Sailing in the Holy Light
Of the three ayahuasca churches, the Barquinha is the most modest and popular. Colorful and musical, inspired by maritime traditions, its eclectic pantheon brings together Saint Francis of Assisi and Yemanyá, the Sun God and Jesus Christ.
The table from which the works are conducted is cross-shaped. Six men and six women sit on either side, in allusion to the twelve apostles.
Text and photos by Carlos Suárez Álvarez
Originally published in issue 245 of Cáñamo magazine, May 2018.
An ascended Jesus Christ, arms open wide, welcomes all. The flowerbed is well-tended, the walkways swept clean, the walls freshly painted white, the baseboards blue, the flowerbeds beautified. The man who opens the gate fits right in: dressed in white, wearing a sailor’s cap, he opens the gate with a smile and encourages visitors to enter the church, from whose open doors streams of white light pour forth. White uniforms with violet accents, white plastic chairs, white walls speckled with the sky blue of doors and windows.
The little bell rings, and the attendees form two rows along either side of the room. Through two small windows, Antonio Geraldo Jr. and his wife Francisca Matos hand out a small cup of daime to women and men, children and adults, locals and visitors alike; the ritual is open to everyone, with no money involved. When Geraldo confirms that it is not my first time, he serves me the same amount as his parishioners.
Geraldo sits at the head of a large cross-shaped table. In front of him is a modern synthesizer, beside him an electro-acoustic guitar, and near his mouth a microphone. Like twelve apostles, six men and six women sit on either side. They remain silent, eyes closed, until the pre-recorded rhythmic base begins. Then they start singing in unison, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Among the somewhat monotonous chorus, two voices stand out: a man’s, for its slow cadence, and a woman’s, for its deep raspiness.
I’m the only one who, after half an hour, goes to the bathroom to vomit. No one else will do so the entire night. When I return and sit down, the daime reveals its extraordinary power: a splendid cathedral unfolds before me, building and rebuilding itself with each note and the next. A golden and colossal edifice, its walls are the radiant faces of the saints invoked. Never has Christian iconography seemed so moving to me, never has the Our Father felt so heartfelt, the Hail Mary so tender.
“Beautiful,” I conclude when I approach Mestre Antonio Geraldo Jr. at the end of the ceremony. He responds with a grateful smile. I tell him I was surprised by the strength of his daime. “We make our daime very concentrated so people can drink less and get where they want to go for longer. Our intention is for people to drink little and leave happy. It’s satisfying when people drink and thank you for the mareación [psychedelic experiencei], which they had never been able to see before, but when they drank our daime, they understood what it is. It’s a privilege God gave us, because it brings moments of tranquility and understanding, because it expands the senses.”
An ascended Christ welcomes visitors with open arms at the entrance of the Centro Espírita Daniel Pereira de Mattos, one of the three Barquinha centers located in the Vila Ivonette neighborhood of Rio Branco.
lineage
Antonio Geraldo Jr. is the leader of the Centro Espírita Beneficente Daniel Pereira de Mattos, one of the six independent centers generally considered representatives of the Barquinha (Little Boat) line, chronologically the second of the ayahuasca religions: “We call ourselves Barquinha because our mission represents a boat,” explains Geraldo. “We sail through a world of illusion, gathering lost people to guide them toward the astral path.”
The charismatic Antonio Geraldo Jr., a vigorous man in his sixties, assumed leadership of the center in the year 2000 after the death of his father, without any objections from the group’s members—something rare in the world of ayahuasca churches, which are often prone to more or less traumatic splits and schisms following the death of their leaders. This peaceful transition may be due to the fact that shortly before his death, Antonio Geraldo Sr. told his people that he had received a spiritual revelation in which it was communicated to him that his son would be the successor. Divine revelations, which occur under the effects of daime, are by definition unquestionable.
