International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325 – 338

Santo Daime and Santa Maria – The licit ritual use of
ayabuasca and the illicit use of cannabis in a Brazilian
Amazonian religion
Edward MacRae *Estrada de São Lázaro, 127 apto. 802, Edificio Bosque de Ondina 40210 -730 Sal6ador, Bahia, Brazil
Received 1 March 1998; accepted 1 May 1998

Abstract
Several Brazilian religious groups make controlled ritual use of the Indian entheogen ayahuasca, which is legal in
the country. But a parallel use of cannabis, by one of these groups faces serious legal obstacles that inhibit thedevelopment of ritual controls. The contrast between the licit and ilict use of these substances presents a paradigmatic
model of the counterproductive effects of repressive drug leglislation. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Ayahuasca; Cannabis; Entheogens; Ritual controls; Santo Daime; Religon

Psychoactive substances have been puzzling andfascinating humankind since its earliest days. Archaeological research has shown their use by prehistoric peoples for a variety of magical/mystical/
medicinal purposes. Historical records report theiruse in ancient times in Mesopotamia, India, Persia, Egypt, Africa, China, Japan, Europe, and in
PreColumbian America, for instance. The use ofalcoholic drinks, of course, has always been quite
generalised and thanks to its special place in the* Tel.: + 55 71 2453836; fax: + 55 71 3364605; e-mail:macrae@e-net.com.br

hegemonic Western culture is now to be foundeven in countries where traditional values condemn their use, as happens in North Africa.
In most cases the use was of psychoactive substances socially integrated and, up to the end of
the fourth century of our era, there are few
records of their being seen as a cause of social
problems. This was when Christianity became an
official religion in the Roman Empire and all that
seemed to harken to ancient pagan practices andknowledge was condemned and subjected to violent persecution. Thus most of the existing medicinal knowledge was rejected, and with it the use of
most of the very rich ancient pharmacopoeia. The

0955-3959/98/$ - see front matter © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII S0955-3959(98)00045-0

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E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

suspicion against botanical lore led to a generalised rejection of the use of many plant species
and even spices were viewed with reserve. Alcoholic drinks, wines and beers, were the only psychoactive substances to be tolerated. All othersubstances, even opium until then greatly prized
for its many medicinal, religious and recreational
uses, were considered to pertain to the devil andthose found using them were considered to be
witches, subject to torture, mutilation and death.
Similar consequences threatened those enjoying
the psychoactive properties of that most useful ofplants: hemp or Cannabis; although it was only inthe supposedly rationalist twentieth century that itwas considered necessary to outlaw the plant itself
whatever the use it were put to.
At the end of the Middle Ages, with the weakening of the Church hegemony and the culturalchanges brought about by the great voyages of
discovery, some of the botanical knowledge preserved in non-Christian regions was brought toEurope. Over a period of time; spices, tobacco,coffee, chocolate, tea, opium, were integrated into
the local cultures and rather than being seen as
problems, became highly prized and profitablecommodities. Nevertheless other psychoactive
substances like Cannabis in Europe and a vastarray of vision-inducing plants used in the Americas by Indians in their religious rituals, continued
to be persecuted. From the 17th to the end of the
19th century Indians who insisted in communingwith their traditional sacraments such as peyote,
Amanita muscaria and morning glory had toreckon with the possibility of hideous torture andbrutal execution (Ott, 1995).
During the nineteenth century excessive alcohol
use began to be seen as a social problem, associated with the unruly working classes and the
exploited immigrant groups in the Americas. The
discovery of morphine, cocaine and heroin, however led to a generalised use of medicines basedon these active principles with total official endorsement and it was only in the early twentiethcentury that the use of psychoactive substances
other than alcohol began to be seen as a serious
threat to the health of the mainstream population.
But the early temperance and anti-opium campaigns were mainly headed by religious and polit-

ical leaders, brandishing moralistic and racist
slogans. The involvement of doctors in the movement to control drug use was initially, to a large
extent, a ploy to impose their own professional
interests in a field then dominated by pharmacists,
patent medicine manufactures and herbalists (Escohotado, 1989). Even so, it was members of thisprofession who were some of the greatest victimsof the early American legislation, the 1914 Harrison Act, as many were arrested for prescribing
opiates to patients who were under maintenancetreatment for drug dependence.
However, with the development of institutionalised scientific medicine during the twentieth century, doctors came to be invested with theultimate authority over the discourse on healthmatters including the use of psychoactive drugs.
Modern pharmacology followed a totally biological approach to the understanding of the effects
produced by these substances and to this date it isoften thought that this is the only possible scientific way to understand the subject, although psychologists also usually heard on the matter.
Legislative efforts to deal with the question led
to an extension of the list of proscribed substances, and although each of these had their own
particular chemical characteristics, manner of use
and political reasons for banning, the symbolic
effect of the legislation on the public mind was toequate all of them under the heading of ‘illicit
drugs’ and to attribute to them a demonic nature
not unlike the medieval view of the pagan pharmacopoeia. This in turn affected scientific thought
and by the early seventies it came to be generally
assumed that these substances could never betaken on a long-term, regular basis without causing serious harm. It was also believed that thesesubstances were almost always used by people
with profound personality disorders. Drug research came to be influenced by a moralistic viewthat all illicit drug use was therefore ‘bad’, inevitably harmful, or psychologically or physiologically ‘addictive’ and that abstention was the only
alternative. Studies of drug consumption tended
to equate any type of drug use with abuse andseldom took occasional or moderate use into account as a viable pattern.

