Já tinha caminho, já fazia tempo
que eu buscava conforto
espiritual, meditação, eu
fiz ragioga.
I had been seeking spiritual comfort
for some time.
I did meditation, Raja
Yoga.
I tried going into spiritism,
but didn't really like it.
After some time I heard of someone
who was drinking the tea and
asked this person to take me along
to a session.
I was blown away.
That one session felt like ten
years of therapy.
A sessão valeu por dez anos de
terapia.
Ana Duarte was 51
the first time she tried ayahuasca.
She was a politically progressive
type, a banker and a poet who lived
in Recife, Pernambuco,
Brazil.
In the early 2000s, Ana
stumbled upon a group of people, a
psychedelic church, called União
do Vegetal, Portuguese
for Union of the Plants.
People call it the UDV,
or the Union for short.
Vegetal is one of their names
for ayahuasca.
Ana was so moved by her
experience that she immediately
joined.
Encantou na União
foi realmente o trabalho
conjunto shama mutiram.
What really captivated me in the UDV
was the collective work.
We had a sense of community.
The preparations of ayahuasca
felt like celebrations.
Que eram verdadeiras festas
realmente.
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew
made from a vine and a plant
used in the UDV ceremonies.
For over twenty years, Ana
drank the tea and rituals every
two weeks.
She felt she had found her people,
until one day in 2018,
Ana attended an ayahuasca
session led by a high ranking
master or mestre in the church,
ninety one year old Raimundo
Monteiro de Souza.
Mas estava todo mundo sob efeito.
Era uma sessão da união.
Todo mundo sob efeito da.
Everyone was under the influence of
ayahuasca, like in every
session.
It started off with chanting
and then he said these things during
the sermon.
The session started off
Off like normal.
But what Monteo said next
shocked her.
E ele falou que
o Bolsonaro era o
candidato que devia se votar
em Bolsonaro.
He said Bolsonaro was his candidate
that he knew what reвоtionaries were
like, and people on the left wanted
communism.
He praised the armed forces and the
military.
Twenty eighteen was the year of a
highly contentious presidential
election in Brazil between the
left wing workers' party and
a hard right candidate named Jair
Bolsonaro, who came to be
known as the Trump of the Tropics.
The Trump of the Tropics, the
President of Brazil, Mr. Jai
Bolsonaro.
Nós somos a maioria!
Nós somos o Brasil de
verdade!
Jair Bolsonaro.
Supporters love his plain speaking
style and hard stance on
crime. Opponents fear his
intolerance of activists,
minorities, and ambivalence
to the environment.
For some UDV members, like
Ana, twenty eighteen was
the year that she and many others
would begin to see their sacred
psychedelic church in a
different light.
Porque quando tem essas sessões
com mestres antigos.
Many people had driven in from other
states, which is common when you
have sessions with eldest mestres.
Some stood up in the middle of the
session and drove off.
Nossa senhora.
These were people in an altered
state, hallucinating from a powerful
psychedelic.
And despite that, they got in their
cars and drove away.
But not Ana.
Yes, she too was horrified
by the political message, but
in that moment, she stayed.
This week on the show, we go to
Brazil. Reporter Julia Dias
Carneiro takes us inside the UDV,
a psychedelic church that claims
to be nonpartisan and apolitical.
But what transpired inside
some UDV sessions during this highly
polarized election and its aftermath
seems to indicate otherwise.
All of a sudden, things
were getting decidedly partisan.
I'm Arielle Duhaime-Ross and
this is Altered States.
Julia takes it from here.
In 2018, Jair Bolsonaro
took Brazil by storm.
He promoted gun ownership, endorsed
torture in Brazil's former
dictatorship, and espoused sexist
and racist views.
But he appealed to conservative
voters by defending the traditional
family and promising to crack
down on corruption.
Brazilian journalist Carlos Minuano
was taking notes.
Meu nome é Carlos Minuano,
eu sou jornalista.
For over twenty years, Carlos has
been following psychedelics and the
UDV.
He contributed reporting to this
episode, and he says he noticed
something strange in the lead up to
the Bolsonaro.
A partir de dois mil e dezoito.
Starting from twenty eighteen, there
were signs of a right wing
psychedelia on social media,
which started to pick up in the
final stretch of the presidential
campaign when Bolsonaro was elected.
And this was very evident
among the followers of the UDV.
