The Amplified Word: Psychedelic Authority

The Amplified Word: Psychedelic Authority

by Beezone

Focus

The focus of this essay is to clarify how spiritual openness—when magnified by a powerful substance and framed by hierarchical ritual—can become both the vehicle of insight and the instrument of control.

Throughout history, human beings have turned to entheogenic and psychedelic substances as instruments of revelation, healing, and communion—with the sacred experienced through the senses and the mind alike. These substances dissolve the ordinary boundaries of perception and self, awakening deep receptivity to meaning. Yet the very openness that allows for illumination also renders the mind’s vulnerabilty susceptible to suggestion. Under the influence of a psychedelic, ideas are not simply understood—they are felt with amplified conviction, often carrying the weight of existential truth. When this heightened suggestibility unfolds within an organized structure—especially one governed by authority, dogma, or charismatic leadership—the same energies that open consciousness toward transcendence can be directed toward suggestibility, belief, conformity, conviction, and control.

This essay explores that paradox: the double-edged nature of psychedelic revelation. Through both historical reflection and contemporary example, it considers how the power of the sacrament—whether mushroom, vine, cactus, or chemical—depends entirely on the integrity of its use and the consciousness of those who guide it.

Preface

The genesis of this essay lies in a remarkable investigative report released in October 2025 on the Apple podcast channel The Microdose, titled “Was Ayahuasca Used for Political Indoctrination in Brazil?”

Produced for the Altered States series by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, the episode explores a troubling question:

In 2023, supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro violently stormed the capital in an attempted coup. Among Bolsonaro’s most loyal supporters were leaders in the União do Vegetal (UDV), one of Brazil’s oldest and most popular ayahuasca churches. Brazil’s laws state that electoral propaganda is forbidden inside temples and churches—but former UDV members say they experienced what some called “brainwashing” while in an altered state.

What makes this report extraordinary is not only its political relevance but its psychological and spiritual implications. It exposes the intersection between psychedelic sacrament and ideological influence, between ritual authority and political suggestion. The testimonies it gathers—of former members who describe moments when sacred ceremony blurred into political sermon—raise a larger and more universal question:

What happens when words spoken in a sacramental setting, under the amplifying influence of a psychoactive brew, cease to be heard as opinion and are felt as revelation?

This essay takes that question as its point of departure. It examines the mythic structure and spiritual discipline of the União do Vegetal (UDV), the dynamics of suggestion under Hoasca, the conditional nature of illumination, and the ethical fault line between revelation and indoctrination. Drawing on ethnographic sources, comparative religious insight, and recent events in Brazil, it seeks to clarify how spiritual openness—when magnified by a powerful substance and framed by hierarchical ritual—can become both the vehicle of insight and the instrument of control.

Sidebar: The Microdose

Welcome to The Microdose
Michael Pollan, UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics
October 28, 2021

There has never been a more exciting—or bewildering—time in the world of psychedelics. What just a few years ago was an obscure corner of research has blossomed into a vibrant scientific field yielding promising new treatments and profound insights into the mind and brain. The FDA may soon approve MDMA and psilocybin. Universities including Johns Hopkins, NYU, Berkeley, Yale, and Harvard have launched research centers devoted to psychedelics, supported by private philanthropy. And the NIH has now made its first substantial grant for a psychedelic drug trial in more than fifty years.

To help readers keep pace with these rapid developments, The Microdose was launched by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics as a twice-weekly newsletter and podcast. Edited by journalist Malia Wollan and written by Jane C. Hu, the series was introduced by Michael Pollan as part of Berkeley’s broader public-education program in psychedelic studies.

“Our goal,” Pollan wrote, “is to keep you up-to-date and informed, whether you’re in the field or simply curious. The newsletter and podcast aim to do what journalism does best: inform, enlighten, and hold this burgeoning new field accountable.”

The Magnification of Meaning: UDV Myth, Sacrament, Vulnerability, and Politics (2018–2023)

Framing the Problem

Under ayahuasca, language is not merely heard; it is felt. The sacrament magnifies whatever is presented—doctrine, symbol, name, command—until it becomes existentially charged. A simple signifier such as “God,” uttered with authority in a ritual setting, can saturate the field of consciousness and be experienced as revelation. The same mechanism that allows moral and spiritual insight to penetrate deeply also exposes participants to undue influence. In the União do Vegetal (UDV), this magnification occurs within a highly structured mythic and institutional frame. Understanding that frame, and the way it amplifies suggestion, is crucial to any evaluation of recent political controversies.