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

When nonabusive use was acknowledged, it was
treated as a very brief transitional stage leading
either to abstinence or (more likely) to compulsiveuse (Zinberg, 1984). The weight of legally inspired
prejudice becomes more obvious when one takes
into account the fact that research on alcohol had
long been comparing different patterns of consumption in order to understand how control ofthe substance taken into the body could be developed, maintained or lost. It was only after the
mid-seventies that this approach applied to illicit
drug use led the scientific community to recognise
the importance of the wide range of using patterns. Since then researchers like the late Norman
Zinberg and Jean-Paul Grund, among others,
have called attention to the need to take into
account, apart from the pharmacological actionof the substance itself, the ‘set’ (i.e. the attitude of
the person at the time of use, including his personality structure) and the ‘setting’ (the influenceof the physical and social setting within which theuse occurs).
Zinberg makes a distinction between ‘controlled’ and ‘compulsive’ uses. The first has low
social costs while the second is dysfunctional andintense and its social costs are high. The difference between them is that ‘controlled ’use is governed by values and rules of conduct (social
sanctions) and patterns of behaviour (social rituals) shared by groups of users. These are called‘social controls’ and function in four basic andoverlapping ways:
 defining acceptable uses and condemning compulsive ones;
 limiting use to physical and social settings thatare conducive to a positive or safe experiences; identifying potentially negative effects. Rituals
embody the precautions to be taken before andduring use;
 compartmentalising different types of substance use and supporting the users’ non-drugrelated obligations and relationships (Zinberg,
1984).
Apart form the values and rules of conduct,
which Zinberg called ‘social sanctions’, there arealso the ‘social rituals’: stylized, prescribed behaviour patterns surrounding the controlled useof the substance and having to do with the meth-327

ods of procuring and administering it, the selection of the physical and social setting for use, theactivities undertaken after administration, and theways of preventing untoward effects. Rituals serveto buttress, reinforce, and symbolise the sanctions(Zinberg, 1984).
Grund studying the risk behaviour of injecting
drug users in the Netherlands introduced twoother variables influencing self regulation: substance availability and life structure. According to
him substance availability, rituals and rules andlife structure are a trinity – interactive factors in
an internally coherent circular process, in whichthese factors are themselves modulated (modified,corrected, strengthened, etc.) by their outcomes. It
is thus a ‘feedback circuit’ that determines thestrength of self-regulation processes controllinguse (Grund, 1993).
From this point of view it is interesting to think
about the controlled use of ‘entheogens’, still current among many groups, especially among Northand South American Indians, but also among
mestizo members of the rural population and,more recently, even among the urban middle
classes. Here the observance of traditional taboos
and rituals seem to provide paradigmatic examples of Zinberg’s and Grund’s theories.
Among these peoples these plants are often
called ‘teacher plants’ and they are felt to give theuser direct access to the spiritual world and to
storehouses of wisdom not otherwise available tothem. Thus, it is common for shamans to claimthat their knowledge of the healing power ofplants and the correct ways of using them wasgiven them in dreams or visions produced by theingestion of entheogens.
One of the most widespread of these entheogens
is ayahuasca. This is a psychoactive brew madefrom the Bannisteriopsis caapi vine and the Psychotria viridis leaf which has been used for many
purposes by the native inhabitants of Western
Amazonia since time immemorial. Its psychoactive properties are given by alkaloids such as
harmine, d-leptaflorine, DMT and harmaline,
which appear in varying concentrations. Conceived of as a means of opening the human perception of the spiritual world, this brew has beenused mainly by shamans for a series of purposes

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such as the diagnosis and treatment of a large
variety of ailments, divination, hunting, warfare,and even as an aphrodisiac. Although its use
probably originated among the inhabitants of therain forest, ayahuasca was taken to the Andean
highlands where it received the name by which it
is best known and which means in quechua ‘vineof the spirits’.
In the last few years it has become the central
sacrament of a number of syncretic religions thatoriginated among Amazonian rubber tappers andthen spread to the urban middle classes, initiallyin Brazil but now reaching several European
countries, the USA and even Japan.
The oldest of them is an eclectic mixture of
popular Catholicism, Spiritism, African religiosity, and Indian shamanism, known as ‘Santo
Daime’, after the name its founder Raimundo
Irineu Serra (or Mestre Irineu, as he is known)
gave ayahuasca. He was a poor migrant from
Northeastern Brazil who spent many years working in the Amazonian forest. During this time hecame across a shaman who gave him ayahuasca
to drink, causing him to have many visions, including some in which a woman appeared who
was initially considered to be a forest spirit andlater identified with the Virgin of the Conception,
in a characteristically syncretistic Amazonian
manner.
During many visions she repeatedly appeared
to him and offered to teach him how to use
ayahuasca to become a great healer. As part ofher teaching she imparted to him a new religious
doctrine based on the ritual taking of ayahuasca
which continued to be elaborated in visions hekept having for the rest of his life. This thenbecame the basis for his teachings for those whocame to him for healing and after some time cameto form a church in the remote town of Rio
Branco in what was then the territory of Acre.
The followers of this religion maintain that
their sacrament is not a drug, but ‘ Christ’s blood’or ‘a holy being’, of great power and even with awill of its own. Thus, it is believed that every timesomeone takes the brew he has the opportunity toenter into direct contact with God and, if he isdeserving, he might then be able to find solutions
for problems he is facing and even be healed of

