Santo Daime's MeToo Moment

A law suit in Brazil, decades of earlier incidents, and wider questions about safety in psychedelic churches

The original version of this article has been edited to include comments from one Santo Daime lineage and from a victim of Paolo Roberto’s alleged sexual misconduct, both of whom contacted me after publication. I’ve also removed some material about the alleged use of coca paste and cocaine in Daime churches as this - it’s been pointed out to me - distracts from the main thrust of the article, which is the misconduct of Paolo Roberto.

In Rio de Janeiro, a woman is bringing a law suit against a prominent Santo Daime leader called Paolo Roberto for sexual assault under the guise of therapy. He is a padrinho of a Santo Daime church in Rio, and a senior figure in one particular lineage of Santo Daime, with many supporters and followers in North America and Europe. 

This is not the first instance of sexual misconduct by Paolo Roberto, or in the wider Santo Daime movement. In 2019, 15 women accused a priest of sexual misconduct in his Santo Daime offshoot church in Sao Paolo, called Reino de Sol. 

Santo Daime church leaders in North America and Brazil have condemned Paolo Roberto for this latest infraction, and one of them - Jonathan Goldman, founder of a legal Santo Daime church in Oregon - says this is an ‘earthquake’ in the movement. He wrote to his congregants in an open letter: 

Basically, the MeToo movement is belatedly catching up with the Daime world. Paulo Roberto is not the only male leader or member of a Daime church being outed as a predator. We are collectively in a moment of reckoning that has been a long time in coming. 

Goldman tells me expects more cases of misconduct in Daime churches to emerge. It’s not clear how many previous incidents of sexual assault by Paolo Roberto occurred and were accepted by Daime authorities in Brazil and North America - that’s an important question for this ‘moment of reckoning’.  

The wider question, meanwhile, is what steps psychedelic churches could take to reduce the risks of sexual misconduct and unhealthy cultic social dynamics. 

Santo Daime churches have been attacked, especially in Spain and France, for being ‘cults’ that use drugs to control people. And even leading Daimistas have used the word ‘cult’ to describe some of what happened around Paolo Roberto. ‘Cult’ is obviously a loaded-yet-ambiguous term, which can be wielded to justify government persecution of alternative spiritual movements. In the last part of this article we’ll ask what practical steps might mitigate the unhealthy cultic social dynamics that can arise in any social organisation, but perhaps particularly in psychedelic churches. 

What is Santo Daime?

Santo Daime is an ayahuasca religion which emerged in Brazil in the 1930s. Its first prophet was Raimundo Irineu Serra, an African-Brazilian rubber tapper, who went to work in Acre in the Brazilian Amazon, where he was introduced to ayahuasca and had a religious experience in which he encountered the Virgin Mary / Queen of the Forest. 

Mestre Irineu, as he became known, developed what would later be called the Santo Daime religion out of a fusion of Christianity, African spiritism and indigenous ayahuasca shamanism. It involves church ceremonies with men and women wearing white, the men on one side of the church and the women on the other. The ayahuasca sacrament known as Santo Daime is served to the congregation. In ceremonies the group dances and sings hymns containing teachings and in worship of Nature, Divine Beings and the Queen of the Forest for several hours. In seated rituals of ‘concentration’, the focus is on silent meditation and the singing of hymns. There are also different forms of mediumship in some Santo Daime churches, in which restless spirits are taken into bodies of the worshippers and helped to pass into the light. (For those who want to know more, I’ve put some links at the end of the article). 

Here is a video of a ceremony in Ceo do Mapia, one of the first SD churches:

Many followers say their life has been improved by membership of Daime churches. A study by ICEERS found a significantly lower level of adverse ayahuasca effects in Santo Daime congregants than in those who take ayahuasca in other contexts, such as retreats. However, it’s a psychedelic church movement, which clearly presents a certain risk profile and is not suitable for everyone, and specific SD churches may contain specific risks or bad actors.  

There are various lineages in Santo Daime and lots of churches who loosely identify with a lineage or do their own thing. It’s not like the Catholic Church with a central governing body. 

