The Santo Daime without Daime Tactics, Agency, and Ritual Change in Ayahuasca Religions under Prohibition in Italy
Quotidiana – December 17, 2025
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Ayahuasca religions in Italy have adapted remarkably after a 2022 legal ban, with 70% of practitioners replacing the brew with water during ceremonies. This transformation highlights how Indigenous rituals from the Amazon rainforest are reshaped by legal constraints, leading to new forms of religious travel and practice. By examining these changes through the lenses of ethnology and sociology, the interplay between law and everyday life reveals the resilience and innovation within shamanistic traditions, reflecting broader themes in the anthropology of religion and society in Latin America.
Abstract
This article examines how ayahuasca religions in Italy have reconfigured their ritual practices following the 2022 legal ban on ayahuasca, including replacing the brew with water and creating new forms of religious travel. The Amazonian psychoactive brew ayahuasca, traditionally used in Indigenous rituals and healing, is at the centre of transnational religions that have spread globally. Drawing on anthropology, lived religion, and ritual studies, the article explores the interplay between lived religion, ritual change, and law in the use of controlled substances, and therefore how prohibition reshapes ritual practice and everyday life.