The Path of the Initiated
- Umbanda, USA
- Mar 15, 2019
- 4 min read
Updated: May 12, 2019
“It is better to learn by love than by pain.”
These words are some of the only advice I heard delivered from my Mae de Santo in three years of spiritual training in Brazil, but in an initiation-based religion where one is expected to learn from direct interface with divinity, it is not surprising or unusual either. When I moved to Brazil, I never intended to train in the African-Brazilian religion of Umbanda, in fact, I had never even heard of it and had no knowledge that such religions exist.
It probably seems strange that I would accept initiation into something that I didn’t understand, but even Brazilians remain relatively clueless for many months to years in such training. It is part of the test of whether they are worth their salt as a spiritual healer; those that do not have the facility to learn directly from spirit lose patience and leave, and those who are learning require time to adjust physically to the demands of the work. Such hands-off training has the added benefit of repeated struggle, confusion, and failure, always publicly, to acquire the humility of a spiritual vessel. But initiation-based training has both highly pragmatic and ineffable value, as well, as I went on to find out.
My initiation began in 2015, just months after arriving in Brazil. I consulted with one of the elders about the healing of my leg. It was surgically reconstructed the year before and I never fully regained the ability to walk. The answer I received was not from her but from one of her spiritual guides named Sete Encruzilhadas (“Seven Crossroads”). Sete Encruzilhadas told me that I shouldn’t be thinking about my leg, that there were bigger issues, and that I would never have a life that made sense until I learned to serve the community by working with divinity. I felt ill for the next thirty-six hours, from shock, fear, and excitement, but mostly because I knew it was true, and that my life and myself were going to change drastically in ways that I couldn’t control.
Initiation-based training does not work by hand-holding. You are not explicitly taught by elders; you are placed or thrown into situations where you either learn or do not. Little is told, even within a tradition that is very solidly in place. So I spent the next several months having little to no idea what was going on. And of everything within the practice of Umbanda, a tremendous emphasis is placed on the music, even though my Mae de Santo often stressed that it is not in fact music we are making; it wasn’t until months later that I understood what she meant.
A few methods were addressed directly: how to prepare for the spiritual work using herbs, the lighting of candles, and the requesting of permission from sacred objects and places. The mechanics, the mere motions, of requesting permission were taught, but again an energetic understanding clicked for me only months later. And of course, I learned the basics of how to play the atabaque, a drum we use in our spiritual works, and how to sing with more strength, abandon, and clarity.
But with time the gifts of initiation-based training became apparent. I began to understand what was going on around me energetically, and I started being able to participate in new ways. I discovered which Orixas are my “mother” and “father,” which types of energies I would be working with most intimately, and for what types of healing. All of this happened without direct instruction, and as a result, I started to trust my own mediunity. During these many months, I also started to trust my spiritual guides and to develop relationships with them.
In Umbanda, divinity is not channeled merely through the upper chakras and out the hands of the healer. The medium learns to open their entire body, all seven chakras including the lower chakras and microchakras, to divinity, and goes into a deep trance called “incorporation.” Therefore a medium must be an incredibly balanced, mentally-disciplined, and surrendered person.
The lower chakras are where some really ugly stuff hides: fear of death, shame, childhood trauma, control, and issues with sexuality, to name a few. The medium must be relatively clean of these traumas so that divinity can work through them, and the resolution of such issues is not fast or easy. This means that every pattern that is blocking someone in their everyday life will emerge for healing during their spiritual development. For this reason learning to be a medium in Umbanda takes time and courage. I faced week after week my own bigger life issues within the microcosm of my spiritual development: caring too much what others think, death, perfectionism, and getting stuck inside my own head.
But these issues weren’t faced alone. I had help from the collective of mediums who train and work (called the corrente, “the chain”) and also from my spiritual guides. As my guides helped me, I learned how to use them to be of help to others, how to listen to what is going on around me, and how to use my body as a tool for balance and understanding. But a love just as deep was formed for my fellow mediums, and a sense of separation was lost in the process of my training. I also developed a strong admiration for the community, as their willingness to ask for help and be changed are what drive the work forward, and they are our reason for communing with divinity day after day.
I saw that spiritual work is often situated within a religion for a reason; because a spiritual worker’s power is derived from faith in a higher power but also a love for one another. Umbanda places the highest esteem on fraternity, charity, and faith. A medium is simply a part of the chain, and the work of the chain supersedes the work of every individual within it. It is not about how to use herbs or how to set up an altar. Spiritual work cannot be taught through a book or a class because, like love itself, and like pain itself, it demands to be deeply felt.
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