Liquid Light of the Santo Daime: Plant Medicines and their Potential for Personal and Cultural Transformation Via Direct Experience of the Divine

by Diana Rosalind Trimble
Naropa University

In this paper, I explore the syncretic Brazilian faith Santo Daime (literally the "Holy Give-me") and present it as an example of a 20th Century Creation Spirituality Tradition that speaks with the wisdom of Indigenous Mind in the language of the Cosmic Christ. I find that in its usage of the ancient plant medicine ayahuasca, from the Amazon forest, and merger of several distinct cultures and religions, it promises to redeem Christianity from the spiritually crippling separation from nature it has undergone in centuries past. It is beyond denying that the dominant culture of today is infected with rampant materialism from which sore spreads an enormous array of social dis-eases. My finding is that a revival of Creation-centered faith, such as the Santo Daime represents, is just the salve needed to heal this collective wound.

I first became interested in Santo Daime after meeting people who had traveled to Brazil and experienced the rituals and then began listening to and studying the hymns. Soon after, I was able to attend a few meetings in Holland before deciding to visit the community of Ceu do Mápiá in the Amazon rainforest. Using myself as a sort of case study, I have utilized the Daime both for its medicinal and metaphysical properties, linked as they are. I have found that this beverage is a genuine sacrament and that as such it possesses vast potential for benefit in a spiritual revival which honors the earth and invites the participant into both a deep study of the self and a direct experience of the divine. With its calls of: "Give me light! Give me strength! Give me love! Give me truth! Give me justice! Give me peace! Give us union!"; with its thanking of the Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, Wind and Sea, the Santo Daime invokes a new era in which balance may be restored between human and the rest of nature, between spirit and matter, between "law" and justice.