Marc Blainey is an anthropologist with doctoral experience conducting ethnographic research within an esoteric religious tradition, the Santo Daime, which is a Western-European spiritual community, influenced by a mix of Christian mysticism, Western esotericism, indigenous shamanism, and Afro-Brazilian spiritualism. His research is motivated by a desire to escape the binary deadlock between traditional transcendental religions and atheist-secular-physicalist scientific traditions, which permeate Western culture, as well as a desire to understand how Western-European spirituality is evolving in an increasingly interconnected world. What he finds is that there is a new emerging culture in the West, of which the Santo Daime can be seen as a representative, where Christianity is being mixed with other faith-traditions and spiritualities, and a desire for a direct connection to "cosmic consciousness" is demanded beyond scriptures, dogmas, and human authorities. In this conversation we will explore Marc Blainey's doctoral research in full, which was recently released in a SUNY series of Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology, and titled "Christ Returns from the Jungle: Ayahuasca Religion as Mystical Healing".