fatal illnesses, as many followers claim to havebeen.
As if to underline the divine nature of the brew,
its preparation is always done in a ritual mannerand all those taking part drink Santo Daime
before starting the procedures. This leads daimistas (as the Santo Daime followers call themselves)to say that ‘it is the Daime that makes the
Daime’. As long as there is obedience to thefounder, Mestre Irineu’s instructions, and all thecorrect ingredient are used in an atmosphere ofharmony, then ‘all Daime is good’. In otherwords, not much attention is given by the doctrine
to matters directly related to pharmacologicalconcerns like degree of concentration, dosage, etc.
Mestre Irineu taught one way of making Daime,
which guarantees a certain homogeneity in thechemical composition of different batches, produced in different places and at different momentsof time. The few differences that were admitted toexist were related to aspects more of a spiritual or
cosmological than material nature. He recommended taking into account the phases of theMoon and the environment in which the brew had
been made, kept, transported and consumed. The
Daime is believed to absorb the ‘energies’ of its
surroundings, allowing them to manifest themselves during the rituals in which it is taken.
More recently, with the growth in the numberof followers, certain changes were made in thecooking process, in order to use the raw material
in a more efficient manner, avoiding waste andcooking some batches a little more, so as toconcentrate them for easier transport. Nevertheless, the ingredients used are still the same anddifferences in concentration are taken into account when the Daime is served during the rituals.
But daimistas have always been aware of the factthat the same dosage of the brew, taken from thesame batch, will have different effects in different
moments on the same person, so little attention isnormally given to such questions of a more pharmacological character. Many daimistas even dislike giving too much attention to such details,
since this implies in leaving aside the divine natureof the Daime and treating it like ‘just anotherdrug’.

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

Every Daime ritual or ‘work’ is thought to be
an opportunity for learning and healing and forthe indoctrination of the spirits present either inthe ‘ material’ or in the ‘astral’ planes. There aredifferent rituals for different occasions or different
needs. These are the ‘hinarios’, the ‘healing
works’, the ‘concentrations’, the ‘masses’ and the‘makings’ or ‘preparations’ (see MacRae, 1992).
They all involve taking the brew and entering into
an altered state of consciousness in a social andphysical setting designed to contain and guide the‘voyages’. Anthropologists, like Couto, have considered them to be ‘rituals of order’ that promotegroup and hierarchical cohesion and a search forharmony both within and without (Couto, 1989).
Many aspects of the ritual setting contribute tothis, such as:
1. Dietary and behavioural prescriptions thatmust be observed during the three days thatprecede and that follow the taking of thedrink, thus setting the stage for an unusual
event that escapes the daily routine.
2. Hierarchical social organisation in which a‘commander’ or ‘godfather’ is recognised as
the leader of the ‘work’, with the help of abody of ‘guardians’ who are responsible forthe maintenance of order and obedience to thecommander.
3. Control of the dosage of the drink taken byparticipants.
4. Ritual spatial organisation and behaviouralcontrol.
There is a central table¯altar where the double
armed Cross of Caravacca and other religious
symbols mark the sacred nature of the event. All
those taking part are given a specific place in theroom, usually a rectangle drawn on the ground,
where they must remain, grouped by sex, age, andsexual status (virgins and non-virgins).
Uniforms of a sober cut stress the unity of thegroup and help maintain a mood of seriousness.
The movements of those taking part are rigidly
prescribed and one of the main duties of the‘guardians’ is to ensure obedience to the posturerecommended for the seated ‘works’ (raised heads
and relaxed and immobile arms and legs) or thecorrect performance of a few simple steps during
the ceremonies that include dancing.

329

Another important element of control is themusic which is sung and played during most of
the ceremonies, which help harmonise the group,
through marked rhythms and voices in unison.
The ritual use of music harks back to ancient
shamanic customs from which the ritual taking of
ayahuasca originates. Singing and the use of percussion instruments with a strong, repetitive beat,are powerful aids in bringing about altered statesof consciousness, and are thought to act as a wayof invoking spirits. The words of the ‘hymns’ thatare sung direct the ‘voyages’ in the desired directions and help relieve mental or physical illfeelings.
The hymns also help in the interpretation of theexperiences people have during the sessions. They
help to establish links between the lived experiences and the magical or mythical symbols withwhich they become invested, which is of great
importance in avoiding the break up of the group.
The Catalan anthropologist Josep Maria Fericgla,
working on the Shuar Indian use of ayahuasca,
like Victor Turner considers this to be a psychicor spiritual function of symbols that was lost byWestern societies when they abandoned their traditional ways of organising unconscious drives
and using these ‘sources of renovation’ for individual and collective benefit (Fericgla, 1989).
However, the spreading of this religion andothers that also use ayahuasca among the middle
classes of the large Brazilian cities outside theAmazon region, the publicity involving the conversion of media celebrities to the Santo Daime,
and the moral panic over drug use, led a divisionof the Brazilian Ministry of Health to placeayahuasca in the list of forbidden drugs in 1985.
One of the ayahuasca using religions, the Uniao
do Vegetal, then petitioned the Federal Narcotics
Council demanding the annulment of this measure. The council adopted an unusually enlightened approach and set up multidisciplinary workgroups made up not only of lawyers and policemen but also of doctors, social scientists andpsychologists. Over a period of two years thisgroup visited numerous ayhuasca using religious
communities, examined and interviewed their followers and read newspaper reports.

