Santo Daime and the União do Vegetal: the ayahuasca churches, their beliefs and the court cases

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Most people meet ayahuasca through retreat tourism, but some of its longest-running organised use outside the Amazon happens in churches. Two Brazilian religions, Santo Daime and the União do Vegetal, have carried their sacrament from the rubber-tapping frontier to cities in Brazil, Europe and North America, and into the highest courts of the United States. This article covers who founded them, what they believe, how the law has treated them, and what that does and does not mean.

What are the Brazilian ayahuasca churches?

A 2023 review of ayahuasca’s history says that in the 1930s ayahuasca entered urban Brazil within religious contexts, that by the 1980s it had reached international cities, and that syncretic churches such as Santo Daime, Barquinha and the União do Vegetal incorporated it into their traditions (Ruffell et al., 2023). A 2012 study of church members describes these groups as having expanded to urban Brazil, Europe and North America, with members typically taking part in ceremonies at least twice a month (Bouso et al., 2012). Evidence: established.

The sacrament is a tea made from Amazonian plants. The US Supreme Court described the UDV’s version, hoasca, as “a tea brewed from plants unique to the Amazon Rainforest that contains DMT” (Gonzales v. O Centro, 2006). An Oregon federal court found that the UDV’s hoasca and Santo Daime’s Daime tea are the same drink under different names (Church of the Holy Light of the Queen v. Mukasey, 2009). We do not name the plants here. For what the brew is, see what is ayahuasca; for how it differs from DMT on its own, see ayahuasca vs DMT. Evidence: established.

What is Santo Daime? History and beliefs

Santo Daime’s founder, Raimundo Irineu Serra, known as Mestre Irineu, was an Afro-Brazilian rubber tapper and guard in the Amazon region of northern Brazil (Mukasey, 2009). According to the church’s own account, as recorded by an Oregon federal court in 2009, he learned about ayahuasca from a shaman. Evidence: established as recorded by the court.

In that account he had visions of a woman calling herself the Queen of the Forest, whom he later identified as the Virgin Mary; she told him to found a religion with ayahuasca as its sacrament and to call it Daime, Portuguese for “give me”, as in prayers asking for light, strength or wisdom (Mukasey, 2009). A Santo Daime church leader writing in 2017 dates the founding to the 1930s (Chacruna, 2017). Evidence: established as the church’s own history; the visions are religious tradition.

The same court described Santo Daime as syncretic, blending Catholicism with Indigenous Amazonian and African beliefs. Its followers regard the tea as the blood of Christ, comparable to Communion wine, and as a holy being in itself; its hymns constitute church doctrine; and the tea is taken at all services (Mukasey, 2009). The 2017 church leader’s account adds European Kardecist Spiritism and, in some urban centres, Eastern traditions (Chacruna, 2017). Evidence: established as descriptions of belief, not claims about the tea’s effects.

After Mestre Irineu died in 1971, the movement split. One branch was started in 1974 by Sebastião Mota de Melo, known as Padrinho Sebastião, and on his death in 1990 was led by his son, Alfredo Gregório de Melo; it opened churches in the United States, Japan and Europe. Its head office was then known as CEFLURIS (Mukasey, 2009), and the 2017 account says it is now known as ICEFLU (Chacruna, 2017). Evidence: established.

What is the União do Vegetal (UDV)?

The UDV’s founder, José Gabriel da Costa, known as Mestre Gabriel, was born on 10 February 1922 in Bahia. According to the UDV’s official biography, he went to the Amazon in 1944 as a “rubber soldier” in Brazil’s wartime rubber drive, worked in rubber forests in Acre, Rondônia and Bolivia, first encountered the tea in April 1959, and created the União do Vegetal on 22 July 1961, continuing to serve the tea with ritual and doctrine (UDV, official biography). Evidence: established as the organisation’s own account.

The UDV’s US branch describes it as a Christian Spiritist religion that originated in Brazil, practised by about 25,000 people in 11 countries. Its name means “the union of the plants”, and members drink the tea, which they call hoasca, as a sacrament meant to heighten spiritual understanding and bring them closer to God (UDV USA). The Oregon court noted that the UDV differs from Santo Daime in doctrine and practice and that hoasca is taken only during church ceremonies (Mukasey, 2009). Evidence: membership figures are the organisation’s own and preliminary; the rest is established as self-description.

How does Brazil regulate religious ayahuasca use?

Brazil recognised the churches first. The Oregon court recorded that the Brazilian government, after studying Santo Daime and its members, recognised it as a legitimate religion and permits sacramental use, and also recognised the UDV (Mukasey, 2009). Evidence: established as recorded by the court.

A September 2026 analysis for the Chacruna Institute explains that a multidisciplinary working group of Brazil’s National Council on Drug Policy (CONAD) signed its final report on 23 November 2006, reaffirming the legitimacy of religious use on grounds of freedom of religion; that its framework, including no commercial purpose and self-regulation by the churches, was incorporated into CONAD Resolution No. 1/2010; and that DMT itself remained subject to drug laws (Chacruna, 2026). Evidence: established.

That settlement is being reopened. On 2 September 2026, Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Acre recommended that CONAD and the health regulator Anvisa set up working groups to revisit the regulation of ayahuasca and DMT, this time explicitly including Indigenous peoples alongside religious groups (Chacruna, 2026). Evidence: established that the recommendations were issued; their outcome is unresolved.

Gonzales v. O Centro (2006): what the Supreme Court decided

After US Customs seized a shipment of hoasca bound for the American UDV and threatened prosecution, the church sued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a federal statute that bars the government from substantially burdening religious exercise unless it shows a compelling interest pursued by the least restrictive means (Gonzales v. O Centro, 2006). Evidence: established.

