The Human Experience · Episode

Episode 79 – Jeffrey Bronfman – União do Vegetal (Union of the Vine: Ayahuasca)

A conversation with Jeffrey Bronfman

Jeffrey Bronfman served as president of the União do Vegetal Church (UDV) in the United States from 1993 to 2005. In 2000 Jeffrey spearheaded a historic legal action against The Government of United States for…

Published
November 20, 2016
Runtime
50:29
Portrait or artwork for Episode 79 – Jeffrey Bronfman – União do Vegetal (Union of the Vine: Ayahuasca)
Listen or watch

Stay with the full conversation.

Play50:29

Episode field notes

Show notes

Jeffrey Bronfman served as president of the União do Vegetal Church (UDV) in the United States from 1993 to 2005.  In 2000 Jeffrey spearheaded a historic legal action against The Government of  United States for the legal right to utilize the church’s sacramental tea known as  hoasca. A tea that is more commonly known as “ayahuasca”.
 
In the early nineties, Jeffrey Bronfman, an ecological activist, began making trips to the rain forest. There he became fascinated by U.D.V., as the religion is known, and first drank hoasca tea.  Bronfman learned Portuguese and trained to become a mestre, which is the title given to the clergy in the faith.
 
Jeffrey Bronfman is also a member of ICEERS Ayahuasca Defense Fund’s steering committee, a body made up of expert lawyers, strategists and others, that helps people wanting to use ‘teacher plants’ as part of their personal or religious growth, but who find themselves facing legal challenges.
 
The UDV:
The União do Vegetal (UDV) is a Christian Spiritist religion that originated in Brazil and is now practiced by over 18,000 people in nine countries. The UDV has received numerous civic awards for its community and environmental service and is recognized as a church under the laws of the United States.
União do Vegetal literally means “the union of the plants.” Adherents drink a tea within their religious services that is made from two plants indigenous to the Brazilian Amazon. The tea, known as Hoasca, is revered as sacred by UDV members. It is a sacrament serving to heighten spiritual understanding and perception and bring the practitioners closer to God.
 
The Supreme Court Case
In 1999, a shipment of the religion’s sacrament, Hoasca tea, was confiscated by federal agents in a raid on Bronfman’s office. No arrests were made. Subsequently, the UDV, Bronfman and several other church member plaintiffs, sued the federal government on the basis that this violated their right to religious freedom, citing a variety of laws and treaties that should have protected their right to use it, including the First Amendment and The Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The court-case and legal wrangling lasted until 2010, with Bronfman serving as the lead plaintiff in the action. The UDV ultimately won, and became the first, entity granted the authority to import a Schedule I controlled substance (the Hoasca tea) for their strictly religious, sacramental use.

FIND TRANSCRIPT HERE

Find the UDV here: udv.org.br (choose english option)

Follow Xavier Katana on X

Connect with us on Facebook

We rely on listener support to keep this show AD FREE – If you value even one of our shows, help us sustain and scale the show up; Become a member  for 5$/mo (a cup of coffee) or Donate.

Read the conversation

Transcript

A full transcript has been published for this conversation.

Click here for transcript

Ideas worth returning to

Quotes

Five substantial excerpts from the published transcript, lightly edited for clarity without changing their meaning.

  1. “When the government argued that controlled-substance laws prohibited our religious practice, we knew the Native American Church already had an exemption for sacramental peyote. That precedent mattered because religious identity is not simply racial; people may sincerely adopt a spiritual practice and way of life outside the ancestry with which it originated.”
    From the conversation
  2. “As people become more aware of their nature and connection to what they consider sacred or divine, their way of living begins to change—their relationship with the body, speech, consciousness, and practice. Within our tradition, the tea is understood as amplifying awareness so a person can see those relationships more clearly.”
    From the conversation
  3. “The legal case was larger than a personal struggle. It concerned whether people in the United States, and potentially elsewhere, could have a way of communing with the divine, reconnecting with nature, and developing spiritual awareness protected under law. More than a decade of litigation was devoted to affirming that possibility.”
    From the conversation
  4. “The central principle revealed through spiritual experience is that we are here to love, serve, and care for one another. As awakening deepens, that principle becomes less an inspiring idea and more the governing obligation of a life. Spiritual development should therefore be visible in how a person treats others.”
    From the conversation
  5. “A universal truth appears in many religions and spiritual traditions. People who genuinely encounter it often recognize one another across differences of faith and culture because their lives begin to organize around similar principles. Understanding the meaning of life matters only if that understanding changes what we desire and what we do for humanity.”
    From the conversation

About the guest

Jeffrey Bronfman

A dedicated biography is being prepared from the original episode archive.

Continue exploring

View all episodes

The HXP dispatch

Carry the question with you.

New conversations, essential ideas, and recommendations worth your attention—sent thoughtfully.

Private by design. No spam. Leave whenever you like.

Independent conversations

Help make the next one possible.

Membership sustains ambitious, unhurried interviews and keeps the complete archive open to curious listeners everywhere.

Become a member