União do Vegetal
Brazilian religious society / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Beneficent Spiritist Center União do Vegetal (Portuguese: Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal [ˈsẽtɾwisˈpiɾitɐ benefiˈsẽtʃ uniˈɐ̃w du veʒeˈtaw]; or UDV) is a religious society founded on July 22, 1961 in Porto Velho (Rondônia) by José Gabriel da Costa, known as Mestre Gabriel.[1] The UDV seeks to promote peace and to "work for the evolution of the human being in the sense of his or her spiritual development", as is written in its bylaws. The institution today has over 18,000 members, distributed among more than 200 local chapters located in all the states of Brazil, as well as in Peru, Australia, several countries in Europe, and the United States. The translation of União do Vegetal is Union of the Plants referring to the sacrament of the UDV, Hoasca tea, also known as Ayahuasca. This beverage is made by boiling two plants, mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) and chacrona (Psychotria viridis), both of which are native to the Amazon rainforest.
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Formation | 1961 |
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Type | New religious movement |
Headquarters | Brasília, Brazil |
Official language | Portuguese |
Mestre | José Gabriel da Costa |
Website | udv.org.br |
In its sessions, UDV members drink Hoasca tea for the effect of mental concentration. In Brazil, the use of Hoasca in religious rituals was regulated by the Brazilian federal government's National Drug Policy Council on January 25, 2010. The policy established legal norms for the religious institutions that responsibly use this tea. The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously affirmed the UDV's right to use Hoasca tea in its religious sessions in the United States, in a decision published on February 21, 2006.