“You’re going to London aren’t you?” I just nodded at the woman, and muttered a low “yes”. I was dressed but I felt naked. And I stood in front of her rigidly, not daring to ask questions, trying to protect my secrets from her watchful eye. “You’re worried aren’t you”, I hesitate and then mutter a little yes, barely opening my lips. “Don’t worry son, you’re going to find what you want over there.”

Here’s a woman, who has never seen me before, who has no information about me, and she knows that I am heading to London in a couple weeks! Do I look like I'm European? Not really. Do I speak like an Englishman? No way. A lucky guess?

I’m reluctant to ask any questions about my present or my past, too shy to talk about my problems with this spiritual woman, or the spirit that is supposed to have possessed her. But those who see her after me are more at ease. She puts her arms on their shoulders, they ask questions, put an arm around her. It’s a conversation between friends, between the living and the dead.

I walk back to my chair at the back of the hall, where I join my Brazilian friends. Alexandre comes to the Umbanda temple once in while. Natalia and Luana are here for their first time. We sit in silence throughout the ritual, we join in the chants and clap like the others do.

The mediums are dressed in white. They’re at the front of the hall and they lead the chants. They clap, they hold hands, they walk in a circle, they split up and kneel down in front of the Christ. Now they take some liquor and some cigars, and the prayers continue. Now one of them falls to the floor, another is kneeling with his forehead on the ground, arms on the side, a spirit is beginning to enter him.

The faithful sit quietly behind. A couple dozen people in neat rows of plastic chairs. Now one of the mediums comes through the crowd, a white man who talks like a black man, a preto, he’s possessed by the spirit of a slave. He jokes and points to someone in her seat. “you want it all and you don’t give nothing back”. The others laugh. “and you what are you laughing at?”. He makes his way down the aisle, and offers each of us a shot of his coconut rhum.

Two of the mediums are ready to receive people now. Two more men possessed by the spirits of old slaves. We form two lines and patiently await our turn to chat with the dead. The slaves are funnier than the Indians and their mood more cynical. While the Caboclo - the Indian spirit- tells you to relax, to be patient, the Preto urges you to act, to take charge, like an older brother would.

“You’re in nothing aren’t you” says the medium, a small man with green eyes. “No job, no girl.” I humbly agree. “You sit in the corner there waiting for people to come to you” He puts his hand on my shoulder, and offers me a swig of rhum. “First you gotta get yourself a girl” He takes a puff from his cigar. “Then, comes work”. I struggle with his Portuguese, its full of shortened words and –I am later told- slang from the 19th century. One of the organizers speaks Spanish, she translates for me. The Preto rolls a cigarette lights it and stubs it quickly with his palm. He puts it in a little paper and gives it to me. “Carry this with you, it will help you out.”

Nobody cut any chickens’ heads –like in Candomble- nor did we hear the frenetic rhythm of African drums. But it was absolutely mesmerizing. And all of this was happening on a regular weeknight, in a middle class neighbourhood, in the middle of Sao Paulo, the financial capital of Brazil.