Marc G. Blainey - Christ Returns from the Jungle

Christ Returns from
the Jungle

SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology

Richard D. Mann, editor

Christ Returns from
the Jungle

Ayahuasca Religion as Mystical Healing

Marc G. Blainey

Front cover image: Fardada holding a cup of Daime (photo by a Belgian daimista). Back Cover image: Portrait of Mestre Irineu, By: Jorge Patrocinio (published with permission)

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2021 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Blainey, Marc Gordon, author.

Title: Christ returns from the jungle : ayahuasca religion as mystical healing / by Marc G. Blainey.

Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020058286 (print) | LCCN 2020058287 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438483139 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438483153 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Religion and cultureEurope. | Santo Daime (Cult)Europe. | Cultural pluralismEurope. | Cultural pluralismReligious aspects. | EuropeReligion21st century.

Classification: LCC BL65.C8 B542 2021 (print) | LCC BL65.C8 (ebook) | DDC 299/.93dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058286

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058287

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This book is dedicated to you, the reader

G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit

excerpt from hymn #14, Em Minha Memria (In My Memory), in Livrinho do Apocalipse (Little Book of Revelation), by Padrinho Valdete

Illustrations

Figures

Tables

Preface

Is there a meaning of life and if so, what is it? Or, for those who are confident there is no ultimate meaning, how can one be so sure? How should we go about interpreting and dealing with the human condition? Are resolutions to the perplexities of existence best pursued according to traditional religious dogmas? Or do the irreligious ideals of secular materialism provide a more reliable avenue for achieving and maintaining ones well-being? When saints and prophets of the worlds many religions claimed to receive messages through dreams or visions, were these true revelations of divine will or were these delusional fantasies? Ought we to live our life as if this temporary existence is the only game in town or do our actions on Earth somehow determine our placement in an eternal afterlife? Although no person is equipped to definitively answer such foundational dilemmas of ideology, a diverse array of believing and unbelieving groups nevertheless act as if they epitomize proper standards of thought and behavior (a bias anthropologists refer to as ethnocentrism). As seen in humanitys violent history and in partisan conflicts of the present day, ethnocentric ideologues of all stripes are inclined to denounce as wrong any perspective that disagrees with their own.

Ongoing strife in Western societies between religious and nonreligious subcultures attests to each sides presuming that their respective viewpoint constitutes the metaphysical truth. But for a portion of onlookers, bitter tensions between opposing camps of this-worldly and celestial priorities suggest that neither the secular nor mainstream religious establishments offer a complete systematization of how to live optimally. Thus, many citizens of North Atlantic nations now feel agitated by what the philosopher Charles Taylor (2007, 15/598/676) calls cross-pressure, in that the debate in our society has to be understood as suspended between the extreme positions represented by orthodox religion on one hand [e.g., Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and other large faith denominations] and hard-line materialistic atheism on the other. Despite mass media portrayals of dramatic clashes between secularist institutions and religious customs (e.g., abortion/euthanasia/death penalty debates, face-veil [niqb] bans, church-state separations, and war), Taylor (2007, 5/302/423) identifies how some peoples aversion to both cross-pressured extremes motivates affinity for alternative paths or third ways toward existential fullness, a splintering he labels the nova effect: the steadily widening gamut of new positionssome believing, some unbelieving, some hard to classifywhich have become available options for us (see also Kearney 2011, 3). Yet because the discordant voices of the cross-pressured extremes demand so much attention in the public sphere, the unusual offspring being generated by this nova effect often go unnoticed. By contrast, anthropological approaches can shed light on overlooked social realities, including some of the interesting and controversial new ways that modern Westerners are seeking to transmute their cross-pressured angst. This book examines a small but provocative example of how resistance to contemporary cross-pressures can spur the flowering of strange new ritual activities.

Through fourteen months of fieldwork between 2009 and 2011, I gathered ethnographic data concerning the European expansion of Santo Daime (pronounced San-toh Die-mee; Portuguese for Holy Give-me). Santo Daime is a new Brazil-based religion in which devotees drink a mind-altering beverage called