Two new ‘churches’ show Santa Cruz may be leading the next wave of psychedelics

In the early weeks of 2020, shortly before the pandemic shutdown, Santa Cruz became only the third city in the U.S. to decriminalize the use of psilocybin, the active agent in “magic mushrooms,” and other naturally occurring psychedelics. Denver was the first city to do so, Oakland the second. 

Three years later, a bill passed by the state Legislature that would have decriminalized psychedelics throughout California reached the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom. He vetoed it. 

Newsom’s veto ensured, at least for the short term, that Santa Cruz would remain, in the realm of psilocybin mushrooms, an island in a vast sea of strict illegality. But there are now six municipalities in California that have passed similar “decrim” measures — joining Oakland and Santa Cruz are Eureka and Arcata in far-north Humboldt County, and San Francisco and Berkeley in the Bay Area. Oregon and Colorado have passed statewide decrim bills, and Newsom vetoed the California bill only, he said, because it lacked a treatment and therapeutic guidelines, and has encouraged state lawmakers to reintroduce a bill that would contain safety and regulatory standards. In 2026, other states will be taking on decrim measures or looking to expand decriminalization. 

All this is to suggest that a tolerance or acceptance of the widespread legal use of psychedelics, whether only in therapeutic settings or recreationally, is experiencing a momentum. And that means, in the next decade or so, the world of psychedelics could look radically different than it does today in many states.

Which all leads to an intriguing question: Is Santa Cruz already showing us the future of psychedelics?

Santa Cruz is now home to at least two “churches” that feature psilocybin mushrooms and their byproducts as their central sacrament. Currently, anyone over 21 can go to either, sign up to become a member of the church and receive psilocybin products in exchange for a “donation” to the church. It’s not quite as simple as swinging by the CVS to pick up an over-the-counter cold drug, but it’s close. 

To be clear, psilocybin is only one of a host of psychedelic agents that remain illegal on the federal level. It’s a Schedule I controlled substance, deemed to have a high potential for abuse and to have no medical value. The Santa Cruz City Council’s action in 2020 does not supersede federal law and “decriminalization” means only that local law enforcement is directed to make possession of psychedelics the lowest priority for arrests. 

Yet even that Schedule I status — the highest level of illegality alongside such drugs as heroin and quaaludes — could be on shaky ground. On Dec. 18, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reclassifying cannabis, which has been legal in California since 2018, from Schedule I – yes, federal law still considers marijuana to be in the same grouping as heroin – to Schedule III. Several high-ranking officials in the Trump administration, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have expressed support for psychedelics used as a tool in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other conditions. 

It makes sense that Santa Cruz would be on the leading edge of a new reassessment of psychedelics. For years, it was the home of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which funded and advocated for the medical potential of psychedelics. The culture of psychedelics has been a part of the Santa Cruz panoply of influences since it was the site of the first ever “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” The area has developed a reputation as a safe haven for “psychonauts,” those interested in the potential of psychedelics not only to heal the traumatized, but also as a way to enhance creativity and even to discover cosmic truths.

Not one, but two, Santa Cruz psychedelic churches

In Santa Cruz, the Holy Trinity of Divine Church first opened on River Street in 2023. In October 2025, the Rising Phoenix Entheogenic Temple was established in the Harvey West area of town. Both organizations operate under the same legal justification, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment has been applied as a protection for the use of peyote and other psychedelics in Native American religious rituals for decades. 

“It allows us to operate as a religious organization,” said Jason Stevens of Rising Phoenix, “which gives us some sense of legality under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the First Amendment.”

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed by Congress in 1993, enhancing and strengthening the exercise of religious rites, including those that use psychedelics as sacraments. Those protections are now being claimed by a growing number of non-Indigenous organizations. A directory of “Entheogenic Churches and Religious Bodies in the United States” counts more than 250 such entities in operation across the country, and defines them as “Novel Psychedelic Religious Communities.” (The term “entheogenic” refers directly to psychoactive substances used in ritual or spiritual practice.)

Despite the First Amendment and the growing acceptance of psychedelics in the general public and in the highest levels of government, psychedelic churches still exist in a liminal space of legality, Don Lattin, author of the book “God on Psychedelics: Tripping Across the Rubble of Old-Time Religion,” told me.

“What they’re doing is not really legal,” said Lattin, “and they’re taking a chance, even if the local community has decriminalized psychedelics, because that’s not the same thing as legalizing it.”

We’re taking Buddhism, Catholicism and a spiritual tradition some people might call New Thought. It’s like baking. We’re taking different parts of three recipes and we’ve created a new cake. Bart Clanton of Holy Trinity of Divine Church

Both local churches have spelled out specific creeds that constitute the religious basis of their organizations. The Holy Trinity of Divine Church has a video tutorial outlining its monotheistic belief system. (“There is no hell, and we believe in life after death.”) 

