Light Through the Crystal

For the list of all articles, click here. This article is a continuation of “ Umbanda, an overview ”. If this is your first Umbanda article please start with the overview first.   Today instead of writing an article exploring more content that may not be available in English I would like to bring an Umbanda ponto. As mentioned in the overview article about Umbanda , pontos are songs sung by the members of a centre. The aim of pontos is to induce mediumistic trance in the mediums of the temple and honour orixás or guiding spirits. I’m bringing this song Oxóssi, by Mariene de Castro (1978 - ), a famous samba singer. This is a perfect song to translate after the article about orixás and an article about caboclos because the lyrics of the song explore a lot of the basic attributes of Oxóssi. I couldn’t find an official video to support the singer with the ads. The video below is a subtitled so you can follow up with the translation: The lyrics in Portuguese and English side to side: Eu...

This article is a continuation of “ Umbanda, an overview ”. If this is your first Umbanda article please start with the overview first. In Sociology caboclos are an ethnicity in Brazil that comes from the mixing of Indigenous and European ancestry. Brazil is not European, is not Indigenous and is not African, Brazil is the mixing of these three people. Understanding this mixing as part of creating a new national identity is crucial to understand Umbanda. Umbanda was formalized by Zélio de Moraes when channeling the Caboclo das Sete Flechas (lit trans. Caboclo of the Seven Arrows). Some may not know but on the day before Zélio formalized Umbanda he channeled a preto-velho (lit trans. Old Black Men) at his home. This duo of guiding spirits is the basis of Umbanda, caboclo (Indigenous + European) and preto-velho (African), making Umbanda from the start an essentially Brazilian religion. The goal of having a caboclo announcing the new religion was to show on one hand the vigour that the gu...

 For the list of all articles, click here.   The goal of this article is to translate some of the content about orisas in Umbanda to English. In Yoruba called Òrìṣà , and in Spanish orisha and in Portuguese orixá . Since we explore the gods in Umbanda, I will use “orixá” as the reference for the remainder of the article. Orixás are the gods of the Yoruba pantheon, some are personified forces of nature, others are deified human beings. Similar to Greek mythology the gods exhibit the same attributes and flaws of a human being (many acting in a way worse than most humans).   The orixás. Image from the article "O que são Orixás" by Glaucia Carvalho. Link: https://www.raizesespirituais.com.br/o-que-sao-orixas/ In the four pillars of foundation in Umbanda the orixás are a contribution from African spirituality (the other three pillars being Catholicism, Spiritism and Indigenous spirituality). The traditional African religions arrived in Brazil due to the slave trade. Africans...

  For the list of all articles, click here. Spiritism is a spiritualist religion within the new religious movements. It originated in France in the 19th century with the studies of Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail under the pen name of Allan Kardec. History The 19th century was a moment that oscillated between experimentation with the occult and positivistic rationalism. Upper middle class families would meet in salons ( salon de la bonne societe ) and play parlour games as a form of entertainment. Some of the most popular games were to put a top hat on a table and see it move and shake, reportedly moved by spirits. A second game would be for the participants to put their fingers around the table and see it move and levitate supposedly with the power of the spirits. This turning tables game ( des table tournantes , in French) attracted the curiosity of Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail who decided to investigate the phenomenon a little further. Most participated in the turning tables as...