Santo Daime
Santo Daime incorporates elements of several religious or spiritual traditions, mainly Folk Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, African animism and indigenous South American shamanism, including vegetalismo.
Ceremonies — trabalhos (Portuguese for "works") — are typically several hours long and are undertaken sitting in silent "concentration", or sung collectively, dancing according to simple steps in geometrical formation.
Santo Daime churches promote a wholesome lifestyle in conformity with Irineu's motto of "harmony, love, truth and justice", as well as other key doctrinal values such as strength, humility, fraternity and purity of heart.
Irineu Serra was born in Brazil in 1892 to African parents and migrated to the Western Amazon region in 1912, attracted by a boom in the rubber tapping industry.
[4] Originally, Santo Daime teachings had no basis in written text, as early practitioners were illiterate,[5][6] learning being experiential, through singing of inspired hymns exploring the perennial values of love, harmony, and strength through poetic and metaphorical imagery.
Participants drink Daime at intervals in all types of rituals; but the format and focus will differ; as well as hymnal singing, concentrations or "Concentracaos" include a couple of silent, seated meditations, between 1 and 2 hours in length during which important messages for spiritual awakening are conveyed to participants by Divine Beings, while hymnals or dance festivals, much longer in length, involve dancing and singing hymns in full ceremonial white uniform or branca farda, while playing maracas.
The Christian core is combined with other elements, drawing on other spiritual strands of Brazilian culture: there is an emphasis on personal responsibility within a fellowship, the need to walk on the path of Love leaving behind old habits and evil (with Divine help), to examine one's conscience carefully, to call on God and the Virgin Mother and Jesus Christ for help, to do good, to be just, to pray regularly; but also an animist appreciation of the enchantment of nature, such as the Sun, Moon and Stars, of the oneness of life, as well as the totemic symbol of the beija-flor (hummingbird).
The nature of the work is sometimes personified and addressed as Juramidam, a name disclosed to Irineu in his visionary experience, which means literally, "God (jura) and his soldiers (midam)".
The Daime is thought to reveal both positive and various negative or unresolved aspects of the individual, resulting in difficult "passages" involving the integration of this dissociated psychological content.
The daime will often give energy to people to help them through a long challenging work, with added help coming from a sense of fraternity and shared purpose, as per the doctrine.
Musical accompaniment often includes the unison rhythmic playing of maracas, in strict 4:4, 3:4 or 6:4 time, along with typical folk instruments such as the guitar, accordion and flute.
[7] A significant proportion of members of the Santo Daime community also make collections of unique songs that they experience internally in connection with their practice.
The entheogen ayahuasca, which contains the psychoactive compound dimethyltryptamine (DMT), has been the subject of increasing legal scrutiny in the last few decades as Santo Daime has expanded.
In the United States, the Supreme Court in 2006 upheld a preliminary injunction permitting another Brazilian church, the União do Vegetal (UDV), to use ayahuasca ritually.
This decision, as the result of specific litigation involving the UDV, applies only to that group, so the legal status of ayahuasca generally remains in a gray area in that country.
It is one of the traditional tools of the shaman in South America, and in many regions is to this day a common medicine used for finding and treating various ailments as well as for its vision-inducing effects, which are said to be profound and life-changing.
DMT occurs naturally in the human body and is speculated to be released at the time of death, but it is normally digested in the stomach if consumed and an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor), in this case tetrahydroharmine, harmine and harmaline, is needed to allow it to reach the brain in this way, thus the use of the vine.
Due to their usage of ayahuasca as a sacrament and the spread of the religion, Santo Daime has found itself at the center of court battles and legal disputes in various countries.
In the United States, court battles over ritual use of ayahuasca have mostly been fought by the UDV, and practitioners of the Santo Daime doctrine are watching these events closely.
[14][15] In September 2008, three Oregon Santo Daime churches and one in California filed a joint lawsuit in federal court to gain legal status.
In March 2009, Panner found that the use of hallucinogenic tea by members of such churches was legal, issuing an injunction barring the government from penalizing them for its consumption.
