http://entheogenic.podom...009-07-07T15_47_58-07_00

at least on the west coast...
interesting...

What's Daime?

ayahuasca

I've not heard ayahuasca called "daime" before.

I didn't know the Santo Daime church calls ayahuasca "daime". Now their name makes more sense

"Daime" means lady, as in the lady of the forest, ayawaska. "Santo Daime" means "Saint Lady", a Christianisation of ayawaska.

GREAT NEWS, thank you Santo Daime! We need some Christians to smoke DMT next

EDIT: aside from this being the first sacrament after peyote to become legal in the US, there are other significances here:
1. They are a modern religion, founded in the 1930s
2. I presume the court ruling did not limit use to a certain race, given that Daime was started by a man of African descent and their followers are I think the usual mixture in Brazil, and are most probably even more of a mix in the US. Peyote, on the other hand, can only be consumed by those with Native American blood (yes, there is state-sanctioned racism in the US!).

Just a note.. Daime does not mean Lady at all.. Daime = give-me
Like for example some of the daime hymns say something like: Daime forças, Daime Luz, Daime amor (give me strenght, give me light, give me love). It expresses this attitude of surrendering to the experience, acceptance, etc.. It sounds a bit funny, Saint Give me, but thats it.

and yes they do call ayahuasca as 'daime' there..

Where did I get that from... somewhere on the internet. It sounded believable because "Daime" sounds like "dame" which means lady in English. Do they not think of Santo Daime as the lady of the forest either?! I shall never live this down

yea these dudes are some dmt church, gud place to worship ya the last castle.. actually as far as i know theres other one in USA.. but i dunno if they are doing legal ceremonies or whatever like Daime..

nah dont worry you are not completely off hehe..

its true that there is a feminine ayahuasca entity 'worshiped' in the daime, but its not the 'daime' part... Its just a coincidence that daime (which more correctly written in secret language should be Dai-me). Dame in english would be Dama in portuguese. The feminine entity is called 'a rainha da floresta', Queen of the Forest. There is also a sort of equivalent of jesus (more in the archetypical sense than a real person) called Juramindam.

A branch of santo daime even worships marijuana (sort of secretly, though, as it is forbidden by law) and the feminine entity it represents, and calls her 'Santa Maria' (Holy Mary)

This is really interesting, thanks. I know that Daime is a product of African, Christian and native religion, but always seems to be talked about as 'Christian'. Is Jesus really the main focal point in the church?

That's what I've heard, that they are pretty much Christians, and so can share what I believe are the faults of Christianity such as homophobia and anti-choice (I prefer that term to pro-life) and all those negative attitudes towards sex etc, and that's what puts me personally off. I'm hoping that I've been told wrong and they play up the Christian part just to gain credibility with the squares. I do think Jesus was a great guy, it's just his wayward followers and the religious baggage that came before him that I can't abide. If they're not as 'Christian' as I fear, I'd want to visit them when I go to Brazil (if they'd let me). I have thought about searching them out where I live but I'm concerned that as I'm in Europe their membership may be, erm, well, demographically different to how it probably is over there. I'm guessing you've visited them, Endlessness?

Yes I've heard about the split, I'd be more interested in the old-school practice because I do not want a relationship with Mary Jane.

Yeah I listened to that podcast awhile ago, a lot of great info. They got help from some really good lawyers for little to no money. Some of the hymns are pretty cool too, i swear i could hear dmt in them, so strange. Theres also another place called the temple of awakening divinity in Oregon that use 5-meo as their sacrament, this is still underground though. Oregon seems like the place to be lol.

Fascinating thread, thank you everyone.


Much Peace

I think its a complete joke that people who are religious get to use psychedelics but those who wish to pursue them for scientific, intellectual, or other personal uses can't. I don't like this cult either. They brainwash their members. Even if it helps them quit alcohol and other drugs and lead 'better' lives its still brainwashing.

Another term for "brainwashing" is "teaching". It all depends on whether or not you like what is taught. If people don't like it, they call it "brainwashing". If people like it they call it effective "teaching".

Same as with churches. If people like the church and accept it, they call it "religion". If they don't like it, they call it a "cult".