Mythic Architecture and Sources of Lore

Contrary to a common assumption that UDV mythology draws mainly on indigenous groups of Brazil’s western frontiers, identifiable elements point to mestizo Peruvian and Bolivian influences intertwined with Christian and Andean motifs. Three principal figures are repeatedly invoked:

• King Solomon (“Salomão… o Rei… o Imperador”)—an Old Testament and Christian wisdom figure who carries the “key” to esoteric use of the drink.

• Tihuaco (“É o Marechal… a força… o mariri”)—the Marshal, embodiment of strength and of mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) itself.

• Mestre Caiano (“O In-Caiano… a reencarnação do Rei Inca… o primeiro oasqueiro”)—the reincarnated Inca King and archetypal first drinker of hoasca.

Solomon’s role as the donor of the “mystical key” is pivotal. He bestows it twice: first to the mythic Mestre Caiano and later to Mestre Gabriel, who is understood not as the original inventor but as the re-creator of an esoteric order that pre-existed “in mythical time” under Caiano. Thus, every session is a re-enactment of transmission: Solomon → Caiano → Gabriel → the present Mestre. This lineage narrative fuses mestizo Christian, Quechua-Incaic, and Amazonian vegetal elements into a single soteriological arc.

Ritual Mechanics: Calls, Authority, and the Field of Meaning

UDV sessions are structured events. Church documents are read; chamadas (calls) are made to invite guiding forces, “guardians of the light,” associated with hoasca into the session. The Mestre who conducts the work is the link to the “Superior Mestre.” Participants drink in ranked order; children, families, elders, and newcomers sit within a formal hierarchy signaled even by attire and insignia.

Two dynamics follow:

1. Amplification: Under ayahuasca the communicative field changes. Words, melodies, gestures, and timing acquire ontological density. An utterance becomes an event in consciousness. Language behaves sacramentally.

2. Authority x Openness: Hierarchy meets vulnerability. The Mestre’s authority rides on a biochemical “carrier wave.” Statements are no longer evaluated only by argument or evidence; they are experienced as disclosure. In favorable cases, this enables ethical clarity and repentance. In less favorable cases, it collapses the distinction between revelation and suggestion.

The Magnification Principle

In ordinary waking life, the default-mode mind filters meaning. Under ayahuasca, filtering relaxes; associative links multiply; attention becomes absorptive. The result is a magnification of meaning. The word “God,” the idea “Purity,” even a secular signifier like “Homeland,” can expand until it fills the psychic horizon. Timing, tone, and ritual emphasis can determine whether the experience is received as inspiration, injunction, or law.

This is why the same ritual act can heal, instruct, or—if mishandled—condition. The sacrament does not discriminate among contents. It magnifies them. The ethical burden therefore lies with the speaker and the structure that empowers the speech.

Conditional Illumination: The Discipline and Its Limit

Drinking a sacrament can be useful and instructive. The insight, however, is conditional. It does not remain without renewal. One returns to the tea “once again,” because the illumination is not the practitioner’s natural, continuous state of consciousness. This dependency is not in itself a fault; it is a discipline. But it does mark a limit: insight is cyclical, not stable; it requires continued ingestion and communal reinforcement. The UDV path, understandably, becomes a way of life maintained by ongoing relation to the source.

The scope of teaching is also limited when measured against the breadth of global religious and philosophical traditions. UDV’s dualistic cosmology—superior vs. inferior forces, an “upward,” ascensional vector toward the Divine—can foster an exclusive self-understanding. The claim of completeness (“the one and only path to God”) closes the comparative aperture that would otherwise contextualize experiences and doctrines. Elitism is not inevitable, but the structure encourages it.

Self-Deception and the Dream of Transcendence

Chögyam Trungpa’s warning applies with precision here:

“As long as you regard yourself or any part of your experience as the ‘dream come true,’ then you are involved in self-deception… And the opposite of self-deception is just working with the facts of life.”

Visionary states are not the same as realization. To see is not necessarily to be. The Mazatec testimonies collected by Eunice Pike—where some worshipers heard the mushroom as the voice or blood of Jesus—show how easily language and symbol fuse under sacrament into existential certainty. Maria Sabina’s descriptions of timeless realms further illustrate the universality of this sacramental absolutizing tendency. None of this disqualifies sacramental practice; it simply marks the line between opening and fixating—between receiving a grace and mistaking the medium for the goal.

