Brujería, nonetheless, can nonetheless be a supply of concern for a lot of, which Velasquez attributes to colonialism. “We’ve all the time been a really superstitious tradition, however once we have been colonized and informed we couldn’t [pray to our spirits] as a result of we’d go to hell, I feel it scared us. It made us afraid, not solely of spirits, however of ourselves. However now I feel there’s lots of people popping out extra [as bruja/os] as a result of I feel as a result of we’re evolving, persons are extra accepting.”
Magic as a type of resistance
For São Paulo-based Wiccan Priestess Marília de Abreu, witchcraft means following a coherent path that hyperlinks our interior nature to the hidden forces of nature, whereas tuning into the cycles and religious language of the world. She began the Wicca Cia das Bruxas in 1998 and has been practising her Craft in Brazil. Witchcraft got here to São Paulo by means of its Indigenous peoples, European immigrants, enslaved Africans, in addition to via Cuban Santería, amongst different traditions.
“I imagine magic is part of life,” Abreu says.“The distinction is between triggering it with out consciousness and consciously utilizing it with intention. In actual fact, a witch’s path is the pursuit of knowledge to the way to use it consciously, however magic is current in every little thing.”
She says brujería in Brazil was additionally used as a type of resistance and self-identity. “The colonizers discovered Indigenous magic right here and later with slavery, African magic. The natives have been conscious of native medicinal herbs for illnesses that the colonizer had no drugs for. For the black individuals who got here as slaves, their magic was additionally a type of resistance and a manner of sustaining their ancestral cultural roots,” Abreu says. “Pai de Santo (Father of Saint) [the male priest in Afro-Brazilian religions] was certainly the daddy of many slaves and represented the hyperlink with the entities of his origin.”
One other bruja, Carmen Regina Casella, who practices and teaches stregheria (a type of religious self-defense) says the essence of witchcraft goes past geographical boundaries. “As witches, our homeland is the spirit. Magic has no ‘coloration,’ however has steering on different ranges … it doesn’t cling to human duality,” she says.
“[The colonizers] tried each to finish man’s religious connection to the earth and to exterminate anybody who used magic practices for therapeutic and aid … and to sentence any follow that was not institutional and accepted by the ruling church-state. Solely the Pope would signify ‘divine’ energy on earth. Effectively, it didn’t work out and we’re right here, with all the colours of the rainbow,” Carmen says.
In brief, brujería isn’t a fantastical or fairytale-like follow, however a acutely aware, intention-based one. It could be shrouded in thriller, but it surely’s primarily about tapping right into a deeper language of the universe.
Associated: The way to Use Intercourse Magic to Manifest Your Greatest Self
Editor’s notice: This story has been up to date for readability.