Pete meets a Candomble priestess at her house on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and takes a mind-expanding hallucinogen with a New Age community in the forests of Brazil. In Latin America, Pete smokes cigars with 'Mother Death' in Mexico, ventures deep into a Bolivian mine to meet a terrifying god of the underworld, and takes a natural hallucinogen with a New Age community in the forests of Brazil. He also discovers that the centuries-old dominance of the Catholic Church is being challenged by a huge explosion of new religions and the re-emergence of dormant practices from the past. But his search to understand the diverse spiritualities of the New World proves to be a testing experience. Pete encounters the radical methods of an influential Pentecostal preacher in one of Rio de Janeiro's most notorious prisons, and has to hold his nerve when the minister tries to exorcise Pete's addiction to nicotine. In Brasilia, Pete witnesses the space-age pageantry of a UFO-worshipping community, where a medium reading gets out of control and Pete has to deal with a dark and frightening presence from the spirit world.