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Assessing Ritual Experience in Contemporary Spiritualities

Seeking to attain balance and well-being through what practitioners call
‘spiritual development’, the ritual practice in Paris of Umbanda—an Afro-Brazilian religion—
is emblematic of the orientation that characterizes contemporary spirituality. In
this context, regular public mediumistic rituals are aimed at transforming participants
into beings open to the teachings of ‘spiritual entities’, which they embody for their own
and others’ benefit. In this process, specialists and participants are explicitly and systematically
invited to ‘take stock’ or ‘share’, that is, to revisit the rituals they perform. This
article argues that ‘sharing’, which may also be found in other forms of contemporary
spirituality, is not only an exegetical exercise that participants must regularly submit to
in order to assess how these rituals affect them. It may also be understood as a ritual
device that the efficacy and reproduction of such practices depend upon.