A religious battle: musical dimensions of the Santo Daime diaspora

In the international expansion of Santo Daime, a Brazilian ayahuasca religion, music and language play a crucial role in shaping religious experience. This chapter examines how the diaspora of Santo Daime uses hymns and Portuguese-language lyrics during ceremonies involving the psychoactive substance ayahuasca. The analysis shows that musical practice and language serve as key mechanisms for transmitting religious identity and facilitating spiritual experiences across cultural boundaries. The study highlights that despite the religion's spread to new linguistic and cultural contexts, the original Portuguese hymns remain central to ritual practice, creating a transnational religious community bound together by shared musical and linguistic traditions.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Introduction This chapter examines the experience of music and language in relationship to the religious use of a psychoactive substance in a case study of the diaspora of Santo Daime, a Brazilian ayahuasca religion. Although there is a growing literature on the international expansion of Santo Daime, only a handful of studies have addressed the crucial role of music and language in this process.