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uins of Machu Picchu, in Peru. The journey some times also awoke in them an interest in
Amazonian frontier, its people and their customs .
A small number of these ended up going to Acre hearing about Daime and eventually
drinking the brew. For them , the Colonia 5.000 seemed to be the answer to their longings.
There they found a fully established agrarian community led by the venerable and hospitable
Padrinho Sebastião who beckoned to them with his eclectic doctrine of Indian origin and offered
to guide them along a well marked road to initiation and spiritual learning. Through the use of
ayahuasca, they gained immediate access to experience of ecstasy and enlightenment that
followers of other spiritualist traditions take a lifetime to attain.
After a time Padrinho Sebastião had built himself a large following of people coming
from all over Brazil and even from abroad. Frequently, after a more or less long stay in the
region, the visitors would go back home, taking with them their new ideals and spreading,
among their colleagues, friends and relatives, news of their newly adopted faith.
Gradually a few small daimista centers were set up in Southeastern Brazilian
metropolitan areas and in a few South American countries. Although they tried to remain true
to the principles and practices they had learned in the Amazon, the new social, cultural and
ecological contexts ended up producing a few inevitable changes. The very distance between
Acre and these urban centers, was already a selecting factor based on economic and life style
considerations since not everyone could afford the expense or dispose of the time needed for
the initial journey. Therefore, on arriving at these urban centers the doctrine mainly reached
middle class young people and adults who were already interested in spiritualism and in the
use of hallucinogens.
In November, 1982, the first Daime church, outside the Amazon Region was formally
set up. It was named "Centro Eclético de Fluente Luz Universal Sebastião Motta de Melo (The
Eclectic Center of the Universal Flowing Light Sebastião Motta de Melo) - CEFLUSME, better
known as Céu do Mar (Sea Heaven) and was established in the town of Rio de Janeiro, under
the direction of the psychologist Paulo Roberto Silva e Souza. It is located in the large urban
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