A tradition that does not recruit
Among the principles the Santo Daime holds about its own place in the world is that it does not proselytise or actively seek converts. The tradition describes itself instead as open to anyone who comes to it on their own initiative in search of spiritual meaning, without regard to nationality, background, or belief, while leaving the choice to approach, and the choice to leave, entirely in the hands of the individual.
That principle has a practical consequence worth stating plainly: there is no central body that speaks for the whole tradition, and no single answer to most questions about it. What follows describes tendencies, not rules.
What it is, in one paragraph
Santo Daime is a Brazilian religion that took its form in the western Amazon in the first half of the twentieth century, around Raimundo Irineu Serra, known as Mestre Irineu. Its services are called works. They are long, they are sung throughout from a fixed sequence of hymns received by named people, and in the danced works they are held standing in ranked lines. Its frame is Christian — the prayers are Catholic prayers and the calendar is a Catholic calendar — and it also carries Amazonian, Afro-Brazilian and Kardecist Spiritist elements, in proportions that differ sharply between lineages.
The differences are not details
The largest single thing to understand before approaching is that Santo Daime is not one organisation. The line that remained at Alto Santo in Rio Branco, around Mestre Irineu's own church, and the line that followed Padrinho Sebastião and became CEFLURIS — now ICEFLU — differ in ritual, in repertoire, and in what they include: works of Umbanda are central in one and largely absent in the other. A description of the tradition that does not name which line it is describing is usually describing one of them and calling it both.
A visitor's experience therefore depends less on the tradition than on the particular church. Anything that matters practically — what a work involves, what is expected of those present, whether visitors are received at all — is a question for that church, and the answers are properly theirs to give rather than a website's.
Understanding before approach
Consistent with the principle above, the tradition places weight on a person coming to it out of their own genuine interest rather than at another's urging, and on taking time to understand something of what the Santo Daime is before approaching a church directly.
This site is built for that reading. The history section covers where the doctrine came from and how it divided; the doctrine section covers what it teaches about itself; the works section describes the forms of service without instructing anyone in them; and the hymns are the tradition's own primary texts, which is where most of what it believes is actually stated.