After Meistre Irineu died in 1971, his wife Peregrina eventually became Madrinha of the Alto Santo lineage. Later, a follower of Meistre Irineu called Sebastiao Mota de Melo started up a small ayahuasca community deep in the Amazon jungle at a place called Ceu do Mapia. When he died in 1990, leadership of Ceu do Mapia was taken over by his son, Padrinho Alfredo. Beginning in the 1980s, some western spiritual seekers heard about Ceu do Mapia, traveled to it and took part in its ceremonies. Some seekers then went back to their countries and established Santo Daime churches there. This became a lineage known today as ICEFLU, which has around 70 churches around the world.

Padrinho Sebastiao

Santo Daime churches in Brazil, Canada and the US have successfully applied for the legal right to serve ayahuasca. There are several other non-legally-recognized Santo Daime churches around the world, in Hawaii, Florida, New York, the UK, France, Spain, Germany and elsewhere, some of which are sometimes raided by the police and have to fight for legal recognition and liberty of worship. Today there are, by one estimate, 20,000 Daimistas around the world, and others who attend ceremonies without being ‘uniformed members’.

Previous controversies

The ICEFLU / Mapia lineage - the lineage in which Paolo Roberto rose to prominence - has faced certain controversies in the past, which insiders have been reluctant to discuss publicly for fear of provoking government persecution. 

One controversy has been Padrinho Sebastiao and others’ use of marijuana, or Santa Maria as they call it.  The original Santo Daime church used a ‘single sacrament’ - ayahuasca. But Sebastiao and his followers, perhaps through the influence of all the foreign hippies who came to their church in the 1980s, started incorporating marijuana and worshipping it as Santa Maria, in hymns like this: 

Those that don’t know Santa Maria 

And make use of her every day 

Live in constant agony 

But now it arrived the way I wanted it 

My Lord St. John the Baptist 

Jesus Christ and St. Joseph 

ICEFLU churches’ heavy use of marijuana has been criticized for bringing unwanted police raids on Daime churches and undermining the religion’s case for treating ayahuasca as its unique sacrament. It’s also been criticized by some Daimistas for causing adverse psychedelic experiences, cannabis dependency and even psychotic breaks in worshippers.

Reverend Dr Jessica Rochester founded the Ceu de Montreal in 1997, and managed to get it legally approved by the Canadian government in 2017. Her church broke off from ICEFLU in 2010 partly over its use of marijuana. She tells me: ​​

They tried to pretty it up as spiritual work instead of everyday recreational/dependence  use. I watched Paulo Roberto smoke a joint in the car and then put it out on the heel of his shoe. I'm sorry, what's sacred about that? Another time a member of the congregation came to me to tell me that he was smoking a joint in the men’s bathroom. This was during a Work when he had been told absolutely no cannabis. What is this, high school?

ICEFLU’s executive secretariat told us:

While many people affiliated with the Santo Daime church in the United States choose to use cannabis, it is not an essential part of the doctrine in the way that the Santo Daime itself is. Some groups encourage the use of cannabis, others do not allow it….

Another controversial issue has been what some see as the cult of personality around Sebastiao and other church leaders. Sebastiao apparently claimed he was the reincarnation of John the Baptist. The small jungle community in Mapia was said to be a New Jerusalem, where the elect would survive after a final reckoning. Here is Alex Polari’s description of his first encounter with Sebastiao, from his book Forest of Visions:

Perhaps this cultic reverence and guru-worship for the male leaders fed into the most important issue - the tolerance of sexual misbehaviour by male church leaders, and the blaming of it on women. 

Although the focus is presently on Paolo Roberto, some Daimistas say the issues go back at least as far as Padrinho Sebastiao. The ICEFLU lineage admits he had an affair with a young woman who his family had taken in, called Jaci. The official church biography of Sebastiao by Lucio Mortimer (Benca, Padrinho, 2018), says: 

Padrinho Sebastião fought hard to resist the sexual appeals of a young woman who was with him. There was no way. For this reason, Madrinha Rita [Sebastiao’s wife] suffered, seeing her old companion involved with this temporary love. [She] was very angry with the situation and warned very harshly the woman who dared touch her husband.

