What is an Ancestor Elevation? 

An ancestor elevation is the opportunity to raise your ancestors up in the spirit realm. Think of it like when your friend faces a difficult time. You do something to lift their spirits. Help them emotionally and mentally. People believe that you can elevate an ancestor to a divine status. This belief is found in Ifa. (The process of becoming a deity is called deification.) Meaning your ancestor can become an Orisha. How well known they are and an Orisha of what exactly is something that I am unaware of. I am not sure exactly how this process works. However I do know of a pataki where Shango was able to be deified and became an Orisha. He knew he wanted to be one when he was still human and he made sure it happened. 

Why and when should I do an Ancestor elevation? How often should I do them? 

You want to do ancestor elevations often in the beginning. When you first set up your altar you should do a 9 day elevation. It shows your commitment to the ancestors, your path, and to your own spirituality. If your altar is already set up that’s fine you can still do it anyway. You probably should, I would recommend it. I was already a year into having an altar by the time I even learned about the elevation. The knowledge came at the perfect time. I wanted a closer connection with my ancestors. If you mess up it’s okay just do it again. I have redone my 9 days so many times before. You have to do the 9 days straight. 

You also want to do them when you or your spirits need healing, which can be quite often. If you know that beating children is a generational curse you can heal your family from that. Elevate those specifically that were abused as a child, and then do another one for those that did the abusing. I would do them separately because those are two separate things but both require healing. And yes do an elevation for those doing the abusing. It started out as something our parents did out of fear for our lives in slavery. Since then it has grown into not knowing any other way of parenting. Each generation swears they won’t be like the last and lack of resources has caused them to repeat history.

The key thing to remember is that who they were in life is who they are in death. However, if they heal from certain traumas, certain changes will happen. So for a personal example I associated loud noises with something terrible for a while. My own child playing would drive me insane because for a singular child she was loud. Healing from the trauma that associated loud noises with something terrible changed her remaining childhood. However who I am, someone who preferred the quiet does change, loud noises just didn’t trigger me anymore. When you heal, you heal 7 generations forward and 7 generations backwards. Meaning each elevation helps not only you buy any children, your parents, and your bloodline in general.

My Journey with Elevations. 

I have done a few elevations over the few years I have been practicing. However, I was a year in before I even knew about the elevations. I now do them every few months with different goals in mind. Now here is the kicker. The first elevation I did was the easiest for me. I don’t know why maybe it’s because it was new so I was excited. But that first one hit differently. I made sure I was at that table on time with an offering in hand, which was cigarettes.

Cigarettes as my offering for the whole nine days the first time but there was a purpose for that. The specific spirit I was doing the nine days for had one desire. All he wanted was cigarettes. He kept expressing his need to smoke.

My second elevation is where I start to fall off. I can’t explain it. I redid that elevation like 3 times, and then I gave up. Sometimes I couldn’t remember the fact that I needed to be doing the elevation everyday. This was a sign as maybe right now was not the time to do an elevation. I did bread as my offering for those nine days, why bread? A book told me to use bread. Maybe if I had listened to my intuition, I would have had better success. Because that man did not let me forget his cigarettes that first time.

My third elevation was kind of rocky. This elevation was to control my altar better. My daughter is mixed, me and her dad don’t get along. And his bloodline and mine don’t get along. I had to add my daughter’s ancestors to my own ancestor altar. Her spirits influenced her strongly and caused chaos in my house. (Mind you she’s still a child I should have never had them on a separate one to begin with). Her white ancestors felt like they were too good to be on their with my negro ones. It was at that point that they were demanding separate offerings.

So I did the elevation to try and bring some peace and unity into my space. This was hard, this was the first time I had resistance while doing an elevation. When I would call on both sides you could feel the tension. I tried to fix this by offering their prayers separately. Towards the end, I prayed to them together. That did not work. I need yall to know this nine days went on for weeks. It got to the point I quit bringing offerings and I started treating everyone like children. I told them nothing else besides water and this candle would be provided until this tension stopped. I took the liquor, the cigarettes, I took everything off that altar and stripped them to the bare minimums.

Truly I stood on business. I started working with my deities in my other practices. This included even small tasks that my ancestors would normally handle. I told them they could remain on this altar. They must be willing to do what’s right for me and my daughter. It didn’t matter if they were black or white, or wrong or right. And this fighting wasn’t right for either of us. I didn’t notice that any of my ancestors left but I could tell that some of hers did. The ones that stayed stopped fighting with mine but you could still feel the tension.

