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.
According to followers I have interviewed, the number of worshippers in
Britain is in the mid-hundreds, operating in London, Devon, Cornwall,
Northern Ireland, Wales and Yorkshire. But these numbers are growing in
spite of an obvious hurdle - the active ingredient in ayahuasca,
dimethyltryptamine (DMT), is a Class A drug.
British Santo Daime groups meet secretly, always, as one put it, “afraid of
the knock on the door” because of their (as yet untested) legal status. They
worship in each other's homes, community centres, colleges and church halls,
often telling landlords that they need them for choir practice. They never
advertise and new members are allowed to attend strictly by invitation only.
But among those in search of spiritual enlightenment - among weekend
New-Agers too - the word is spreading; followers of Santo Daime claim that
one session with ayahuasca is worth 100 hours of therapy.
If you don't have an invitation, then, but you want to attend Daimistas'
worship, understand their beliefs and drink their sacrament, you might have
to do what Domenico Pugliese (a photographer) and I did: travel 8,000 miles
by plane, bus and boat to Céu do Mapiá, deep in the Amazon. This is Santo
Daime's very own Shangri-la, a community of some 700 people living out their
dream in the rainforest. Because here, as across all Brazil, the use of
ayahuasca in a religious context is perfectly legal, treated even with
deference by academics, politicians, medical researchers and theologians.
The Church of Santo Daime (“holy give me” in Portuguese) was born in the 1930s
out of the experiences of a Brazilian rubber-tapper named Raimundo Irineu
Serra, or Mestre (Master) Irineu, as followers call him. He was born in 1892
to African parents in Maranhão in the northeast of Brazil and travelled to
Acre in the northwest in 1912 to find work during a boom time for the rubber
industry. In 1930 he was given his first taste of ayahuasca by indigenous
shamans - medicine men - and spent eight solitary days and nights in the
rainforest, experiencing a series of visions and receiving instructions from
the Virgin Mary, whom he called the Forest Queen, that formed the basis of a
new religion.
It was predominantly Christian with an emphasis on nature - on the spirits of
the rainforest - and it espoused spiritual growth through the drinking of
ayahuasca during carefully defined rituals. In subsequent years Mestre
Irineu shared his teachings, experiences and ayahuasca with growing numbers
of fellow rubber extractors before building his own church, Alto Santo, on
the outskirts of Rio Branco in Acre.
After the death of Mestre Irineu in 1971, the church split into various
factions. The most important - which moved to Céu do Mapiá in the early
1980s - was led by one of Mestre Irineu's closest disciples, Sebastião Mota
de Melo, or Padrinho (Father) Sebastião. It is this branch of the Church,
also known as CEFLURIS (the Eclectic Centre of the Universal Flowing Light
of Raimundo Irineu Serra), which is spreading fastest today.
To get there from the UK, we fly to São Paulo and on to Rio Branco via
Brasilia. From here, there is a seven-hour bus ride along 200km of mud track
(often impas- sable during the rainy season) to the Amazonian frontier town
of Boca do Acre and the last leg of the journey, a haunting five-hour ride
in a motorised canoe along the broad sweep of the red River Purus and its
tributary, Igarapé Mapiá. Along the way we see pink dolphins, water snakes,
squirrel monkeys, hummingbirds and kingfishers. At regular intervals, the
canopied tributary narrows to just a few metres and Conrad's Heart of
Darkness is called to mind. At several spots fallen trees have blocked the
way and, in torrential downpours, we have to wrestle the canoe over them.
Finally, as the afternoon light begins to fade on the fourth day of our
travels, we round one of hundreds of bends in the river and see a
rudimentary wooden bridge from which children are jumping and laughing. We
have arrived. As we climb up the bank, no one pays us much attention as they
go about their business; we have come unannounced, but this is an open
community.
High on a hill to our left is a star-shaped church above a lake; in front of
us, a central grassy square surrounded by a handful of provisions stores and
cafes. There are a few guesthouses, a school, a basic health centre and, on
both sides of the river, winding paths with wooden homes on stilts branching
off in all directions. The mood is relaxed and welcoming but natural, too.
