Opening the Portals of Heaven

"The book provides a concise summary of the use of music in the Santo Daime and UDV religions. Embracing the phenomenology of musical practice in broad terms, summarizing its history and treating long-awaited questions. The authors touch upon crucial points regarding the power and efficacy of musical performance in religious frameworks, thus pointing towards fruitful future research in that area."

Bernd Brabec de Mori,Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna)

"In this great, small work, we find privileged passkeys to the complex musical universe of the so-called "ayahuasca religions" founded on dense research into how the 'musicians' represented here understand their musical practices. Besides treating us to another indispensable chapter of the great Brazilian musical tradition, they help us understand the relation between music and religion in broader terms, and the way that we become spiritual beings through poetry, rhythm, and melody, and communicate with realities other than the immediate."

Edmundo Pereira,Professor of Anthropology at UFRN and researcher at the National Museum/UFRJ