A practical guide to recognizing and overcoming the patterns and influences of the four generations before you.

The family tree is not merely vital statistics about your ancestors. It is an embodied sense of self that we inherit from at least four prior generations, constituting both a life-giving treasure and a deadly trap. Each of us is both an heir of our lineage and a necessary variation that brings the family into new territory. Are you doomed to repeat the patterns of your parents and grandparents? Or can you harness your familial and individual talents to create your own destiny?

In Metagenealogy, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa show how every individual is the product of two forces: the imitating force, directed by the family group acting from the past, and the creative force, driven by the Universal Consciousness from the future. Interweaving examples from Jodorowsky's own life and his work with the tarot, psychoanalysis, and psychomagic, the authors provide exercises, visualizations, and meditations to discover your family's psychological heritage and open yourself to the growth and creativity of Universal Consciousness. They reveal how identifying the patterns, emotional programming, and successes and failures of the four generations that influence you--your siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents--allows you to see beyond the stable identity formed by family lineage. It frees you to overcome your inherited subconscious patterns of behavior and illness, stop the transmission of these patterns to future generations, and reconnect with your true self and unique creative purpose in life.

By understanding your family tree and your place in it, you open your ability to heal the ancient struggle between the repetitive forces of the past and the creative forces of the future.