Other Dimensions JP 203
Surprisingly, some of Amaringo's canvases contain spaceships with
beings whose bodies appear more subtle than those of humans; he
claims they belong to advanced extraterrestrial civilizations who live in
perfect harmony and once contacted Mayans,Tiahuanacanos, and Incas.
Today in Brazi1,Amaringo is just one of thousands of yaje-drinking
followers of a new shamanic religion known as the Santo Daime
Doctrine. This nationwide fellowship of spiritual leaders, led by a
thousand initiates known as fardados, believes the vine to be a vehicle
for a divine being present in the rainforest and in all creation and that
the vine's juice imbibed sacramentally as a Eucharist of nature allows
humankind to partake of the nature of God.This doctrine, evolved di-
rectly out of communion with the living sacramental substance, has as
its central axis the teachings of Christ along with veneration of the
Virgin Mary, who is seen as the rainforest's "Virgin of Conception." In
Portuguese daime means "give me," and in the ritual it has the added
overtones of "give me love, give me light, give me strength."
Founded in the Amazon forest in the 1920s by a seven-foot-tall
black rubber tapper, Raimundi Irineu Serra, the sect has grown into a
nationwide fellowship of spiritual seekers. Working and studying with
Peruvian Indian shamans, Irineu was taught to make the ayahuasca tea
and to journey through its ecstatic states, learning to understand and
integrate the visions into daily life.
In one of his visions, Irineu claims to have seen "Our Lady of
Conception, the Forest Queen," who told him to found a spiritual
doctrine in which the drinking of ayahuasca tea would be the central
ritual. At the same time, Irineu says he began to receive from the astral
plane a series of hymns, running into the hundreds, hymns that in toto
are considered by Irineu's followers to be a new and enlarged version
of the gospel of Christ-a Third Testament.
Because of its search for "love, harmony, truth, justice and a way to
save the Amazonian forest," the Santo Daime Doctrine quickly drew
followers not only from among simple people of all walks of life and
different spiritual traditions, but also from among city-living intellectu-
als, artists, musicians, psychologists, and medical professionals. Followers
of this new shamanic religion now believe that the rainforest itself sent