Psychedelic churches are growing in the US despite legal questions

FORT PIERCE, Fla. —

In South Florida, there’s a place people go, an experience they have, that they adamantly say not only changes their life but even saves them.

“I've seen people come that wanted to die, people that were hopeless,” Theresa Noach said. “Years and months later, they're thriving."

Firefighter desperate for help: 'I was losing my mind'

“I had become so physically and mentally incapacitated that it was almost hard to leave my own home," Brice Broyles recalled. “I was losing my mind."

Broyles spent 16 years as a firefighter-paramedic in Texas. Toward the end of his career in emergency response, what he’d seen — what he lived — was starting to consume him.

“Seeing the death and destruction, the chaos,” he recalled. “It got to a point where I couldn't even get out of my head.”

After visits to doctors and yet no answers, desperation eventually led him to visit the Sacred Warrior Fellowship in Fort Pierce.

Suzi Buckley is one of its founders.

“I think people just, they want that healing,” she said. “They want that connection.”

What started as a nonprofit to help war veterans by sending them to psychedelic retreats soon evolved into a church that now hosts them each month.

Now, it isn't just veterans that are involved, but civilians, too.

“This destroys the ego, and you get right down into yourself, and you're able to look at some trauma you might have had in a different way,” Buckley said of the experience.

Several 'sacraments' taken at retreat

Noach is called the "high priestess of sacrament" and leads the ceremony.

After "clearing" the space with incense, participants take several of what the church refers to as sacraments.

That includes a tobacco, known as Hapé, that is given through the nose. It also includes a liquid made from plants that is dropped in the eye and a drink made from cacao that they believe opens the heart.

Eventually, participants take psilocybin, which is in the mushrooms they eat.

This psychedelic experience happens in a tent-like building, where mattresses are spread across the floor for each of the participants. The strongest part of the experience lasts about six hours.

Noach asked that our photographer not film after a certain point to protect the experience of those taking part.

“Matter begins to shift. The body begins to change. The mind begins to change,” she said. “It begins to line up with what's happening energetically.”

Despite scrutiny, psychedelic churches growing in popularity

The Sacred Warrior Fellowship is part of a rise in psychedelic churches in the U.S. in recent years.

New research reveals there are now hundreds of them around the country.

But with the rise in popularity has come a rise in scrutiny, too.

“We have some friends that think that this is, like, the devil's work,” Buckley said. "'How can you call yourself a Christian if you're doing this?'"

“When I became public about the journey that I was embarking upon, on the direction I was going with my spiritual practice, I absolutely was called all the things,” Noach recalled. “If it's wrong for someone, then until it's not, that's OK."

The main controversy is the legality of it all.

Psilocybin is considered a controlled substance and is illegal in Florida and on a federal level.

Psychedelic churches have argued that the First Amendment — which includes the freedom to exercise religion — protects their activity. A few groups have even won legal challenges.

Buckley insists they are not just forming a church to expose a legal loophole.

“A lot of people do it because they want to do mushrooms,” she said. “We truly believe that these things from the earth were put here by God to heal us, and we use them as a sacrament.”

The most common side effect during the experience is nausea. During the retreat, one man became sick after being given the tobacco up his nose and was vomiting.

The more serious concern, Buckley said, is that the mushrooms, if combined with certain medications, could increase the risk of seizures.

During the psychedelic experience itself, there are people on hand to watch over those taking part. Buckley insisted that it is safe.

"We have our team. And we know what we're doing. And we're trained,” she said.

Restrictions could loosen on psychedelics for medical use

To some degree, opinions on psychedelics are shifting.

Just last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to speed up reviews of certain psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin.

It’s a step toward easing restrictions on the drugs for medical purposes, including for severe depression.

“Today’s order will ensure that people suffering from debilitating symptoms might finally have a chance to reclaim their lives and lead a happier life,” the president said while signing the paperwork.

“These things have been called medicine in the forest forever,” Noach said. “They have never not been medicine.”

Broyles went through the ceremony a few months ago and said it has helped with both his anxiety and depression.

This retreat, his wife Allison, who is a trauma counselor, is taking part in the ceremony.

“It was almost as if I was walking on clouds in heaven,” Broyles recalled.

While it may be hard for people to describe what exactly they experience, Broyles said what is clear to him is how it changed him.

“I was so stuck in my head. I was living in my own cage. And it freed me from that,” he said.

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