Santo Daime's MeToo moment - A law suit in Brazil, decades of earlier incidents, and wider questions about safety in psychedelic churches

In this article, Jules Evans of Ecstatic Integration writes: "In Rio de Janeiro, a woman is bringing a law suit against a prominent Santo Daime leader called Paolo Roberto for sexual assault under the guise of therapy. He is a padrinho of a Santo Daime church in Rio, and a senior figure in one particular lineage of Santo Daime, with many supporters and followers in North America and Europe. This is not the first instance of sexual misconduct by Paolo Roberto, or in the wider Santo Daime movement. In 2019, 15 women accused a priest of sexual misconduct in his Santo Daime offshoot church in Sao Paolo, called Reino de Sol.  Santo Daime church leaders in North America and Brazil have condemned Paolo Roberto for this latest infraction, and one of them - Jonathan Goldman, founder of a legal Santo Daime church in Oregon - says this is an ‘earthquake’ in the movement. He wrote to his congregants in an open letter:  Basically, the MeToo movement is belatedly catching up with the Daime world. Paulo Roberto is not the only male leader or member of a Daime church being outed as a predator. We are collectively in a moment of reckoning that has been a long time in coming. Goldman tells me expects more cases of misconduct in Daime churches to emerge. It’s not clear how many previous incidents of sexual assault by Paolo Roberto occurred and were accepted by Daime authorities in Brazil and North America - that’s an important question for this ‘moment of reckoning’." 

For more psychedelic news and research, visit the psychedelic health professional network homepage.