These terms are all subjective terms and mean next to nothing.

All churches basically perform the teaching of crap that isn't true with a hint of social pressure to help keep you attending the church. They are all "cults" and they all "brainwash".

School is "societal brainwashing".

People subject themselves to "brainwashing" all the time at different levels. It's one of the things that keep societies going. It's only a bad thing when what is being instilled in the minds of the members is harmful information.

^^good point.

hey ohayoco... Yeah I've participated in some of their ceremonies, and I have a few friends who are members.. Father of a friend is one of the leaders of a particular branch of Daime.

As for jesus, nah he's not a central character as in catholicism.. Also because, notice that a huge difference is that christianism is based on one specific book, the bible, and the interpretation that their 'central agency' gives about it, as well as the sermons and preaching.. In daime, there are only hymns, but their interpretation is more individual, and there are new hymns being added by leaders as well as members all the time (though of course, to be legitimized for the whole daime they need to be accepted by the leaders, so it is controlled also, just not as much or in the same way as catholicism). The focus is more on the experience itself, which is a good thing. I really do not know if they have any official stance on homosexuality or similar questions, I will ask.

In any case, I am also very critical of daime and had several arguments with my friends who are a part of it. Of course I think each one should choose their own way, but I agree with burnt that many times (but not all times) there is a certain level of brainwashing. I disagree with the use of uniforms, for example, as IMO it creates an exophobia, sometimes with members fanatically restricting relationships and being closed in their groups, a certain unconscious feeling of superiority and so on. I also feel a shallow morality at times, judgemental behavior, etc. I dont know, though, if this is something specific to daime or if its just that the majority of people EVERYWHERE are like this, in all groups. I do know personally people there who are open minded and so on, so I know its not a rule that there is this negative aspects in members.

One last thing is about the way the ceremonies are led in general. It has a lot of light, many times its very big number of participants (I've been to 200+ people ceremonies, and there are definitely bigger ones). There are the hymns, which have words that IMO trap one's consciousness by forcing certain associations, that may not be the best for all people at all times. There are all sorts of rules that are explained metaphysically (but rather enforced as any religious dogma), such as, certain clothes color have to be used, one cant cross arms or legs, girls and guys are separate, etc.

I identify much more with either the indigenous ritual way (at least with the natives I've participated with), or the lone modern psychonaut or small groups taking care of set and setting. I dont say 'never', but I dont see myself going to daime rituals again, even though I dont regret it and feel it was great to have gone. But of course, if one feels they benefit from daime, by all means go ahead, and im happy if they can legally consume their sacrament

Thanks Endlessness! Yes that fits the impression I had. I don't think the 'shallow morality, judgemental behaviour, etc' is endemic to ALL groups. Some groups of people are just really nice and open minded full stop, but yes these are human traits that can manifest themselves within a group to varying degrees. What you describe sounds like piety and hypocrisy and that is something Christianity is already famous for, unfortunately! The podcast says they used to be arranged like a military, with 'battalions' and 'generals'. That reminds me of the Salvation Army (shivers), who claimed to help the poor but didn't treat them particularly well, more like soldiers! I also heard that at some Santo Daime events they lock the doors and don't let people leave until after the ceremony... I can see the point that tripping people wandering off could give them a bad rep, but I wouldn't want to be locked up in a room full of Christians if I was having a difficult trip... I'd want to sit alone under a nice tree somewhere and roll around on the floor!

I agree though, good on them, they have done a very good deed for entheogen users everywhere. The voices of psychenauts and shamen are weak because they are not united, because of their relative independence.

Yep I do also see this certain 'army' aspect to it, and the way I see it, wearing a certain uniform as they do also expresses this.