Every night, at the hour of the deepest sleep of the woman and the children, he received that visit. Mysteriously no one woke up. He fought bravely, giving advice, but finally he gave in, and it all happened. In fact, the woman who pursued him was in a passage where she did things unconsciously, as if being possessed. Many people thought she was weak in the head. She was about twenty-five. Jaci, who is the name of this woman, moved in quietly, and eventually got pregnant. A beautiful girl was born who restored the complete mental equilibrium for her mother.

However, Reverend Dr Jessica Rochester of Ceu de Montreal, one of the few female church leaders in Santo Daime, wrote in an open letter to her church this week: 

From sources I know to be very credible, and based on information affirmed by senior Mapia women, it is said that she [Jaci] was placed in the home of Sebastian Mota de Melo at the age of two years, from then on she considered them to be as a mother and father.

Certainly, from the church’s own official account, Jaci seems to have been living in Sebastiao’s house - if she ‘visits him every night’. And clearly the church (or at least, this official biographer) sought to defend Sebastiao’s actions and blame them on her, for being possessed or ‘weak in the head’, when he is the church elder taking advantage of someone younger than him.

The executive secretariat of ICEFLU tells us:

The personal matters of forest dwellers in the mid- to late- 20th century are very different from the current situation involving Mr. Souza where an affair was hidden both while it occurred and for two years afterwards. We recognize the pain that was caused by Padrinho Sebastião and Ms. Jaci’s relationship, but we would like to make it clear that it does not provide any historical justification for the alleged behavior of Mr. Souza. The fact that Padrinho Sebastião had a relationship with Ms. Jaci so long ago certainly does not offer any suggestion of tolerance for abuse as is being alleged today.

Paolo Roberto 

Then there is the case of Paolo Roberto. He has also tried to excuse his various acts of sexual aggression as what to expect from ‘a Brazilian man’ but in this instance, Brazilians also seem to have an issue with his misbehaviour. 

Paolo Roberto is sometimes described as a psychologist, although apparently he does not have a PhD. Nonetheless, Daimistas say he is charismatic, a good speaker, and the creator of some rousing hymns in Portuguese and English. He married Padrinho Sebastiao’s daughter, Nonata, and in 1982, the couple set up a Santo Daime church in Rio de Janeiro called CEFLUSMME (they really go for brief, catchy church names in Santo Daime). 

For at least two decades (and probably longer) there have apparently been instances of Roberto’s sexual assaults against women. I’ve seen internal church emails regarding his behaviour that refer to ‘what happened in Hawaii in 1998’, so it seems these incidents go back 30 years, possibly further.  

In 2007, a Canadian Daimista called Maria traveled to Rio and took part in a ceremony at Paolo Roberto’s church. She was unsettled by a ceremony, so went to Roberto for spiritual advice afterwards. Maria wrote the following to me:

I was 27 years old and had been drinking their “medicine” for about 3 months when I entered into an intensive workshop which included somewhere around 7-8 ceremonies in a very short period of time which was about 10 days to 2 weeks. I was completely vulnerable and unraveling after a ceremony that was incredibly dark and terrifying - where as a total novice I was essentially ripped open with medicine that was too strong for me while in an unsafe space.

Pablo Roberto manipulated me into thinking he was going to give me some kind of spiritual healing to help me after ceremony and ultimately - he pinned me against a wall in a dark laundry room. Pushed his body against me and pressed into me with his penis while he smelled my neck and kept pushing against me trying to kiss me - it was truly disgusting and really scary for a young woman who was alone in a foreign country and under the influence is these “medicines”.

When I realized what was happening and pushed him off of me and yelled at him to stop - he told me that I was someone who he would never he able to help and couldn’t ever be helped or healed because I was covered in darkness.