Vulnerability and Suggestibility: Why Ethics Matter

The sacrament creates an “open state.” Neurocognitively, associative connectivity rises; ordinary ego-referencing can loosen; the psyche becomes permeable. Spiritually, we call this receptivity. Psychologically, it is also suggestibility. In a hierarchical ritual with a single designated intermediary, this openness can be guided wisely—or it can be steered toward non-soteriological ends. Because language under the sacrament functions like force, content delivered in the session must be held to a higher ethical standard than ordinary preaching or teaching.

From Devotion to Ideology: 2018–2023

The above dynamics help frame the recent tensions reported within UDV from the 2018 election cycle through the events of January 8, 2023:

• In 2018, political speech by senior figures appears (from multiple testimonies) to have entered the ritual and communal sphere.

• As polarization sharpened (2022–2023), appeals to military intervention surfaced in some internal communications and images, and at least one master publicly celebrated the January 8 actions.

• Dissenters circulated a “Peace with Voice” letter calling for neutrality and a return to doctrinal restraint; some report disciplinary consequences.

• Civil litigation sought to probe whether ayahuasca was used for “indoctrination” or “brainwashing.” Though dismissed, the filing itself underscores how the magnification principle turns a political message—whatever its content—into an existential force when introduced under sacrament by an authority.

Key point: It is not necessary to prove “institutional conspiracy” for harm to arise. A small number of authoritative voices, amplified by ritual, can create felt mandates that override ordinary hesitation. Within the heightened, absorptive state, ideology can masquerade as revelation. If the path is also taught as exclusive and total, then the existential pressure increases: dissent risks not only social sanction but spiritual exile.

Comparative Notes and Internal Tensions

UDV is far from alone in confronting the double edge of sacrament and authority. From Mazatec mushroom rites to Christian charismatic movements and other ayahuasca churches, the recurrent problem is stable: openness is the door to grace and the gate for influence. Traditions have responded with different guardrails—lineage checks, shared leadership, explicit bans on political speech in ritual, doctrinal modesty, clear grievance paths, and aftercare that separates integration from exhortation.

UDV’s own rules formally forbid electoral propaganda in sessions. That policy is conceptually sound. The challenge is enforcement under conditions where authority is both spiritual and administrative, and where members may interpret a senior figure’s “personal opinion” as an implicit revelation, especially when delivered in or around the ritual space.

Practical Ethics and Safeguards (for any sacramental community)

If one accepts the magnification principle, then minimally prudent safeguards include:

1. Bright-line prohibitions on political advocacy inside sessions, read aloud at the start and enforced evenly.

2. Role separation: the ritual officiant abstains from topical ideology for a defined period before and after a session.

3. Shared leadership: rotate officiants to dilute personal cults of authority.

4. Informed consent: teach that the altered state increases suggestibility and that all messages should be personally tested in sober reflection.

5. Integration boundaries: post-session discussions focus on personal meaning, not “official” interpretation.

6. Appeal channels: credible, safe procedures for reporting coercive behavior.

7. Comparative humility: encourage study of other traditions; remind participants that no sacrament monopolizes truth.

None of these remove the sacrament’s power. They shepherd it.

Limits, Honesty, and the Work Beyond the Tea

The tea does not establish realization; it initiates experience. Without repetition, the light wanes. With repetition, one risks dependency on state-specific conditions. The way through this tension is honesty about conditionality and a commitment to practices that stabilize insight in ordinary life—ethics, service, study, and meditation. As Trungpa observes, the alternative is to mistake the “dream” for life and call the repetition salvation.

Concluding Synthesis

• Myth furnishes the symbols.

• Ritual furnishes the frame.

• Ayahuasca furnishes the amplification.

• Authority furnishes direction.

• Openness furnishes possibility—and risk.

Where authority is disciplined, the sacrament can carry wisdom into the marrow. Where authority blurs into ideology, the same sacrament can carry certainty without understanding. In the 2018–2023 Brazilian context, testimonies suggest that political content, introduced by respected figures in or around the ritual, was experienced by some not as persuasion but as revelation. That is the whole argument in a sentence:

The sacrament magnifies meaning; therefore, the ethics of what is said—when, where, and by whom—determine whether revelation becomes liberation or indoctrination.

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