Carlos realized that people on the
outside had no idea about this,
so he began covering it.
Em dois mil, a primeira
reportagem sobre o DV
dentro desse contexto.
Twenty, I published my first piece
about how this far right psychedelia
was gaining traction inside the
União do Vegetal.
People approached me to say
they were grateful to see this come
out because there was a deep sense
of discomfort, but no
one had spoken up publicly until
then.
Tinha trazido isso.
That divisive presidential election
caused the rift inside the UDV.
An estimated 2,000 members
have left the religion, among them
150 of its director.
So, how did one of Brazil's oldest
and most popular ayahuasca
religions, founded to promote,
quote, love and human fraternity,
end up spreading right wing
propaganda to people in an altered
state?
To understand how the UDV changed,
you have to go back to the early
days of the religion.
Quando criou na cristal,
foi com esse pensamento
de fazer uma paz no mundo.
This is the voice of José Gabriel
da Costa.
Mestre Gabriel, when he created
the UDV in 1961,
it was with this thought, he says,
to make peace in the world.
Mestre Gabriel migrated from
Brazil's poor northeast to the
Amazon during the Second World War.
He was one of the soldados da
borracha or rubber soldiers
drafted to tap rubber in the
rainforest for the United States
war effort.
It was in the Amazon that Mestre
Gabriel first encountered ayahuasca.
This video produced by the UDV
describes his vision.
The beneficent spirit of center,
União do Vegetal, works
for the development of the human
being in the spiritual, moral,
and intellectual sense.
The UDV has grown to more than
25,000 members today,
in over 200 units called núcleos.
There are now núcleos in eleven
countries, including the US, Canada,
Switzerland, and Australia.
In fact, in 2000,
the UDV sued the US government
for the right to use ayahuasca.
The case went all the way to the US
Supreme Court, and in 2006,
they won.
The biggest and most influential
ayahuasca Brazilian religions,
and it became famous because
it won the right to consume
ayahuasca legally in the United
States, which is not a small task.
Brazilian anthropologist Bia Labate
has been researching the ayahuasca
field for almost thirty years.
She's the executive director of the
Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic
Plant Medicines, a non profit
advocacy group based in San
Francisco.
Bia describes the UDV's spiritual
doctrine as a mix of a few
different things.
In broad terms you could say
Amerindian shamanism, the
use of ayahuasca with
popular Catholicism,
elements of European esoteric
traditions, as well as some Afro
religion elements.
I think it manages to talk
to people from different backgrounds
from more humble rubber
taper traditional populations
from inside the Amazon forest
to a wider range of
liberal professionals,
medical doctors, artists,
intellectuals, people from big
cities.
It has a kind of poetry to
it and appeal that
with some kind of magical
enchanted element
from the forest and indigenous
people.
Brazil recognized the noncommercial
cultural and religious use of
ayahuasca almost four decades
ago. Mestre Gabriel
died in nineteen seventy one, but
he's still the religion's central
figure. His picture hangs in all
of the UDV's temples.
Every single congregation, you
know, will prepare their brew
and plant the brew.
And then you have children,
grandparents, parents, cousins,
the whole family together cooking
ayahuasca.
These special brewing sessions
happen throughout the year.
Followers also attend regular
ceremonies every two weeks on
Saturday night.
They go on for about four hours.
Everyone but the highest ranking
masters wear green shirts to the
sessions, and the color of the UDV
logo embroidered on the shirt pocket
indicates one's rank.
There are four different ranks in
the UDV.
At the very top are the mestres
or masters.
At the bottom are the quote white
pockets, the beginners.
You can be promoted up or
demoted down as punishment.
At the start of the session,
everyone lines up to receive a cup
of ayahuasca.
The top ranking members go
first. While the brew kicks
in, the mestres read out regulations
and teachings.
Querido fique nessa nossa
caminhada, cantando
indo uma palavra de amor.
Sinto no peito a mão
dessa bandeira, que
é a luz, a paz e
o amor, sinto
no peito amor dessa bandeira,
que é a luz, a paz
e o amor.
Then they listen to music or chance.
This is one of the UDV's anthems.
The chorus highlights the group's
motto Light, Peace and
Love. Officially, the UDV
defines itself as nonpartisan and
apolitical, which is in line
with Brazil's laws.
Like the United States, Brazil's
constitution protects the freedom of
religion.
But in Brazilian law, electoral
propaganda is forbidden inside
temples and churches.