“We are a ‘syncretic’ religion,” said Bart Clanton, the minister at HTDC. “What that means is that we take different elements of different religions, combine them and create a new religion. We’re taking Buddhism, Catholicism and a spiritual tradition some people might call New Thought. It’s like baking. We’re taking different parts of three recipes and we’ve created a new cake.”

Indeed, the waiting room at HTDC contains imagery of Jesus Christ next to the Buddha. As for the psilocybin mushroom products available at the church, Clanton likens their use to the Catholic practice of transubstantiation, in which the sacramental Eucharist is seen as the blood and body of Christ. Clanton said that HTDC has “probably a couple of thousand” members.

Similarly, Rising Phoenix defines its belief system as “entheoism,” a creed that borrows from each of the 12 major world religions, and puts the sacrament of magic mushrooms at the center of its religious practice. 

“Finding forgiveness, for example, is a value of the Christian tradition,” said Stevens. “Living with nature is more of a Taoist value. We’re nondenominational, and we’re more Earth-based than other forms of religion. We truly believe that entheogens, when used spiritually and religiously, can have a profound impact on people’s lives.”

Both churches have a free application process required of anyone interested in procuring psilocybin from them. The application (online at Rising Phoenix; in person at HTDC) is designed as a method of screening, to ensure that any potential new members agree to use the sacrament respectfully. But there is no rigorous interview involved. Membership for both churches is about as frictionless as signing up for any online service.

Once signed up, new members have access to a number of psilocybin products, from raw mushrooms in many different cultivars and forms, as well as gummies, chocolates and capsules. Strains have such fanciful names as Squatty Riptide and Albino Hillbilly. Rising Phoenix has its menu of products online. HTDC does not. Technically, the products aren’t “for sale,” but are given out in exchange for a donation to the church. For the consumer, it’s a distinction without a difference. Prices range widely, considering what you’re buying, but to give an example, a small bag of 10 psilocybin gummies, perhaps the most popular item at HTDC, goes for $40.

The variety of strains, products, prices, potencies and expected effects can be intimidating for the unexperienced, and each church has someone on hand to guide the new members through the inventory. Effects are plotted on a continuum, from “euphoria” to “reflection” on one axis, “body” to “visuals” on another. Those experienced in psychedelics will often say that words are inadequate to describe the sensations and insight under their influence. But in a commercial context, such circumspection doesn’t apply. Adjectives to describe each individual strain or product can be range widely, from “dreamy” to “uplifting” to “introspective.” 

Because these products exist in a legal gray area, obviously they are not subject to any kind of government quality control, and consumers essentially have to take the word of the church about quality and provenance in a way that no Catholic church has to do with its Eucharist supplies. Holy Trinity of Divine Church claims exclusivity on its products, all from one grower, called a “granger.” 

“The granger first puts the mushroom spores in holy water,” said Clanton, “and it becomes sacramental.”

To be what most people would consider a “church,” these organizations have to offer more than distribution of products. HTDC, for example, has a Sunday service and has a YouTube channel featuring some of those services. 

Rising Phoenix was already well-established at two sites in San Francisco — on Haight Street and in the Russian Hill neighborhood — before opening in Santa Cruz just two months ago. The Santa Cruz location is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. to distribute the psilocybin — often called in the ergot of the culture “the sacrament,” “medicine” or “fruit.” The church is located in a cozy, century-old house between the CannaCruz dispensary and Costco on Fern Street. The tiny front room operates as the church’s showroom for its products, well-lit and under glass, like jewelry. 

Church officials on hand at either church have to provide information on the products, including dosage, effects, purity, etc., as well as issues having to do with therapy and counseling, end-of-life issues and even larger spiritual questions. 

“Our initial consult,” said Rising Phoenix’s Jason Stevens, “is more around, ‘Do you understand what these things are? Have you used them before? What sort of effects are you looking for? Are you familiar with dosage?’ Essentially, we’re asking, ‘Why are you here? What are you looking to achieve?’ And then, there are follow-up events that they can attend, sound bars, healing sessions, drum circles, community events, all to find balance, harmony and synchronicity with the planet.”

For now, psychedelic churches have to be comfortable in the gray area between legality and illegality. If and when the California Legislature passes a statewide decrim bill that the governor will sign — reminder: California will have a new governor in roughly a year from now — psychedelic churches will have to adapt to new guidelines or regulations coming to them from Sacramento, much like the cannabis industry did. Barring a cultural backlash or a revival of the Nixon-era “War on Drugs,” psychedelics will increasingly emerge from the shadows into the sunlight of mainstream society. If that happens, Santa Cruz in the mid-2020s will have been an essential testing ground. 

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