch, who will bear Number Three matriarch, and by that time Number One is ready to get born again, so they really dictate and tyrannize, to a certain extent, these entire line structures.

This is why you tend to get these creepy, slightly inbred guys in some places in Europe. You'll be traveling along and you'll get to some village, and you'll notice these slightly inbred-looking, not terribly gifted person, but the stink of power on them is huge, and what those are is the servants of those lines. They are the reservoirs of power in those lines, the sleepers, whose job it is to pass the power and the bloodlines on to the reincarnating ones, and a well that the linefolk can draw from. They're the peasant of that bloodline rather than the aristocrat. And that's a pretty corrupt setup; it wasn't always corrupt, but it's very corrupt now.

There's a school of thought in combat magic that says that lineage stuff is basically impossible to defend against, because it's inside you. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, most of the lines are corrupt. Like it or not, I think that the strictures of those high-class lines were based upon a king tied to the land, and were kept in order by that, and since we don't have that any more, anywhere, they became corrupt. The power of the lines, which was originally there in order to serve the land, is no longer constrained to do that. It's like aristocracy that's gone decadent because the King isn't doing his job. It's the corrupt aristocracy of subtle energy mechanics. It shows itself in the increasing distance from the richest to the poorest, the amount of wealth and the societal power that is held by a very small number of people. You can see it in all these "narrowings"at the top.

What can be done about it? Competent magicians with awareness of their backgrounds and line affiliations need to work together to assist the deities to chastise those lines to behave. Many bloodlines have subtle gifts, but these lines have, as part of their gifts, temporal power. They had received power in order to do the work of keeping the crops growing and the cycle going, and when the Kings were no more, they just used that power of wealth and fertility to suit themselves, because the power itself didn't get taken away, just the requirement to use it for the greater good.

And there's no actual reason for them to stop, by the way, either. It's very hard to motivate them to not do it. The money keeps pouring in, they have good succession, they have done a breeding program so that they generate powerful babies; the houses are there, the lands are there. Why should they do anything else? It's very sad, because those were originally the families who had sworn fealty to the kings and the queens, as representatives of the land as a holy thing. They are often at war with each other, though, which is fun, because territory is never enough. The Balkans is a land war, always will be. That won't stop, because it's the same people incarnating over and over, and the hate just gets bigger and bigger...or the greed does. And it tends to happen, since their magical power comes from their line and not from their attainment, that they tend not to pay that much attention to Deity because they can get power without having the collusion of any deity. It comes with the office, with the hat, with the old structure. Bloodline power is such that it can't even be switched off all that easily.

How do I feel about bloodlines in our faith? It is what it is. It's in the Germanic traditions, it's in the Celtic traditions, it's in all the northern stuff I've ever seen. I don't believe that it precludes people who are not from that bloodline from accessing the technique. I think the deities are quite capable of choosing who they work with and altering them properly, if they want them to access that stuff in a way that someone with the bloodlines could. It's much harder to work with a particular system if you don't either have the "code" for it, or have a deity connection to create that. It's sort of like being pre-hardwired to interface with those deities if you're from there. If you're not, you have to build an interface, or the Gods have to install one, which they are perfectly capable of doing. You don't have to have that "code" to work with any given deity who wants to work with you, but the "code" helps people work more powerfully with the system.

If nothing else, purely from a psychological point of view, the Monkey Mind getting in the way is one of the most common reasons for loss of magic, and if Monkey Mind says, "But I'm not of this culture!" you can say goodbye to 70% of your throughput, before you even start talking about DNA. Just thinking "This is my bloodline, this is my right, I can get power from this!" - well, applied emotion is power. The deeds of my ancestors, the things I have to live up to - or fix, or atone for; these are all very great stores of work to be done and power to tap into.

There's also the power of tapping into the land when several generations have lived there, but I don't think that's a racial thing, I think that's a familial thing. The distinction is subtle, but significant. There is the problem of most Americans being on land that is foreign to their ancestors. Some of the bogeys came over with the people, but they're not the land. Still, the land does reach out to people. It's more interested in how "juicy" you are than who your ancestors are. Still, if the land has a choice between a whole lot of people who are "juicy", then it may well prefer someone who is "juicy" in the same flavor that it's used to. I have noticed that when going to the places where my ancestors come from, there's a huge ramp-up of my power. Now it may be just because those are powerful spots in general, but I feel it internally. Different kinds of power will feel differently; some pressure comes in from the outside and you can ward it off; but this comes from the inside and there's no warding it, because it's in the blood.