Ancient African Futures

Ancient African Futures provides a creative and critical account of the history and form(s) of systemic constellations practice (SCP) applying a decolonial lens, emphasizing the profound significance of Zulu epistemology on its origins. The volume opens with an autoethnographic account of the author’s African diasporan / European identity and its bearing within the SCP profession. It offers a summary introduction to SCP as a discrete modality of Western psychotherapy, commonly accepted as the creation of Anton Hellinger, a German national. Hellinger was a Jesuit missionary priest in South Africa during the 1950-1960s. The author argues that this colonial phenomenon and Hellinger himself, are emblematic of the European Imperial project. The volume scrutinises this historic-contemporary dynamic in relation to more-than-Western indigenous epistemologies, advocating for a pluriversal reckoning, considering European colonial histories and indigenous forms of cultural resistance. Having interrogated the asymmetric dynamic exchange between Africana and Western cultures, the volume then explores a ‘speculative manifesto’. This manifesto proposes numerous concrete actions regarding future curriculum design and faculty representation within professional SCP trainings, championing a recalibration, decentring whiteness, making SCP a profession more open to and representative of diverse global communities. Honouring their historic, cultural, colonial, postcolonial and political experiences, alongside their contemporary narratives of migration, settlement and resistance to Western neocolonialism. Ultimately, advocating for an empathetic and celebratory, Black / Global Majority Heritage-inclusive SCP practice model. Stuart Taylor is an artist, decolonial scholar-activist, transcultural leadership coach, organisational consultant, systemic constellations practitioner and writer. His multi-heritage identity includes West African, Caribbean and European ancestry. From 2020-2025 he was a partner at Constellation Workshops in London, a community-accessible SCP service. Stuart is a Scholar within the MaCTRI Decolonial Praxis Doctoral Programme in Manchester, England. He lives in London with his family.