Ritual
Devotional in context, the songs praise divine principles. The Cross of Caravacca (named after the eponymous town, Caravaca), with its double horizontal beam, stands on the altar. Each session begins and ends with Christian prayers. Santo Daime practice features several kinds of ritual. Two of these are concentrações ("concentrations") and bailados ("dances"), also known as hinários ("hymnals"). Other rituals focus on the saying of the rosary or on healing. Participants drink Daime in all types of ritual; but the format and focus will differ; concentrations are silent, seated meditations, while hymnals involve dancing and singing hymns while playing maracas.
The Christian core is combined with other elements, such as an emphasis on personal gnosis and responsibility, an animist appreciation of nature, such as the Sun, Moon and Stars, as well as the totemic symbol of the "beija-flor", the hummingbird. Spiritual beings from indigenous Amazonian shamanism and deities from the African pantheon such as Ogum and Iemanja are also incorporated into the doctrine. The nature of the work is sometimes personified and addressed as "Juramidam", a name disclosed to Irineu in his visionary experience, which means literally, "God (jura) and his soldiers (midam)".
Ayahuasca, consumed by Daimistas in ceremonies, has many different traditional names, but is known within the Santo Daime as Santo Daime, meaning Holy Daime, or simply, Daime, as originally named by Irineu. Dai-me means "give me" in Portuguese. A phrase "Daime força, daime amor" (give me strength, give me love), recurs in the doctrine's hymns.
Participants in the ritual come to submit themselves to a process through which they may learn. This may include various wonders — ayahuasca is known for the visions it generates, and the sense of communion with nature and spiritual reality — as well as more mundane, less pleasant lessons about the self. The Daime is thought to reveal both positive and various negative or unresolved aspects of the individual, resulting in difficult "passages" involving the integration of this dissociated psychological content.
Ceremonies are referred to as "works". The effects of Daime combined with dancing, singing and concentration for up to twelve hours require and develop stamina or "firmeza" (firmness).
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