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Workshop: Psychedelic Churches: From Legal Protections, to Ethics and Reciprocity (2025)
October 1, 2025 @ 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
$100
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As the use of psychedelic plant medicines becomes increasingly visible within spiritual communities, this workshop offers a critical and timely exploration of both legal protections and ethical responsibilities for churches and communities that incorporate plant medicines into their ceremonial practices. It will help participants better understand the rights, limitations, and legal pathways available to psychedelic churches. Participants will gain insight into foundational legal concepts, such as “sincere religious belief,” sacramental protections, religious exemptions under RFRA, and key legal precedents including the UDV, Santo Daime, and the more recent cases, such as the Church of the Eagle and the Condor, the Church of the Celestial Heart, and the Church of Gaia.
Going beyond legal frameworks, this workshop emphasizes the ethical and relational dimensions of practicing with sacred plants. Through a critical analysis of the power imbalances and extractive dynamics within the global psychedelic landscape, it invites participants to consider what meaningful reciprocity, cultural respect, and community accountability might look like in practice. Grounded in over three decades of experience with ayahuasca, mushrooms, and fieldwork across Latin America, this session will challenge attendees to seriously engage with Indigenous claims to plant medicines, and to reimagine their roles as allies rather than consumers.
Participants will be encouraged to reflect on the implications of the psychedelic renaissance for Indigenous communities, explore how to build ethical relationships rooted in humility and horizontal exchange, and examine the true potential of intercultural dialogue and decolonization within the psychedelic ecosystem. This workshop is an invitation to integrate legality with integrity and to align spiritual practice with justice, reciprocity, and respect for the traditions that have long held these medicines sacred.