So in the Bolsonaro era,
when things got politicized in a new
way, it wasn't simply shocking
for UDV members, there were
questions of legality too.
Meus filhos e irmãos na
União do Vegetal.
During the twenty eighteen
presidential elections, UDV members
passed around a voice message from
one of the UDV's most senior
figures, Raimondo Monteiro de
Souza.
O único candidato capaz
de afastar a desorte
atualmente presente no
Brasil é o Bolsonaro.
It was a pitch to vote for
Bolsonaro, the only
person who could fix what he saw as
the country's problems problems
like gay parades, abortion
and gender ideology.
He added that these were his views
and the views of the UDV.
Dois pensamentos aqui que é mais
meu, quando eu falo eu, mas todos
são os pensamentos da União do
Vegetal.
According to Carlos, the journalist,
the message was significant because
of Montero's influence in the U
D V.
Que ele é uma espécie assim de.
É como se fosse, comparando com a
Igreja Católica, dos apóstolos
de Jesus.
In an analogy with the Catholic
Church, he's like one of Jesus'
apostles.
He was very close to Master Gabriel,
the founder of the religion, and to
this day holds a very strong
influence.
Bolsonaro won the election later
that year.
Hundreds of people have gathered
outside Jair Bolsonaro's apartment.
They're chanting the national anthem
and celebrating.
Into longer do governo Bolsonaro,
as coisas foram piorando na UDV
e eu fui procurado
por dirigentes.
During the Bolsonaro administration,
things started getting worse in the
UDV, and some leaders
who were against the growing pro
Bolsonaro support reached out
to me. They decided to
write a letter that they wanted
to make public.
The group called itself Paz com Voz,
Peace with Voice.
The letter raised concern over
support in the UDV's upper ranks
for quote political positions
contrary to the teachings of the
master.
It called for an end to political
partisanship and for a return
to neutrality.
The letter didn't mention Bolsonaro
by name, but listed some of his
hallmark ideas that were embraced
by UDV leaders, including
the rollback of environmental
protections, even when ayahuasca
is made from two plants native to
the Amazon rainforest.
The group handed the letter to the
UDV's Master General Representative,
its highest authority, but they
never got an answer.
One of the members who wrote the
letter told me that he was
downgraded in the UDV's ranks
as punishment.
He told me the UDV's rules
forbid discussing politics in
sessions, but there are double
standards and some people get
away with it.
He was so upset, he
decided to sue the UDV
for damage.
The UDV defines itself
as nonpartisan, but
Carlos sees evidence to the contrary
in Brasília, Brazil's capital,
where the UDV's most influential
leaders are.
Esse esse bolsonarismo
está cada vez mais explícito,
aberto e público.
Pro Bolsonaro support is
increasingly explicit, open
and public.
And this alignment with the far
right agenda involves going against
sexual diversity, environmental
protection policies, and defense gun
ownership.
One of the most prominent Mestres
supporting Bolsonaro at the time was
Luis Felipe Belmonte.
Advogado, bem-sucedido, dono
de construtora, fazenda,
tenho clube de futebol,
He's a successful lawyer, owner
of a construction company, a ranch,
he owns a soccer club.
He was to be the vice president of
the party former president Jair
Bolsonaro was trying to create.
Belmonte helped to lead an effort
to start a political party for
Bolsonaro, Aliança pelo
Brasil or Alliance for Brazil.
But the effort failed to get the
signatures that are required by law
to start a new party.
Fast forward to 2022,
Bolsonaro, hailed by his supporters
as a mythical, legendary type
figure, ran for re-election.
But he lost to Luís Inacio
Lula da Silva, a leftist
co-founder of Brazil's Workers'
Party.
Quero começar agradecendo
os 58 milhões de brasileiros
que votaram em mim.
Bolsonaro had repeatedly cast
doubt on Brazil's electoral process,
and after he lost the election,
his party and his supporters claimed
the system was rigged against him.
It was unclear whether he would
accept defeat.
In the weeks after Bolsonaro's
defeat, his supporters mobilized
across Brazil to protest the
results.
Many set up camp outside military
headquarters in several cities,
chanting things like Armed Forces,
save Brazil.
They were calling for a military
takeover ahead of Lula's
inauguration.
One former UDV member told
me that in the lead up to the
inauguration, people inside
the UDV were encouraging members
to go to the military headquarters
to protest the election and
push for military intervention.
