A while ago, I suffered a burnout as a result of stress.
I am doing fine now...
but around me I see many people struggling with depression and stress.
Are our mental health problems modern day diseases?
I am travelling to countries that don't seem nearly as affected...
looking for new solutions to mental problems.
I am in Brazil, attending a religious gathering.
My interpreter and guide Samantha has just become unwell.
She felt overwhelmed by the energy of the attending spirits.
They made her lose her voice.
The tangible presence of the spirit world, as felt by Samantha...
plays an important role here.
Being possessed by spirits, hearing voices, having extreme mood swings...
is not considered normal in the West.
But how do the Brazilians view lunacy?
A couple of days earlier I take my first stroll through Salvador.
Samantha is a Candomblé practitioner, a religion that originated during slavery.
It's a mix of several West African religions, Catholic saints...
and native Brazilian influences.
Everywhere you look, you see depictions of orishas, the gods of nature.
In the West we believe in what we call 'being normal'.
If you behave outside the norm, you get pigeonholed.
But here they believe that the spiritual dimension, spirits or orishas...
have a huge impact on your state of mind and the course of your life.
Do you believe in spirits?
Okay. Maybe after all this work here, you are going to believe more in spirits.
And I believe that almost all our life is formed by things that you cannot control.
I guess we can control 20 percent of our lives.
Yes.
Yes. Do you believe that you can control more?
That you can control your whole life? Do you think so?
How much do you think you can control?
Oh, that's a lot.
Samantha and Josuel, our driver and producer...
are taking me to meet a well-known Candomblé priest.
Josuel is a Candomblé practitioner too.
This temple is known for healing many people with mental health problems.
Inside, we meet a woman who has benefited from a treatment here.
Before, the doctors treated it as a postnatal depression with medication.
I am more in control now, even though I am still on medication.
But now I am able to be more realistic...
and keep both feet firmly on the ground.
She has to go to the front, she to the back.
Look at that, beautiful.
I want to interview the priest, but that isn't done without ceremony.
He and other dignitaries have changed into traditional dress...
and sit down in an official line-up.
What can you do what a doctor can't? -We take care of the spiritual side.
Many doctors refer their patients to us.
If doctors can't heal them, people look elsewhere for alternatives.
How have you helped heal this woman?
With religion, because ultimately healing comes from within.
Everybody has their own orishas.
By throwing shells, we communicate with the orishas.
They tell us what needs to be done with someone who isn't well.
Yes, in some people that is really clear to see.
Oshosi. The hunter.
From the woods. You love the woods.
Oshosi's children are usually very free-spirited.
Oshosi the hunter as my private god.
A little while later on the water I think:
Could my orisha's love of the woods and nature...
explain the emptiness I sometimes feel in the city?
But the idea that this orisha determines my state of mind...
and helped cause my burnout, is a brand-new concept to me.
Scholar Denize Ribiero...
has studied the way in which Candomblé deals with mental health problems.
She has compared it to western psychological models.
The disease is seen as a manifestation of the orisha in that person.
So the problem is not necessarily a problem.
It is a path that will lead you to Candomblé...
where you tend to your entire being, not just that one symptom.
The disease isn't always seen as something bad.
Quite the contrary. It is a way of saving your identity...
saving a forgotten part of yourself.
Under this philosophy, mental ailments can lead to spiritual growth.
To keep mentally balanced, Samantha prays daily for orishas and other saints.
Do you think it's weird that I hear the spirits' voices? Am I crazy?
I don't care whether you hear them or not. It doesn't affect me.
So you don't think your wife is crazy? -No.
For special occasions, Candomblé practitioners only wear white clothes.
Tonight we attend a meeting hosted by Josuel's spiritual family.
All these people have joined the same temple.
We are from the same temple, but from different families.
We have created our own family through our religion.
Right, Jó?
Our bond is closer than the one with our families.
Absolutely.
Samantha starts chatting to one of Josuel's spiritual family members.
She ended up in a psychiatric hospital for what we would call a psychosis.
Whenever the beast took me...
they would take me to hospital and give me a shot.
Afterwards, my bum would look like a pin cushion from all the needles.
So Candomblé was and is very important to me.
I owe my spiritual health to them. I can't thank them enough.
