ABSTRACT
The author focuses on the anthropological observation of Unio do Vegetal (UDV), which he started 15 years ago and continues up to the present, as well as on field research that he carried out in 1998 in the UDV unit called Nucleus Alto das Cordilheiras, in Campinas. It was the basis of author's Master's thesis in social anthropology the city of Campinas is situated in the State of Sao Paulo, southeast of Brazil, in one of the country's most economically developed and industrialized regions. The author seeks to reach an interpretation of the symbolic experience of the urban Brazilian participants of the UDV. Hoasca is the name given by the participants of UDV to ayahuasca, simply named 'the Vegetal', a tea with psychoactive properties made from the concoction of the leaves of Psychotria viridis, which they call chacrona, with the vine Banisteriopsis caapi, known as mariri.