At a preliminary-injunction hearing the government conceded the burden on a sincere religious practice but argued it had three compelling interests: members’ health, preventing diversion to recreational users, and a 1971 UN drug convention. The district court found the evidence on health and diversion evenly balanced, and the appeals court agreed (Gonzales v. O Centro, 2006). Evidence: established.

On 21 February 2006 the Supreme Court held that the lower courts did not err in finding that the government had failed to show, at the preliminary-injunction stage, a compelling interest in barring the UDV’s sacramental use. It pointed to the long-standing exemption for Native American religious use of peyote, which contains another Schedule I substance, and noted the UDV had about 130 American members. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for all participating justices; Justice Alito took no part (Gonzales v. O Centro, 2006). Evidence: established.

Church of the Holy Light of the Queen v. Mukasey (2009)

Santo Daime followed. The Church of the Holy Light of the Queen in Ashland, Oregon, founded in 1993 with authorisation from the Brazilian mother church, sued after federal agents seized a shipment of Daime tea in 1999. After a trial, District Judge Panner ruled on 18 March 2009 that, guided by the Supreme Court’s UDV decision, RFRA required that the plaintiffs be allowed to import and drink Daime tea for their religious ceremonies, subject to reasonable restrictions (Mukasey, 2009). Evidence: established.

The judge found that the government had not shown that outright prohibition was the least restrictive means, that it had presented no evidence of diversion, and that diversion was best handled through rules on storage and inventory (Mukasey, 2009). Evidence: established.

The government appealed only the scope of the order. In 2011 the Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished memorandum, vacated the injunction as too broad, because it reached regulations the church had never challenged, and sent the case back with instructions to limit it to the court’s actual holding: that the government had not justified prohibiting outright the church’s importation of Daime tea solely for use at church ceremonies (Church of the Holy Light of the Queen v. Holder, 2011). Evidence: established.

Can ayahuasca churches get a section 56 exemption in Canada?

In Canada, DMT is item 7 of Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, so possessing or providing it is an offence unless the regulations or an exemption authorize it. Section 56 lets the Minister of Health exempt a person, class of persons or substance from the Act if the Minister considers it necessary for a medical or scientific purpose or otherwise in the public interest; religious use is not named but falls under that general wording (Justice Laws, CDSA). The consolidation we read on 20 October 2026 was current to 30 September 2026. Evidence: established.

The founder of Montreal’s Santo Daime church Céu do Montréal wrote in 2017 that the church had worked with Health Canada’s Office of Controlled Substances since 2001, that an exemption granted in 2006 could not be issued without Brazilian export permission, that the Health Minister refused the request in 2012, and that in June 2017, applying alongside the UDV, the church received a section 56 exemption valid for two years and renewable (Chacruna, 2017). Evidence: preliminary (a participant’s account).

In May 2019 CTV News reported that Health Canada had by then granted five exemptions: two in Montreal in 2017 (Céu do Montréal and a UDV centre) and three in 2018 (a second Montreal church, one in Val-David, Quebec, and Céu de Toronto), each valid for two years and renewable. A Health Canada spokesperson told CTV that the exemptions let designated members possess, provide, transport, import, administer and destroy Daime tea for their religious practice, subject to conditions, and that the details are confidential (CTV News, 2019). Evidence: preliminary. This history is reported by a participant and a news outlet; we found no official Health Canada list confirming it or saying which exemptions are in force today.

The official record does confirm the process exists. A 2024 report by the Information Commissioner of Canada, on a complaint about delays in releasing records, describes an application for a religious exemption to serve ayahuasca under section 56 that Health Canada said was still under review and could set a precedent for future applications (Information Commissioner of Canada, 2024). For the wider legal picture, see is DMT legal in Canada?. This is general information, not legal advice. Evidence: established for the pending application in the report.

Is church ayahuasca use safe? What courts and studies say

Courts have weighed health evidence without settling it. In the UDV case the lower courts found the evidence on health risks evenly balanced, which was enough for the church at that stage because the government carried the burden of proof (Gonzales v. O Centro, 2006). The Oregon court found the government had presented no evidence that the tea is addictive or causes long-term harm, while the plaintiffs’ own experts cautioned that larger, more rigorous studies were needed (Mukasey, 2009). Evidence: established for what the courts found.

A 2012 longitudinal study of 127 regular church users and 115 members of other religions found no signs of the psychopathology or cognitive deficits sometimes assumed, but it was observational and cannot separate the tea from community and religious life (Bouso et al., 2012). Evidence: preliminary. None of this makes ayahuasca safe for everyone, and our ayahuasca vs DMT guide covers known risks and interactions.

What we still don’t know

• Which Canadian religious exemptions are in force today and on what terms; Health Canada does not publish a list we could find (unresolved).
• How Brazil will respond to the 2026 prosecutors’ recommendations (unresolved).
• Whether the health findings in long-term church members reflect the tea, the community or who chooses to join; existing studies are observational (unresolved).

The fair summary: Santo Daime and the UDV are established religions with documented histories, and they have won narrow, group-specific legal protection in Brazil, the United States and, reportedly, Canada. For the chemistry behind the sacrament, start with what is DMT; for the much older archaeological record, see ancient DMT: what the archaeology shows.

Shroomverse sells mushroom products. This article is general information about the history, beliefs and legal cases of the Santo Daime and União do Vegetal churches. It is not medical, legal or purchasing advice, and it does not recommend any product.