They got me back on my feet and helped me to look after myself...
until I could do it myself again.
Because I thought my life was over. I thought: Oh my God...
I thought it was never going to pass, and then they would comfort me.
I have seen the orisha with my own eyes, but I couldn't see his eyes.
Of course. Nobody can see his eyes.
He was made of fire. I saw strands of his clothing.
That's when I recognised him.
There are certain behaviours within Candomblé...
that we think are perfectly normal.
For example, getting into a trance or having visions.
Within the realms of psychology this can be interpreted...
as a problem, a delirium.
If I would know the answer to that, I would tell you.
Because it's not that simple.
I live between those extremes and try to combine both perspectives.
It's a gift that you can see the orisha here. It's a gift.
Yes, yes. They are the orishas, not the humans.
They are receiving the orishas.
Do you see the energy that the pai-de-santo of this house has?
Dancing so much... That is just the energy of the orisha in him.
The one who is in the straw.
He has been dancing for a long time now.
After the orisha has left his body, I talk to the priest of this temple.
How do you feel when the orisha enters your body?
It feels like sleeping.
How does this treatment differ from that in a psychiatric clinic?
Candomblé uses the exchange of energies...
and a clinic uses medication and psychotherapy.
But a spiritual treatment is more intense and the effects last longer.
It is much more powerful. -Correct.
The exchange of energies.
I am trying to feel what the priest means, but I am struggling.
Samantha is moved, and, without me noticing it, she enters a state of trance.
When I try to talk about it with her afterwards, she has lost her voice.
Josuel says Samantha has a hard time in sacred places like these.
Several orishas are fighting for her attention.
As long as she hasn't joined a temple, she has no control over them.
Hello? -It's the doctor. Please open the door.
In this psychiatric hospital they also believe...
that lunacy and mental problems like drug addiction...
may have to do with spiritual forces that transcend human beings.
My name is Vitor Carpentié, I am 28 years old.
I am a registered nurse and an alcoholic.
Are you ready to leave?
I feel prepared. It has been almost sixty days.
It will be sixty days on Tuesday.
I had such a nice time here that I wouldn't mind staying on for a bit.
Very good. Since my treatment I have a clear head. I feel a lot better.
I will just write you a prescription.
Right, thank you. -Bye.
Thanks. -Take care.
Mummy loves you. Mummy loves you, I swear.
People who are confused are sometimes accompanied by spirits.
I am bipolar. I also have...
I have been admitted for panic attacks and multiple anxieties.
I think it's a spiritual problem. -Why?
Because I have been doing a lot better since I got here.
I have changed.
My self-image has greatly improved.
I am touched by the warm, free atmosphere and the patients' enthusiasm.
She wants to hug the foreigner.
Me too. Me too, if that's alright with him.
During a spiritual session...
Samantha undergoes the same treatment as the patients here do.
She receives positive energy while mediums pass on the spirits' messages.
Samantha, right now you are being surrounded by a silver light.
That light is the energy of all those here present.
I am cold.
Welcome, sister. You are in a peaceful place full of love.
I am so cold.
I want to go into the river. -Feel the light getting closer.
Can you see it?
Yes, but my feet are still frozen.
No, take a good look. Can't you feel the warm water on your feet?
The séance goes on for a long time, as all patients need treatment.
36 years old.
We are now going to visualise this brother.
I have wasted my entire life.
There is no end to my suffering.
Forget the past. We are going... Easy, easy.
Relax.
These spirits haunt Samantha too.
Afterwards, one of the mediums explains why Samantha got so upset:
She also has a gift for communicating with the spirits, but hasn't developed it yet.
Being a medium is like having a light inside of you.
Have you ever looked at a light on a rainy night?
There will be insects buzzing around it, some of them fly into the light.
The same goes for the spirits. Mediums secrete a certain scent.
The spirits pick up on that scent, and that's why they smother you.
If you are not prepared for all that energy, you will feel like that.
This job takes its toll on Samantha.
During filming, we visit many places where spirits congregate.
She is not equipped to deal with that.
Samantha likes relaxing with her dad and stepmother in the countryside.
She has a strong spiritual connection with them.
In Europe they would say I needed therapy because I cry so much.
