By Miles Dilworth, Senior Reporter For Dailymail.Com
12:32 14 Apr 2024, up to date 13:41 14 Apr 2024
- Dave Hodges, 42, believes town would have fewer opioid addicts if there have been extra church buildings providing non secular sacraments within the type of psychedelic medicine
- He based the Church of Ambrosia in Oakland 5 years in the past and it has now has 106,000 members, which means it’s technically the largest megachurch within the US
- Analysis into whether or not psychedelics can deal with opioid dependancy is in its early phases, however Hodges claims members have gotten clear since becoming a member of his church
Nestled within the coronary heart of America’s opioid disaster lies America’s largest psychedelic church, raking in $5million a yr supplying unlawful medicine to members.
However its pastor, Dave Hodges, sees no problem in organising store just some blocks south of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, dwelling to the nation’s most infamous open air drug market.
Actually, the pc geek turned psychedelic preacher believes that if there have been extra church buildings like his, the place congregants get excessive on shrooms and hashish, there can be fewer opioid addicts overdosing on his doorstep.
‘The sacraments we use assist individuals get off medicine,’ he claims.
Hodges, 42, has constructed a unprecedented empire of shrooms. Technically, he runs the most important megachurch within the US.
In 5 years, his Church of Ambrosia has amassed 106,000 members throughout its two areas in Oakland and San Francisco.
That’s greater than Oklahoma’s Life Church, which has 85,000 members, and greater than double Texas’ Lakewood Church, led by evangelist Joel Osteen.
Ambrosia members pay $10 to affix and $5 to enter the church thereon, granting them entry to church sacraments: hashish, magic mushrooms and DMT, the energetic ingredient in Ayahuasca.
Whereas weed is authorized in California, psychedelics, together with shrooms and DMT, should not.
San Francisco handed an ordinance in 2022 making the adult-use of psilocybin – the energetic ingredient in magic mushrooms – a low precedence for regulation enforcement, though it’s nonetheless unlawful in California.
However Hodges believes that taking these substances is a deeply religious – even non secular – expertise – that’s subsequently protected in regulation.
It’s all a part of a worldwide growth in individuals turning to hallucinogenic medicine looking for religious enlightenment, together with NFL star Aaron Rodgers, actor Will Smith and Prince Harry.
It’s thought there at the moment are wherever between 200 and a pair of,000 psychedelic church buildings within the US from states with liberal drug legal guidelines akin to California and Oregon, to resolutely conservative ones together with Utah and Alabama.
Hodges believes the ever-growing quantity, notably in areas flooded with fentanyl, will help alleviate America’s crippling opioid disaster.
There have been 806 overdose deaths in San Francisco in 2023, principally attributable to fentanyl, breaking the earlier report of 726 in 2020.
‘There’s a number of the explanation why individuals get hooked on medicine, however a few of the main elements should not understanding why they’re right here, what they’re purported to do with their life,’ Hodges tells DailyMail.com.
‘While you take our sacraments, do that deep work and get in contact together with your soul, it will possibly allow you to perceive these issues. Your soul didn’t come right here to be hooked on fentanyl.’
Psychedelics together with psilocybin have been linked to the alleviation of opioid dependancy.
Analysis is in its early phases, nonetheless, with a medical trial underway on the College of Wisconsin-Madison.
However Hodges claims he has already seen anecdotal proof of its results. He says one among his members used psychedelics first to wean himself off fentanyl, earlier than serving to relations do the identical.
The pastor stresses that the Church of Ambrosia will not be run as an rehab heart – and that these combating dependancy ought to search skilled assist – however he has grand designs on including this to its pastoral capabilities sooner or later.
It’s one among a number of massive concepts he has in retailer, following an explosive progress that took everybody without warning, together with Hodges himself.
The church opened its first location in Oakland 5 years in the past, however membership acquired a shot within the arm following a raid in August 2020, by which police seized $200,000 price of hashish and mushrooms from the premises.
It has gained 70,000 new members because the bust, prompting the opening of its second location within the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco on April 15 final yr.
With it now celebrating its one yr anniversary, Hodges has his eyes set on opening a 3rd – a megachurch able to accommodating its ever-growing congregation.
Ambrosia’s two present areas have a capability of little over 100.
The pastor, who has a two-year-old son, additionally desires to ascertain his personal, unbiased Okay-12 schooling system that emphasizes psychological well being and drug schooling.
‘If our present schooling system had weekly psychological well being lessons by all ages stage, we most likely would not have mass shootings within the US,’ he says.
Daring ambitions these could also be, however with the church making round $5million from member contributions, they is probably not delusional.
Hodges says that at present round $3million of this income is swallowed up by authorized charges (at round $600million a yr), 24-hour safety at each areas ($1.4million), and lease (round $1million).
The remainder goes largely to mounted working prices, which incorporates the manufacturing of church sacraments by a few of its members.
Ambrosia affords quite a lot of mushroom strains, together with Loving Trainer, Solar Temple, Child Blues, and Ghost Penis Envy, which might be purchased with financial contributions – an oz. can price as much as $260 – or volunteer work.
Whereas it’s potential this may very well be seen as unlawful drug dealing, Hodges argues these transactions don’t rely as gross sales as a result of members signal an settlement which implies they personal every thing inside the church, together with the sacrament.
Subsequently, the pastor says, there isn’t any switch of possession.
Hodges was not charged after the police raid in 2020 and has maintained that the church was not breaking the regulation.
As for many who could argue that his church will not be actually ‘non secular’, the newly-anointed Prophet of Shroom has some phrases of recommendation.
‘There are lots of people on the market who do not imagine that our religion is actual,’ he says. ‘That is actually extra of a mirrored image on them.
‘For me, the religion actually comes from the experiences that I’ve had on these breakthrough doses of mushrooms.
‘So the place we do have individuals that do not imagine that we’re doing this for the correct cause, my response is at all times that they should do extra mushrooms.’