Photos circulated online of
Mestre Monteiro, the 91-year-old
UDV leader, smiling at
the camera in these demonstrations.
In one, he's standing outside the
army barracks in Campo Grande,
next to other members of the UDV,
many of them draped in the Brazilian
flag.
In another picture, he's seen
pointing at a banner calling for a
quote, federal intervention,
which was a euphemism for a
coup.
Screen grabs of these photos flooded
WhatsApp groups of UDV members.
Some agreed.
Others were horrified.
Around the same time, a letter
Monteiro wrote and signed by
hand also went viral in
these groups.
He addressed Brazil's armed
forces, calling for military
action to stop communism,
openly inciting a coup.
Here's Carlos, the journalist
again.
Polarização chegou
a níveis extremos, né?
As coisas também lá na União.
Polarization reached extreme levels,
and the crisis inside the UDV
just kept escalating to the point
that they summoned members to take
part in protests and eventually
even in the attempted coup itself,
the attack on the three branches of
power on January eighth, twenty
twenty three.
Janeiro de dois mil vinte e três,
né?
In the capital, Brasília, thousands
of Bolsonaro supporters stormed
into Congress, the Supreme Court,
and the Presidential Palace just
days after Lula's inauguration.
The January eighth riots in Brasilia
mirrored the January sixth attack
two years earlier when Trump
supporters invaded the US Capitol.
As UDV members watched
the events of the day, they weren't
sure who in their ranks had joined
the uprising in Brasilia.
Fala pessoal, estamos aqui ao vivo
de Brasília.
Hoje, dia 8 de janeiro de 2023,
os patriotas já tomaram conta
aqui do Palácio do Planalto
e do Congresso Nacional.
Then one of the UDV's mestres,
Francisco Joffily, shared a video of
himself during the riots, walking
down the Esplanade of Ministries
wearing a Brazil jersey like the
other rioters.
The Patriots have already taken
over the presidential palace and
Congress, he says.
This is a historic day for Brazil.
He was streaming it live on social
media.
Brasília, 8 de janeiro.
Vândalos furam o frágil bloqueio
que deveria proteger a espanada dos
ministérios e partem para a invasão
do Congresso Nacional.
It was historic.
And on September 11th, 2025,
Brazil Supreme Court convicted Jair
Bolsonaro of plotting a coup
to remain in power after losing
the 2022 election.
A strategy that included a plan
to assassinate now President Lula.
Bolsonaro was sentenced to more than
27 years in prison.
But the January 8 attacks
two years earlier sent shockwaves
across Brazil, all the more
so for those who saw familiar faces.
As pessoas estimulando ir para
frente de quartéis,
estimulando essa ideia
de.
Including Alexandre Rodrigues,
a lawyer who used to be a member of
the UDV.
When he saw Mestre Joffily in the
riots, he was outraged
and decided to take legal action.
Two days later, he filed a civil
lawsuit in Brazil's Supreme Court
to investigate whether the UDV
was using ayahuasca for political
indoctrination.
Se o chá era utilizado para lavar
cerebral ou algum tipo de
estímulo a movimento de
extrema-direita,
He says he asked the court to
investigate if the brew was being
used for brainwashing to fuel
a far right movement
and to investigate the UDV leaders
who incited members to take part in
the coup attempt.
Alexandre also called for the
Supreme Court to temporarily suspend
the UDV's right to use ayahuasca
until these matters were clarified.
Então, a forma que eu utilizo
foi o que justificou eu ficar
incomodado com esse
tipo de situação, de ver em
pessoas.
As someone who takes ayahuasca
regularly and believes in its
benefits, Alexandre says he
doesn't want to see it used in the
wrong way, but the Supreme Court
transferred the case to a lower
court, which ultimately dismissed
it. Alexandre decided
not to appeal the decision.
He feared the lawsuit could end up
posing a risk for other religions
that drink the brew in Brazil.
Eu, como usuário da ayahuasca,
me veio uma preocupação
que eu poderia criar
problema para as outras.
Lawsuits against the UDV kept
coming.
Sanderson Moura, a prominent
criminal lawyer in the state of Acre
in the Amazon region, claimed
he was removed from the UDV's board
of masters after posting a picture
on the beach in January, reading a
book by Osho, the Indian
philosopher and spiritual leader.
