Os trabalhos de amor e outras mandingas: A experiência mágico-religiosa em terreiros de umbanda

Abstract

The following text addresses the magical-religious experience carried on by many individuals when they seek to solve their love, financial and health problems by means of white magic spells done by pais-de-santo e mães-de-santo (saint s father and saint s mother) from umbanda. The rites through which this seek can be detected are free love spells, troublesolving spells, and healing spell. The concept of experience, here understood as the thing which gives sense to the sense, has been the main guiding idea of the reflections here enclosed. People who seek the umbandista spells as a way of solving their daily afflictions have the opportunity of living a rich magical-religious experience in which several dimensions intersect. Among these dimensions I decided to study the performance, the knowhow and the subjetivity. Each one gave rise to the opportunity of studying a range of other themes, such as the corporeity, the gestuality, vocality, the world knowledge, the science, the secret, the emotions and the moral. The ethnographic research was carried on in the yards which are named after Dona Luiza, Pai Gledson, Pai Salviano and Dona Terezinha umbanda, all of them situated in the town of Limoeiro do Norte, Ceará