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Among their findings it was noted thatayahuasca had been used by these religious
groups for decades without untoward social harm.
Among the users of the brew the predominant
moral and ethical standards were similar to thosefound in mainstream Brazilian society. The ruralcommunities were considered to be well integrated
into their environmental setting and harmoniously
aggregating individuals of different age groups,social classes and social backgrounds. In spite of
their distance from the Amazon the urban communities were found to follow closely the doctrinal practices originating in the rain forest.
Although the brew was classified as a hallucinogen and as having other effects apart from thosecommon to this type of substance such as vomiting and diarrhoea, it was considered that no
medical abnormalities had been detected by thework group and recommendations were made forfurther and more detailed clinical studies. Following the work group’s recommendations, the use of
ayahuasca for religious purposes was then endorsed by the Federal Narcotics Council andsince then has been considered totally legitimate
from a legal point of view although still occasionally subject to social prejudice on the part ofpeople who insist on seeing the followers of theayabuasca religion as mere drug addicts (MacRae,
1992).
Keeping within the Santo Daime universe it isuseful to compare the fortunes of the legally
accepted ayahuasca with another sacramental
substance also worshipped by the followers of oneof its branches but which remains illegal: Santa
Maria or Cannabis.
In order to understand the violent polemics thishas aroused it is necessary to go back to theinternal disputes that tore apart Mestre Irineu’s
flock after his death in 1971 in the town of Rio
Branco, capital of the extreme north-western
Brazilian state of Acre. It is quite common forsuch organisations, centred around a charismatic
leader to have great difficulty in finding a successor for him after his death. The Santo Daime
Church was no exception and its doctrinal emphasis on the personal revelations afforded by thetaking of the brew possibly stimulated the factionalism with different aspirants to leadership claim-

ing to have been divinely appointed. While mostof these had been longtime followers of thefounder, one of them, a charismatic spiritual
healer even prior to meeting Mestre Irineu andtaking Daime for the first time, Sebastiao Motade Melo, was a relative outsider. Unlike the others, he did not live in Mestre Irineu’s neighbourhood and had only been taking Daime since 1965.
Popularly known as Padrinho Sebastiao, he was
the leader of a community of his own, a relatively
long way away, called Colonia 5000; and had
been given permission by Mestre Irineu to makehis own Daime and to hold his own ceremonies
with his group. As a sign of his allegiance he was
expected to give a certain amount of the Daime hemade to Mestre Irineu and to attend a few special
ceremonies with his followers at his master’schurch. But in 1974 he finally broke away fromthe original organisation and started his own independent church at the Colonia 5000, ceasing to
pay his Daime tribute and holding all the major
ceremonies at his own centre. This in itself wasenough to sour his relations with the rest of theSanto Daime followers, but greater provocation
was to come.
This was a time when Brazilian society was
undergoing radical changes due to the ‘modernisation’ policies of the military dictatorship intent
on opening the country to modern capitalism
based on advanced technology and crisscrossing
the country with roads. Economically the country
was going through a boom that was heralded as asign that Brazil was on its way to becoming aworld power, however politically and culturally it
was in a very bad state. A largely student based
left wing guerrilla movement had been violently
squashed, the prisons were full of political prisoners, the media were under heavy censorship andBrazilian culture was undergoing a radical Americanisation. Faced with the defeat of organised
political opposition, part of the country’s youth
resorted to more individualistic forms of resistance, adopting the hippie, and New Age ideasthat only then began to reach Brazil. Free love,
drug experimentation, mysticism, hitchhiking, etc.
became escape valves for the frustrations of many
young people, usually urban and often of middle
class origin. The Amazonian region, newly pro-

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

vided with roads and improved means of communication attracted many who had opted for a life
‘on the road’. Some went there on their way to
Macchu Picchu, one of the hippie Meccas. Soon
the news of a potent Indian brew, supposed togive instant access to spiritual realms began tospread and a steady stream of long-haired, drugtaking, rebellious youth began to flock to thedifferent Daime groups.
However, the original followers of both Mestre
Irineu and Padrinho Sebastiao were very poor
rubber tappers, often illiterate and imbued with
the Amazonian popular values, which althoughdiffering in many ways from orthodox Roman
Catholicism (mainly with regard to a more animistic approach to religion, borrowed from Indian shamanism and from the African cults aswell as from old European peasant religiosity),shared most of its more traditional and, often,
already discarded norms and rules of day to day
conduct, such as the rigid gender roles, the emphasis on the importance of hard work, the respect for hierarchical authority, political andmoral conservatism, etc. So their general reaction
to these visitors was of rejection and few wereallowed to partake of the ayahuasca ceremonies.
The notable exception was Padrinho Sebastiao,
who sympathised with these outsiders and, invoking Jesus’ predilection for the outcast, welcomed
them to his community even if this shocked someof his more conservative followers. This acceptance however did not imply in a weakening of
the austere doctrine he taught, and in many cases,
after a period living in his community, some ofthese visitors became fully converted to his views,
getting themselves haircuts and adopting many of
the Amazonian rural values.
Nevertheless, these conversions did not necessarily imply in a total abandonment of old practices, especially when these were not perceived as
antagonistic to the Santo Daime doctrine or as
directly affronting the customs of the community.
Such was the case with the use of certain drugs,
especially those perceived to be ‘natural’ like Cannabis and mushrooms, whose use was quite unfamiliar to most of the members of the community,
who until then had been living in great isolation.
Thus they had not yet been contaminated by the331

