Is sin hereditary? Are we afflicted by spirits from the past? Can they be passed from one generation to the next?
These are hotly debated questions, even among excorcists; supported by some; dernounced by others (including one international group of exorcists); but according to one, the late Father John H. Hampsch—a priest and theologian from Los Angeles (and once diocesan spokesman)—the answer was and is yes.
Everything from psychological disorders to serious bodily disease can have roots in past transgressions, he contended in his book Healing Your Family Tree.
It gets back to Adam: with that first ‘original’ sin, said Father Hampsch, “the whole family tree of the human race became infected,” and that has been followed by the results of subsequent fathers whose wickedness, according to Exodus 34:7, has led to problems among “children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.”
It’s another mystery that’s impossible to fully discern, but what is apparent, asserted Father Hampsch, is that like anything else—like genetics and finances and environment—spirits are also passed down through families, causing afflictions that at times may defy normal treatment because they have to be approached through deliverance.
“Persons may spend years in therapy and thousands of dollars to obtain an insight into themselves, but still find it difficult to change,” noted Father Hampsch, a former seminary rector, Cursillo director, psychological consultant, one-time president of the Catholic Philosophical Association, college professor, and member of Claretian Ministries.
In certain cases, declared Hampsch, a healing of the family tree—a purge of evil from generational lines—is more effective than psychotherapy, at times freeing people from intractable disorders like alcoholism, homosexuality, anorexia, and bulimia, along with an array of physical ills.
We realize that such ideas can be controversial. We submit these ideas for your discernment. As Father Hampsch himself pointed out, the fact that some ills have a spiritual root hardly means that they all do. He noted that when Jesus’ disciples asked, “Who has sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” the Lord answered: “Neither this man nor his parents have sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
Let us warn here that Father Hampsch was not advising anyone to forsake regular medical care but rather offering an additional possibility of healing.
“Sometimes specific ailments are assigned to specific sins, for example, the offspring of adulterers are often infertile, or die young (Wisdom 3:16) and the descendants of those who practice bribery often have defective eyesight (Job 17:5),” claimed Father Hampsch, who spoke and presented healing Masses in all fifty states and more than thirty foreign countries. Many are the biblical references, he noted, to the handing down of the wages of sin. “The fruit of your womb will be cursed,” says Deuteronomy 28:18 (referring to those who do not obey the Lord).
According to Father Hampsch, troubles in love, financial problems, marital difficulties, anxieties, tension, depression, obsession, and other sufferings may in some cases be rooted in the forgotten or never-recognized past. “Many persons are afflicted with excessive fears and phobias or aversions, rage, anger, resentment, outbursts of temper, pouting, overwhelming sense of guilt feelings, addictions to drugs or alcohol, many types of sexual perversions or sexual drives that are very difficult to control, strong temptations to infidelity and fornication, adultery, many types of relationship problems that affect deep levels of the psyche,” writes Father Hampsch. “Sin is both contagious and hereditary. Yet, it is not really correct to say that sin is contagious or hereditary. It is really only sin’s consequences that are contagious or hereditary” [our italics].
Most damaging, said Hampsch, is the occult, which “will invariably have serious consequences within the family tree.” He cites temper, argumentativeness, and domineering or addictive personalities as a frequent residue of psychic phenomena that call demonic entities to a family. “Stealing, lying, sacrilegious abuse of sacred objects (Joshua 7:11) brought horrible death to all of Achan’s family, household, and even his cattle,” notes Hampsch. “Devil worship and occult practices have far-reaching consequences. Hence, occultism (even practicing astrology) often results in family disintegration, feuds, divorce, separation. Divorce and depression are extremely common among those who practice astrology, or their offspring.”
Hampsch asserted that while it may mainly harm to the third or fourth generations, there are cases where the effects may last longer. Physical maladies may even include afflictions like arthritis and cancer.
But the good news is Christ. We need not live under oppressions from the past, concluded Hampsch. “When persons give their lives over to God and repudiate the sin in their lives, they can dispose God to break the curse, and in the place of that, the blessing of the Lord is manifested.”
He suggested that those who think they may be afflicted pray to recognize any such problem; repent of and confess all sin and failures; confess the sins of ancestors (Leviticus 26:40, Nehemiah 9:2, and Psalms 106:6); grant forgiveness to all members of the family tree; pray a prayer of deliverance over past generations; appeal to God for healing angels; and place the Cross of Jesus between each of the generations (asking Jesus to pour His precious Blood through each stratum and destroy negative patterns).
The priest further believed the most powerful time to do this is at Mass during the Consecration, just after receiving Communion, during the lifting up of the species, when the great “Amen” is sung, and during the closing Eucharistic prayer. A family chart with the names of ancestors to the third or fourth generation can be placed on the altar (see below). And all this should be followed by frequent Bible reading, great persistence in resisting evil inclinations, and when temptation does come, recitation of the Lord’s Prayer—as always, a great force of deliverance.
[resources: books on healing family tree]