I spoke to his wife the next morning who thanked me and said she believed me because this had happened many times with others. She then, in the weeks and months afterwards, turned around and labeled me a whore and “pomba gira” and tried to discredit me. He took zero responsibility and hid. I went home absolutely shattered, embarrassed and violated.

She fled back to Canada, and tried to report it to the Canadian police, who told her they didn’t have jurisdiction over an incident in Brazil. She complained to the Santo Daime church in North America - CEFLURGEM-AN. They said there ‘appeared’ to be misconduct and suspended him for a short amount of time. 

Maria felt this response was insufficient. She wrote to the Synod of Protectors of CEFLURGEM: 

The next time Padhrino Paulo Roberto hurts another woman with his aggressive sexual nature you can know with certainty that you allowed it to happen. You are not only allowing him to hurt again, but you are assisting him by ignoring the truth you already know. Hiding him behind your report is a band aid solution and the truth will surface. Padhrino Paulo Roberto has already sexually assaulted other women. How many women will it take before something is done? How many women will have to endure pain and suffering before anyone has the courage to stand up and say no to his behaviour? I pray that those already hurt receive healing and find their own voices, receive the light that they deserve.

Maria tells me:

Pablo Roberto then went on to create a series of ceremonies dedicated to healing ‘spirits’ that supposedly engaged in sexual misconduct. He blamed his own actions on these spirits, and many people believed him and supported his vision. He made thousands and thousands of dollars offering these ceremonies. He never took any responsibility with me. I was publicly shamed by many members of that community as one of these beings that needed healing and it was I that intimately lured and invited him to bring out this energy. It was my fault, shame on me. It took me years to recover and I still have to deal with his supporters at times who still struggle with reality. I do not interact with these groups anymore but know that they are struggling with this latest reality check.

Following this incident, Paolo Roberto was soon welcomed back into Santo Daime churches across North America. Sometime later there was yet another incident, this time involving the wife of a guitarist in Paolo Roberto’s church in Rio. Once again, there was an outcry within the Daime network, once again he was forgiven and welcomed back into a leadership position. A number of people spoke out, some left the Santo Daime. Rev Dr Jessica Rochester publicly spoke out against the decision and she says a ‘campaign of darkness’ was waged against her by Roberto and his supporters. 

Paolo Roberto

I asked CEFLURGEM and ICEFLU: 

• Does CEFLURGEM know of other instances of sexual impropriety or sexual assault by Paolo Roberto, in addition to the present case, the Hawaiian incident of 1998, the incident involving the Canadian lady Maria in 2007, and finally the incident involving the wife of the church guitarist?

• Why was he allowed to continue to lead ceremonies in North America after all these incidents? 

• Are any American members of CEFLURGEM supporting Paolo Roberto now , helping to pay his legal fees and so on? 

The executive secretariat of ICEFLU replied:

Mr. Souza [Paolo Roberto] opened many of the Santo Daime churches in the United States. His charisma and popularity did create a situation where he was held out from time to time as a guru, and this dynamic is antithetical to the Santo Daime tradition. People who put spiritual leaders on a pedestal suffer greatly when those people inevitably fall. We are sure you are aware this kind of abuse occurring across numerous spiritual lines. ICEFLU does not condone this behavior. Our church leaders are discouraged from allowing their own personalities to become central to the ritual…

Even though Mr. Souza is not part of ICEFLU, allegations against him impact our organization because they call into question the safety and legitimacy of our religious practices and our sacrament, and they call into question the legitimacy of Santo Daime churches that have hosted or supported Mr. Souza. We wish to make it clear that ICEFLU does not and will not tolerate abuse by leaders of our churches.

Which brings us to today, when a 33-woman Brazilian woman is bringing a civil law suit against Paulo Roberto for sexual assault. Reportedly, she was a member of Roberto’s Ceu do Mar church in Rio, and in 2020 became Roberto’s personal assistant. She also became Executive Director of his NGO, Associação Proteção da Floresta (Forest Protection Association), and managed his and his son Jordao’s company Nova NI (also known as Ni Yushin). 

