The article considers Umbanda a recently formed afro-brazilian religion, devided between the pleas of its black roots and the legitimizing attractions of adopting Christian ethical principles. In spite of barely rationalized and alleging a predominantly enchanted view of the world, it has been becoming increasingly moralized, above all, as from influences of the Kardecist ideal of charity. Such an integration is not, however, linear, but reinterpreted as from the concrete experience of its agents and moderated by the need of requesting religious services rendered and by the “demand”, magic concept of inter-individual conflict.
umbanda; religion; afro-brazilian; religions; popular religions; spiritism