posted April 17, 2010 06:20 PM         

Santo Daime: the drug-fuelled religion

A new religion is spreading to Britain - its central sacrament the consumption of a hallucinogenic Class A drug. Here's a report from the faith's heartland in the rainforests of the Amazon

I am deep in the Amazon rainforest, anxiously losing my mind as the world begins to disintegrate. Around me, all sense of distance is wrapping itself up like spatial origami, slowly shrinking until an entire dimension has disappeared. A moment ago, I was surrounded by 200 people dressed in white and singing like angels, but now they occupy the same space as me... if that makes any sense.

Wherever I look, that is where I am. I can see everything from every angle, all at the same time. In fact, I feel I am everywhere. Outside, in the forest, the thrum of frogs and cicadas drowns out the sound of shrieking monkeys. Below me, the floor is shimmering, vanishing in waves like a spent mirage. Behind, I feel a cold vibration on my neck and sense a growling malevolence. I turn and see a red door, bulging at the hinges. Overcome with dread, I push hard to keep it closed, and all the while I feel a horrible nausea.

When will this end, I am thinking. And, with sweat running down my forehead, how can I survive it? Welcome to the Church of Santo Daime, one of the fastest growing religions in the world. Its mixture of Christianity, South American shamanism and African animism is proving irresistible to thousands of new believers across the globe. But it is its central sacrament, ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic brew made from rainforest plants - a brew that I have just drunk - that makes the Church so appealing to some yet so controversial to others.

Santo Daime groups believe that ayahuasca, or Daime, as they call it, is a manifestation of Jesus Christ that brings them closer to God. Their visions, sometimes terrifying, sometimes blissful, help them to make sense of themselves, their universe and their god. Theirs is a young church - less than 80 years old - but in recent times it has spread throughout South America to the US and Canada, the Far East and Australasia, across mainland Europe and on to the UK.

posted April 17, 2010 06:21 PM         

...After about half an hour, I begin to feel distant and slightly paranoid, imagining that people are looking at me. Straight lines begin to bend and I feel heavy and very tired. After a while, I am advised that it is time for another drink. Almost immediately my shrinking space and red-door hallucinations take over. These last for perhaps two hours and I decline a third drink, retreating instead to my wooden guesthouse where the Daime makes me re-live journeys and conversations with friends, family and lovers. I wake several hours later with not the slightest hint of a hangover. I feel refreshed and strangely uplifted in spite of what was a largely unpleasant experience.

And, as various people had predicted before I took the sacrament, the Daime had taught me something: my father died last year and I feel that the world behind the red door - which I never did allow to open - was filled with unresolved grief. The sacrament, regarded by Daimistas as a kindly teacher, was telling me that I ought to do something about that.

So, is this a Church we should be welcoming or is it just an excuse for people to take drugs? Is Santo Daime a serious religion and is ayahuasca really so important to its adherents? In Brazil, the use of ayahuasca in religious ceremonies was made legal in 1992 after two government-sponsored studies that established that Santo Daime was a valid religion and its use of ayahuasca was not recreational. These studies also found no negative effects on physical or mental health that could be ascribed to long-term usage. In fact, further research - most notably by Charles Grob, Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine - has shown that ayahuasca offers potential in the treatment of depression and addiction.

Around the world, however, the practising of Santo Daime has been dogged by illegality, aside from a couple of notable exceptions. Religious use of ayahuasca in the Netherlands was assured after a court case in 2001. In the US, an offshoot of Santo Daime, the União do Vegetal (UDV), was granted the right to use it in its ceremonies by the Supreme Court in 2005. The case related only to the UDV, however, and the law covering other groups is still uncertain.

In Europe, followers have repeatedly run up against the law. There have been clampdowns and arrests in Germany (1999), Spain (2000, although the law has since been relaxed), France (2005) and Italy (2006). Daimistas also practise in Canada, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Greece, Australia, Switzerland and Denmark, all countries in which DMT is illegal.

Padrinho Alex Polari, one of the most senior members of the Church, seems pleased with its uptake around the world but says that it is not something the founders had expected. “We are not really looking to expand, but foreigners come here searching for answers to questions,” he says. He has a luxuriant white beard and smiling eyes. “Then they go home and more links are created from the outside world.” He says that countries to which Santo Daime is spreading should look to the success of Céu do Mapiá before judging it harshly. The community is involved in forest conservation projects and, as a co-operative, the cultivation of rice, bananas, corn, sesame, Indonesian pearl barley and cereals from the Amazon.

“The Brazilian Government conducted two studies with scientists, medics, artists and writers and concluded that the Daime was a positive force in our community, that it helped with personal development and was not harmful to health,” he says. “So they legalised its use.

“This is a spiritual community and we try to live spiritual lives. The work we do with the Daime leads to a higher knowledge of ourselves and creates a transformation within us to become better people. It is not something to be afraid of.” Edward, a 32-year-old mental health worker from London, has come to Céu do Mapiá as part of a three-month trip worshipping with Daimista groups across South America. He says he is fearful of what might happen to worship in the UK once its existence becomes widely known.

“In England, it is used on a more spiritual than religious plane by open-minded and thoughtful people - therapists, psychologists, care workers, doctors, artists and so on,” he says. “When you take Daime it can unsettle you and make you face difficult truths, but ultimately that helps you on to a better path and you feel light and love. We only want it to be kept low-key. We don't want to be isolationist, we just want to be free to follow our own path.”

