Tata Eoghan Ballard, PhD, will be sharing with our listeners the history of Quimbanda, Candomble, and Umbanda, traditions of Brazil.

Eoghan Ballard has been involved in cultural and spiritual research since childhood. By the age of 9 he had begun to explore and study the dream experience and by 11 was beginning to explore alternate religion and spiritual traditions.

In his teens he had traveled to and studied in Ireland, learning traditional culture, music, and language becoming fluent in Gaelic language and studying traditional Gaelic spiritual traditions. This included eventually looking into the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of the Celtic Revival’s leaders such as George Russell (AE) William Butler Yeats, and S. L. Macgregor Mathers, studying systems like Tarot, Yoga, Meditation, Golden Dawn, Freemasonry, Umbanda, OTO, and of course Reiki. He was initiated in Cuba as Tata Nganga Dibilongo in several ramas or orders of Palo including Quimbisa, and is a practicing Vodousaint.

Eoghan attended Philadelphia College of Art before receiving a BA in English Literature from Temple University, and both a Masters and Doctorate in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked for 15 years. Additionally, he also has taught at various area colleges including local community colleges and served both as a Professor in Social Sciences and an academic campus dean in New Jersey. He has been invited several times as a guest lecturer for the Dept. of Religious Studies at Swarthmore College.

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