On his social media accounts,
Sanderson wrote that he had been
removed for being a leftist
and said, quote, We're living
through a dark, regressive period
marked by Trumpists, Bolsonaroists,
fascist, racist, misogynistic,
and homophobic persecution within
the UDV.
Sanderson filed a lawsuit to annul
his expulsion, and the court forced
the UDV to reinstate him as
maestre.
The UDV is appealing that
decision.
He declined my request for an interview. People like Sanderson
are fighting to stay on in the UDV.
The church community plays a
significant role in many followers'
lives.
But as things got worse, more
and more followers lost their
stamina.
Ambiente de briga pelas redes
sociais.
You heard from Ana Duarte at
the start of this episode.
She had been in the UDV for nearly
two decades when the messages from
the Mestres started to clash
with her progressive politics.
Depois o Bolsonaro foi
eleito, os que votaram nele
ficaram muito arrogantes.
After Bolsonaro was elected, those
who voted for him became very
arrogant.
We couldn't even mention Lula's name
inside the UDV because it became
officially extreme right.
Officially Bolsonaro.
I felt like people had been mentally
hijacked.
First, Ana didn't want to lose her
church community.
She was almost 70 by then.
She didn't want to restart her
social life all over again.
So Ana stayed.
I should note here that Ana is
not her real name.
She asked us to use a pseudonym
for this story for fear of
retribution for speaking critically
of the UDV.
And then, when Bolsonaro
ran for re-election, things got
worse for her.
Bolsonaro perdeu a eleição.
Menina foi chororô.
E aquela lamentação parecia
que tinha acontecido.
When Bolsonaro lost,
people were devastated.
It felt like someone had died.
In the first session after his
defeat, all the sermons
were for those on the far right,
supporting masters on the side of
Bolsonaro.
It was enough.
I decided not to come back.
Even though Lula had won the
election, Ana felt nothing had
changed at the UDV.
So in early 2023,
she decided to leave.
É como se ela tivesse sido
contaminada por uma doença
grave mortal.
It's like the UDV has been infected
with a serious deadly disease.
There's no way you can survive like
this.
For me, it lost its
magic. I can no longer see it
as something good, pure,
or righteous.
So, Ana wrote a poem.
It's called Arautus Dado,
Heralds of Pain.
I asked her to read it to me.
Sombra.
A sombra. When fogo no eluis.
The shadow haunts
when fire is not light.
To what?
To whom the scales
lead.
Heralds of pain preaching
love.
Is truth or vanity
the antonym of the flower?
The UDV in Brazil declined my
request for an interview.
They stated that the leaders of the
spiritual center have chosen not
to speak to the media regarding the
topics of this episode.
In previous reports about the
internal crises sparked by support
for Bolsonaro, the UDV
said it was nonpartisan, did
not profess political ideologies,
and had no preference for
presidential candidates.
In 2023, the UDV told Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo that, quote,
"the political preferences expressed by some of its membrs did not
represent the UDV as an institution - they were strictly personal
opinions." They were strictly personal
opinions.
We'll be right back.
While people like Ana were shocked
to see members of the UDV promoting
right wing ideologies, others
weren't surprised.
Queer members of the UDV
say they saw this coming for years.
Então, Deus fez Adão e
Eva, não foi Adão e Ivo.
Isso é claramente falado.
Foi Adão e Eva, não foi Adão
e Ivo.
God made Adam and Eve and
not Adam and Evo.
They say this clearly and
in every session a statute read at
the beginning defines that marriages
within the U D V are between a
man and a woman, with the aim
of establishing a family.
Sixty one year old Armando Grizi
had no doubts about his sexuality
when he first went to the UDV.
It was nearly thirty years ago in
the city of Salvador.
He was openly gay and had a
male partner.
He had come across an article about
ayahuasca in a magazine.
It spoke of transcendence,
of revealing another world.
Então, naquele momento, eu falei, eu
quero isso aqui.
Só que eu não sabia como funcionava
a estrutura da união do vegetal, a
homofobia que existe lá.
At that moment I said
I want this.
But I didn't know there was
homophobia in the U D V.
I didn't know there was a military
discipline.
And when I drank ayahuasca for the
first time it was magic.
I had a beautiful experience.
It was painful too,
because there are the physical
reactions to the tea, the vomiting,
the discomfort.
But I felt I had reconnected
spiritually.
Encontrado com a espiritualidade.
