In the letter, the US Drug Enforcement Agency asked Young and his cohort to apply for exemption status, which would allow them to provide ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic Amazonian tea, legally. It would also make Soul Quest the first homegrown psychedelic healing center in the US, permanently altering the way the government views the intersection of drugs and faith.

When the government contacted Soul Quest church in Orlando in August of last year, founder Chris Young had already administered illegal hallucinogens to thousands of his congregation members without federal approval.

In a bold move, Soul Quest continued its retreats for over a year after receiving the DEA's entreaty. If their application is denied, the church could be shut down. At worst, Young, and possibly others, could face prosecution for distributing what are classified as Schedule I substances. He isn't scared: "Every time the DEA has messed with a church, they've lost and lost big," he told me.

The DEA's letter was unprecedented—the agency has never solicited an organization to apply for an exemption, although several others have attempted petitions. And the exemption process is an open-ended timeline, entirely dependent on the DEA's opaque policy bureau. (Other cases have taken up to three years.)

While Young's church could benefit from the legal validation of exemption status, experts within the psychedelic community are skeptical. They say the agency might be trying to strongarm the church to keep it close, and maybe even shut it down. (I contacted the DEA multiple times but they did not respond to requests for comment.) And though Young's congregation of 3,000 people feel they share a faith, there is also the looming question of whether their worship can sustain its own syncretic methods, or is guilty of mass cultural appropriation.

With the support of these members, Young, who is 43, is hoping federal officials will give Soul Quest the green light to legally administer hallucinogenic substances within a "sincere" religious context. But the laws, and the rights of the congregation, are complicated by outdated policy that don't account for psychedelics' medical benefits or ancient spiritual traditions.

The conversations ranged from acknowledging living and lost fathers, to letting go of mothers and addictions, to forgiving mad uncles, false politicians, and husbands.

When I arrived at a weekend retreat this summer, I met Robin from Dallas who's down with animal spirits and hypnosis, her grandson Kyle, and their friend Radhika, a nurse turned kindergarten teacher. There were also members of Veterans for Entheogenic Therapy (VET), a group led by former Marine Ryan LeCompte, which provides funding and year-long integration therapy for veterans to do ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru, and now Soul Quest. There was a volunteer named Alan who announced: "We use Florida water for cleansing."

The property is modest, with a simple sign of refuge placed above its doors. Across that threshold, there are both hugs and paperwork. There are also bunk beds to sleep on, and about 20 church members arriving from all over the country.

Today Soul Quest claims no official lineage. Ayahuasca is considered the group's central sacrament, along with rapé, a tobacco, and kambo, a pain remedy derived from frogs in the rainforest. The congregation has adopted the Ayahauasca Manifesto , which appeared anonymously online two years before Soul Quest was formed, as its central text.

Other groups that have petitioned for exemption have come up short in their claims of holding a "sincere" belief system, which would allow federal authorities to overrule their practices. The Church of Reality in California tried to put cannabis on the holy altar, but could only say, "It leads to cool ideas." Other ayahuasca groups have also failed to provide more than flimsy Indigenous appropriations with strong entrepreneurial undercurrents.

On paper, Soul Quest's 157-page application details a congregation that blends traditions. Their claim includes over two years of ceremonial practices, an engaged membership, and the manifesto as liturgy. Soul Quest devotees read the text aloud during every integration session, like a Dharma talk, sermon, or Torah portion; a practice with enough impact to prompt some members to joke about the group being a cult.

Young's argument for his church's ongoing use of ayahuasca stems from updates to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) made in 2009. The current guidelines for gaining exemption state that once a group meets the "minimal" standards to establish themselves as a religion , the government can't burden citizens' right to exercise their religious beliefs without compelling evidence that some greater interest must be upheld. The exemption process allows the DEA a completely open-ended timeline to review petitions. However, Soul Quest's legal team has submitted a request for a decision by the end of this year.

The First Amendment's Free Exercise clause protects citizens' rights to practice their religions as they please, unless protections are deemed necessary by a court. Religious spaces in the US are therefore expressly not to be coerced by law or government interference (i.e., promoted or inhibited).

But Bia Labate, a veteran Brazilian anthropologist who has extensively researched ayahuasca, has her reservations. "What's being judged is not whether Soul Quest does serious work, but whether it is a true religion, and whether ayahuasca is so central to the exercise of this religion that it trumps drug laws," she told me.

And Soul Quest's Ayahuasca Manifesto certainly goes further than the anecdotal writings of Ayahuasca Healings , a group led by Christopher "Trinity" de Guzman, whose application exemption in 2016 was shot down amid plenty of media attention. At Soul Quest, ayahuasca is defined as a "teacher prophet" with revelations resulting from a "sacred mixture."

"Integration of the experience is different for everyone," Nischalã, a staff facilitator, told the group. She was referring to integration sessions: facilitated group discussions, also common in psychotherapy practices with psychedelics, that are a crucial part of helping people understand how experiences from their trip can transform and heal.

Except for the stacks of empty white buckets. Along with the mindblowing hallucinations, drinking ayahuasca usually includes the formidable caveat of bodily excretions like vomit and bowel movements. The release is considered cleansing and fondly referred to by many as "purging."

At Soul Quest, facilitators come from various backgrounds. There was a tobacco cessation specialist, and a yoga teacher. They constantly circulated to check in with members milling about the many common spaces: living room, kitchen, studios, porch, lawn, pond, and nature trails. The church's vibe is not unlike other sanctuary spaces I've visited—from temples and churches to mosques.

"Everything is fun, sexy, and cool until you have a real problem. No one in 2017 can claim naïveté on ayahuasca. Why does he need to go online or advertise? Ceremonies end up looking like a business."

In the den after one long night ceremony, Chris Young, outspoken and tireless, poetically encouraged those gathered to share their visions: "Don't overlook any details during reflection. Even the leaf that is dead has meaning. It's supporting life."

Founding a church of psychedelics was never something Young saw himself doing. In his previous life, he was an EMT, where he tells me he observed pharmaceutical companies manipulating doctors to prescribe powerful drugs like oxycontin, one of the lethal forces behind the country's opioid epidemic. Young says he visited many crime scenes, and helped many overdose victims. Eventually he was burnt out, and he and his wife went to Germany for about a year. After the break, he wanted to get back into medicine, but not the Western kind.

"My god is planet Earth. My Jesus, my savior, is ayahuasca."

Then "Mother Ayahuasca" found him during a trip to Spain. Young gave himself what he calls a surprise birthday present of an 11-day retreat. On the third day he learned his five-months-pregnant wife had a miscarriage. He says his ayahuasca-powered visions revealed "shadow people" that told him that they would have another child and he should keep going with the ceremony. The same visions also instructed him to go back to the US and open a church, "to provide the medicine [ayahuasca] to future generations, make it accessible, and propagate its growth."