Relieved, I lay to rest thoughts of Jonestown-style cultism.
Our timing is fortunate; within a couple of hours a special ceremony is due to
begin to commemorate the life and death of Padrinho Sebastião, the
community's founder. This is one of the most important days of the Santo
Daime calendar and there is a sense of excitement in the air; families,
mostly descendants of Brazilian rubber tappers, begin wending their way to
the church, the men and boys dressed in brilliant white suits, white shirts
and blue ties, the women and girls in snow white with green sashes and
sparkling tiaras. When worshippers see us at the foot of the church steps,
they smile and invite us inside.
The men stand on one side of the church, the women on the other, and at the
centre is a star-shaped altar around which the most senior Church members
(including Padrinho Alfredo, currently the most senior) sit and orchestrate
proceedings. There are prayers and then the first of 129 hymns is sung, with
the congregation swaying, three steps to the left, then the right, along
lines drawn on the floor to give everyone enough space. Such ceremonies can
take up to 12 hours and, perhaps understandably, are referred to as “works”
as they can be exhausting.
The ayahuasca that the congregation will drink every few hours throughout
their ceremonies is made during each new moon from the vine of one Amazonian
plant, bannisteriosis caapi, and the leaf of another, psychotria viridis.
The vines are beaten by hand and then repeatedly boiled with the leaves
until a brownish, bitter liquid is produced. It has been used by shamans
since the time of the Incas as a medicine, as a tool used for
self-enlightenment and as a window into the spiritual world.
After a while the shutter on what appears to be a bar is raised and one of the
older members of the congregation invites the men to come and drink the
Daime. The same happens on the women's side. The “barman” pours the brown
liquid from a ceramic urn into large shot glasses and, one by one, the men
drink. Many take their children too - here it is normal for babies to be
given Daime as soon as they are born. The kids look thoroughly unfazed by
the whole process and return to their rhythmic dancing but the sight of
children being given a hallucinogen makes me feel uncomfortable.
I take my ayahuasca. It tastes awful, bitter and sour at the same time. And it
is a fierce emetic, often making drinkers vomit and defecate. The Church,
however, considers this a positive side-effect, a purging of negativity,
darkness and malevolent spirits. In gaps in the singing - as beautiful as
any choir I have ever heard - come the sounds of retching from the male and
female toilets. I constantly feel on the edge of vomiting. And I wait.
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.”
Back home in the UK, the prospects for the religion remain in doubt. Edward
believes the police know about Santo Daime's activities but are leaving it
alone because its members are harmless. Practitioners in Brazil, however,
told me that every month 2,000 litres of ayahuasca are brewed in Céu do
Mapiá and sent out by air mail, the packages marked as “tea”, to followers
around the world - including those in the UK. A Home Office spokeswoman told
me that as far as the authorities were concerned, DMT was illegal and
trafficking in it could result in prison sentences of up to seven years.
Asked whether she thought defendants might not cite Article 9 of the
European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of thought,
conscience and religion, she said that would be a matter for the courts.
The Roman Catholic Church, from which Daimistas have drawn much of their
faith, refused to discuss their presence in Britain when I contacted it.
However, in the US Supreme Court case in 2005, in which the União do
Vegetal, the offshoot of Santo Daime, won its right to use ayahuasca, the
Church supported it.
In a brief to the court, lawyers for the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops wrote: “[This] case exemplifies the inevitable conflicts that arise
when the demands of religious conscience and belief, and the demands of the
state to regulate society, clash.
“The issue becomes particularly significant where the Government's actions do
not merely have an incidental or unintentional effect on religious practice,
but rather where the Government has explicitly proscribed that which
religion, equally explicitly, prescribes.” It remains to be seen, then, who
will win the contest between the forces of law and order and those
underpinning the right to practise one's religion when it finally comes to
the UK. The individuals I met in the community were gentle, thoughtful and
kind and I wish them luck.