We compromised by adding an extra glass of water for her ancestors. Any other offerings would still be communal. Never did I think I would be doing a 9 day elevation for weeks. Something just kept happening, it almost felt like those spirits weren’t ready. However I was we was doing this elevation and I meant it. (Now knowing how that one spirit is about his cigarettes, taking that is probably what caused everyone to get it together. I am sure he probably was flipping out on everybody. He does not play.)

I shared these experiences to show that elevations are not always going to be the same, and they shouldn’t be. Things will change with your situation as that is part of life. Elevations can be beautiful experiences like my first one or they can be messy and dramatic like the third one. It can not go as planned like my second. (I’ve done others but I think my first three really showed the wide range of elevations that moving forward I didn’t experience.) Don’t let anything stop you from doing right by your spirits and yourself. I was getting all this resistance from my spirits in the third elevation. If I had stopped, my home wouldn’t have the peace it has now. My home has changed significantly since I did that elevation. My daughter also seems very different. I got control over my altar space. 

What do I need to do an Elevation?

If you already have an altar space, then you really only need some kind of offering. You can mix offerings for each of the nine days. Alternatively, you can do the same offering spread across all nine days. I have done both personally and I think both have their places and their spaces. I think you should decide based on who you’re working with and your goal. If you do not have an ancestor altar setup yet, don’t worry. I will be releasing a blog post about how to do it correctly. In the meantime, there are plenty of resources that you can find online. It is not uncommon to use a tree as your altar space. This provides an alternative for those who need it.

How to do an Ancestor Elevation?

Now here is the kicker right we have to be able to do the elevation correctly. and although this might vary a little bit this is what I have noticed works wonders when I do elevation.

1. The first thing that I do is I clean and refresh my altar space. I take off any old offerings and I give new and fresh glasses of water. Then I clean it up from any workings that I have done. I give the entire space a reset.
2. The next thing that I like to do is to make sure I have everything that I need. I’m a little particular about making sure the intention is set. So I like to have crystals and incense, you name it that is going to correlate with my goal.
4. I like to pick a realistic time that I can commit to every day for doing the elevation. Because yes these things work the best when you’re going at the same time everyday. Being late or coming out at an earlier time won’t cause tremendous damage. However, the general rule is to be either an hour before or an hour after your set time. I also let them know what time I plan on being here everyday to make sure it is that they are also at attendance. Because they got jobs to do on the other side, they not standing next to you the whole time, and so I want to make sure it is that they make sure it is that they’re where I need them to be. 

When it is that you do your elevation you want to start off with prayer.  I have a collection of prayers that I pray and they cover a wide range of topics, but these are my regular prayers that I pray whether or not I’m doing an elevation. During elevations I like to add on an extra prayer for the elevation. I might pray for a stronger and better connection with my ancestors, I might pray for healing and wisdom and understanding. but prayer is what starts the connection. For those in Hoodoo using the book of Psalms will probably be the best place for you to get some of these prayers from. Psalms 91 is one of my favorite ones. (This is also when you’re going to want to blow your rum if that aligns with your spiritual practice).

Next, I like to invite and welcome in any ancestors who would like to join the altar but wasn’t able to up until this point for one reason or another. I make sure it is that they know that in exchange for loving, protecting, and providing for me I’m going to do the same for them. I also let them notice that they cannot stay if they’re not going to do whats best for my highest good.

Then I present them with whatever’s going to be their offering for that day. Now how you present offerings is going to vary based on what spiritual practice you follow. Follow that tradition. 

Now at this point is when I like to introduce myself just in case there is somebody new. I like to tell them little things about me, ask for them to show or to tell me things about themselves. I will do a meditation, sometimes I’ll do a reading on myself, sometimes I’ll do a reading to figure out who is that new spirit on my altar. Just whatever I feel drawn to do at that moment.

When it’s time to close it out unless I am leaving the house or I’m going to bed I’m leaving that candle burning. Because oftentimes during an elevation they need that light. So I’m going to let that candle burn for as long as I possibly can. 

How do I know I did it correctly? 

Knowing whether or not I’m doing something correctly is something that really bothers me. Because what’s the point of doing something if you’re going to be doing it wrong? So I completely can understand if anyone out there is like ‘hey I did my 9 days but I don’t really notice a difference how do I know if it worked’. And the answer to this is so simple if you did your best and if you followed your intuition as well as the instructions provided then it did work. It may not work as well as you wanted it to but it did something. 

However if you want to be able to check on the results of your elevation it just ask them. Grab your divination tool of choice and to contact them directly and ask them. Ask them if you could have done better. Ask them what it is that they need from you next time. Or even ask them how you did this time. Ask them if the elevation is complete or do we need to do another one for that same purpose. Because certain things you can’t heal from and just nine days, some things take time.