Mediumship: Spiritism, Umbanda and other religions

Paulo Degering R Jr
Mediumship: Spiritism, Umbanda and other religions
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Not long ago, I demonstrated, in article is at video, that the reason for the birth of Umbanda was due to an absurd attitude of a spiritist center that prohibited Spirits such as those of the “pretos-velhos”, recognized in Umbanda as one of its entities, from communicating. They mistakenly thought that mediumship belongs to Spiritism. Sad reality of a distorted doctrine, formed by the cooperation of groups and individuals even from Catholicism and Protestantism, who studied it, regardless of their religions.

Image: people in white, wearing Umbanda clothes, a religion where mediumship is practiced and, often, Spiritism is studied

Today, the Spiritist Movement, which accuses other religions of “mysticism”, also adopts several mystical ideas, to the detriment of existing doctrinal knowledge.

It turns out that this disagreement occurred, on both sides, due to a lack of knowledge of what Spiritism really is, which, at that time, was already distorted on Brazilian soil. On the side of the spiritists, who wanted to dictate the truth based on false concepts, if they had known the content of the Spiritist Magazine, they would know how unreasonable such an attitude would be, since Kardec demonstrated the usefulness of evoking all the Spirits, with one detail: not to hear them and believe in them without reasoning, but to be able to study their communications in a psychological way.

Before I continue, I need to say that if you believe you know enough and don't need to know anything else, this article is not for you. Otherwise, if you are interested in knowing the facts and thus judging by your own conscience, stay with me until the end.

I want to say, to make it clear, based on the knowledge acquired through the study: all Spirits have something to teach, although not in the same way, in the same way that we can learn from the words of the wise, which we seek to internalize, and from the examples of criminals, which we seek not to repeat. This is how, for example, Kardec and others found learning from the guiding Spirit of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, São Luís, to the study of the Spirit of the ragpicker on Noyers Street, who scared the people there and threw stones at the windows. (read Spiritist Magazine 1860 » August » The ragpicker on Rue de Noyers).

Contents hide
1 dissent
2 Stigma
3 Umbanda entities
4 The rediscovery of true Spiritism
5 Conclusion
6 Reading Recommendations (Books)

dissent

Unfortunately, with dissent, the first founders of the Umbanda religion not only moved away from the Spiritist Movement, with its errors, but also from the Spiritist Doctrine, which was the result of joint and collaborative efforts, coordinated by Allan Kardec, in the methodological and systematic of thousands of evocations, spontaneous communications and various spiritist phenomena. Umbanda was not the only case.

But I'm not here to point fingers at anyone. I am of the opinion that everything got tangled up by the “force of things”, that is, people just repeated what they were taught. It is not too much to repeat: Spiritism, when it really gained strength in Brazilian territory, arrived adulterated in principles and greatly influenced by the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Roustaing, who chose to blindly believe in Spirits who fed his vanity by declaring him the “revealer of the revelations” and who quickly turned against Kardec when he sought to warn him of the danger of doing so, instead of taking care to question the Spirits and his own reason. The FEB itself – Brazilian Spiritist Federation – self-proclaimed responsible for the direction of Spiritism in Brazil, adopted Roustaing's principles since its origins, and this is one of the biggest reasons why evocations were abolished in this country, an influence that is spreading today throughout the world and that turned the Spiritist Movement into a religion, very far from the science that Spiritism actually is.

Due to this distancing from Spiritism, substantially stigmatized by the actions, practices and words of Brazilian “spiritists”, there were countless dissents from the Spiritist Movement, sometimes towards other religions, sometimes towards disbelief. But, here, we come to the problem of the matter: mediumship, for those who had it, was almost never interrupted by the departure of the Spiritist Movement, which does not stop it. Thus, almost always, they began to live mediumship in the way they knew how and how they could, far from the knowledge generated by that collaborative work for which Kardec was responsible, as it was necessary to be at that time.

Stigma

This stigma, generated by the Spiritist Movement, meant that, for a long time, and still today – unfortunately – people from religions such as Umbanda, who practice mediumship, looked at Allan Kardec with prejudice and even with a certain anger, often believing , that he had founded a religion where he intended to adopt the truth. Nothing false anymore, but the truth was very difficult to reach behind so many false ideas that the Spiritist Movement cultivated (and still cultivates). Kardec never took the truth for himself. His role was that of a dedicated researcher, who always sought to act impersonally, always ready to modify his concepts and hypotheses when they proved to be wrong. Thus, through systematic and careful observation, carried out in collaboration with countless groups and people, it was possible to establish several doctrinal principles, which are not the absolute truth, but which reason indicates as the most rational and probable possible.

image: Allan Kardec, researcher responsible for coordinating the studies, using mediumship, that allowed the formation of the Spiritist Doctrine, or Spiritism

Umbanda entities

Behind the nomenclatures with African roots, which many still find strange and stigmatized, are the Spirits that communicate in the Umbanda religion. Below Olorum, the orixás of the Yoruba tradition are venerated as superior entities, and they vary according to each branch of the religion. These include Oxalá, Oxum, Oxóssi, Xangô, Ogum, Obaluaiê, Yemanjá, Oyá, Oxumaré, Obá, Egunitá, Yansã, Nanã and Omolu. Below the orixás, spiritual entities are grouped into lines and phalanges, covering different categories, such as the Caboclos, which are indigenous spirits; the Pretos Velhos, which represent the spirits of former Brazilian slaves; the Exus, who are benevolent spirits and messengers of the orixás; the Pomba Giras, identified as ladies of the night or sorceresses; and the Erês, who are childish spirits.

