Definition
Santo Daime was founded in the 1930s in the state of Acre, the Northwest of Brazil, by the Afro-Brazilian Raimundo Irineu Serra, known as Mestre Irineu. The group was formally established in 1945, gained government recognition in 1971, and by the end of the twenty-first century, had begun to spread all over the world. Santo Daime’s symbolism draws primarily upon Catholicism, African religiosity, European esotericism, and Amerindian shamanism. This religion became popular mostly due to being characterized by the ritual consumption of ayahuasca, a bitter psychedelic brew prepared from the Banisteriopsis sp. vine and known for its strong psychoactive properties.
Introduction
Santo Daime is the best-known of the Brazilian ayahuasca religions – syncretic religious movements that have emerged from the social-economic relations of the declining rubber industry between the 1930 and 1960s in the states of Acre and Rondônia in the Brazilian Amazon. These religions originated among the
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MacRae E (1992) Guiado pela lua: Xamanismo e uso ritual da ayahuasca no culto do Santo Daime [Guided by the moon: Shamanism and the ritual use of ayahuasca in the Santo Daime religion in Brazil]. Brasiliense, São Paulo. Translation to English retrieved from: http://www.neip.info/downloads/edward/ebook.htm
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Santana de Rose, I. (2019). Santo Daime. In: Gooren, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Religions of the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27078-4_541
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27078-4_541
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