The first time Stephanie Brinkerhoff tried psilocybin, she was a Mormon mother of three and desperate for help.
Still, Brinkerhoff, who had never so much as tasted coffee at the time, was nervous.
In 2021, she swallowed her first dose of magicmushroomswith an alleged medicine woman she found onRetreat.Guru.
Photo illustration by Matthew Cooley. Images used in illustration by Getty Images, 2; Adobe Stock, 2
Instead, Brinkerhoff says, she met God.
The divine felt more embodied and earth-based, she says synonymous, in fact, with life.
Once that clicked for me, everything fell apart.
Its kind of like were God experiencing itself, she says now.
It was like a conduit was created for me to know God again.
The alternative term that some prefer entheogens puts an even finer point on it: God within.
Thats been by design.
Similarevangelicalaccusations have dogged researchers at Johns Hopkins University, particularly the late Roland Griffiths.
Doblinresignedfrom the Lykos board Aug. 15.
Naturally, church will not solve all the problems with psychedelics.
Im having all sorts of other understandings and realizations.
WHAT THESE REALIZATIONS are is far from a settled matter.
For the initiated, they can feel like incontrovertible proof that God is real.
For the skeptical, they are proof that drugs get you high.
Nevertheless, slippery as they are, mystical experiences are on the rise.
By contrast, only 22 percent said they had in 1962.
In the last three years, hallucinogenic use, primarily of mushrooms, has nearlydoubledamong young adults.
Nevertheless, Breau sees psychedelic spirituality as a future if notthefuture of religion in this country.
He points to the nones, or people who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular.
According to Sacred Plant Alliance president Allison Hoots, there are likely between 250 and 750 such churches nationally.
I have been to this future before tripped in it myself, even.
Not in Black Rock City, but Salt Lake.
This is surprising only at first glance.
For many Mormons these demands are worth it, and contribute to an idyllic sense of community.
Some of that grapevine snakes through the Divine Assembly.
I want it to be the most holy spot on Earth, he says, where anyone can worship.
But how they worship is up to them.
Part of it, Urquhart freely admits, is white privilege.
More recently, his confidence has been strengthened by Utahs new Religious Freedom and Restoration Act.
For many Americans, RFRA is the thing that allows cake bakers to refuse service to gay couples.
They dont know what they just did!
These are lottery odds.
NO ONE KNOWS how Utahs courts would adjudicate a psychedelic church.
In the meantime, some Utahns are plowing ahead, mixing spirit and profit freely.
Over Zoom, he recalls how he hired his lawyer a prominent LDS attorney.
I said, Look.
He just put his pen down, recalls Jensen.
Bridger, maybe youre not getting this, the lawyer told him.
Protecting you is protecting me.
Later, he would stagger out of the theater blinded by tears and a new humility.
Multiple people whom every active Mormon would recognize their voice.
NOT EVERYONE THINKS using psychedelics to produce mystical experiences on demand is a good idea.
Beyond the obvious concerns (Commodification!
), there are spiritual consequences to consider.
Its an expression I picked up at my Zen temple, Strassman says.
You just want the experience above all else.
You dont want to be a better person.
You dont want to help humanity.
You just want to get into heaven.
It will become accepted knowledge, he predicts, that these medical, clinical outcomes flow from spiritual foundations.
Afterwards, she understood herself to be the the tentacles of God, tasting and probing reality.
She also shared another insight I have heard time and again: The divine cannot be found externally.
God is not in that structure she recounted, referring to the granite temple in Salt Lake City.
He is inside of us.
Does it all boil down to set and setting?
I dont know how there could not be, Ferguson answers.
Call it samadhi or call it rapture.
