When the Medium Thinks It Is About Them

The gratitude that comes after the gira

I have seen this scene many times.

After a gira, someone approaches the medium to thank them.

Sometimes they speak about guidance that made sense. At other times, they say they left feeling lighter, found an answer, or noticed that something began to change after that consultation.

The gratitude is natural.

The person saw the entity manifest through that medium. It was before them that they sat. It was through their voice that they heard those words. It was their body that remained there throughout the conversation.

The medium participated.

But participating does not mean that the credit belongs entirely to them.

Perhaps that is why so many mediums I have known would respond simply:

— Thank the entity.

That answer did not diminish the medium’s role. It merely returned each part of the work to its proper place.

The work passes through someone

In Umbanda, the medium is an intermediary.

This does not mean that they are passive or irrelevant. There is preparation, discipline, study, and a willingness to serve. The way a medium cares for themselves, stands before the entity, and gives themselves to the work also influences what they are able to sustain.

Even so, the entity is not a character created to increase the importance of the person through whom it manifests.

The work passes through the medium, but it neither begins nor ends with them.

And even the entity does not work through an isolated force.

In the way I learned to understand Umbanda, nothing manifests without the forces of the Orishas and without God, also called Olodumare in traditions connected to the Orishas. It is within this greater order that spiritual work finds the strength, direction, and possibility to take place.

Perhaps this is one of the hardest things to remember over time.

Because receiving gratitude feels good.

Being recognized feels good.

Realizing that someone was helped through something in which we participated can also bring a legitimate sense of joy.

The risk appears when that joy begins to turn into a sense of ownership.

When the medium stops thinking, “I participated in this work,” and begins, perhaps without noticing, to think, “I was the one who did this.”

When the entities themselves refuse the center

I have also seen many entities respond in a similar way when someone thanked them.

Each answered according to their own way of speaking, their spiritual line, and their particular way of conducting the consultation.

Some would say:

— Thank your own strength.

Others asked the person to thank the Orishas.

Others directed the gratitude toward God.

The words changed, but something remained the same: even after guiding, welcoming, or helping someone, the entity did not present itself as the sole origin of what had happened.

It acknowledged the forces of the Orishas sustaining the work.

It acknowledged that, above that encounter, there was God.

And often, it also returned to the person receiving the consultation an awareness of their own participation.

This always caught my attention.

If even the entity recognizes that its work depends on greater forces and redirects gratitude beyond itself, perhaps there is an important lesson there for the medium as well.

The person also participates in their own change

When someone leaves a consultation and changes something in their life, it does not happen simply because they heard the right words.

They had to listen.

They had to recognize something within themselves.

They had to make a decision, change an attitude, or pass through a difficulty that would continue to exist after the gira.

The entity can offer guidance.

The medium can provide a passage for that guidance.

The mediumistic circle can help sustain the work.

The Orishas can offer strength, direction, and balance within what is taking place.

But no one can live that change on the person’s behalf.

Perhaps that is why some entities respond:

— Thank your own strength.

Not as a denial of spiritual assistance or of the forces of the Orishas, but as a reminder that the support received must also encounter a willingness to become a choice.

Humility does not mean denying responsibility

There is also a necessary caution in the opposite direction.

Recognizing that the credit does not belong to the medium should not become a way of erasing their responsibility.

The medium remains responsible for how they prepare, for the seriousness with which they participate, and for the posture they maintain before, during, and after the gira.

They are not the origin of the force that manifests, but neither are they simply a body without will or awareness.

There is human participation in that encounter.

There is responsibility in what is said, in how someone is welcomed, in respecting the limits of the person receiving the consultation, and in taking care not to mix personal desires with the work of the entity.

Perhaps this is where spiritual humility is found.

Not in pretending that one did not participate, but in clearly recognizing one’s part — without claiming what belongs to the entity, the Orishas, the mediumistic circle, the person receiving the consultation, and, ultimately, God.

There is also an important difference between receiving gratitude with affection and needing it to confirm one’s own spiritual value.

In the first case, the gratitude is welcomed.

In the second, it begins to feed an image.

And little by little, the work risks becoming less about service.

Who deserves the credit?

Perhaps the credit for spiritual work never belongs to only one part.

There is the entity that offers guidance.

There is the medium who provides a passage and must remain responsible for how they participate.

There is the mediumistic circle sustaining the gira.

There is the terreiro creating the conditions for that encounter.

There is the person receiving the consultation, who will need to turn guidance into choice.

There are the Orishas, whose forces sustain and organize the work within the tradition.

And there is God, Olodumare, as the greater source of life and of everything that may manifest through it.

Over time, I came to understand that saying “thank the entity” was not merely a form of courtesy.

It was also a way of protecting the medium from a silent confusion.

The confusion of imagining that, because they served as a path, they had become the source of what passed through them.

Entre mundos.

And perhaps serving also means learning to recognize our own participation without forgetting where the force that allows us to participate comes from.