appeared to be lawyers, psychologists, artists, businessmen. Only a few
of the younger ones wore their hair Jesus-length, and one skinhead,
who seemed both Germanic and gay, sported a gold earring with a
blue pendant. The women, in their thirties and forties, either wives or
professionals, with sheer white dresses often transparently revealing,
nevertheless seemed sexless, as if sex had no place in the ritual about to
begin.
As the moment of truth approached, I trembled a little inwardly,
worried about the visions of snakes and jaguars and because I do not
like losing clarity under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Of these I
have tried, and instantly abandoned, marijuana, hash, and cocaine. My
only real trip, some thirty years ago, was occasioned by a bout with
mescaline as an essential premise (or so I considered it) for producing
a review of Aldous Huxley's The Doors qf Perception. A magical experi-
ence, I have kept the details of it fresh in n~y mind all these years,
though at the time I decided not to repeat it-unless I could find a way
do so without benefit of drug.
Inside, the nave was roughly whitewashed, with rows of narrow
stained-glass windows about ten feet up; charmingly they depicted St.
John baptizing Jesus or St. Gertrude, the church's patron, staring
trancelike up to heaven. The shell-shaped apse, colored blue, appeared
to be of faience. Before the altar stood a long white table with candles,
stacks of glistening plastic glasses, and two wartime jerry-cans, painted
blue, containing the magic potions ritually produced in Brazil.
People milled around, mostly familiar with one another, the atmos-
phere tense but restrained. In the center of the nave stood another
long table covered by a white cloth, more candles, a wooden Croix de
Lorraine, and a colored photograph of Irineu, tall, dark, handsome
originator of the Santo Daime ritual.Ten chairs were ready to receive
the leaders of the ceremony. Along each main wall more chairs were
lined up to receive half a hundred men on the right and as many
women on the left.
Along the floor, ominous gallon-sized plastic buckets stood every-
where available for vomit, accompanied by rolls of paper towels.
Uniformed attendants, themselves initiates-identifiable by blue skirts,
joyce
(Joyce)
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