Antonio Geraldo Sr., in turn, had succeeded the founder, Daniel Pereira de Mattos: born in 1888 in northeastern Brazil, a descendant of African slaves, a professional sailor who arrived in the Amazonian state of Acre during the turbulent rubber boom at the beginning of the 20th century. He is said to have been the barber of Mestre Irineu, founder of the first ayahuasca religion, Santo Daime, and that Irineu was the one who initiated him into the sacred drink.
Mestre Daniel is said to have been a bohemian, a musician and partygoer, a lover of the night and women of sad lives. That he was an alcoholic to the point of comas, that his life was sinking into drink, and that one day—or one night—intoxicated by alcohol or by daime, he had a revelation: a being of light gave him the Blue Book, which contained the doctrine and hymns upon which the Barquinha would be built. It all started in a small house, the Little Chapel of Saint Francis, where he received the sick, gave them daime, and prayed for their healing. This happened around 1945. By then, Daniel had given up alcohol.
Antonio Geraldo Jr. talks in his office with his wife and one of the church members.
anti-addictive daime
It is no coincidence that the first two parishioners I interview tell me that the daime helped them overcome a past of addiction. Amauri da Silva, who has been drinking with Antonio Geraldo for twenty years: “The Holy Drink makes us abandon mistakes. I came from the world of drugs and alcohol, and I met that Holy Light, which allows me to find good things and leave the bad behind.” Or Aldemir Marinho, who came to the Barquinha on the advice of a coworker: “I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day, and the first day I took the Holy Light, some divine beings came to my ear and told me that the cigarette was not good. I vomited. I threw away my cigarette and have now been smoke-free for 17 years. Because you realize you have a problem and you know what will happen if you keep doing it. That is wonderful.” It is also no coincidence that psychopharmacological research is currently exploring the anti-addictive properties of ayahuasca, a promising path that for decades has been practiced by centers such as Takiwasi in Peru or Caminho de Luz in Rio Branco.
Aldemir and Amauri tell me this the day after the ceremony, at the farm that Antonio Geraldo Jr. owns thirty kilometers from Rio Branco. A dozen parishioners have come to work on the new production house, the place where they cook the daime, which is in the final stages of construction, built by the parishioners themselves under Geraldo’s direction, who designed it. It is a mechanized facility, with a tank where the plants are washed and a motorized grinder that processes the ayahuasca. On a lower level are the mouths of the three ovens; on the upper level, to move the large pots, place them over the fire, fill them with water, or empty them of daime, there is a complex system of rails and pulleys devised and built by Geraldo himself, a man with many skills, including metallurgy.
The daime offered at the Centro Espírita Daniel Pereira de Mattos is very concentrated; a small dose is enough to trigger a powerful experience.
efficient DAIME
This modest industrialization of daime production, besides granting time and efficiency, has earned Geraldo criticism from other churches. “There are people from some lines who disagree with the use of the daime grinder. They believe it must be pounded.” And it is true that, for example, in Santo Daime, the preparation of daime holds great ritual importance; it is impressive to see them pounding with wooden mallets, like a choreography, to the rhythm of the music. But Geraldo has his reasons: “We use the grinder because it makes our work easier, saves time, and improves the quality of the product. I respect those who pound because they say the founder did it that way and therefore it must be done that way. My point of view is that the founders, who lived in the middle of the jungle, didn’t know this technology and only had the option to cut a piece of wood to make a mallet and pound the daime. I believe that if they lived today and had access to this technology, which allows for more precise work, saving time and materials, they would use it.”
Times are changing, without a doubt. Although for decades the daime used by Acre churches was made with wild plants harvested from the jungle, today the jungle provides less and less. Just look beyond the boundaries of Geraldo’s property: cattle ranches, no trace of forest mass. On the outskirts of Rio Branco, the jungle has been razed for hundreds of kilometers around. Ranchers and loggers exploited extensive areas, favored by agrarian reform and road connections to the rest of the country. Ayahuasca churches contributed their grain of sand to the impoverishment of the forest by harvesting plants almost to their disappearance. “It’s harder to find them; in the past it was closer,” explains Geraldo. “Now many go to Bolivia, the neighboring country, where there is plenty. We have friends with lots of land who allow us to investigate, and if we find some, we ask permission and take it.”
