MUSIC, TRANCE, AND TRANSMISSION IN THE SANTO DAIME, A BRAZILIAN AYAHUASCA RELIGION.

The core values of Santo Daime communities are transmitted and practiced during rituals through an inseparable blend of doctrine and music. Santo Daime, a Brazilian ayahuasca religion, combines sacramental use of the psychotropic tea ayahuasca with collective shamanism and music performance—singing, dancing, and playing instruments—to achieve religious ecstasy. Using ethnography, an expansion of Judith Becker's trance categorization, and musical and phonological analysis, the thesis argues that doctrine and music together produce and guide the altered states of consciousness experienced collectively in rituals.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This thesis illuminates the core values within Santo Daime communities and how these are transmitted and practiced during rituals. Santo Daime, a Brazilian Ayahuasca Religion originating in the western Amazon state of Acre, is practiced both inside and outside its urban Amazonian roots, including most Brazilian states and smaller communities in a handful of Western countries, such as the United States, Mexico, and the Netherlands. Adepts of the Santo Daime combine the sacramental use of Ayahuasca (a psychotropic tea with a long history of use in the Amazonian basin), collective shamanism, and music performance practices (singing, dancing, and playing instruments) to achieve a state of religious ecstasy. Using a multi-disciplinary approach with emphasis on ethnography, an expansion of Judith Becker's categorization of trance, and musical and phonological analysis I argue that the doctrine of the Santo Daime and the transmission of these teachings through music are inseparable elements of producing and navigating the altered states of consciousness collectively experienced in Santo Daime rituals.