What is Umbanda

Umbanda is a modern religion, founded in Brazil in the early 20th century. It is an eclectic religion, which has taken elements from various religious branches, and character syncretic (a philosophical or religious system that tries to reconcile different doctrines), which combines its pantheon of deities under the forms of the prevailing religion (Catholic Christianity).

Definition of Umbanda

Umbanda or "Umbanda spiritualism" is a spiritualist and esoteric religion, which combines elements of Spiritism (kardecian) and (Eastern) occult, alongside the African religion (Bantu) and American (Tupi), among others.

History Of Umbanda

The fundamental African religious values are ancient, they were inherited from pre-Christianity religious cultures. Afro-Brazilian culture began a syncretism between the Catholicism, cults afros, cultured native, kardecian spiritist doctrine. Shares maybe rules or principles of Eastern religions (Buddhism and Hinduism) but for reasons perhaps of temporality or perhaps to share geographically hemisphere, a native belief which has been mutating into different areas, but have kept their principles almost undamaged, so it is possible to find similarities or matches on the bases or principles of beliefs and also those evil so-called "magic" beliefs.

Within their temples, the evil commonly known as "magic" actually negative energies, is fought and nullified by entities that manifest themselves in their mediums.

First branch

Formed by the native spirits who lived before the arrival of the foreign conquerors. Those spirits already knew the phenomenon of the incorporation of mediums, as it was already practiced by the shamanism in their ceremonies. They already believed in the immortality of the spirit, in the existence of the supernatural world and the ability that the "dead" would interfere in the life of the incarnate.

Second branch

The African cults, without contact with the Brazilian natives, had these same beliefs, only that more elaborate and much better defined. Their priests practiced rituals and magic to balance the influences of the supernatural world of the underworld and also to balance the people. They believed in the immortality of the spirit and the power of them over the incarnated, arriving to create a cult for them (the cult of Egúngún de el pueblo Yorùbá). Also worship the ancestral through elaborate rituals and that remain, as they are one of the pillars of their religious beliefs. Their culture was transmitted orally from father to son, in the form of legends, preserving knowledge very old as the creation of the world, of men and events similar to the biblical flood. Umbanda cults of African nation inherited his divine Pantheon, which was pontificate by a supreme being and populated by deities which were its executors next to human beings, as well as their heavenly assistants that helped it in the realization of the material world.

Third branch

Formed by Kardec, that incorporated spirits of Indians, black former slave, Oriental, etc. Branch called "White Umbanda", in molds created spiritists, but in which they accepted the manifestation of caboclos, pretos-velhos and children. This branch can be described as a m?io-termino between spiritualism and the educated natives and afros, as it relies on Christian doctrine, but worshiped inherited religious values of American and African peoples. Do not open their cults with chants and drums, but with prayers to Jesus. Its members are identified as "Umbanda cajones".

Fourth branch

In Umbanda, the use of positive magic or white magic became part of the religion, being impossible to separate spiritual pure magical spiritual works, as well as religious works it is very common, black magic in this branch.

Religious syncretism, in which the Catholic religion catered for images that can be placed on altars, facilitated the process of transition from Catholics to Umbanda.

Expansion

The cult grew rapidly in the second half of the 20th century, mainly among the black population, there were 50,000 terreiros in 1960 in Brazil and in 1980 there were 300,000. In that decade in Uruguay had 300 terreiros (House of worship) and Argentina 200. Until the second half of the 20th century all the afro-Brazilian religions were you consider criminal by the Brazilian Government and were subject to periodic repression.