Please join us on 2nd September 2022 for ceremonial and psychopomp work dedicated to honouring the ancestors connected to the Battle of Sedgemoor and the Bloody Assizes of 1685.

This undertaking represents a form of shamanic practice aimed at guiding and releasing ancestral energies associated with these historical events. Within Greek mythology, the psychopomp serves as a guide for souls transitioning from the physical realm to the world of the dead, assisting those who remain bound to earthly realities to move toward the light and resolution.

As Thomas Hübl observes,

“To assist its repair, we must choose to acknowledge, to witness, and to thereby feel together what has actually occurred, even the most horrific details.”

This perspective underpins the purpose of the work—to bear collective witness to historical suffering, allowing the energetic and emotional residues of trauma to be acknowledged and integrated.

Related Work

• Winchester – 25th August 2022
  A visit to the site where the Bloody Assizes commenced, to remember Dame Alice Lyle, executed for sheltering fugitives of the rebellion.

• Burnham-on-Sea and Thorngrove – 9th September 2022
  A pilgrimage to the home of my fifth great-grandmother and great-grandfather, whose lineage likely carried the residual impact of intergenerational trauma stemming from these events.

Contextual Reflections

There are many ways to engage with historical remembrance. The Sealed Knot, the oldest re-enactment society in the United Kingdom, stages events that aim not to glorify war, but to honour those who died in the conflicts of the English Civil War. Similarly, Shakespeare’s historical plays brought pivotal battles to the stage, transforming history into collective reflection. In a contemporary parallel, Bryan Doerries produces performances of Greek tragedies for soldiers, survivors, and vulnerable communities, using theatre as a medium to reveal the enduring psychological and emotional dimensions of war.

Through these parallel acts of remembrance—ritual, re-enactment, and performance—we seek to restore dignity to forgotten histories and create a bridge between the past and present. This ancestral work serves as both acknowledgment and release, enabling reconciliation across generations and the rebalancing of collective memory.