Entheogenic Religious Practice and Forms of Healing

Article Written by Pastor Bob Otis

Religious Foundation of Sacred Garden Church

Sacred Garden Church (SGC) emerged from a sincere religious calling rather than secular therapeutic ambitions. As the principal founder of a “positive post-modern, post-secular” church, I recognized early that my own mission centers on what I pray is a theologically authentic and sophisticated, open and inviting shared religious faith and practice - realized with the assistance of natural Sacraments and resulting possibilities for direct experience of divine presence. SGC’s focus remains formally religious, grounded in seeking and experiencing divine presence within a context of shared faith, values and Sacramental practices.

The distinction between religious and therapeutic approaches carries significant practical implications. Legal protections for sincere religious practice differ substantially from regulations governing therapeutic services. Recent examples illustrate these complexities. SoulQuest, a putative entheogenic church, faced legal challenges when they conflated religious practice with clinical therapy. Their experience demonstrates the importance of maintaining clear boundaries between sacred practice and medical treatment. (Janik, T. 2025)

Sacred Garden Church was not established as a tactical maneuver to circumvent regulations. We do appreciate the constitutional right to sincere religious practice across the United States. This protection operates independently of limited state laws in, for example, Colorado, Oregon, and New Mexico that provide therapeutic access to psychedelics. Our religious foundation ensures broader accessibility for sincere practitioners nationwide.

Complementary Approaches to Healing

My personal healing and awakening journey includes both therapeutic work and religious practice. From a positive post-secular perspective, these approaches may complement rather than compete with each other (Habermas, 2008). Religious community and practice often associate with various forms of healing, potentially offering benefits including reports of enhanced personal meaning and morality, improved mental health, trauma and addiction recovery (Koenig, 2012).

The relationship between faith and healing spans diverse traditions. In Tennessee, where I grew up, there are outspoken traditions of faith healing for physical ailments. Diverse indigenous communities similarly may claim overlapping physical and spiritual healing through their religious practices. These examples demonstrate a potentially universal human recognition that religious or spiritual and physical wellness interconnect.

Entheogenic religious practices offer unique pathways to healing that differ from secular therapeutic models (Razzi et al, 2022). Within Sacred Garden Church, while our ministry doesn’t claim to offer anything like “spiritual surgery,” we do seek to grow clarity in describing and facilitating entheogen-assisted religious practices that may help congregants "lay their burdens down" and heal emotionally, morally, spiritually, potentially even physically. This healing would occur within a religious context rather than through formal medical treatment, yet may remain genuinely transformative and “healing”.

The Nature of Religious Healing

Religious healing operates through mechanisms distinct from clinical therapy. Sacred practices create spaces for divine encounter, community support, and religious / spiritual transformation. I would propose that these elements may work well together, to promote human flourishing in ways that complement but do not replace various forms of medical care.

Research supports the health benefits of religious participation. Regular religious practice correlates with reduced rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse (Mueller et al., 2001). Religious communities provide social support networks that enhance resilience and promote recovery from various challenges. Experiential, ritual and symbolic dimensions of religious practice offer meaning-making resources that secular approaches may lack.

Entheogenic substances, when used within sincere religious contexts, can facilitate profound religious experiences that participants often describe as healing. These experiences may include encounters with the divine, resolution of existential concerns, and transformation of destructive behavioral patterns (Griffiths et al., 2016). The religious context provides interpretive frameworks that help integrate these experiences into ongoing personal religious / spiritual and community development.

Clarifying Our Mission and Vision

Sacred Garden Church does not practice medicine or provide secular therapy. Our mission focuses exclusively on religious and spiritual practice within a faith community. However, we recognize that genuine religious transformation often produces healing effects across multiple dimensions of human experience.

The distinction between religious healing and medical treatment requires careful attention to language and practice. We speak of religious growth, divine encounter, and laying down burdens rather than diagnosing conditions or prescribing treatments. Our role as religious leaders involves pastoral care, religious guidance, and creating sacred space for divine encounter.

Looking toward the future, I envision possibilities for explicitly faith-based healthcare institutions. Just as Methodist Medical Centers and other denominational hospitals serve communities, a "Sacred Garden" clinical center might one day integrate our religious insights with professional medical care. Such integration would require careful attention to appropriate boundaries and professional standards while honoring the distinct contributions of both religious and medical approaches to healing.

Moving Forward in Faith

Sacred Garden Church stands committed to sincere religious practice centered on entheogenic encounter with the divine. Our approach recognizes healing as a natural outcome of authentic religious transformation rather than a primary therapeutic goal. This distinction preserves the integrity of our religious mission while acknowledging the holistic benefits that emerge from genuine faith practice.

The path forward requires continued dialogue between religious and therapeutic communities. Both approaches serve essential human needs and can complement each other when properly understood and practiced. Sacred Garden Church contributes to this conversation by modeling sincere religious practice that honors both religious / spiritual and practical dimensions of human flourishing.

Our community will continue developing clear language around entheogen-assisted religious practice and its healing dimensions. This clarity serves both our congregants and the broader public by demonstrating the legitimate role of entheogenic religion in contemporary American religious and less formally defined personal spiritual life. Through faithful practice and thoughtful articulation, we hope to advance understanding of how ancient wisdom traditions can address modern human needs within appropriate legal and ethical frameworks.

References

Griffiths, R. R., Johnson, M. W., Carducci, M. A., Umbricht, A., Richards, W. A., Richards, B. D., ... & Klinedinst, M. A. (2016). Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 30(12), 1181-1197. [Summarized in this accessible article - Johns Hopkins Hub. "Hallucinogenic drug found in 'magic mushrooms' eases depression, anxiety in people with life-threatening cancer." The Hub, December 1, 2016. https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/12/01/hallucinogen-treats-cancer-depression-anxiety/]

Habermas, Jürgen. Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008

Janik, Tarryl. "Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth v. The DEA: Religious Sincerity and Situational Adjustments in the Process of Defining a Church and a Plant." In Psychedelic Intersections: 2024 Conference Anthology, edited by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2025.

Koenig, H. G. (2012). Religion, spirituality, and health: The research and clinical implications. ISRN Psychiatry, 2012, 278730.

Mueller, Paul S., David J. Plevak, and Teresa A. Rummans. "Religious Involvement, Spirituality, and Medicine: Implications for Clinical Practice." Mayo Clinic Proceedings 76, no. 12 (2001): 1225-1235. 
< https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/s0025-6196(11)62799-7/fulltext >

Miller, W. R., & Thoresen, C. E. (2003). Spirituality, religion, and health: An emerging research field. American Psychologist, 58(1), 24-35.

Razzi, S., Ruffell, S., & Mendive, F. (2022). Teacher plants: Indigenous Peruvian-Amazonian dietary practices as a method for using psychoactives. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 284, 114405. Available online.