However, the custom of searching in the wild has its days numbered. “It’s important that each community has its own plantation,” says Geraldo, who is implementing a sustainable management plan on his property to consume his own plants without harming the forest. His plan consists of reforesting a sector of his land with five hundred fast-growing trees and planting an ayahuasca vine at the base of each tree. “You let it grow for eight years, then you harvest the first one, and when you get to the last one, the first is ready to be harvested again. Since we need the wood for cooking, the tree that the harvested daime vine climbed is also cut down to be used as firewood. That way everything is used.”
Antonio Geraldo Filho harvests chacruna leaves from a plant on his farm, on the outskirts of Rio Branco. Geraldo has implemented a sustainable management plan for the cultivation of ayahuasca and chacruna.
spiritual PLAYBACK
Times change, and technology opens new possibilities: Antonio Geraldo Filho, a musician at heart, has a full recording studio at the back of his house, which is behind the church. There, with large monitors and powerful speakers, he prepares the rhythmic bases that will later be played in the church, over which the hymns are sung. “Sometimes it’s difficult working with a group. Everyone has to be there for the work to be complete, and I’ve had many disappointments. I bring everything prepared to the service, where I just play a little guitar or keyboard — which I could also do as playback, but it doesn’t sound as good because during the service I get inspired and think of some arrangements; it makes it cooler.” Inspired is, without a doubt, the most fitting word: with the spirit inside.
The relationship between music, spirituality, and healing is remarkable in the Barquinha churches, perhaps because Daniel Pereira de Mattos, the founder, was an excellent musician who naturally turned his religion toward musicality or vice versa. It is said that the initial success of the Little Chapel of Saint Francis was due to the beauty of his songs. By the time of his death in 1958, Mestre Daniel had received over two hundred hymns from the spirits, to which were later added those received by his successors, Geraldo father and Geraldo son, several hundred in total. The hymns are fundamental because they contain the doctrine’s messages, structure the ritual, and channel healing. The first five hymns serve as the opening: “We call beings to protect us and ask God to allow healing beings to come bringing God’s divine strength, because only He heals through His messengers.”
After the opening, there is a brief pause to serve a second round of daime to latecomers. Then the ritual resumes and Geraldo begins to receive “irradiations” from spirits who come forward to perform healing. “The entity asks me to sing its hymn, and through the hymn it comes to do its work with its falange, meaning the assistants it brings to help.” Falange: military motives and allegories frequently appear in Barquinha symbolism. In other words: each hymn is linked to a spirit that appears in the ceremony when the message contained in its hymn is needed by someone present. “Those messages reach certain people who need them; they serve everyone but there is someone who is more in need. After the service ends, the person comes to me and says: ‘Thank you very much, the message you sang was beautiful.’ That was the entity that saw they needed it and sent me the irradiation to sing that message. Each person receives the message they need, and that is why people leave amazed, with a different mindset, happier.”
The sun is a beautiful star shining everywhere, // its light so sublime over the green waters of the sea… // Let us love God Jesus with love and joy // so we can drink from the water of the fountain of wisdom. // The beautiful doors of enchantment opened for me to enter. // The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit came to consecrate. // We joyfully thank Jesus the Savior // and the sovereign queen, the mother of our savior.
This hymn was received in 1998 by Antonio Geraldo father. Received: “It was given to my father by the Prince of Light,” Geraldo son explains, “who was a brother of the house and in the spiritual world received the title Prince of Light. Since then, he has brought several beautiful messages to help us travel on the sacred boat.” During ceremonies, Geraldo does not move from his chair, surrounded by his musical instruments. “Because I have to be focused, in tune with the supreme power that is God, the sacred source from where all messages come.” To finish, three closing hymns are sung. “We ask God that all those positive energies we have received be taken to the entire world, to hospitals, so that everyone benefits.”