anti-drug hysteria rife in the more metropolitan
urban centres and which, in 1976, led to thepassing of new a draconian Narcotics Law, inforce to this day. For the members of Colonia
5000 in the mid 70’s the smoking of marijuana
was not an issue although a few had heard tales
about its supposed diabolical nature, and of its
only being used by outlaws. Their main concern
was with alcoholism, endemic in the region and apersonal problem for many of the veterans, who
considered the Santo Daime as responsible for
their having given up excessive drinking. Tobaccosmoking, though discouraged during rituals,was asocially accepted practice and quite widespread.
On the other hand, many of the new young
converts had originally been attracted to the religion because of its uses of a psychoactive brew as
its main sacrament. Their conversion, although
implying many changes in their value systems had
also led them to view consciousness alteration
through substance use not only as socially acceptable but also as a sure way of acquiring spiritual
knowledge and development. As they lived in a
hut a little apart from the rest of the community,a few were able to continue to smoke secretly andeven grow a little marijuana for their own use.
Once they had gained acceptance in the community, some of them showed Padrinho Sebastiao
how to cook certain psychoactive mushrooms
which grew abundantly in the area in the cattle
dung. He took a liking to these and in keepingwith traditional shamanic practice decided to starta study of this new plant, in order to learn its
spiritual secrets and its healing properties. For
some time mushrooms were used frequently by
the members of the community and a few times
they were even incorporated into the Santo Daimeritual. Alfredo, Padrinho Sebastiao’s son andpresent leader of the group, even received a hymn
about a spiritual being incarnated in those mushrooms called Cogu-Rei (Mushroom King) (Ovejero, 1996). After some time, however, Padrinho
Sebastiao decided to end his studies of this plant,
considering its side effects to be prejudicial.
On another occasion, during a Daime session,shortly after Padrinho Sebastiao’s formal declaration of independence, one of the marijuana using
newcomers felt an irresistible need to confide his

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secret to Padrinho Sebastiao. According to his
own account, feeling unable to remain in theroom, he decided to go out for fresh air. Outside
the church he met Padrinho Sebastiao andpromptly told him all about it. Far from being
angry, the old man told him he had recently had
a dream in which a strange warrior on horseback
and wearing a black cape had told him he wasabout to move to another spiritual line. When heasked what line this was, he was told he wouldfind out for himself. A little later he had had
another vision of a garden being tended by anangel who showed him a plant he did not know
and said: ‘This is for healing’.
Padrinho Sebastião then asked his young follower for a little marijuana to study. For sometime he kept the use of the plant restricted tohimself, his wife, the youths who had presented
him with the plant and one or two close followers.
After a while, he came to the conclusion thatwhile ayahuasca worked with the spiritual energyof Christ, Cannabis had the energy of the Virginand he then renamed the plant Santa Maria. He
explained that he had been instructed to ‘take theherb from the mouth of the devil and return it to
its proper mistress, the Virgin Mary’. Thus begana series of instructions that he imparted to his
followers on the proper sacred use of Cannabis,
distinct from the profane manner it was being
smoked by those who simply wanted a ‘buzz’.
Emphasising its specific character, this new religious use was to have a different vocabulary fromthe profane street use, so that like Santo Daime,
Santa Maria should never be considered a ‘drug’.
Not only was the name commonly used in Brazil‘maconha’, rejected and substituted for ‘Santa
Maria’, but all the other terms used in connection
with it, like the standard urban Portuguese wordfor ‘to smoke’, or hippie slang expressions forcigarette papers and the top of the female plantvery prized for being rich in THC, were substituted by other expressions of a more local flavour.
Ideally it should only be used in rituals similar
to the Santo Daime ones, to be held every two
weeks. But the specificities of its pharmacologicalnature and of its effects, the fact that initiallythere was probably resistance on the part of members of the community in fully equating it withayahuasca and that for a long time (three years
according to da Silva, 1985) its use was restricted
to a few people, meant that a more informalmanner of use developed in which it was simply
smoked in a circle. But even here a few rules areobserved to mark the group ritual nature of theseprocedures which were different from the standard hedonistic and individualistic uses of Cannabis. The ceremony is sometimes called ‘theconsecration of Santa Maria’ and in some cases
may even involve the reciting of the Roman
Catholic prayer ‘Hail Mary’. During the ritual thepartakers should remain silent and orderly while
the cigarette is being consumed. It must always be
passed to the person to the right of the lastsmoker and be kept in constant circulation until it
is totally consumed and each user should limit
himself to three puffs, mentally invoking theDaime symbols sun, moon and stars; make a signof the cross and pass it on. If silence is not kept,
then the smokers must at least keep the conversation on a high spiritual level, and avoid using it inparties or mixing it with the consumption of
alcoholic drinks. Santa Maria should also never
be used while eating, and a reasonable amount oftime should be allowed to pass before food isconsumed. Padrinho Sebastiao’s followers arealso expected to only use this herb among themselves, refraining from smoking with those unaware of its sacred nature. Street marijuana,bought from drug dealers ought to be avoided,due to its contamination with heavy energies absorbed from the underworld environment andthere are prescriptions as to the correct manner ofgrowing, tending and harvesting the plant so as toemphasise its divinity.
After some time, its use, jointly with Daime, in
healing in ceremonies became common. The two
substances taken together are considered to produce very good effects. Santa Maria taken after
Santo Daime can lead to a feeling of ‘unblockedge’, propitiating visions, and acts as asoother in moments of difficulty during the ‘voyage’. They were considered to belong to the same
spiritual realm and as being able to unite theirchildren on earth and to transform and liberatethem on the ‘astral plane’. In accordance with thedaimista doctrine that divides the world in two