All I know for sure is that I won't be taking ayahuasca again. If I ever open
that red door, it will be with a clear head and a healthy sense of
trepidation.
read jeremy narby's book 'The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge'
Tom Jones, brighton, england
i´m from Brazil. live in Rio de Janeiro. I´m member of Santo Daime, such as Barquinha. I´m luck to have that here. Viva o Santo Daime!
Rodrigo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
You have made two major errors here:
1. No one is EVER invited to drink Daime. people must seek and ask themselves, and then we "receive all who arrive" as long as we believe they are psychologically capable of taking this strong medicine.
2. UDV is not an off-shoot of Santo Daime, it's independent
daniel, california, usa
To the readers who compares the religion of SD to taking E regularly: In SD works, praying to Jesus Christ is a constant, as are hymns about love and truth. I guess if you did that while taking E, then, yes, it could be a religion. But we dont just "take drugs" - we pray, sing, meditate.
daniel, california, usa
Drug evangelists are boring. I took Ayahuasca in Ecuador a few years ago, and it's a good trip... but to bring it home as a "religion" is daft. I can assure you that taking E inspires similarly profound feelings - if you do it reguarly is that a "religion" too?
Josh, London, UK
why do palnts like these exist - thats actually quite a mystery by itself - usually there is a reason for a plant to be inedible for survival, but what purpose altering the mind of a potential feeding animal ....It just says that nature and consciousness are very interesting things
paul, aus,
It's interesting to see how people who have never got any close to Ayahuasca feel offended by articles of this sort. It's a simple, open-minded article on the experiences of the writer, it did not attack in any way other religions or beliefs but still, some people grab themselves the right to diminish or judge one's spiritual practice.
I've been a tea drinker for over 10 years and the use of this Sacred Tea has only made me a better person. One of betterment Ayahuasca helped me achieve is exactly the understanding that my neighbours religion might as well be as good as mine, or even better. It's just that for now, drinking the is what suits me best.
Thanks for the good piece of writing, which does bring some light into the matter and can certainly contribute to opening GB to the Tea.
Carlos Maciel, Curitiba, Pr, Brazil
What nonsense. The picture of the young girl drinking from a cup is mere propaganda. The title is junk as well. If no harm is being done to anyone then why care? Please move on and respect eachother. Thanks,
Patrick , Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
the title of this article is an outrage, i though i was reading the daily mail for a moment. drug fuelled gives entirely the wrong impression of what is going on here.
i am a drinker of ayahuasca and not by any means a fan of santo daime. i agree entirely with the comment Diana made with regards to the cult of personality. it is these type of organisational concerns that need to be voiced and dealt wit
way over and above the use of natural plant materials in a very controlled and supportive environment.
ayahuasca is not a drug, not in the recreational sense of say cocaine or mdma neither in the addictive sense of say heroin or crack. it is hard to explain this to someone who hasnt tried it but its much more like a therapy session or something than an enjoyable lets get high type experience
Kieren > have we not progressed enough to realise that those prehistoric ways of thinking are in may ways far superior to the mess modern ways of thinking have landed us in?
Joseph, London,
Religion should always be taken with a stiff drink. Most of the regular worshipers down the Holy Red Lion believe anything you tell them after 8 pints.
George Sign, Nice, France
Ayahuasca 'tea' is NOT a drug - it is a medicine that cures on a physical, mental and spiritual level. Its is also a sacred sacrement. But it is not a drug. The use of this term for a sensationalist title implies to me that the author did not really have an authentic experience. It seems that he got caught up in ayahuasca tourism.
S Byers, Brighton, UK
The use of psychadelic drugs for therapeutic purposes needs further investigation - the evidence suggests that they do have an important role to play in dealing with helping resolve issues such as grieving for the loss of a much loved family member - and even in confronting ones own imanent death - see Aldous Huxley's use of LSD as he approached his own end.
Arnold Ward, Weybridge, Surrey, UK
Sounds like the same old snake oil in a new guise. But not so new as all that.
Rosemary, Germany,
Hey, Chill out. The article is not negative but open minded. So, the writer doesn think he'll take it again. Maybe he doesnt need to, or maybe he will. With respect, all perspectives are valid. His experience is valid, for him, and well described. I have been through such a ceremony. It was certainly one of the most intense, interesting , inspiring experiences of my life.
