What Is the Passe in Umbanda? An Experience That Took Time to Understand

At first, I did not know what to expect from the passe in Umbanda

When I first began attending an Umbanda terreiro, there were many things I saw
happening without really understanding them.

Some drew my attention immediately. The songs. The atabaques — sacred drums
used in Afro-Brazilian religions. The presence of the entities. The way people
arrived carrying their stories and, many times, seemed to leave a little
different from how they had come.

Other things took me longer to understand.

The passe was one of them.

I saw it happening during the giras — Umbanda spiritual sessions — and
understood very little of what was taking place. At some moments, there was
even a more clearly defined place for it within the spiritual work. At other
times, it appeared differently, sometimes during the consultation itself,
sometimes accompanied by other elements that were also part of that care, such
as a rattle in the entity’s hands.

In other words, the passe in Umbanda did not always appear in the same way.

Maybe that is why it took me time to better perceive its place.

At the beginning, my expectations were still somewhat confused. As happens
with many people when they first come into contact with an unfamiliar
spiritual tradition, I imagined that it would need to be felt very clearly in
order to matter.

Maybe a shiver.
Maybe a strong emotion.
Maybe some sensation that would be impossible to deny.

I did not yet know that many of the most important things there did not arrive
in that way.

What the passe is in Umbanda

If I tried to explain it simply today, I would say that, in Umbanda, the
passe is usually understood as a practice of spiritual care connected to
energetic transmission, cleansing, reorganization, or balancing.

That is, at least, the closest way I can name what I saw happening over time.

In practice, the passe can take different forms from one house to another
and from one moment to another. Sometimes it comes through the movement of
hands near the body. Sometimes it appears within a prayer, a consultation, or
a brief gesture made by the entity. In some contexts, it also carries
influences closer to Spiritism, which helped shape the way this kind of
spiritual work took root in Brazil.

But for me, the most important thing was never finding an exact definition.

It was noticing how it manifested in the life of the terreiro.

The passe was also part of the rhythm of the house. It was present in the
welcome offered to people, in the consultations, and in certain moments when
someone still did not quite know how to put into words what they were feeling.

The first time I received a passe in Umbanda

The first time I received a passe, I was still looking at everything there
with very fresh eyes.

I wanted to understand.

Maybe even more than I wanted to live the experience itself.

Today I look back on that with a certain tenderness. I was still in that phase
when it felt necessary to understand everything immediately, as if an
experience could only have value after receiving a clear explanation.

At that moment, my expectation that something would happen was greater than
what I actually perceived.

I was expecting something more obvious. Something that would impose itself
clearly and make me think right away: now I understand.

But what came, many times, was much more subtle.

A sense of well-being.
A sense of calm.
Something difficult to name precisely.

But not always in an intense way.

Many times it appeared in a discreet, almost imperceptible way.

And perhaps that was exactly why it took me some time to recognize the
importance of that moment.

As the giras went by, I began to notice that the passe does not always
arrive as something striking in the most obvious sense of the word. Sometimes
it seems only to quiet a little of the inner noise. Sometimes it does not
bring anything easy to describe, yet still leaves behind a greater sense of
stillness.

What someone may feel during a passe in Umbanda

I think it is important to say this simply, because many people may approach
this subject expecting to feel something very clear.

And that can happen.

Some people feel warmth. Others lightness. Others emotion. Others say they
notice stronger bodily sensations or clearer shifts in their state of mind.

Some may also feel the presence of their own spiritual guides drawing near,
since in many moments those guides may also help in that energetic exchange
and in that work of balance.

But that perception does not depend only on the kind of person someone is.

It also seems to depend on the moment.

The same person may feel something very clearly one day, almost nothing on
another, and then notice something again on a different occasion.

Perhaps because the state in which someone arrives, the kind of spiritual work
taking place that day, and what is happening internally in that person also
make a difference.

Because of that, I would find it difficult to speak of the passe as if it
always produced the same effect, or as if it needed to be immediately
perceived in order to have value.

In my experience, that is not how it works.

Sometimes the person notices something right away.
Sometimes not.
Sometimes the effect feels more emotional.
And sometimes the change only becomes clearer later.

Who can give the passe in Umbanda

The passe could also happen through people in the house, and not only when
an entity performed it.

That was already visible to me in other contexts within the terreiro, such as
during Kardecist table sessions — Spiritist gatherings influenced by Kardecism
— when people also applied passe. Later, this became even more concrete when
I began working with chromotherapy inside the house. There, the passe was
also part of the work I was doing. For a long time, it was one of the tools I
used in that space of care.

That also changed the way I came to see it.

Until then, I had mainly looked at the passe as something I received,
observed, or noticed during consultations. Later, it also became part of what
I myself was doing.

And that changes the way one understands things.

Not because I came to possess some final explanation of the passe. But
because it ceased to be only something seen from the outside. It also became a
gesture I had to sustain with attention, intention, and responsibility.

At the same time, it was never simple for me to separate what came only from
the person giving the passe from what might also have been spiritually
assisted.

In many moments, it seemed clear to me that this assistance did not
necessarily depend on incorporation. Guides could also draw near and take part
in that work even without manifesting in that more visible way. And that, like
so many other things inside the terreiro, seemed to vary according to the
moment, the need, and the kind of care involved.

In chromotherapy, this became even more evident. The passe did not appear
in isolation. It happened together with that other form of care, within a
quieter and more inward atmosphere, where I often moved forward more through
presence, concentration, and a sincere attempt to help than through any well-
defined certainty.

Perhaps that is why I learned to look at the passe less as a gesture that
can be easily explained and more as something that happens within a broader
spiritual context.

How the passe supports spiritual work in Umbanda

Sometimes the passe also does not appear on its own.

Many times, it seems to prepare something.

Sometimes it prepares the person for a spiritual consultation.
Sometimes it helps reduce the agitation with which someone arrives.
Sometimes it seems to open space for the conversation with the entity to
unfold differently.
Sometimes it comes afterward, as if helping settle something that was stirred
during that encounter.

I do not like speaking about this in a rigid way, because life inside a
terreiro rarely fits neatly into closed frameworks.

But looking back, this perception became clearer to me: the passe often
took part in that broader movement of welcome and care.

Not always as the main focus.

But as an important part of the work.

In some contexts, it seemed almost to function as a first approach. In others,
as something that helped settle things afterward. And perhaps that is why I
associate it so strongly with the idea of passage: not only because it is done
with the hands or with other resources, but because it often accompanies the
person from one inner state to another.

From agitation toward some calm.
From heaviness toward some relief.
From confusion toward a slightly greater sense of presence within oneself.

How I understand the passe in Umbanda today

Today I understand better why the passe caught my attention so early, even
when I still did not know what to do with it.

It could appear in different forms, through entities, through people in the
house, in more visible moments or more discreet ones. But there was something
in it that kept returning: the attempt to help reorganize something.

Perhaps this also says something about spirituality more broadly.

Not everything that touches us spiritually comes as a rupture.

Sometimes it arrives as pause.
Sometimes as presence.
Sometimes as a gesture repeated many times, until one day we realize it had
been saying something from the very beginning.

Even today, I do not feel the need to turn the passe into a closed
explanation.

For me, it remains one of those experiences that we understand better by
living it, observing it, receiving it — and, at certain moments, also offering
it.

Perhaps I could say, very simply, that the passe is a spiritual work that
can help bring greater presence and some rebalancing.

But even that sentence still feels too small for what it can mean in certain
moments.

Entre mundos.

And perhaps some things make sense precisely because they continue to leave
space to be lived before they are fully explained.