Every culture, when it reaches a high degree of complexity, finds its artistic, literary and spiritual expression. But it reaches its maturity and addresses universal values when, starting from a profound experience of the Mystery of the world, it creates a religion. This is what happened with the Umbanda, a religion born in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro, in 1908, nourished by the fountain of the most genuine Brazil-ness, made of Europeans, Africans and Indigenous. Amidst social abandonment, with thousands of uprooted persons, from the jungle and from the most distant corners of profound Brazil, unemployed, sick with the notorious unhealthiness of the Rio of the early Twentieth century, a powerful spiritual experience arose.

 Zelio Moraes, a Brazilian from the interior, speaks of the communication of the Divinity through the figures of  Caboclo das Sete Encruzilhadas, of the indigenous tradition, and Preto Velho, of the tradition of the slaves. That revelation is addressed primarily to the humble, deprived of all material and spiritual support. It seeks to reinforce in them the perception of the profound equality among all, men and women; it tries to strengthen charity and fraternal love, mitigate injustice, console the afflicted and reintegrate the human being into nature, under the guidance of the Gospels and of the sacred figure of the Divine Master, Jesus.

The name, Umbanda, is charged with meaning. It is formed by, OM (the original sound of the universe in the oriental traditions) and, BANDHA, (incessant movement of the divine force.).  It syncretizes in a creative form elements of the various religious traditions of our country into a coherent system.  It grants higher status to the traditions of Candomble of Bahia, because they are the most popular and closer to the needs of human beings.  But it does not consider them as entities, but as forces or pure spirits that, through spiritual Guides, approach people to help them. The Orixas, the Mata Virgem, the Rompe Mato, the Sete Flechas, the Cachoeira, the Jurema and the Caboclos represent archetype facets of the divinity. They do not multiply God in a false pantheism, but concretize, under the most diverse names, the one and only God. This becomes a sacrament in the elements of nature, such as the mountains, the waterfalls, the woods, the sea, in fire and in the tempests. Confronting these realities, the faithful enter into communion with God.

The Umbanda is a profoundly ecological religion. It returns to human beings the feeling of reverence for cosmic energies. It renounces animal sacrifices and limits itself to flowers and light, subtle and spiritual realities.

Flavio Perri, the Brazilian diplomat who served in important posts such as Paris, Rome, Ginebra and New York, found himself under the spell of the Umbanda religion. Using resources from the comparative sciences of religion and different hermeneutic methods, he elaborated on his keen reflections under the title: The Enchantment of the Orixas, explaining the spiritual wealth of the Umbanda. He blends his work with his own poems, of fine spiritual perceptions and joins the genre of poet-thinkers and mystics, such as Alvaro Campos (Fernando Pessoa), Murilo Mendes, T. S. Elliot and the Sufi, Rumi. Even when under the spell, his style is restrained,  without exaltation, because that is the rigor of the nature of the spiritual demands.

It also helps to set aside the prejudices that surround the Umbanda, because of its origins in the midst of the popular culture's poor, spontaneously syncretistic. The fact that they produced a significant spirituality and had created a religion whose means of expression are pure and simple reveals how profound and rich is the culture of the humiliated and offended, our brothers and sisters. As it was said at the beginnings of Christianity, that had its origins also as a religion of slaves and outcasts: «the poor are our teachers, the humble, our masters.»

Perhaps a reader finds it strange that a theologian like myself says all this that I have written. I can only answer that a theologian who does not seek God beyond the limits of his or her religion or Church is not a good theologian. Rather, he would be someone who is erudite in doctrines. He would lose the opportunity to run across God, Who communicates through other paths and Who speaks through different messengers, God's true Angels.  God surpasses our brains and our dogmas.

- Leonardo Boff, Theologian. Earthcharter Commission