Geraldo receives the hymns during the course of the work and performs them live, with guitar or synthesizer, while a prerecorded rhythmic backing plays.
light entities
Most of the ritual and symbolic structure of the Barquinha was designed after the death of Mestre Daniel in 1958 by his successor at the head of the cult: Antonio Geraldo father, who had been a member of the church for barely three years. It was under Geraldo father’s leadership that in January 1959 the Little Chapel of Saint Francis was officially registered with the name Centro Espírita e Culto de Oração e Casa de Jesus Fonte de Luz; it was also under his leadership that the sailor-inspired ‘uniform’ outfits began to be used and that the different types of ceremonies started to be distinguished: concentration works (intended for the introspection of cult members), charity works (intended to assist visitors who were sick or in need of guidance), and the bailados, perhaps the most characteristic liturgical expression of the Barquinha.
The bailados (dance rituals) take place in the “park,” a circular space built outside the church, where spiritual beings incarnate in the dancers to enjoy an earthly celebration. It is, in fact, a favor done to the entities as compensation for their services in the Barquinha’s works. “The beings who come during the bailado are beings of the sea, the jungle, and the astral, and each hymn we sing corresponds to an entity that arrives and incarnates in some of the people who are mediums to dance.” When that happens, the person in whom the spirit incarnates begins to dance in a characteristic way.
Jesus Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi (and a whole series of saints), Yemanyá, the Virgin Mary, the Sun God, spirits of the jungle... The entities that make up the Barquinha pantheon are typically diverse, as corresponds to the ayahuasca religions, born from the contact between native ayahuasqueros and the rubber workers from Brazil’s northeast, of African descent. Popular Catholicism, spiritism, and beliefs of African origin like umbanda creatively and uniquely converged in each of the ayahuasca religions.
In the Barquinha pantheon, the Sun God coexists with the Virgin Mary, Yemanyá, Jesus Christ, Saint Francis of Assisi, and a long list of saints, holy figures, and spiritual beings of the sea, the jungle, and the astral realm.
family matter
Francisca Matos, wife of Antonio Geraldo Jr., is in charge of harmonizing the eclectic iconography that adorns the church. The dazzling cleanliness of the place, the colorful decoration rich in satin fabrics, shining figures, and allegorical paintings are thanks to her. “We keep the church clean because we call upon beings of light, positive spirits, and we have to receive them the way they like,” explains Matos, who joined the Geraldo family at just twelve years old, an orphan, and fell in love with the doctrine and the leader’s son. Her in-laws adopted her and taught her what was necessary to one day take charge of the temple that her husband would inherit. Thus, every morning before each ceremony, Matos leads a cleaning crew of both men and women who meticulously prepare the space.
Although Geraldo Sr. consolidated the ritual and symbolic structure of the Barquinha over two decades, in 1979, after a confrontation with other members of the church leadership, he decided to leave the original church and build a new one in the same neighborhood, two hundred meters away: the Centro Espírita Daniel Pereira de Mattos, a name that suggests the doctrinal continuity linking Mestre Daniel with Geraldo Sr. and now Geraldo Jr. This was not the only split: there are currently six Barquinha centers in Acre, some of which have “branches” in other parts of the country. Unlike Santo Daime and União do Vegetal, the other two ayahuasca religions, Barquinha has not expanded internationally. “We are humble people; we don’t want to grow, we like our community to be small, family-oriented,” says Geraldo Jr. The church’s continuity, however, does not seem at risk: many young people are adherents, including Geraldo’s children, sons-in-law, and daughters-in-law. One of his children, if a revelation ever comes, may perhaps succeed him leading this joyful cult.
