Umbanda

The Umbanda is a syncretic religion from Brazil or esoteric, in the center of the incarnation event of spirit beings marginalized social groups, and the conversation are with them. Language is the connecting link between the material and the immaterial worlds. Trained media enter into trance to make it manifest in their bodies.

Umbanda is bordered both by Allan Kardec Spiritism ( Kardecism ), as well as from Candomblé and integrates into their belief system, both Christian and Catholic, Hindu or Buddhist Kabbalistic and values ​​.

So-called ( female ) Caboclas and ( male ) Caboclos, spiritual beings indigenous natives of Brazil, and Pretas Velhas and Pretos Velhos, spiritual essence of African slaves from Brazil's colonial era, are the central figures of the umbandistischen pantheon. There is also the ghost group of Baianos, an ethnic group from the northeast of Brazil, spirits of children ( crianças ), spirits of sailors ( Marinheiros ) and pastoralists ( boiadeiros ) and the group of Pombagiras and Exus, the devil associated spiritual beings. The umbandistischen spirits are ideas or symbolic "pictures" of stereotypes of Brazilian society about " the Indians ", " the Bahian " or the " black slaves of the colonial era ".

These personifications of spiritual beings in the Umbanda is accomplished by a symbolic re-evaluation of how the Brazilian Kulturanthopologin Patrícia Birman emphasized, in which the socially stigmatized groups are taking a particularly worth estimated position in the religious hierarchy.

"As entidades corn valorizadas na Umbanda são pensadas pelos proprios umbandistas como seres inferior e subalternos ao homem branco. Só podemos supor, então, que a subalternidade system to valor positivo para a religião. E è isso que exatamente acontece. Podemos dizer que o poder da Umbanda religioso decorre dissociated, de uma inversão simbólica em que os estruturalmente inferior na sociedade são finished tores de poder to mágico Particular, advindo because propria condição que possuem. "

" The most spoken estimated [ spiritual ] beings in the Umbanda be regarded by believers as inferior and subordinate to the white man. So we can only assume that the subordination has a positive value for religion. And this is exactly what happens. We can safely say that the religious power of the Umbanda is fed by the symbolic inversion by which the structurally subordinates of the company are the owners of a certain magical power that arises from his own stand. "

The espíritos ( ghosts), entidades espirituais ( spirits ) or guias ( conductor ) composed equally of female and male beings having an earthly origin and return from the concerns of Caridade of charity (or Caritas ), according to their physical death back as a spirit to earth. They are divided into lineages ( linhas ), which are differentiated again into groups ( legiões / falanges ) and by a Orixá be ( an African deity ) guided and protected, which corresponds to a / m Catholic saints. The spirits groups are divided into evaluative categories. The so-called " spirits of light " ( espíritos de luz ) are located on the right side and include the Caboclos and the Pretos Velhos. They are included in domestic and family area. The " spirits of darkness " ( espíritos the trevas ) of the left side, however, are formed by the Pombagiras and Exus and the marginalized, attributed to the associated road world.

The Umbanda originated in the early 20th century in the urban centers in the Southeast and has spread across the country in the decades that followed and supplemented with local Afro- indigenous religious traditions. In contrast to Kardecism from which they emerged, the Umbanda is not defined dogmas or writings that have universal character of their faithful.

The Umbanda was founded by the autonomous TENDA or terreiros (cult houses), in the center there is a cult of the events leading charismatic personality ( mãe or pai -de- santo ). Their structure is on a very deliberate manner not centralized, but even federal and democratic diverse. Even emphasizes the kardezistisch oriented grouping within the Umbanda Iniciática Ordem do Cruzeiro Divino in the tradition of mat e Silva that the Umbanda not a religious leader (such as the Pope ) has, but the spirit as a direct mediator for the sacred are.

Direct influence have also developed later and umbrella organizations ( federações ), which are in relation with the special TENDA.

One of the etymological meanings of the word Umbanda is reflected in the Angolan languages ​​Kimbundu and Umbundu and refers to the traditional medicine of this region. In the Brazilian form this healing aspect focused on the psychotherapeutic treatment. Recovery processes and problem solving emotional and social nature as Dating and unemployment are always key task areas of this magical form of religion. Hugo Saraiva therefore calls the Umbanda spiritual emergency room.

The Afro-American syncretism called Hubert Fichte in his ethno poetry as " culture of the oppressed", which is often neglected or overlooked in the minds of educated academically. He sees it as a new humanity that overcome by their theatrics the Burgeoise, a

" Psycho- dramatic, aesthetic counter-movement within the slums of a continent, as a counter-movement, which is related to the Pop Art, Surrealism, street theater, psychoanalysis and this surpasses all existential and formal. "

In their aesthetic symbolic language integrates the Umbanda heterogeneous beliefs, such as from the popular Catholicism, the Jewish Kabbalah, the universal esoteric etc.