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

great categories, while Santo Daime represented
the male principle, Santa Maria was the female
one and should be used to invoke the help not
only of the Virgin but of all the other femalesaints and elemental spirits.
The plant’s medicinal properties were also explored empirically. A tea made from its green
leaves and from its roots was used in the treatment of flu, fevers, indigestion, vomiting, diarrhoea, headaches, ‘neurasthenia’. Smoked it
served as an anaesthetic, and as a relief for pains
in general, being used to help in child birth, andas a relief for haemorrhoids, hernias, colics, depression, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, insomnia,
high blood pressure, athsma etc. Its ashes were
thought to have antiseptic and cicatrizant properties and were used topically in pomades to treat
mycosis, wounds, ulcers and eczema. In compresses it was used on bruises, tumours, boils andfevers. A tincture was also made from it and used
for colics, indigestion and spasms (da Silva, 1985).
The other ayahuasca taking groups in Rio
Branco already viewed Padrinho Sebastiao withsuspicion owing to his separation from the original Santo Daime group and to the hospitablemanner he received what they considered to be abunch of disreputable hippies. But they became
particularly incensed by his adoption of Cannabis
as a new sacrament. Although this plant had long
been in use in Brazil, it had always been associated with Black culture, owing to its original
introduction in the region by slaves from Western
Africa. As many other elements of African origin
in Brazilian culture, it was stigmatised and considered to pertain to the devil.(In fact, to this day
some still call it ‘the devil’s weed’).
From 1934 onwards Cannabis was placed in thefirst official Brazilian list of narcotic substances
and thus began a campaign with a clearly racist
slant presenting the use of the plant as a public
problem and focusing the workings of the disciplinary punitive system on the social areas occupied by the Black population. This served tomaintain and reinforce racist stereotypes and theconstruction of a Cannabis Problem is consideredby some to have contributed in an important way
to the consolidation of the political and economic
domination of the Afro-Brazilian population

333(Adiala, 1986a,b). As often happens in situationsof racial oppression, this prejudice was even internalised by Black people who commonly associate
its use with a life of crime. Mestre Irineu’s followers themselves adhered to these ideas even though
their leader himself had been a Black man andhad come from a part of Brazil, the state ofMaranhao, where the African influence is particularly great and where the use of marijuana wasuntil recently totally integrated into the popular
culture, being used for both recreational andmedicinal purposes. Even Mestre Irineu himself
has been alleged to have used the plant, in certain
special occasions, for healing, although today thisis vehemently denied by most of his followers (daSilva, 1985).
On the other hand, Padrinho Sebastiao’s recognition of the spiritual nature of some of the illicit
substances in use in Brazil, attracted increasing
numbers of drug users to Colonia 5000. Frequently these people experienced difficulty in accepting the rigid moralism and patriarchal
authoritarianism of the religious doctrine and involved themselves occasionally in trouble in Rio
Branco, where they were, in spite of their rebelliousness with regard to his teachings, still identified with Padrinho Sebastiao. This contributed
to an increase in the stigmatisation already suffered by Colonia 5000. This and other problems
such as the growth in the numbers of the community members, led Padrinho Sebastiao to go insearch of another place to settle, where the land
was more abundant and where they could be
more isolated so as to live in their own way
without outside interference. After some time avery remote and difficult to reach place was foundcalled Rio do Ouro and there began a gradualmovement of exodus from Colonia 5000 withmany of the characteristics of the Messianic
movements which frequently develop among poor
Brazilian peasants.
One day while Padrinho Sebastiao was away a
young frequenter of his community was arrested
in Rio Branco and found to be in possession of abottle of Daime and an amount of Cannabis. Thiswas used as an excuse for the police to invade
Colonia 5000 in large numbers and heavily armed
with machine guns, rifles and revolvers, ready to334

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

fire. Obviously they did not find the armed hoodlums they were used to dealing with, but only avery humble and peaceful group of people wholooked at them with uncomprehending surprise.
Nevertheless they found a well tended Cannabis
plantation which was then destroyed before thecommunity dwellers, many of whom were reduced
to tears by the brutal sacrilege being committed totheir sacred Santa Maria garden. These procedures also had great media coverage and for the
first time news the great Brazilian public had newsof this entheogen using religion.
Although Padrinho Sebastiao later presented
himself to the local police authorities and wasable to convince them of his religious integrity inthe use of Cannabis and ayahuasca, there wasnevertheless a great deal of controversy over the
subject. This was still the time of the military
regime with its obsessive concern with left wing
subversive activities and so it was deemed necessary to look into the activities of what was felt tobe a potentially threatening movement of poor
peasants allied to drug taking young dropouts.
On the other hand there was a realisation that thiswas an unusual situation since the community was
renowned for its hard work and religiosity andhad never been involved in any serious trouble
before. So a special government commission,
made up of police and army authorities as well asa group of scientists, was dispatched to Rio do
Ouro in order to carry out investigations into thelife of the community. It also had the express
recommendation to be careful not to create asituation of needless religious conflict, once
Brazilian history is marked by many cases of thegovernment trying to put down messianic movements not unlike this one, leading to fanaticalresistance and usually ending in bloody massacres(Ovejero, 1996). Already in this case some of thedaimistas were bringing up the story of Canudos,
one of the most notorious examples of Brazilian
religious intolerance ending in civil war.
Although the commission’s report was favourable to the community and recommended
that its members be left to continue their life inpeace, this was not the end of their troubles. Theirrelatively unabashed ritual use of Cannabis andthe press coverage given to the conversion to thisreligion of a few television celebrities were irksome to many. Matters became even worse when
new police incidents involving supposed followersof Padrinho Sebastiao with Cannabis use occurred and led to further efforts on the part ofcertain authorities to ban altogether the ritual useof ayahuasca. As we have already seen, this infact happened in 1985, when the brew was placedon the list of forbidden substances for six months
and was only liberated after a new scientific commission was set up to investigate the matter further and for a period of two years there was
uncertainty as to the long term legal status of
ayahuaca use in Brazil.
Even though this commission ended by again
recommending the liberation of ayahuasca forreligious use, the fright increased the prejudices ofthe other ayahuasca using religions against
Padrinho Sebastiao and his followers, once theyfelt that their own sacramental use of ayahuasca
was under permanent threat due to what they
considered its misuse by those who insisted inusing it with the ‘drug’ Santa Maria.
Here one sees in almost caricature form theprocess of religious dogma turning one person’s
sacrament into another’s ‘drug’. Although awareof the importance of ayahuasca in the history of
the Americas in general and in theirs in particular,
they were unable to generalise the notion of thesacredness of entheogens to other substances different from those they used themselves. Here one
sees a repetition of the intolerance of medieval
Christianity and of the Inquisition, who persecuted many groups similar to present day
ayahuasca religions. At the same time there is aforgetting of the botanical eclecticism of the Indian shamans whence originated the use of thebrew and whose influence is still very marked inthese religions. Above all one detects great ignorance of the long history of the sacred use of
Cannabis.
Rather than being the ‘devil’s weed’, Cannabis
is in fact one of the oldest plants cultivated byhumankind. According to Schultes and Hofmann,historically it has been used for five purposes: as asource of hempen fibres, for its oil, for its seeds
consumed for food, for its narcotic properties andtherapeutically to treat a wide spectrum of ills.

