How the tradition understands it
Within Santo Daime practice, mediumship and channeling describe ways in which non-physical intelligence or presence is understood to take expression through a person, whether in movement, song, or other forms. Following the Umbanda tradition it draws on, the Santo Daime treats this as the incorporation of particular beings or entities, with the purpose of teaching and healing understood to take place through that incorporation during a work.
This is presented here as the tradition's own religious framework for describing these experiences, not as a claim about what is objectively occurring; different participants and observers understand the same phenomena in different ways.
The beings recognized in the tradition
The tradition names a range of spiritual beings and entities that mediumship may involve: divine figures central to the doctrine's Christian core, such as the Divine Father, the Divine Mother, and Jesus Christ; the Orixás, deities of nature drawn from Umbanda, Yoruba, and Candomblé belief understood as intermediaries between the Creator and creation; archangels and angels; caboclos and caboclas, spirit guides drawn from the Umbanda tradition associated with teaching and healing; pretos velhos, spirits honored in Umbanda practice; and the souls of the departed. These categories come from the traditions the Santo Daime has drawn upon, particularly Umbanda, rather than from Santo Daime alone.
Hymns as received teaching
A related idea within the doctrine concerns the hymns themselves. Santo Daime tradition holds that the hymns sung in a work were received, rather than composed in the ordinary sense, by Mestre Irineu and by elders and experienced members after him, and that they carry spiritual teaching considered sacred within the faith. Mestre Irineu's own hymns and the doctrine's ritual framework are understood, within the tradition, to have come to him through an apparition he described as the Queen of the Forest.