The celestial child: perambulations between Aruanda and the collective unconscious

Authors

  • Júlia Ritez Martins FFCLRP-USP
  • José Bairrão FFCLRP-USP

Keywords:

ethnopsychology, jungian analysis, umbanda, puer, child

Abstract

Considering that Umbanda religion expresses and elucidates Afro-Brazilian psychological ethnotheories, the aim of this research was eliciting the meanings connected to its concept of infant by investigating one of its pantheon main characters, the spirits of children. Jungian psychology was taken as reference not only for a contrast effect but also to facilitate Umbanda concepts organization. Both participant observation and interviews with worshippers and mediums in trance receiving children's spirits were performed. It was shown that these spirits reveal themselves by using mainly non-verbal ways of communication. As far as meaning is concerned, drawing the puer archetype near children's spiritual manifestation in Umbanda deserves careful approach, and assimilating these children into the archetype can only be performed by the superposition of a psychic concept on a diverse ethnotheory.

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Author Biographies

  • Júlia Ritez Martins, FFCLRP-USP
    Psicóloga. Mestranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia da Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto - USP. 
  • José Bairrão, FFCLRP-USP
    Psicólogo e fisósofo. Professor Doutor da Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto - USP.

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Published

2009-12-30

Issue

Vol. 21 No. 3 (2009)

Section

Articles

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To the extent possible under the law, Fractal: Journal of Psychology has waived all copyright and related rights to the Reference Lists in research articles. This work is published in: Brazil.

To the extent possible under law,Fractal: Journal of Psychology has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Reference lists in research articles. This work is published from: Brazil.

How to Cite

The celestial child: perambulations between Aruanda and the collective unconscious. Fractal: Journal of Psychology, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, v. 21, n. 3, p. 487–506, 2009. Disponível em: https://periodicos.uff.br/fractal/article/view/4763. Acesso em: 9 jan. 2026.