The Expansion of Jurema in the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Following Umbanda and Candomblé, the Jurema Encantada is the most recent Brazilian religion to cross the Atlantic and to penetrate the transnational complex of the Iberian Peninsula, notably Portugal, from where it shows signs of expansion. Religions are, in essence, adept of the transnational. They will transfer from one community to another, despite the cultural differences, and may exist within both, and expand, in a broader sense, as if to designate the passage ways and to allow the phenomenon of a third way, a hybridization of the production of cultural elements: in constant rearrangement, often showing in colonial and post-colonial societies. All this contributes to the emergence of a new category of ideal mod-el – the charismatic peregrine, founder of new communities of modern religiosity. This is the object of our essay, based on topics of a study of one Jurema, the Centro Espírita Vila Alhandra, in S. Lourenço, Azeitão, Portugal.