Santo Daime: The New Religion

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. 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.