Armando had been in the Brazilian
military as a sergeant in the Amazon
and was impressed with the UDV.
Brazil has other ayahuasca
religions like Santo Daimi,
but the UDV is known as the most
well organized.
It's structured into departments
with well defined rules and members
engaged in volunteer work and
charity.
É muito organizado, tudo funciona
dentro da melhor qualidade, do
tratamento, do cuidado.
Everything works is well cared for,
the quality, the guidance people
are offered.
This stood out to me because of my
military background.
Eu vim de militar.
Gradually though, he began to
experience discrimination.
Things escalated when he decided
to visit a different nucleo of the
UDV.
Todo mundo sabia que eu era gay
e falaram para esse mestre,
o mestre estava lá dirigindo.
People knew that I was gay
and told the mestre who was
conducting the session.
We all got in line to receive
our glass of ayahuasca.
When it was my turn, he told another
mestre, bring me that stronger
tea, the one that knocks out
mestres.
He gave me a full glass,
more than double what he was giving
others.
And as I was under the effect of the
brew, he started to hammer
home that homosexualism
was wrong.
Homosexualism was of the
negative force.
He kept saying bad things about
homosexuality, calling
it an aberration.
This happened to Armando twice
with the same mestre at the same
núcleo.
He says the second time was even
worse because the strong dose of
ayahuasca made him very sick.
When he was vomiting outside,
the maestre had people carry him
back inside.
They sat him in the first row.
Armando sank into his seat,
feeling sick, and as drool
came out of his mouth, the maestre
started to preach that homosexuality
was wrong, that God disapproved.
E porque é a lavagem cerebral, é
lavagem cerebral, é uma lavagem
cerebral. Porque o chá tem uma
fluência muito grande, Kiko.
It's brainwashing.
Brainwashing.
Because the brew has a very strong
influence. You become very
sensitive. And what's being said
builds pictures in your head.
You have visions.
So imagine hearing that
homosexuality, or rather,
homosexualism, which is how they
say it, is a disease, something
from the devil.
It's terrifying.
People panic and want to leave
that path.
I saw many people who in theory
converted because of this
who ended up getting married.
And then the others would say
they're cured.
Conheço vários gays
que casaram-se para poder provar.
Armando said the master who held
these sessions was Jair Gabriel
da Costa, the son of Mestre
Gabriel.
Today, Jair Gabriel is
the UDV's highest authority.
Armando stayed in the UDV
for more than a decade after those
incidents, until 2018.
He'd endured prejudice and
homophobia before as part
of the military and as a Jesuit
missionary.
In the UDV, he felt
mostly welcomed.
As amizades que você faz lá dentro,
as pessoas que você conhece lá
dentro, nem todo mundo é assim, nem
todo.
The friendships you make, the people
you get to know, not everyone
is like that, or things like that.
Each nucleo follows the orientation
of its mestre representative.
Some chapters are a lot more
welcoming and open.
Others are very rigid,
devotional, dogmatic.
The one I went to had lots of
artists and female counselors
who advised mestres to be more
flexible.
And there is the beauty
of the tea and
teachings that are
good for our lives.
Armando was a dedicated community
member, but he could never climb the
UDV's ranks.
The journalist Carlos Minuano
says queer members usually don't go
beyond the beginner rank.
Women never make it to maestre.
Esse viés conservador da União
Digital é viés conservador
de base, né?
Assim, que está na própria doutrina.
This conservative bias is at the
base of the UDV's doctrine.
It preaches traditional gender roles
such as women as mothers, wives,
housewives.
It's strongly binary in the
sense of the spiritual understanding
of the world.
Right and wrong, men and women.
In one of his stories, Carlos
uncovered a controversial document
read out in ayahuasca ceremonies,
saying that homosexualism
contradicts the natural origin of
human existence and would
amount to the extinction of the
human species.
The author was Luis Felipe Belmonte,
the UDV master who owns a soccer
team.
To become a mestre you have to be
married and you can only be a
man. So the whole system is around
that concept.
The idea is that the heterosexual
cisgender male is the
mestre and that's like the
higher path and the higher
knowledge.
That's anthropologist Bia Labate
again.
Gradually, this clashed with Bia's
own sexual identity, even
though she had a history with the
UDV.
This has been very painful to
witness, particularly
as a queer woman that has
a wife, and the UDV
has in fact a foundational document
saying that the only legitimate
form of family is a man
and a woman.
