União do Vegetal

The União do Vegetal (UDV), also known as Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal and in English as the Union of the Plant, is a syncretistic religious society founded in 1961 in the Brazilian city of Porto Velho by José Gabriel da Costa, known as Mestre Gabriel. The term vegetal in its name refers to the psychoactive brew ayahuasca, known as hoasca in Brazil. This is prepared by boiling two plants in water, mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) and chacrona (Psychotria viridis), both of which are native to the Amazon rainforest. Ayahuasca has been fully legal in Brazil since 1992.