A new wave of legal psychedelic churches

Plus, the first FDA-approved psychedelic therapy dog

I was in the United States last week, attending Emory’s psychedelic science and spiritual care conference, and co-organizing (with Roman Palitsky) a one-day PSYSHARE event on psychedelic adverse event monitoring. It felt like the Earth was shaking around us. I was there for ‘Liberation Day’, when Trump announced his tariffs on the rest of the world and the stock markets started to tank. There have also been devastating cuts to the administration, particularly Health and Human Services, with 10,000 jobs slashed there, including many in public health. As Michael Lewis has put it, it seems like the government has declared war on statistics, which is pretty much the foundation of good government. Federal funding for alot of research has been abruptly turned off. However, there’s not much I can tell you about this that hasn’t been thoroughly reported elsewhere. So let me try and tell you some more encouraging news from the little psychedelic ecosystem.

The headline is: another psychedelic church is set to get legal status, and lawyers say they expect several other psychedelic churches to follow. So the booming psychedelic church scene in the US could be about to shift from the underground into the legal overground. And that’s a good thing from a safety perspective, I think.

The church that is apparently about to settle with the DEA is called the Celestial Heart Church – it’s a Santo Daime-inspired ayahuasca church founded in California by someone called Kai Karel. It’s been in a legal tussle with the DEA over its right to practice using ayahuasca, and according to one of its lawyers, Sean McAllister, the DEA is settling. This victory follows a similar settlement between the DEA and another ayahuasca church, the Church of the Eagle and Condor, a year ago. That was achieved by the same legal team – Sean McAllister, Jack Silver and others.

Previous to these legal victories, only two other psychedelic churches had successfully sued the DEA – the UDV, back in 2006; and another Santo Daime church, Church of the Holy Light of the Queen, in 2009. This latest result shows the DEA’s willingness to settle rather than go to court, if they think they will lose. On the other hand, if they think they can win, they have been prepared to go to court against psychedelic churches, as they did against ayahuasca church Soul Quest (which has now gone bankrupt after it was sued by the family of a participant who died during an ayahuasca ceremony).

Whether the DEA chooses to settle or go to court depends on how good the psychedelic church’s case is – how safe is their supply of controlled substances (is it safely kept under lock-and-key?), how good are their safety protocols; how good are their legal team, do they seem like a genuine church or just a business, and so on. To sue the DEA, I believe you also need grounds to sue – like the DEA arresting one of your members or seizing your psychedelic sacrament.

There’s now a template that other churches can follow to pressure the DEA to settle and grant them an exemption to practice. Sean McAllister says:

Others already are following a suit. A federal court in Utah ruled in favor of a mushroom church in February. The Celestial Heart case is settling. A case is ongoing in New York or Massachusetts. A new case is coming in Florida. More of these groups are coming forward and will get recognized.

But it will cost churches to sue the DEA (I have been trying to find out how much, roughly). I know of one New York church in the middle of legal proceedings against the DEA, which is looking to raise money from its members.

Psychedelic churches have also tried to petition the DEA to get legal exemption through the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), from 2016 to 2024, 24 churches petitioned DEA to gain a legal exemption to use psychedelics as sacrament. This is a hard process – a church is expected to suspend activities while the DEA is reviewing its petition, and it can last many years.

Not a single church has been approved in all that time. The DEA has effectively fudged the issue – not approving petitions, but on the whole also leaving churches alone to practice. This is not a good solution, as it doesn’t let the field legalize and professionalize, and actually punishes those churches who try to do things legally and transparently. Even the GAO urged the DEA to clarify the process.

Now, some churches seem intent on forcing the DEA to act through lawsuits. This approach seems to be working. And perhaps it will in turn push the DEA into being more active in the petition process as well.

There are anything up to 500 psychedelic churches in the US, of which roughly 97% operate illegally and more or less un-transparently. From a safety perspective, my theory is that legal churches are better than illegal churches – more transparent, less secretive, more likely to call emergency services if something goes wrong, more likely to develop the strong institutional structures that make harms less likely to occur.

After the paywall, a new FDA trial includes a psychedelic therapy dog; an open letter to Stan Grof from queer researchers; concern over ceremonies in Colorado; and PSFC’s new roadmap and the conundrum of how to make the underground safer.