As for locking the door, its true, and the explicit reason for it is, as you said, so that there isnt people wandering off, getting run over by cars on the street and so on. I dont think that this action they take is necessarily a problem, as long as two things were guaranteed: Firstly, that all the participants warned about the 'lockup' beforehand, and second, that there was a place where people were allowed to stay alone, in some nice quiet nature place and so on, if they so desired when not feeling good in the ritual. This does happen specially in some of their smaller/nature-surrounded churches, but I would say most times its not like this. Most times they dont say this, and if one does want to stay alone, some member in charge of 'keeping the order' will come and tell you to come back, dogmatically explaining that otherwise you are 'breaking the chain' (this even happened with me, and I had a little discussion with the person to just leave me alone, was not nice in that state of mind).

btw ohayoco, im curious, which group of people do you feel is nice as a whole without the bad members? because personally all groups so far I've seen good people and assholes, including psychedelic-related people, people from all sorts of religions, countries and any other illusionary border one may consider themselves to be inside of.. Though of course I would love to believe that the dmt-nexus people are as a whole better than people elsewhere

Well, I guess Nexus is one example. People who join but don't act reasonably are eventually excluded if they won't conform, and others don't want to join because they think we're too nicey-nicey, or crazy, or both! So its a mixture of exclusion and others rejecting this group themselves. But that doesn't make us nasty here. I expect every nice group has to exclude members who don't want to tow the niceness line. Even Jesus couldn't tolerate some people.

I was thinking more groups of friends and family. You know, sometimes you come across a group of people who all get on and are all lovely (I know one family who are so like that I'm actually jealous!). I guess they can be like that because its a relatively small group. But on a larger level, there are groups who generally treat each other and outsiders a lot better than other groups. Groups with a well fostered culture. Hence why lots of people try to get jobs at companies with 'nice' reputations.
For example, bankers and estate agent groups have a high proportion of selfish people in (I'm talking from personal experience here, the stereotypes are all too real), whereas NGOs generally have much nicer people working for them. I remember one particular charity- I was living on an island with 20-odd volunteers performing scientific surveys for a month, and the group of people there was so nice that it was my 'happy place' in my mind for many years to come. I didn't hear one disagreement, honestly. On the other side of the coin, I remember working for an estate agency temporarily and being stuck in a office of base people who cared about nothing but money, cocaine, material possessions, making snide put-down jokes, and worst of all moaning about immigrants and going on about how they were going to vote for the faschist party. They would put down the phone after speaking to a client and then swear at it. And try being in a pub full of investment bankers, you'l get fed up of having your drink spilt by arrogant suits pushing past you who don't have 'excuse me' in their vocabulary, sleazing over your girlfriend, treating the staff like slaves, etc. Of course, not ALL bankers and estate agents are nasty, some are nice I'm sure, but the culture allows and even fosters that behaviour.
There's someone on here who's an accontant and we all love him! Actually, I know a few accountants, some of the ones I know just fell into it because they didn't have any ambitions to begin with and its an easy enough profession intellectually, with good pay too, if you can stand the boring number-crunching.

Proper Christian groups are ok, obvously they far surpass Barclays Bank. But they're not as nice as they could be, because of some of their beliefs and the unquestioning arrogant belief that they are right that their faith gives them. I can find them quite pushy sometimes, peer pressuring you into things.
I can't stand people who try to manipulate me- do what you want with your life, you're free to control your own actions, but don't try to make me live the role you want me to in your life too! I have a good manipulation detector. I expect I frustrate those types because I never bend an inch to their whims. Me, me, me, me, me. This is meant to be about Daime, not me! And I'm being rather judgemental myself, oops.

Yes the native Americans can cultivate and use peyote for religious purposes but please correct me if I am wrong but if you dont have native American blood you may not do so, as it is illegal.

So I would be braaking the law. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=380C_nVJotY
Why cant I join there "church" and partake in the ceremonies?
Because I am not a native American.
This is ignorant logic at its best.
I will just have to continue Breaking the Law.
Been doing it for decades and I don't fell guilty at all.
Never been apprehended and most likely never will be.

Why? Because I am love and "they" are fear.
In the long run I/WE win.

Psychedelics should be freely available to science and religion.

As far as brainwashing and exploitation goes isnt that a common theme of most world religions? The use of psychedelics in religions is rare if you look at the pig picture.

Hell maybe that the reason why people still believing most of the main stream religious crap! Perhaps a psychedelics session is just what they need. Most would prolly just freak out. I am ready to live my life believing in NOTHING until proven however it appears most of humanity is not there yet.

one of these days
right to the moon

PEACE
MV