HALLUCINOGENIC 'SACRAMENT' SPARKS DEBATE ON RELIGION

Followers Of Amazonian Faith Believe Potion-Induced Visions Are Divine

An Irish filmmaker's investigation into an Amazonian religion that
treats consuming a hallucinogenic potion as a "sacrament" has focused
attention on how an obscure religion has slowly moved from the
jungles of Brazil to Europe and North America.

For Empire of Juramidam, Colum Stapleton was initiated into Santo
Daime and imbibed the religion's sacred tea, concocted by boiling a
vine and leaf native to the Amazon rain jungles. Called ayahuasca or
daime, the potion causes hallucinations and visions that the faithful
believe can connect them to the divine.

Mr. Stapleton spent two and a half years tracking the religion in
Europe -- where it is now estimated it has 30 churches -- to its
"holy city" of Ceu Do Mapia in the rainforest of Brazil. He took part
in six-hour rituals that featured worshippers dressed all in white
and chanting in Portuguese. In Ceu Do Mapia, he had a terrifying
ayahuasca experience.

"I felt I was dying. I had this huge paranoid crisis. It was pure,
sheer terror," he told the Sunday Telegraph.

There are several ayahuasca religions, including Santo Daime,
Eclectic Universal Light, Uniao do Vegetal and the Barquinha. They
are all different in their rituals and doctrines, but what most have
in common is that they borrow from the beliefs, traditions and
rituals of Catholicism, Spiritism, African religions, and shamanism.

The religion traces back about 90 years to founder Raimundo Irineu
Serra, who worked in the Amazonian forest as a rubber tapper and had
his first ayahuasca experience with a rainforest shaman. In his
visions, he saw a woman he first believed be a forest spirit, but
later called the Virgin of the Conception.

Anthropologists have called the religion "syncretistic" -- which
means that it reconciles conflicting religious beliefs. And ayahuasca
religions have proved to be a fertile ground for academics studying
the growth of a relatively new religion.

In Europe and North America, those who want to use ayahuasca for
religious purposes have pitted the issue of religious freedom against
the fear that the potion might be diverted to recreational drug
users. Ayahuasca has been banned in France and Germany, but is
permitted for religious use in the Netherlands and Spain.

In 1999, a group led by Jeffrey Bronfman, a distant relative of
Canada's Seagram whisky dynasty, went to court in New Mexico after
U.S. Customs seized a barrel of ayahuasca tea from the group's offices.

In 2002, a judge agreed that the church had met the requirements
under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which limits government
intrusion on legitimate religious practices and issued a preliminary
injunction that required authorities to let the group import the tea.

The group, which calls itself O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do
Vegetal or UDV, is still battling the courts. The U.S. government,
which argues that ayahuasca is a dangerous mind-altering substance,
appealed the previous decision to the U.S. Supreme Court and the case
was heard Nov. 1. A decision is expected early in the new year.

Yesterday, Mr. Bronfman said UDV has about 145 members in North
America, including a handful in Canada, who take part in ceremonies
in the U.S. There are about 50 more members in Spain.

Ayahuasca has hit the news in Canada as well. A 71-year-old diabetic
woman died in October 2001 when two Ecuadoran shamans, Juan Uyunkar
and his son Edgar, were demonstrating healing ceremonies in
Wikwemikong in northern Ontario. In 2003, they pleaded guilty to
administering a noxious substance and trafficking in an illegal drug.