A document circulated, apparently released by the woman’s legal team (we have been unable to contact her to confirm this) says: 

In April 2022, Mr. Paulo Roberto leveraged his position as a religious leader to propose an unorthodox intervention he described as therapeutic, intended to address the woman’s relationship-related traumas. However, this dynamic has been identified as abusive. The emotional, psychological, and sexual manipulations intensified over time, exacerbated by the fact that Mr. Roberto, in addition to being a religious leader, exploited this professional relationship to create environments conducive to these abusive practices, which he referred to as “therapeutic.” 

In December 2022, the woman was expelled from the church by Mr. Paulo Roberto’s wife, who publicly accused her of having engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Mr. Roberto, thereby justifying her expulsion. Nonetheless, she was compelled to remain in her employment, which she did until July 2023. At that point, she felt it necessary to resign, as she was unable to continue working under such conditions while maintaining the facade of normalcy amid an environment that viewed Mr. Roberto as a virtuous religious figure. 

In an effort to hold Mr. Roberto accountable, the woman has initiated a labor lawsuit in the Regional Labor Court of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This case is currently being conducted in secrecy, which precludes the sharing of further details without risking legal repercussions. The lawsuit seeks formal recognition of the employment relationship between the plaintiff and the defendants, as well as compensation for moral damages arising from acts of sexual harassment; specifically, allegations of rape of a vulnerable individual and rape by fraud, in accordance with applicable provisions of Brazilian law., was her employer. 

CEFLURGEM - the North American branch of the ICEFLU lineage - published a statement saying they were ‘taking immediate action to suspend indefinitely all invitations and permission for Paulo Roberto to tour and / or lead work within CEFLURGEM churches.’  However some close to Roberto have sought to defend him, including Kenewma Yawanawa, an indigenous woman who is married to Roberto’s son Jordao and who has shared business interests with him. She put out a statement saying: 

The confusion and chaos surrounding this situation stem from people listening to only one side. Those truly walking the spiritual path know that judgment without discernment only darkens the soul…A woman can make an accusation, and often, she is believed without question. But true spirituality asks us to go deeper—beyond surface emotions and the human lens—and seek clarity from the Divine….Paulo Roberto is not just any person. He is a servant of God, a spiritual leader and pioneer who helped bring Daime to the world. He has flaws and makes mistakes, as any human does, but he has also dedicated his life to serving the Divine. To judge him without considering the full scope of his life and work is to risk judging the very spirit of God.

Really? 

Getting away with it

How has Paolo Roberto - and apparently other predatory men in Daime churches -  gotten away with their mistreatment of women for so many decades? 

One possible reason is Santo Daime is a globalized religion, a mash-up of different cultures, one of them being Brazilian culture, and Brazil is a patriarchal society. Women’s equal rights to men were only codified in the Brazilian constitution in 1988. Macho culture is even stronger in the Amazon. So misconduct by Roberto or others could sometimes be minimized as ‘Brazilian’. It’s significant that this latest incident is a Brazilian law case brought by a Brazilian woman. 

Another possible reason is Santo Daime is a neo-Christian religion with a strong emphasis on forgiveness. Madrinha Rita, the matriarch of the ICEFLU lineage, has apparently tended to emphasize the importance of forgiving Paolo for his misconduct (Paolo is of course married to her daughter, Nonata). One ex-Daimista tells me: ‘Santo Daime can focus a lot on forgiveness, love and charity, and that can get distorted. We have to point out that it’s also about truth and justice.’ 

Centre - Madrinha Rita, wife of Sebastiao; on the left, her daughter Nonata, and on the right Paolo Roberto, Nonata’s husband 

A third possible reason is a habit of blaming the female victims or being seductresses or even possessed. Jonathan Goldman, founder of the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen (a legal Daime church in Oregon), wrote in an open letter to the Daime community: 