Irina Shutova, 41, an engineer from North London, says she attends secret Santo Daime ceremonies in nearby Kentish Town. “I have been going for 2 years,” she says. “I found out about them from a very close friend. I had known him for ten years and he had been involved for three years before he took me. It is very secretive.

“I had never taken any kind of drug that altered consciousness but for many years I had been trying to follow a spiritual path, living in ashrams and doing studies, so I was already in a high state of consciousness. Then I tried the Daime and I experienced all my fears and doubts and everything you can associate with hell.

“When you take it, it can be very frightening and so intense because you cannot get out of it and you feel trapped and you have no control over anything. You experience all your negative rejections and all your dark places. But then it helps you to understand all this darkness and negativity and you begin to confront and deal with it.

“For me it is now everything; it is like swimming in a golden river of love, and of feeling loved by God. But this is only good for people who want to know about life, death, love and truth because that is what it tells you.”

posted April 20, 2010 02:45 PM         

why does this bring to mind a passel of red flags??? is it better to worship a drug than a guru or god? and it does seem that many aya users glorify wallowing in their shadows - in the interest of healing of course, but while i think it IS necessary to understand the darker side of your nature i don't think continual engagement with it is any healthier than total suppression.

posted April 20, 2010 09:02 PM         

They don't worship the medicine,
but the wisdom it grants them access to.

When you're in a holy frame of mind,
you'll consider these things as holy.

It doesn't mean you worship them.

Like the woman said,
the scary stuff is just in the beginning,
and this path is not right for everybody:

quote:

---

“You experience all your negative rejections and all your dark places. But then it helps you to understand all this darkness and negativity and you begin to confront and deal with it... For me it is now everything; it is like swimming in a golden river of love, and of feeling loved by God. But this is only good for people who want to know about life, death, love and truth because that is what it tells you.”

---

If this path is not right for you, kat,
nothing will convince you of it's validity,
and you will naturally see "red flags".

You'll find a thousand reasons to
fear it, dismiss it, and pick it apart.

Until you focus positively on your own path,
you'll place negative focus on the paths of others.

You'll end up bitter and alone,
feeling like nobody listens to you,
because you insist on giving advice
where your advice is not solicited.

Or...

You can mind your own business,
allow nature to take her course,
and discover that there are many,
many ways to climb a mountain.

Also, that there's no good reason
to be a nagging naysayer who can't
allow people to make their own choices,
and to live their own lives.

It must be a terrible burden, kat,
to think that you have seen everything,
and that you know what's best for everyone.

Please, if you have nothing supportive to say,
find somebody else's path to obstruct, or zip it.

Provoking me is hardly the best use of your time.

Don't you have some grandchildren to visit or something?

posted April 20, 2010 10:49 PM         

that was a direct quote and it sounded very much like the person who said it was confusing the sacrament with the sentiment, ie the wine at communion with the peace provided by the religion. if you disagree that is fine.

or do you have such a slippery grip on your beliefs that someone pointing out possible red flags - not necessarily part of YOUR approach but someone else's no less - feels like an insult and attack? this snippy vengeful approach to those who wish to discuss pros and cons is my only real argument with you.

the simple fact is that MANY people confuse the substance with the revelations provided and that is NOT a good thing IMO. i happen to have watched some people disappear up their own arseholes with aya, but i would love to try it too...no biggie. and no reason to be snippy either.

"You'll end up bitter and alone,
feeling like nobody listens to you,
because you insist on giving advice
where your advice is not solicited.

Or...

You can mind your own business,
allow nature to take her course,
and discover that there are many,
many ways to climb a mountain."

the above quatrains could more easily be applied to your goodself. i am not advising anyone or pushing anything here. you are. if you don't want to discuss these things maybe you should keep them to yourself and those who agree with you 100%

posted April 22, 2010 02:47 PM         

I'm sharing my point of view, and sharing evidence for it.

If you are so interested in discussing the pros and cons,
why don't you go start a thread of your own on the subject?

Or are you only interested in discussing cons when I share pros?

My view, and I despise having to reiterrate it for you,
is that we've all heard the cons a thousand times,
and we've heard them exaggerated a thousand times over.
If anybody is not well-versed in the cons, they must
have been living in a cave for the past two thousand years.

And even if people confuse the medicine for the master,
or the master for the teaching, or the teaching for the truth,
so be it -- they're still lightyears ahead of most of us.

posted April 22, 2010 04:40 PM         

And I don't see you expanding, or offering opportunities to expand upon, the subject matter. I see you re-stating the obvious, and dragging the issue back down, down, down into the ideological mud which our culture has been mired in for far too long already. You want to talk about pros and cons? Talk about alcohol. Compare alcohol to entheogens, and then tell me I don't have a perfect right, and a perfectly good reason, to praise the latter unreservedly.

>> ayahuasca

I havent had the opportunity yet,
but several close friends have, and
I envy the experiences they described.

posted April 22, 2010 04:47 PM         

if i seem negative about these things it is because i have seen that rapture turn very ugly. no better than scientology or any other glorification of substances or people outside of oneself.

posted April 29, 2010 07:54 AM         

To qualify you must have 5 or more of the following...

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

Requires excessive admiration

Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

Lacks empathy: Is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her

Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

These people are also referred to as emotional vampires.

posted April 29, 2010 08:05 AM         

To qualify you must have 5 or more of the following...

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

Requires excessive admiration

Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

Lacks empathy: Is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her

Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

These people are also referred to as emotional vampires.