Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca, which contains the psychoactive compound dimethyltryptamine (DMT), has been the subject of increasing legal scrutiny in the last few decades as Santo Daime has expanded. The decoction has been explicitly legal for religious use in Brazil since 1986, while recent legal battles in Europe have legalized its use in Holland and Spain. In the United States, the Supreme Court in 2006 upheld a preliminary injunction permitting another Brazilian church, the União do Vegetal (UDV), to use ayahuasca ritually. This decision, as the result of specific litigation involving the UDV, applies only to that group, so the legal status of ayahuasca generally remains in a gray area in that country.
Santo Daime's entheogenic sacrament, ayahuasca, has been used for millennia in South American indigenous cultures. It is one of the traditional tools of the shaman in South America, and in many regions is to this day a common medicine used for finding and treating various ailments as well as for its vision-inducing effects, which are said to be profound and life-changing.
The tea has had many names including Santo Daime (or simply Daime), Hoasca, Ayahuasca, Yage, and Caapi. It is made from two or more plants, one a woody vine (Ayahuasca vine or Jagube; generally Banisteriopsis caapi), and the others known as admixtures. While various plants are used throughout South America, most of which have high concentrations of dimethyltryptamine, the preferred admixture in the case of Santo Daime is Psychotria viridis, known to church members as the "Queen of the Forest," after the figure who is said to have appeared to the church's founder in a vision, prompting him to start the religion. DMT occurs naturally in the human body and is speculated to be released at the time of death, but it is normally digested in the stomach if consumed and an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor), in this case tetrahydroharmine, harmine and harmaline, is needed to allow it to reach the brain in this way, thus the use of the vine. The Santo Daime Church uses only the Jagube vine and the Viridis leaf, not adding any other plants to the mixture. The tea is prepared ceremoniously over a week by members of the church in a festival called a 'feitio'. Hymns are sung, and Daime is drunk while the men hammer the vine into powder and the women clean and sort the leaves. Because of the very specific manner in which they prepare their sacrament, and the very specific way in which they use it, the beverage is not called 'Ayahuasca', but 'Santo Daime'. In some communities there are very clear distinctions.
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