A Tropical Brew: Deep in the Brazilian Rainforest There Is Church Where Worshippers Drink Hallucinogenic Tea
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Rio Branco is the capital of Acre, Brazil’s most westerly state and its most Wild West one too. A congressman was jailed there in the late 1990s, accused of slicing off an enemy’s arms and legs with a chainsaw. I visited the city shortly after. I had recently arrived in Brazil, a freelance writer from the other side of the globe, and when an acquaintance invited me to a church service at which psychoactive drugs would be consumed, I jumped at the chance.
Ayahuasca—or Daime as it is known locally—is a muddy-looking concoction made from boiling the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the Psychotria viridis leaf. Across the Amazon, indigenous people drink it as a part of their rituals. In Brazil a century ago, however, the hallucinogen led to the birth of a new Christian movement, the religion known as Santo Daime.
Daime services require worshippers to take the sacrament. At the church entrance I was served a cup of the brew. I swigged it down straight away, grimacing at its rank bitterness. After 20 minutes, feeling that it wasn’t working, I drank another cup.
Seconds later, I was overwhelmed with tiredness. My eyes shut and a sea of swirling, luminescent colours filled my head. I collapsed in the fetal position by the exit, cuddling a stool like a pillow. Urged by my acquaintance to return into the church—since outside the Devil’s spirits would get me and inside Jesus would protect me—I started to panic. Before taking the drug I had considered my Jewishness as irrelevant. Worrying what Jesus might do sent me into a total freak-out.