I often came across rivers that house gods

What is it about?

This study examines the question of how religious knowledge of the Umbanda religion is transferred from Brazil to German-speaking Europe in an interreligious network. Since the personalization of the Umbandistic spirits are not familiar in the cultural context in Europe, an emotional archive through the body becomes significant. In understanding the different aspects of religion in Africa, Brazil and Europe in relation to kinship, regionality, personality and nature, which are reflected in the sacred dimension, the focus is laid on the ontological understanding of the spiritual world and its understanding of nature and human beings. The argument of a shift of attention in the Umbanda religion to a stronger focus on nature in Central Europe is based on an observation of a change of the entanglements and borders of the religious field of Umbanda in German-speaking Europe integrating a great component of psychological aspects, especially a newly founded therapy of nature.

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Photo by Anastasia Taioglou on Unsplash

Photo by Anastasia Taioglou on Unsplash

Why is it important?

If trance can be understood as the emergence of new states of consciousness, it is perhaps not insignificant to mention - in order to take a hopeful standpoint - that in the case of the Umbanda in German-speaking Europe these embodiments of a sacred dimension are assigned to a tradition outside of Europe, in order to become part of Europeans own reality as well and to remember the borderless connection to nature and contribute to sustainable societies. Natural spirituality is a form of perceiving the world that has not been outsourced and separated from us humans and can in this sense offer a possible future, since the material and the immaterial are not seen as being contradictory. My argumentation is based on my doctoral thesis “Trauma as a knowledge archive. Postcolonial memory practice in sacred globalization using the example of contemporary Umbanda in German-speaking Europe”, which I defended in August 2020 at the Institute of European Ethnology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. It is based on five-year long field research in the Umbanda community Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô / Terra Sagrada in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Brazil, but also includes inputs from two other Umbanda houses in German-speaking Europe – the Casa St. Michael in Germany and the Cantinho da Vovó Catarina in Switzerland.

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