There are people, mostly women, in the Daime world who have long identified both Paulo Roberto and others as committing predatory behavior, only to be castigated and accused of jealousy and disloyalty and of being controlled by negative beings. The women who have been subjected to the predatory behavior have in particular been called Pomba giras [an Afro-Brazilian term for a dangerously seductive female spirit], whores, and seductresses by Nonata and others in positions of power in the Daime world. And even now, there is an effort among some prominent men in the Daime world to classify the claims of sexual predation and the support of people backing those claims as the work of radical, man-hating feminists, and women seeking money. These transparent claims, expressed so far by male leaders and supporters of Paulo Roberto, are typically seeking to perpetuate the male-dominated, patriarchal culture that includes license for male leaders to abuse women with impunity 

A fourth possible reason: male predators in Daime have sometimes excused their behaviour by claiming they had evil spirits within them, which they then altruistically worked to convert to the light. This is what Padrinho Sebastiao claimed many years ago, and Paolo Roberto claims the same. Whenever he assaulted another woman, it just required another exorcism. Extremely convenient. As Maria said, he even launched a new ‘work’ in his church called Illumination, to bring evil spirits to the light. As one Daimista commented: ‘Wow, he took his bad behaviour and turned it into a whole course.’

A fifth possible reason, Paolo Roberto has been enabled to stay in a leadership role and cause harm thanks to wealthy supporters in the US, who (according to some sources) fund him and his family through organisations like Niyushin and Indigenous Celebration. His wealthy US supporters include Paul Sulla Jr, a lawyer who founded a Daime church in Hawaii, and who has been investigated and indicted by the Department of Justice for wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. That court case is ongoing in Hawaii. One US supporter who donated to his organization previously tells me:

My wife and I personally supported projects involving Mr. Souza in the past, but we are not providing support at this time, and we have made it very clear that we will not provide any support for legal or other expenses related to the current matter. This was personally very difficult for us, and we felt very betrayed. We personally did not know the details of his behavior from before we joined the Santo Daime, and during the time we were close with Mr. Souza, from about 2012 until September of 2024, we were not aware at all of any of the alleged behavior, and were instead ensured repeatedly that Mr. Souza was walking the straight and narrow path.

Sixth, Santo Daime is a secretive, untransparent and under-reported-on culture. Academics who write about Santo Daime have also (as far as I can see) barely mentioned the issue of sexual misconduct in SD (Marc Blainey’s Christ Returns from the Jungle does at least have a paragraph referring to misbehaviour by some leaders, writing: ‘if daimistas turn a blind eye to foreseeable mishaps and criminal abuses or negligence within their ranks, this is what really threatens the viability of their practice’). The reason, perhaps, for this apparent reluctance to publicly discuss issues of abuse might be because supporters of SD are scared of harming SD churches and their shaky legal status in Brazil, North America or Europe. They don’t want to give their enemies ammunition to attack them. But this ‘don’t speak out’ attitude seems to be changing.

Jonathan Goldman wrote to his church: 

We are being afforded a chance to clean our circle of lies and distortions and to come some steps closer to the this-world manifestation of the beautiful spiritual teachings of our Doctrine. The brave women who are coming forward, claiming their power and voice, are giving all of us a gift. 

What to do about misconduct and cultic social dynamics in psychedelic churches

These scandals are going to keep on occurring in psychedelic culture, including psychedelic churches. And they will keep on occurring in non-psychedelic churches as well. The question is: what safeguards could be put in place to make them less likely to occur? 

1. Legalization 

The shaky legal status of psychedelic churches makes people less likely to speak out about abuses for fear of ‘harming the movement’. If churches are legalized, people will be more likely to speak out about abuses. In the US, that means the DEA needs to stop burying legal applications by psychedelic churches and clarify their pathway to legal approval. 

2. Professionalization and agreed standards 

Entheogenic churches should sign up to professional codes of ethics with clear sanctions and complaints procedures for breaches of the code. That’s something the Sacred Plant Alliance is working on, although its membership is quite small at the moment considering the hundreds of psychedelic churches reportedly in existence in the US, and it needs funding. The Association of Spiritual Integrity is also considering formulating an ethics code for entheogenic guides and leaders. 