Don't judge. Only Love.
x
Matt
matt, london,
Hilarious. Well, if we're in London, what about the Church of St. Charlie.
Tom, London,
I too have been deep in the Amazonian jungle, 'pant, pant.' From Peru, Ecuador and Brazil itself. This causes me to ask if you have really been there? "The forest floor shimmering, vanishing in waves", etc. The places I've been you don't get to see the forest floor because of the density of the trees. The ground is made up of viscous mud which makes it almost impossible to walk. Some monkeys shriek but the dominant sound is that of the Howler monkeys. Nor do you mention the army of huge spiders waiting to greet one. Nor do you mention all the American missionaries who descend on the inhabitants of small villages to fill their minds with Christian? hog wash and immediately try to civilize the women by dressing them in a religious way. Many religions in S.A. take unusual substances. What's new about that? Obviously you went heavily into ayahuasca when you wrote you steamy report. Sort of H. Ryder Haggard- spaced out. Well you do have some gullible readers. I'll give you that.
Venise Alstergren, Melbourne, Victoria 3142, AUSTRALIA
It seems only that the reporter is not at all a religious person. Atheists have some problems to face the power of God, the inner sence of Jesus Christus, and to face the inner shadows is that, without God, it is really difficult.
The people in Mapia are happy, spiritual and serious in their religious path. They dont go to a trip.
Sorry, but this reporter did even not be announced there, I fink, there is from the beginning not the respect. It is a normal think to announce oneself everywhere, before comming...
Without respect, you are blind to what really happen there
evi briest, bonn, Germany
Marx said that "Religion is the opium of the masses." Whether you are conditioned, with the use of fear of imaginary "gods" to believe in fallacies, myths and superstitions, or you are conditioned, with the use of drugs to believe in fallacies, myths and superstitions, what is the difference?
Gordon Wilson, London, UK
to Peter K London,
LSD, DMT etc are totally non adictive, are less toxic than aspirin and after 24 hours show absolutely no trace in the blood stream.....
Set and setting are critical, their effects totally profound. These substances are not suitable for anyone with a history of mental Illness, or current mental instability. For those of a deeper more spiritual nature theses psychoactive agents are here to help open the doors as they've done for thousands of years.....
For Ayahuasca read The Antipodes Of The Mind / charting the phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience by Benny Shanon.
simon henville, swanage, UK
Lots of comments from people who have never used this medicine. How then can you comment on its use? Nothing like a closed mind to attack those with open ones eh? Nor do they claim to be Christian, merely that Jesus is a teacher. Nothing like a closed mind for making up stories eh?
Ben Towers, Evesham, England
Did Shakin Stevens visit Brazil before writing 'Green Door'?
Jonny, Bangkok, Thailand
"The people's opium" in another guise. Nothing changes over time when man is happy with being ignorant.
There wil always be fools who wish to believe in superstition, and need help with their "belief'.
F.S.Summers, London,
Another religion based on hallucinations and alegations without evidences ("spirits", "God", "Jesus" etc).
It´s too sad to see children beeing alienated with all those things.
Aurelio, São José dos Campos, Brasil
Great article! Now many more people can know about this "gift from God" to us humans as the children of the creator/God. Drinking this sacred brew really, in my experience of drinking it, can help you to understand the Oneness of this Uni-ONE-Verse-Song.
Some sing hymns in a Church, others chant and dance and yet others drink sacred vines from South America.
Just as the One Sun is reflected in a Thousand pools of water. Its still the Same Star that is reflected. We can all be our different selves in our many varied and different ways that is what makes life on this planet so beautiful. Coexist in One LOVE. Peace.
Matt , Glastonbury, UK
DMT and Ayahuasca/Santo Daime are not the same thing. The class A drug, DMT, is a single manufactured chemical that is inactive when ingested, whereas the tea, Ayahuasca is a natural brew of two sacred rain forest plants containing several complimentary components, and has been used safely by indigenous people of the Amazon for thousands of years. It is not addictive, is not trafficked or sold for profit or recreational use, and is taken only in private with reverence and respect.