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

Because of its various uses, it has been taken to
many regions around the world and integrated
into a great number of different cultures. It isdifficult to say which of the several uses of Cannabis was the earliest but the Vedas, supposed tohave been written around 2000 B.C. in India,
already sang the praises of Cannabis as one of thedivine nectars, able to give man anything fromgood health and long life to visions of the gods.
The Zen Avesta, dating from 600 B.C. Persia andcontaining the teachings of Zoroaster mentions an
intoxicating resin thought to be extracted fromhemp and the Assyrians used it as an incense as
early as the ninth century BC The Chinese also
seem to have known and probably used its psychoactive properties at very early dates. About
500 B.C. Herodotus described a kind of saunabath of the Scythians in which hemp seeds werethrown onto hot stones inside a closed tent, leading all those present to delight and shout for joy.
Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, Democritus reported that it was occasionally drunkwith wine and myrrh to produce visionary states,
and Galen, about A.D. 200, wrote that it was
sometimes customary to give hemp to guests topromote hilarity and enjoyment.
Its use for spiritual purposes goes far back in
Indian history, as can be seen from ancient
mythological beliefs. One Cannabis preparation,
Bhang, was so sacred that it was thought to deter
evil, bring luck and cleanse sin. Those treading
upon the leaves of the plant would suffer harmand sacred oaths were sealed over hemp. Indra,
god of the firmament had his favourite drink
made from Cannabis and hemp was also smokedin rituals to the god Shiva. In Tibet, Cannabis
was also used in Tantric Buddhist ritual to facilitate deep meditation and heighten awareness(Schultes and Hofmann, 1987).
Cannabis was introduced to Africa quite earlyon and transcends Moslem areas, being used bothin social and religious contexts. It was used by,among others: the Hottentots, Bushmen, Kaffirs,
and the Kasai in the Congo considered it to be agod, a protector against physical and spiritual
harm. Treaties are sealed with its smoke andmany hemp using cults exist in East Africa, specially near Lake Victoria (Schultes and Hofmann,
1987).

335

There is an unresolved controversy overwhether or not PreColumbian America alreadyknew Cannabis, with suggestive archaeological evidence pointing towards very early use (Bennett etal., 1995). What is certain is that at present Cannabis plays a role in the religious life of several
different Indian peoples such as the Cuna inPanama and the Cora in Mexico. The Tepehua,
another Mexican Indian group also use it under
the name of Santa Rosa in healing ceremonies,
considering it to act as an intercessor with the
Virgin and the Tepecanos, of northwestern Mexico occasionally use it as a substitute for Peyote intheir rituals calling it Rosa Maria (Emboden,1972).
But apart from being the result of simple historical ignorance, the intolerance of the otherayahuasca religions with regard to Padrinho Sebastiao’s followers also reflects the symbolic impact of legislation. After all alcohol and tobacco
are also seen as pathogenic, evil and addictive by
most members of these religious groups, but theiruse does not arouse feelings of such strong rejection for its users. Among the Brazilian poor, often
living in conditions of total misery, the use of
Cannabis frequently serves as a one of the few
marks distinguishing the respectable poor fromthe total outcasts. For this reason it is common tofind a much greater emotional investment in thecondemnation of its use on the part of the poor,
even though it might be part of their traditional
cultural heritage, than among the members of the
middle class, who do not feel a such need to assert
their respectability at all times. This might, then,also serve as a partial explanation for the different
reactions of the increasingly middle class followers of Padrinho Sebastiao and the much poorer
members of some of the other religions.
This, however, can only be seen as a partial
explanation, since one of the ayahuasca using
religious groups most critical of Santa Maria, theUniao do Vegetal is even more middle class thanthe one that worships Cannabis. In their case one
is dealing with a group that has a definite socialand even political project aiming at a total institutionalisation of their religion and at its completesocial acceptance. They have a rigidly hierarchicalorganisation, and a pretension to being the336