So it's
citing as many other religions
with heteronormativity
and implying that everything else
is pathological and deviation.
I really think people underestimate
the mental health effects
on people like me, on
us, of hearing these
things.
But I personally have a deep
debt of gratitude to the UDV
because my first glass of ayahuasca
I drank over there and it
changed my life forever.
I dedicated my whole life to
studying this topic.
And I attended the UDV over 20
years.
So I have a part of me that
likes and is grateful, and we'll
never forget that.
Although other religions also
condemn homosexuality, I
asked Bia if the use of ayahuasca
made things different in the UDV.
Using psychedelics related to that
is extremely cruel
because people are very vulnerable
and very open.
You think about your deeper secrets,
you look yourself in the mirror, you
connect to this ineffable
aspects of reality
and just open
up yourself in the middle of
that experience to have doctrinary
content anti-gay
is something that I think should
be forbidden, actually.
It should be completely illegal
and it's against human rights and
it's oppressive.
And I personally have suffered
sitting in ayahuasca ceremonies
in UDV and listening
to content like that
to a point that I decided that I no
longer attend.
However, I do feel sad about
that because there's a part that was
extremely beautiful and touching and
has helped me a lot.
So I personally decided
to protest and not
attend the UDV any longer.
Reporting the story, it struck me
how hard it was to find current
followers of the UDV who would
discuss this matter with me.
Some feared they'd be reprimanded
and even banished.
Others worried about betraying
an institution that was part of
their spiritual and social life,
or that helped them deal with drugs
and alcohol addiction.
Others told me about the beauty of
ayahuasca, and that the
leaders supporting Bolsonaro
were a temporary problem that would
go away.
Journalist Carlos Minuano.
Tem algumas pessoas que não querem
perder esse lugar sagrado,
esse lugar que
muitas vezes foram.
There are some people who don't want
to lose the sacred place, a
place that has often been one of
transformation and growth.
They don't want to give that up, so
they either accept what's happening
or stay silent.
Armando Grisi said he spent ten
years working hard to move up in the
UDV, but he was only allowed
into the second tier once he
separated from his former husband.
Quando eu tava no construtivo,
começou o bulburinho na minha
cabeça, que eu tinha que arrumar uma
namorada, que eu tinha que me casar
com uma mulher, que eu tinha que não
sei o quê, porque eu sei.
Soon, people started telling me
I had to find a girlfriend and I
should get married to a woman.
When I started dating another man,
I didn't tell anyone.
In 2018, when Armando
saw UDV leaders starting to back
Bolsonaro for president,
he chose to walk away.
He left the UDV, moved
to Portugal, and he decided to
speak out.
Alguém tem que falar.
Como as pessoas que estão lá dentro
não falam? Porque se elas falarem,
elas são punidas, porque funciona
como rejeito.
Somebody has to talk.
People on the inside don't talk
because if they do they will be
punished. It's hypocrisy
to speak of love and fraternity,
which is what the mestre taught,
and in reality be
prejudiced and moralistic.
Preconceituosa, moralista,
cheia de coisa, entendeu?
Bia Labate thinks maybe a new
generation will change the UDV.
I believe the change has to come
from within.
And I don't think we have to engage
in the demonization of the UDV
and a pathologization of the UDV.
That doesn't help that just
replicates the same systems
of polarization and hate.
Altered States is a production of
the UC Berkeley Center for the
Science of Psychedelics and PRX.
This episode was reported and
produced by Julia Dias Carneiro
with help from Carlos Minuano and
Cassady Rosenblum.
Voice acting by Andre Lacerda,
Giovanna Romano Sanchez, and
Augustin Tefoya.
Adizah Eghan is our senior editor.
Our executive editor is Malia
Wollan. Jennie Cataldo is
our senior producer, and our
researcher is Cassady Rosenblum.
Our associate producer is Jade Abdul
Malik, and our audio engineers are
Terence Bernardo and Jennie Cataldo.
Fact checking by Graham Hacia.
Our executive producers are Malia
Wollan and Jocelyn Gonzales.
And our project manager is Edwin
Ochoa.
Our theme music is by Thao Nguyen
and Nate Brenner.
Special thanks to Bob Jesse.
And I'm your host, Arielle
Duhaime-Ross.
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And heads up, we're taking a quick
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We'll be back with new episodes in
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Most well-known psychedelics remain
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