The forthcoming volume of FIR (2.3) represents an important advance in a research movement which — while difficult to pinpoint when it actually began — dates back to at least the 1980s, on religions derived from the ritual use of the psychoactive substance known as ayahuasca. The religions themselves first emerged in Brazil in the early twentieth century but only began to attract the serious attention of researchers generations later. Even then, the early research — and not simply popularized literature — was to be found primarily in dissertations and theses, or articles scattered in local academic journals, and a few notable books. These early and important studies, never translated into English, were the first to seek an understanding of the phenomena as religious movements susceptible to the tools of investigation of the social sciences and religious studies. In short, what are now known as ‘ayahuasca religions’ for many generations constituted an unknown and mystified terrain which begged for serious study, given the repressive policies of state and national governments that threatened to make ayahuasca a form of drug abuse.