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

only bearers of the true ayahuasca doctrine. The
greater emphasis on the validity of personal revelations, often conceived of by the daimistas as
being open to everyone, is an implicit challenge totheir hierarchical structure which bases the difference between its members on the degree to which
they are cognisant of their doctrinal secrets. They
consider Mestre Irineu’s followers and other users
of ayahuasca as, at best, ignorant ‘masters ofcuriosity’ and so any successes they may havequestion the significance of these exclusive secrets
and of the often oppressive hierarchical organisation built around them. Thus the use of Cannabis
in conjunction with ayahuasca not only affronts
their dogma, but also puts in jeopardy their cherished social pretensions.
But even Padrinho Sebastiao’s conviction of theimportance of Santa Maria to the ritual life of his
flock could not resist the force of legal repression
and of the social ostracism implied by its continued use. This became especially true once theyceased to restrict their activities to isolated Amazonian communities and began to spread theirdoctrine to the large Brazilian cities. As one of theconditions for the liberation of ayahuasca use, hisfollowers had to sign a joint declaration, whose
wording clearly shows it to have been drawn up
by Uniao do Vegetal members to suit their own
interests (it insists, for instance, in callingayahuasca by the name given to it by that religion
and not by the more common ‘Daime’). Several
items of this joint declaration deny some of thebasic tenets of the other religions, like those thatban the use of ayahuasca for healing and,ofcourse, the use of any other psychoactive substance in conjunction with the brew. Even though
not all the items of this declaration are closely
kept by the different groups, the followers ofPadrinho Sebastiao have since felt compelled to
avoid their ritual use of Santa Maria, however
unwilling they may be to deny its sacred nature,
which they continue to consider as elevated asthat of Santo Daime itself and as its female
counterpart.
This, however has not been easy, since
Padrinho Sebastiao’s flock bears the mark of his
tolerance and even predilection for ‘difficult
cases’. He taught that nobody should ever bedenied Santo Daime, once he believed that it was
only through coming into contact with the ‘divine
being’ of the drink that they might be indoctrinated. Consequently, compared to the membersof the other religions who are much more selectiveof whom they accept into their fold, his followers
to this day seem particularly rebellious and unruly. Many of them have a long past history of
drug use and only considered joining this religion
because of the dignity it accorded certain psychoactive substances. They especially prize its rejection of the more narrow-minded prejudicesagainst marijuana, a plant already used by a great
number of them prior to their religious conversion. Thus, moves to cease the ritual use of Santa
Maria can only be justified by pragmatic arguments, which are often questioned under the argument that earthly laws cannot go against spiritual
truths.
So, although official authorisation is nowadays
systematically denied by the leaders of the groupfor the use of Santa Maria in the Santo Daime
ceremonies, it is very difficult for them to impose
the total ban on its private, somewhat ‘wild’ use
as suggested by the religious doctrine. So, as theycannot make the ritually correct use of Santa
Maria, it is common for the followers of thisparticular branch of the religion to smoke before
and after the ceremonies and sometimes even tosneak out of the rituals to take a few puffs awayfrom the sight of the others. It is even morecommon for them to show a pattern of relatively
frequent use in their daily lives. Even in thesecases they tend to preserve the basic simple ritual
initially proposed by Padrinho Sebastiao, smoking in an orderly circle, keeping the conversation
restricted to elevated topics, avoiding mixing itwith the use of alcoholic drinks and avoiding
smoking with outsiders to the religion. Often
there is the singing of specific hymns which emphasize the differences between the divine Santa
Maria and the profane ‘maconha’ insisting on therespect and discipline needed for its correct use.
Nevertheless, certain of the prescriptions applying
to its fully ritualised use are not observed, mainly
those concerning frequency, physical setting and,above all, manner of acquisition.

E. MacRae / International Journal of Drug Policy 9 (1998) 325–338

The participation in Santo Daime ceremonies
and the partaking of its sacramental brew is usually a very moving experience that leads to aquestioning of much that usually people take for
granted about their lives. This destructuring effectis countered by many cues present in the ritual
setting, such as the religious symbols, the chantsthat accompany the ceremonies, the ‘guardians’
whose presence affords a feeling of security thatorder will be maintained, and the figure of theleader of the session who is ultimately responsible
for the proceedings. On the other hand, the extraritual smoking of Santa Maria often provokes akind of ‘flash-back’ effect that can lead to areliving of the ayahuasca experience outside theceremonial setting. This in a few cases can be apainful and unsettling experience mainly for inexperienced users and for those with psychologicalproblems. This haphazard multiplication of theoriginal experience can, in a few cases, generatedifficulties in settling back into normal life and alack of motivation for any but ‘spiritual ’ activities, which on occasion lead to dropping out ofschool or jobs and subsequent situations of maladjustment and disorientation.
But whereas psychological problems only appear in a very few cases, the most serious problem
is the breaking of the ritual manner of acquisitionof the herb. Instead of the elaborate ritualised
tending of ‘Santa Maria Gardens’ where the doctrinal norms are symbolically stressed and reinforced, the users are obliged to resort to illegal
dealers, and to face all the dangers inherent in thiscontact with the underworld and its violent ways,
as well as running the risk of being caught by thepolice and maybe suffering violence, stigmatisation and even long term imprisonment in institutions notorious for being ‘schools of crime’. Thisin fact has happened to a few of Padrinho Sebastiao’s followers and has been the cause of most of
the bad publicity they have suffered in the last few
years.
So here we see, in an almost paradigmaticalcase, the importance of the setting, as argued byZinberg and Grund, among others. As Zinberg
maintained, controlled use is a result of social
learning and requires suitable social and cultural
conditions to develop fully. Here dealing with337

rituals which are not only social but religious aswell, we see how they can be quite effective whenallowed to develop in a licit manner even in
dealing with potent substances like ayahuasca. On
the other hand, when their banning makes it
difficult for them to become fully institutionalised,
as is the case with Santa Maria, their controllinginfluence is weakened and it is more difficult forthem to prevent undesired effects. Further evidence of this is the fact that in contrast to the‘wild’ use of Santa Maria we find that Santo
Daime is never used out of a strictly ritual context
except for when it is used in small doses as a
remedy.

1. Notes‘entheogens’ – A word suggested by R. Gordon
Wasson and others to name in a non-pejorative
manner certain substances whose ingestion provokes altered states of consciousness, leading tostates of shamanic ecstasy or possession.
‘Padrinho’, meaning ‘got/father’, is a common
expression used in Brazil for leaders of popularspiritual communities. Mestre Irineu was also
called ‘Padrinho’ by his closest followers.

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