Brazilian Candomble and Umbanda

[atlantean]

I have a long time friend who has been a knowleageable Babalorisha for over 40 years now, and he asked me to post here in case someone may benefit from his assistance.

In any event, please bear in mind that his practices are on the positive side, so he'd only agree to intervene constructively, never the other way around.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here or send me a pm.

[FaireMaiden]

Hi, *s*... Pray, what is a Babalorisha???

[Alta]

There are quite a few references in Google, but I also would appreciate at least an abbreviated overview of what is being offered.

Or at least could you comment if these articles describe it accurately?

http://religiousmovements.lib.virgin...nrms/macu.html

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a

Marion

[atlantean]

FaireMaiden,

A "Babalorisha", or "Father-of-Saint", is a priest of the highest degree within the hierarchy of a Candomble house. He's the head of the house. When it's a woman filling the same position, she's called a "Ialorisha", or "Mother-of-Saint".

Marion,

Those articles are not entirely accurate, which doesn't surprise me, given the subject inherent complexity and lack of related literature. Within the next couple of days I'll post some comments and see if I can clarify some of these issues, as well as what's being offered.

Meanwhile, for a mostly accurate but quite general overview, I'd recommend this article from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombl%C3%A9

[Alta]

Thanks atlantean. I was aware that many articles on the Internet are far from accurate, but had no basis to discern.

[atlantean]

Marion,

Sorry for not being able to post earlier, but here are a few comments about the articles you mentioned and some others I’ve seen:

Some common misconceptions present on these articles derive from the misuse of terms like Candomble, Umbanda, Macumba and others. For instance, many authors seem to use them as synonyms, while there’re more than subtle differences between them.

So, in order to clarify these issues a bit: Candomble is an African spiritualist religion, with a distinctive set of beliefs, rituals, practices, as well as ethical and moral codes of behavior, generally similar to those found in other religions. Candomble is in fact one of the oldest religions known to mankind.

The Umbanda can be thought perhaps as a modern branch of Candomble, rather than a full-fledged religion. The main difference is that while the Candomble in its purest form deals only with the Major and Minor Orishas, Umbanda is about the spiritual entities hierarchically bellow them and their teachings.

Macumba, on its turn, isn’t even regarded as a cult in Brazil, but only a general term used to designate a black magic ritual performed accordingly with African traditions.

The deities of the Candomble are the Major Orishas. These deities aren’t really personalized, but rather identified with specific forces of nature, elements, attributes, colors, and so on, pretty much like in the signs of the zodiac or the tarot arcana. For instance, the highest Orisha is “Oxala”, his color is white and he’s defined quite simply as “the universe”.

Below them in the hierarchy are the Minor Orishas. Differently from the major ones, these are actually entities that at some point of their evolution had human form, but through countless incarnations were able to achieve a state of ultimate perfection.

It may be also worth noticing that as a spiritualist religion, concepts like spiritual evolution, karma, reincarnation, mental, astral and physical planes, and so on, fully apply to the Candomble and the Umbanda.

There are in fact many similarities with the usual esoteric traditions. For instance, G. O. Mebes, in the book “Major Arcana”, provides a quite brilliant exposition about the physical, astral and mental planes, in a way that I find quite symmetrical with the Candomble and Umbanda teachings. He does so in the chapter about the Magician, when discussing the reason for his open arms, one pointing below and the other above.

In this sense, the Candomble deals almost exclusevely with the entities, questions and issues pertaining to the mental or spiritual plane, while the Umbanda is centered on the entities, questions and issues more akin to the astral and physical planes. Of course, in practice there’re no such compartmentalized divisions, though.

In a typical Umbanda ritual, the Babalorisha and the house mediums are able to connect with these entities and freely interact with them. This way, through the Babalorisha and the mediums these entities are able to offer counsel, guidance and even practical assistance to anyone, helping to solve all sorts of problems, questions or issues brought to their attention. They are actually respectfully referred to as “Guides” by those who know them well.

Their range of activity is as wide and encompassing as the human condition and nature allow for, though there are indeed some occasions when they won’t be able to, or even refuse to offer any kind of assistance.

From my particular experience I can certainly say that they’re highly ethical, spiritual, sophisticated and extremely smart, though it’s also true that the manifestation of these qualities is totally dependent on the Babalorisha or medium own backgrounds and commitment to the religion.

One final remark is that there’s no hierarchy among the different Candomble and Umbanda houses. Each one is completely independent from the others, so there’s nothing similar to a Vatican, a Pope or Cardinals in the Candomble or the Umbanda.

Interestingly, despite the lack of a governing body, the homogeneity of the religion, its rituals and practices remain preserved. In my opinion this is due much more to the entities’ role and influence than to any circumstantial effects, as there is seldom any contact between the different houses.

Of course, this is only a quite brief overview and there’s much more one could say about it, but that would be outside the scope of any single post. In any event, please let me know if you have any further comments or questions.

atl

[FaireMaiden]

Atlantean... I found it interesting reading when you referred us to the Wikipedia site... and am most glad you came back to explain in further detail the 'doings' of all these particular spiritual groups...

In my feeble attempt to 'translate' mentally the South American designation of a Babalorisha or Iolarisha, into my Western Occult self, I come up with the word 'Shaman'... Would that be an appropriate designation in your opinion???

I also found it interesting at Wikipedia with regard to the Cowrie shells... Interesting because I'm redecorating my office and just painted all the woodwork and molding trim with a high-gloss latex enamel paint by Ralph Lauren called, Cowrie Shell, *lol*