Sacred Sanctuary & Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church: The Intersection of Transpersonal Psychology & Law

Founded in 2015 by Chris and Verena Young, Soul Quest Church of Mother Earth Inc. was an American ayahuasca church located in Orlando, Florida.  In 2016 they were contacted by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and told to apply for religious exemption from the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 which classifies Soul Quest’s central sacrament (ayahuasca), which contains DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine), a hallucinogenic tryptamine, as an illicit Schedule 1 substance.

My six year ethnographic study charted the process by which Soul Quest undertook to demonstrate their practice and belief in terms that would conform to the State’s idea of what “church-ness” looks like and how sincere belief should be demonstrated in terms the law would find legible.

In the fraught process, Soul Quest was compelled to make a series of situational adjustments to their practices and front-facing self-presentation in order to perform “church-ness,” which the DEA ultimately read as insincere and used as the primary grounds for denying them religious exemption (they also took issue with how they obtained and stored ayahuasca). Soul Quest then sued the DEA for being insincere in their own arbitrary process, specifically for denying Soul Quest exemption, arguing that the DEA did not have the right in any kind of statute or law to decide what sincerity is or what a religion is.

In the case of Soul Quest v. the DEA we see that the lines between the secular and religious are increasingly blurred and entangled and are not mutually exclusive. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at Soul Quest where ayahuasca ceremonies took place, online, where Zoom integration sessions were held, through court documents drawn from the court case and through an account of the broader cultural context of the psychedelic decriminalization movement in the United States, I showed how the social meaning and identity of ayahuasca is entangled and contested on multiple registers.  I argued that at the heart of these various contests and meanings is the question over how altered states of consciousness are to be reckoned with as a social fact.

In 2024, Soul Quest filed bankruptcy due to losing a fifteen-million-dollar civil case over the unfortunate death of one of its members.  This bankruptcy then fomented Chris Young to close Soul Quest due to both financial strain and the ongoing pressure from the State (see email from Chris Young to author). Shortly thereafter, there was a schism that took place internally within the church and a few prominent members decided to found their own psychedelic church called Sacred Sanctuary, which is also located in Florida.

As Sacred Sanctuary began to openly advertise their ayahuasca ceremonies online, they, much like Soul Quest, were quickly contacted by the DEA and are now in an ongoing legal battle for religious exemption.  This case, much like the case with Soul Quest, is an inflection point that allows for the close examination of the intersection of religion and law, and in particular, psychedelic churches in the United States and law.  What is fascinating is to watch the process through which Sacred Sanctuary nuances their own practices and engagement with the State, now based upon Soul Quest’s bankruptcy and denial of religious exemption. 

While they seem to look a lot like Soul Quest online and through their social media presence, and in their rituals and offerings, they also have an ongoing fund where members and non-members alike can donate to their new legal cause.  In their “help our church” section of their website they state, “The funds raised here will go towards the criminal defense of the church leaders, civil proceedings seeking a petition to continue current religious practices, and continuing church operations as well as upkeep of the property while working through these matters.” (See sacredsanctuaryretreat.com)

Unlike Soul Quest, who self-identified as a neo-shamanic Christian syncretic religion whose central sacrament is an Amazonian plant medicine called ayahuasca, Sacred Sanctuary claims to be non-denominational, “and honor each individual’s divine consciousness and their connection to Source.” (See Sacredsanctuaryretreat.com) While Soul Quest focused primarily on ayahuasca, Sacred sanctuary is more ambiguous, their rituals incorporate a variety of unnamed “sacramental entheogenic plants, which have ancient roots and has provided the visionary foundation for many of the world’s major religions.” (See sacredsanctuaryretreat.com)  

Both Soul Quest and Sacred Sanctuary have an emphasis on using “Indigenous traditions” (although not specifically linked to any one group or practice) having to do with cooking, serving, and facilitating ayahuasca retreats, share the belief in the divine feminine spirit being "Mother Ayahuasca" and other “plant teachers,” and the notion that we, as human beings, are our own healers with an innate ability to connect to divinity.  Sacred Sanctuary, too, like Soul Quest, has an emphasis on a concern for Mother Earth, eco-spirituality and morality, and the belief that it is “community” that holds the church together.  Much like Soul Quest where I argued that the plant (ayahuasca) is the Church, here too I see a number of similarities.

A number of intriguing and important questions emerge when juxtaposing Soul Quest and Sacred Sanctuary that I seek to closely examine.  How does Sacred Sanctuary present themselves and their “religion” to the State?  Will the State have a focus on “sincerity” in their practice, as they did with Soul Quest?  Will the State look to see how Sacred Sanctuary adjusts themselves to be a Church in the Protestant Christian sense and will Sacred Sanctuary also try to perform “church-ness” to gain religious exemption to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 or the RFRA of 1993? 

I am also interested in Sacred Sanctuary’s integration methodology and philosophy.  Soul Quest based their approach to post-ceremony integration on transpersonal psychology, specifically Jungian notions of the “shadow self” and even outsourced their integration to a secular coaching institution called Being True to You.  It is through a close examination of both Soul Quest and Sacred Sanctuary that we will see the continued emphasis on a transpersonal approach to psychedelic integration and how by taking this approach the State will react in law.