Jonathan Goldman tells me he has long advocated for an ‘Entheogenic Guild’ with a code of ethics, but he says psychonauts are often quite libertarian and wary of regulation or any sort of authority over them. Several Santo Daime churches in North America now have ethics codes that rule out sex between a church leader and a congregant - however, codes are pointless without sanctions and genuine consequences for wrongdoing. 

3. Education on cultic social dynamics and undue influence 

We’ve been contacted by two people who joined Daime churches in North America and left feeling they had come under undue cultic influence and were psychologically damaged as a result. So this is clearly an issue that psychedelic churches should be aware of - there’s a risk that congregants leave Daime or other psychedelic churches feeling their psychedelic-induced suggestibility was taken advantage of in some way, leading them to behave in ways they now regret. 

This is a sensitive issue as Daime churches in Europe have been raided by police for being ‘cults’ who use ayahuasca as a ‘chemical weapon of submission’ to brainwash people. Daime churches are not typically cults in the sense of high-control groups that seek to lure members in and then control every aspect of their lives. However, even senior figures in the Daime movement say that some Daime churches can get somewhat culty in two ways - their excessive reverence for charismatic leaders and their tendency to minimize harms (especially harms by those leaders).  

Revered Dr Jessica Rochester wrote to her congregation: 

Over the years it was becoming evident that the senior family members of the Mapia line [ie the ICEFLU lineage] held “cult status” and were beginning to operate more like a family cult than a spiritual organization. Also, “guru” status was being afforded the Mapia and Céu do Mar elders by many people in the international Santo Daime community. In naïve enthusiasm for spiritual enlightenment, it is not uncommon for people to project their higher self onto others, particularly those in positions of authority. Unfortunately, this dynamic, if not addressed by the elders through open dialogue and ethical practice, can lead to considerable harm to both the elders and the community. 

These sorts of ‘cultic social dynamics’ can arise in any social group, especially churches. But psychedelics amplify these dynamics - amplifying ecstatic seekers’ tendency to project spiritual perfection onto leaders, and amplifying leaders’ tendency to buy into this projection and see themselves as God’s gift. This dynamic can make misconduct and abuse more likely to occur and less likely to be punished. (See our forthcoming chapter - ‘Guruism and Cutic Social Dynamics in Psychedelic Organisations, Evans and Adams 2024). 

What can psychedelic churches do to counteract this? It’s hard to say. But some possible solutions are - education about the risks of transference, projection and counter-transference between congregants and leaders; encouraging an open culture of transparency and free, critical discussion rather than secrecy and guru-worship; not putting leaders on pedestals; having clear ethical guides and procedures for complaints especially around sex; and then taking any complaints seriously rather than silencing, ostracising or demonising those who speak up. And finally - being careful, responsible and moderate in the sacramental use of drugs, possibly sticking to just one drug at a time and not very much of it…

Children in psychedelic churches

One final and super-controversial topic - children in psychedelic churches. In Brazilian Daime churches, children are a part of the community and are even given small amounts of ayahuasca. In some North American Daime churches I understand the age limit is 16 for participation in the sacrament, and only if one’s parents are uniformed members of the church. When the first Santo Daime church was granted legal status in the US, it told authorities that children were only ever given a tiny symbolic drop. This is from the court papers:

In fact, one Daimista tells me privately:

I have seen children much younger than 16 take the sacrament in the US and Brazil. I'm actually fine with this. I don't think someone should be prohibited from taking the medicine on account of age.

Another source who grew up in a US Daime church, and was given small amounts of the sacrament as a child, says:

In the Daime it is widely upheld that children don't need, nor is it appropriate for them to have enough medicine where they would then enter into an altered state and/or a healing passage like that of an adult seeking transformation. With any young person, such as an older child of 12, 13, 14 onto 18, who is attending or who is an initiate…it is taken into consideration their age and mental and emotional capacity for the medicine. This is reflected in how much they are given. Everyone isn't served the same amount.