Perhaps if the author of this article had been fortunate enough to drink daime as a child, like the radiant little girl in the accompanying picture, he would not be so frightened of the unopened doors in his mind.
MIchaela, London,
If you are interested in this subject, please check out my award-winning thesis "Liquid Light of the Santo Daime" by contacting the Council on Spiritual Practices www.csp.org. You can also check out the website for the Center for New Religious Movements (CESNUR) and see the cyberproceedings for the Lithuania conference in 2002. That article is called "Disarming the Dream Police: The Case of the Santo Daime".
The Daime religion is largely a benign and wonderful thing. The problems currently witin the church stem from the cult of personality that grows up around certain individuals and which strips some people of their critical faculties whereby they can judge which parts of the teaching are valid and which are superstitious nonsense. Leaders are revered as saints which also permits the possibilities of personal power abuses. It should definitely be legal however. The ritual itself and the singing are beautiful!
Diana Trimble, London, United Kingdom
As I understand it, the practice of taking Ayahuasca is something that has long been practiced in the Amazon basin so that the consumer can visit the spirit worlds connected to their shamanic beliefs. This is something that is increasingly becoming of interest to many people in the west, including some in industry, for use in a 'team building' capacity. I am actually attending a conference in Glastonbury at the end of the month to listen to a number of speakers on this subject. One of them is billed as being a facilitator of 'activities' of this kind for industry. One thing that I'd like to say is that I feel Chris from Devon is wrong in his assertions that they are hijacking Christianity. On the contrary they are just embracing Jesus in the same way as they do the myriad of gods that they already identify with. After all it was they who were invaded by the Christian missionaries! Maybe we ought to investigate it before we condemn it?
Paul, Northampton, Northants
The best book on the subject of the drug is Jimmy Weiskopf's "Yaje: The New Purgatory - Encounters with Ayahuasca", which was published in English by Villegas editores in 2005 (ISBN 958-8160-85-5. Weiskopf is an American writer who has lived in Columbia for decades, and is a wonderful reporter. Perhaps an enterprising British publisher will bring it out?
nigel hamilton, Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
Ayahuasca is entirely non-addictive - indeed, it has been used as a treatment for addictions to truly destructive substances - including heroin, cocaine, alcohol and tobacco. The Santo Daime tradition offers a relatively safe ritual structure for the ingestion of a substance with well-documental medicinal properties. Its ceremonies are characterised by great discipline and scrupulous care for the well-being of all participants. The experience is certainly not for the faint hearted - it makes great demands on the mind and body - yet the vast majority of people who have practiced the discipline in depth will attest to its beneficial, life-changing potential. The Santo Daime tradition has created a structure for the intelligent, sacramental, medicinal use of Ayahuasca. Its practice, though embracing indigenous forms of shamanism and animism, embodies an adherence to the Christian principles of love, light, justice and truth.
John, London, UK
This is remeninscent of the peyote cults that predominate much of the North Indian people or the LSD cult founded by Timothy Leary. One thing it is not, despite its claims, is Christian. They are hijacking the Chritian label to give it legitmacy. The use of mind altering drugs needs to be carefully monitored and regulated. I fail to see the difference between this, and attending a drug fuelled rave no matter what the noblest intents maybe.
Chris, Devon,
very good piece of journalism!
i think it will never be right to bracket drugs as all bad and harmful- this is a natural plant that people have found and taken it and clearly their experiences have been mindblowing.
if these people live peaceful lives and spiritual enlightenment is all they aim for then it seems terrible that this would be put in jeopardy by governments that are trying to control society.
obviously there will always be harmful drugs out there that should remain illegal, such as heroin or crystal meth which to huge amounts of harm to users and often result in death; however to condemn a drug such as this would probably result in trouble as kids see it as another substance to take to be rebellious and dealers arrise with the simple aim of making alot of money.
well done to the writer tho and i hope he sorts out those fears and dreads behind the red door!
tom, surrey,
Religion is the opium of the people.
patrick, Amsterdam, Netherlands
I agree with the comment that freedom of thought, spirituality, worship (and I would add expression) are fundamental rights not to be regulated by the state.
