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Description of  Christ Returns from the Jungle: Ayahuasca Religion as Mystical Healing (SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)

An in-depth, ethnographic study of the transnational expansion of Santo Daime, a mystical religious tradition organized around sacramental ingestion of the mind-altering ayahuasca beverage. After more than 450 years of European intrusions into South Americas rainforest, small groups of people across Europe now gather discreetly to participate in Amazonian ceremonies their local governments consider a criminal act. As devotees of a new Brazil-based religion called Santo Daime, they claim that they contact God by way of ayahuasca, a potent psychoactive beverage first developed by native communities in pre-Columbian Amazonia. This bitter, brown liquid is a synergy of plants containing DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine), a mind-altering chemical classified as an illicit hallucinogen in most countries. By contrast, Santo Daime members ( Read more