Cure in the Brazilian ayahuasca religions
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as the beliefs in the Amazonian shamanism (pajelança amazônica)8 that started to merge with Catholic practices or elements of the Kardecism which began to spread at this time precisely. Also in the Peruvian region, we may record a set of similar transformations in the practices of the ayahuasca vegetalism. Thus, Luna[1] states that from the early twentieth century, a new generation of vegetalists who incorporate a considerable amount of Christian elements in their ayahuasca sessions (such as prayers and summons to the Virgin Mary and Jesus) will be spread. However, in spite of these changes, the religion of Santo Daime also expresses many continuities in relation to earlier traditions of the ayahuasca use, as the Peruvian vegetalism. Despite the distinctions between the meaning of the daimista diet and the sense of the vegetal diet, the cult created by Mestre Irineu is based on the use of a “spirit plant”. As mentioned before, the Daime, this “divine being”, is understood as a plant that teaches and can heal or disclose the proper remedies for certain diseases. It remains, therefore, the idea of “conductor plant” in the vegetalist context. The use of the Daime is not linked to thorough classifications of the natural environment and different vegetable species (as in the vegetalism), but ultimately, the whole daimist experience with the beverage implies in a process of properties absorption of the latter by those who consume it. Thus, the Daime - the vegetable beverage - has “strength”, “power”, “light”, “knowledge”, as emphasized, moreover, in the hymns of that religion. By drinking the Daime during a “work”, the believer aims precisely at achieving many of these properties of the beverage: “strength”, “power”, “light” or “knowledge”. Simultaneously, the idea of “transforming in the Daime” leads the religious experience of the believer in this religion. As attempted to demonstrate earlier[3,5], the transformation in the Daime beverage is a theme emphasized in the mythical statements surrounding the initiation of Mestre Irineu with the ayahuasca. A common notion to this religious world is that “Mestre Irineu” is the Daime itself. This theme is reiterated in the personal experiences of each believer with the beverage. Testimonials of the “miração” for example, are common in which
8
It is called Amazonian shamanism a set of practices and conceptions of the cabocla population, which in Brazil express the results of the contact between the indigenous peoples and other groups that occupied the Amazon. Cabocla populations have here a more cultural sense. The Amazonian shamanism encompasses beliefs in spiritual beings (the “enchanted ones”) that inhabit natural places such as rivers, forests etc., as well as a whole concept of reciprocal relationships between men and natural environment[7].