There is, however, another issue at stake: the responsibility of the state to ensure the safety of the public.
Presumably, DMT is an illegal class A drug because it has extremely negative health effects and is (probably) addictive.
One could argue that class A's like cocaine, for instance, are of limited danger to a civil society if used recreationally and occasionally by otherwise law-abiding citizens; however, the damage caused by addiction, trafficking, dealer violence, etc... is impossible for the state to ignore. The ill-effects are too significant, socially and financially.
Of course, this applies to alcohol as well, which has been deemed perfectly legal, and history has shown that prohibition in the USA was a spectacular failure.
Ultimately, I believe it is an issue of the scale of its use and behaviour of its users.
Peter K, London, UK
I am concerned by the support shown by the Roman Catholic Church for this cult to use a mind-bending drug on children. The picture accompanying this article is of a young girl; surely the Catholic Church can see the potential for child abuse here.
Des, Edinburgh,
The most fundamental human right is free spirituality, thought, and worship. There is a reason why it is contained in the First amendment of the constitution of the US.
Under this context, to make certain, natural substances illegal is a human rights violation, and an affront to the spiritual dignity of people who have used those substances to reach higher levels of consciousness and compassion.
Humans have used hallucinogens (what the UK government would snidely call 'Class A drugs') since time began. The psylocibin mushroom, ayahuasca, peyote, and other such plants are there for a reason, and NO government has the right to regulate nature.
That's why I object to the subtitle of this article: 'drug-fuelled' brings images of a hedonistic church, jazzed up on cocaine. As the author of the article found out, ayahuasca is not a 'fun time', but it is a sacred substance that does sacred work.
I hope that reason wins out, and freedom of spirit defended in the courts.
Sarah, London, UK
This is the funniest thing I've read in ages. Seriously, it's the 21st century, haven't we progressed enough to realise that a 'religion' based on an hallucinogenic drug is prehistoric thinking?
Kieren, London, UK
The Uniao do Vegetal or UDV is not an offshoot of the Santo Daime religion.
The Uniao do Vegetal was founded in 1961 by Mestre Jose Gabriel da Costa in Brazil and is a distinct religion that uses a tea called Hoasca in it's religious rituals.
Mitchel Berman, San Anselmo, California / USA
Di-Methyl-Tryptamine is produced naturally in the human body and in many of the foods that we eat. No-one has the right to tell anyone else how to treat their body or mind. The outer covering of the body, the skin, is a physical and temporal barrier, inside is private, the temple of the soul, however it may differ from one individual to another, and whether we like it or not. When government rules our minds, diversity is dead, and when diversity is dead then so is life.
In a DMT trip 11 years ago, i was transported up into the clouds to a place all white and with celestial music. The light was so bright, and it was like Jehovah and Allah, Shiva, Osiris and Buddha, and every deity who was ever worshiped all spoke to me at the same time, all saying the same thing in different tongues, and i understood them all at once, and they said:
"Brave traveller, thank goodness the spirit of adventure is alive with you. Tell this to your people... God will not save them, they must save themselves"
Dean Taylor, Leeds, Republic of West Yorkshire
I'm not sure. If what is beyond the red door is what they say it is, will you be able to even see the red door without ayahuasca, and if you did would you have the courage to open it? When you open the door you have to realize the possibility that you will either lose your sanity or maybe your life, and you have to be willing to give these up to get rid of your demons. I'm not sure if I would have the courage to do what you did either.
I have enough demons inside me. My early childhood was spent among intellectually, culturally sophisticated people, yet at several points I found myself cast out among people who felt this amounted to elitism. I wanted to fit into the society around me, but always felt rejected by this society for reasons I couldn't understand. I don't know how I would react to it, and it is frightening, but to me what mattered would be the sort of me that came out of the other side, if one did come out of the other side.
Thank you for your courage!
Christopher Hobe Morrison, Pine Bush, Ulster County, NY, USA