But actually it's those who don't cry who need therapy.
We are Latin-Americans. We show our emotions.
A Latin-American shows you what he wants. He doesn't beat around the bush.
People who cover everything up are the crazy ones.
What do you believe in? Do you believe in orishas?
No. I do respect them, because I can see that...
You do believe.
I think about the gods most when I'm on the toilet.
Really, when I'm on the toilet. That is my most intimate and private time.
When I'm by myself, I talk to the spirits.
I talk to them, give answers. She sometimes catches me talking to them.
'Who are you talking to?"
I'm just talking to them. It doesn't mean a thing.
The emotional problems that are being evoked within Samantha, are not unusual.
Valentine lives close to Samantha's father's estate.
While working in the US, she suffered a nervous breakdown...
and was admitted into a psychiatric hospital.
If your behaviour is partly determined by the spiritual world...
you may have less control, but it does give you more freedom.
No one will call you abnormal or crazy if you behave outside the norm.
Is there even such a thing as normality within Brazil's spiritual philosophies?
No. -No? Why not?
Normal isn't a Candomblé definition, but a western definition.
Yes, more fluidity, less limits.
It is a model that is open to differences...
and individual interpretations.
Everything has an influence on what you are. The diagnosis isn't set in stone.
Samantha's priest friend performs a ritual for orisha Eshu.
Somebody enters a deep trance.
While he is being taken into another room, I talk to the priest.
We have summoned Eshu and Eshu has chosen him.
He could feel Eshu's energy inside of him.
That's why he changed into a different outfit for Eshu.
A little while later he appears, dressed like the god Eshu...
including the cigar and whisky that characterise this orisha.
I wonder...
do these Candomblé rituals offer a safe place to let your emotions run free?
And is it possible, through this role play and cross-dressing...
to inspect all aspects of the human psyche?
I would love to understand it all...
but can I even attempt to explain it from my limited, western point of view?
It frustrates Samantha that I approach what is sacred for her as a study subject.
But it is hard to understand spirituality if you don't experience it yourself.
And this dancing? Seems to me mostly like a fun party.
After the ritual, I meet with priest Sumaki for a private consultation.
We could give you a herbal tea...
made from the leaves of your orishas...
so you no longer have to rely...
on this kind of medication.
Also, this is bad for your stomach.
Through the shells, Sumaki talks with the gods in a West-African language.
The gods pass on messages about my children, my partner and my work.
Her emotional life is slightly disrupted.
A bit disturbed. Her emotional life.
The disturbance comes from within, maybe as a result of indecisiveness.
If I were to live here and start treatment, this would just be the beginning.
She is struggling with her orishas.
They are battling, they all want to rule over her mind.
That is the electric current she is now feeling.
So that her main orisha can win the battle and bring her peace.
Through rituals, he balances the orishas vying for my spirit.
Have you seen good things in the shells for her?
She is unbalanced. She needs to be more patient and tolerant.
I'm feeling so much better.
I have a battery for five minutes.
I have a battery for ten, fifteen minutes maybe.
No, I'm not bipolar, okay?
Of course. You're asking me: I think your mood is going down. Of course.
I think a lot of things about you too.
You try to rationalize everything.
Yes, and it is not possible. I'm so sorry.
Too, too, too, too, too. You don't feel.
That night, Samantha receives a healing session at her father's temple.
After so many rituals, I finally start to recognise things.
Like a dance for my orisha Oshosi, the hunter.
Maybe my urge to understand everything is a way of getting a grip on reality.
Keeping in control.
Here on the other hand, they create a space to let go of control.
I have reached the limits of my understanding.
Making contact with the spiritual dimension requires a different mindset.
I am too rational, indeed.
Samantha feels safe here and decides this is where she wants to be initiated.
Sometimes I am scared to give into it.
Because once I do, I go all the way, do you know what I mean?
But I feel happy and I am going to do it. -You have to develop it.
To stop crying, right? -Yes, indeed.
Maybe I suffer from spiritual attenuation.
Maybe this is where they have a deeper understanding of the human spirit.
Samantha opens herself up to the spiritual world.
Will there ever be a time where I leave god Oshosi to deal with my stress?
If I had been raised here, that would have been perfectly normal.
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