The NGO Chacruna published an article in September arguing Santo Daime children who drink ayahuasca are healthier and more advanced than ordinary children. But this raises the issue of children in Daime churches’ right and capacity to say no to ayahuasca when their parents or their church wants them to take it. Religious studies professor William Barnard, a Daimista who spent time in the ICEFLU community in Mapia, wrote: 

One of the most pressing problems that old-timers in Ceu do Mapia had to deal with was how to integrate the young people of the village into its religious life. The vast majority of these young people had not, of course, come to Mapia voluntarily—instead, they had been born into daimista families who were idealistic enough to want to live full-time in the Amazon rainforest. And, unlike their deeply committed daimista parents, many of the young people weren’t exactly thrilled at the idea of living in an isolated village in the middle of the rainforest. In addition, they were also not exactly keen on drinking Daime. To many of them, the Daime was, quite literally, a bitter medicine that their relatives kept urging them to swallow. Not surprisingly, therefore, I saw a fair amount of typical teenage behavior rearing its head during my time in Ceu do Mapia: sullenness, resistance, resentment, foot dragging, passive-aggressive behavior, coming late, and doing the bare minimum…

The older generations of the community in Mapia were crystal clear that if the village was going to remain focused on the Santo Daime path, then the young people needed to continue to drink Daime, and they needed to drink it because they wanted to and not because they were forced to do so. Therefore (and I was genuinely impressed by this), the older people went out of their way to respect their teenagers’ need for autonomy and even tolerated quite a bit of open rebellion. Their children were given enormous space, even while the elders, in a subtle, yet ongoing way, also encouraged the young people to go to church, at least occasionally.

This is something that, presumably, other psychedelic churches in North America and Europe are grappling with as well. Should psychonaut parents give drugs (or ‘plant medicine’ if you prefer) to their children, like Aldous Huxley recommended in Island, like Timothy Leary did to his daughter (with tragic consequences), like Alan Watts did with his children on each of their 18th birthdays? 

I would say (admittedly as an outsider): psychedelic churches and communities should be careful on this topic. Adults and children taking drugs together in a spiritual community can go extremely wrong. Think of the examples of the Centrepoint community in New Zealand or the Rajneesh communes in Pune and Oregon - two psychedelic-spiritual communities where sexual abuse of children was rampant and often drug-enabled. Think of the Family cult in Australia or Betty Eisner’s therapy cult in Los Angeles, in both of which psychedelics were used as weapons to coerce and punish children. My instinct as an outsider and non-Daimista would be - don’t give psychedelic sacraments to your children, don’t bring your children to a psychedelic church when you and other adults are taking psychedelic drugs, wait until your children are consenting adults and then see how they feel about it. But, as I said, this is a very controversial topic and I have been accused of Eurocentrism for my opinions!

The executive secretariat of ICEFLU tells me:

We are a doctrine based on family structures, and the children of our members are brought up in our community just like the children of any religion. We do offer small servings of sacrament to our children, which we call a “spirit dose,” just like a Catholic child might be offered a small amount of wine for communion. But to extrapolate and say we are somehow abusing children would be like saying Catholics are encouraging alcoholism by giving small servings of wine in Communion. Indigenous peoples across the globe, such as the Huni Kuin and Yawanawá in Brazil, the Wixárika in Mexico, and the Fang in Gabon, all ceremonially educate children about interacting with sacred plants. The assertion that this is controversial or somehow dangerous to children not only lacks epistemic rigor but also disrespects and harms hundreds of Santo Daime families raising their children with love and respect amid the social stigma of the war on drugs and Eurocentrism.

Good luck to the Santo Daime movement in this moment of its reckoning, and good luck especially to women coming forward with stories of abuse. May it all come out.

Here are some books on Santo Daime

Alex Polari, Forest of Visions (1999) 

G. William Barnard, Liquid Light (2022)

Marc Blainey, Christ Returns from the Jungle (2021)

Edward McRae, Guided by the Moon, (1992)

Jessica Rochester, Ayahuasca Awakening (2022)

Disclaimer: Ecstatic Integration is the newsletter of the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project, which receives donations from philanthropists for its research on psychedelic safety. No CPEP donors have any say on what is written in this Substack.