As we can see, they are just nomenclatures, and nothing more than that. Pashas, Zouaves (who were African soldiers), supposed sorcerers, etc. communicated with Kardec or were evoked. When they became more enlightened, they appeared detached from their previous personalities; At least, they said they presented themselves as they were or as they remembered or imagined.

Of course, I cannot help but remember that evocation for the purpose of empty curiosity or play will be reciprocated by the presence of Spirits of like mind. Serious evocations were carried out with the aim of developing the Doctrine.

It is from here that we will approach Spiritism in its reality, without impositions, since, as Umbanda is a religion, it is necessary to recognize the freedom of each person to believe in what they want, and how they want.

The rediscovery of true Spiritism

What I intend to demonstrate, finally, is that the mediumship practiced in Umbanda does not differ from the mediumship practiced by spiritists, or by Catholics, by Buddhists, by any religion, in short, or even by freethinkers, except for one detail: beliefs. And here, I need to be emphatic in repeating that Spiritism, being, from a spiritual point of view, in Nature itself, is thus characterized by a natural science, so that, to understand it well, scientific dedication is necessary. Note that here I am separating Spiritism from the Spiritist Movement: they are two different things.

Well then: the merit of Kardec and all those who seriously studied Spiritism in its first steps, was to analyze with methodology and scientific rigor the results of mediumistic communications and various phenomena, obtaining, as I mentioned, a theory composed of several doctrinal principles, exhaustively verified. Kardec, for example, several times questions how the Spirit got there so quickly, not being satisfied with the first answer. It was thus possible to understand who the Spirits are; how they find themselves after leaving the material body, after its death, etc., which later gave rise to Kardec's other works, including “The Book of Mediums or Guide to Mediums and Evocators”, a true practical treatise on the science of communication with the Spirits. With this, it was possible for the mediums and scholars of the time, who naturally came from different religions, apart from the freethinkers, to overcome several errors and become increasingly useful in the propagation of knowledge that every day converted more to good. and to reasoned faith criminals, depressives to the point of despair, disbelievers, etc.

If you've been following me, you'll understand what I'm saying. It's like saying: if there are studies on physics, which explains principles such as inertia, it would be unwise to practice base jumping without calculating the inertia that could cause the individual to fall to the ground, taking the necessary precautions to prevent this from happening. When we talk about mediumship, we say the same thing.

An example of errors made by modern spiritists is the one given at the beginning, when they wanted to prohibit the communication of a Spirit that presented itself under such a nomenclature. Another: it has already been demonstrated that we cannot blindly believe in what the Spirits say, as they do not gain wisdom by leaving the physical body, it is necessary to always reason about what they say and, if there is any room for doubt, it is necessary to investigate further , including through evocations, if necessary, if the Doctrine no longer provides sufficient answers to the subject in question.

One more example: it has already been demonstrated that it is not possible to dominate Spirits through rituals, formulas or objects, and that malicious Spirits often intensify their attacks even more when one tries to do so. This is the result of this methodological study on countless Spirits. Kardec, in fact, tries to make a bad Spirit go away through the force of God's words and name, during an evocation, without success. Still, there are those who deliberately choose to turn a deaf ear to these facts and who, not infrequently, end up magnifying their displeasures or, sometimes, becoming non-believers, who do not find a solution to their disturbances, despite all the formulas, signs, objects and rituals used.

Conclusion

Of course, Kardec did not end Spiritism. Quite the opposite: as a scientist, he always asserted the need to continue his studies. However, for this continuity, all the aspects previously highlighted are necessary. It is not enough to listen to isolated opinions from Spirits and take them as truth, and those who fight against this, deep down, just want to support their own vainly cultivated opinions.

The reflection, to conclude, is this: neither spiritists, nor dissidents, nor other people, religious or not, really know what Spiritism is today, although everyone is capable of practicing mediumship. Therefore, they suffer from various deceptions and harmful effects, the main one being obsession and even possession, in addition to the dissemination of false ideas that delay the development of humanity. Often, these bad results are found by people in good faith, for whom knowledge would be enough. Other times, they are reluctant people, who definitely don't want to open themselves up to the possibility of admitting that they are wrong or that they don't know everything – but this article is not for them.

Let us, therefore, as in Kardec's time, help recover this knowledge. Let's learn what Spiritism really is, through the study of the Revista Espírita from 1858 to 1869; let's practice healthy mediumship, free from false ideas; We will then resume the evocations, and then cooperate between the groups, as Kardec presents in Revista Espírita, not with mediumship restricted to “spiritist centers”, as we know it today, but rather with it spread across small groups and family groups, each one of them a “center”. It does not matter what religion each person has, to which everyone has the right: Spiritism is a natural fact, accessible to everyone.

For a long time, the Spiritist Movement and Umbanda were guided by mysticism, despite having such a rich and serious wealth of knowledge at their disposal. Whether you are a participant in the Spiritist Movement, or another religion, or even a freethinker who wants to know the facts, join this recovery effort. That's the invitation.

I suggest, as a great read, the work “Autonomy: the never told story of Spiritism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

Thank you for accompanying me here.

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Reading Recommendations (Books)

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