Pathological possession experiences, defined as involuntary and unwanted alterations of consciousness attributed to spiritual forces, were subsumed under dissociative identity disorder (DID) in DSM-5, but this link is contested by researchers across countries. It remains unclear how pathological possession differs from possession delusions in psychosis or from cultural syndromes such as ataque de nervios, which some authors consider dissociative. Nonpathological dissociative experiences, including spiritual experiences during religious or ritualistic practices, are also poorly understood.
The Barquinha religion, founded in 1945 in Acre by Daniel Pereira de Mattos, is a rich symbolic movement that blends Black, Indigenous, and European religious influences—including Umbanda, Candomblé, Tambor de Mina, Amazonian shamanism, ayahuasca use, popular Catholicism, Kardecism, and esotericism. It is the least explored ayahuasca tradition in Brazilian religious studies. This essay outlines the history of Barquinha as an Afro-Amazonian religious expression and reflects on concepts of syncretism, eclecticism, and religious hybridity, arguing that hybridity best describes the agglutination and transformation of this symbolic field.