“The paper uses proper analytical methodology to show that there is nothing in their ‘psilomethoxin’ sample with the properties of the claimed compound.”
“The church has a completely nonsensical and nonscientific position,” he told nonprofit media organisation Psymposia. Psychedelic chemist David Nichols has dismissed the idea that psilomethoxin could not be identified. This gung-ho response to the provocative paper ruffled feathers in the scientific community, and further criticism quickly followed. Instead, they found psilocybin and psilocin – more commonly seen in magic mushrooms – both of which remain illegal across most of the world. The results were startling: The researchers failed to identify psilomethoxin in the sample. Chemists from the Usona Institute, a US non-profit that does psychedelic research, analysed a sample of the substance handed out to church congregants and published a preprint study three days before Entheogensis. However, in the absence of a scientific study to back up anecdotal reports of its sacrament’s benefits, the church has been subject to growing scrutiny. Its website proclaims “the kingdom of God is within you” and that “through working with our sacrament, Sunday services, integration, and community service work, the church intends to create a loving community of aligned practitioners”. The Church of Psilomethoxin had been operating somewhat under the radar, but it was galvanised to go public after the Drug Enforcement Agency in July ditched controversial plans to ban five psychedelic compounds in the face of widespread opposition. “We’re going to look back at this event and it’s going to be like, ‘Do you remember the first Entheogenesis?’ I was there brother, I was there,” says a topless beneficiary as Benouis surprises him with a 150mg capsule presented in a tinsel package. Throughout the day, he and his comrades periodically hand out the church’s sacramental medicine in chocolate and capsule form to enthusiastic recipients. “This is our coming out party for the church to celebrate its existence, that there is this amazing sacrament, and to go on the offensive against the war on drugs and end the mental health crisis,” says Benouis of Entheogenesis, a portmanteau of the words entheogen (a sacred plant which brings about non-ordinary states) and synthesis. They live all over: Church records show congregants from across Europe, North America and even further afield in the UAE, Japan, and Australia. Members, around one in ten of whom are US veterans, pay $300 for a six month supply of daily microdoses, which equates to 28g and would also be enough for about 10 medium strength trips. Their sacrament is now produced in Michigan, US, and sent to Mexico to be produced into a chocolate, capsules back in Austin and gummies in California. The church has more than 1,750 members, internal data shows. Once Benouis and his compadres were satisfied that it was safe to consume, he says they offered microdoses to the public while walking around events like SXSW and invited people to join the church for an annual fee of $55.55. On its website, it declares that members further their path of spiritual development through “the circumscribed consumption of our sacramental supplement”.Įxtensive experimentation continued, along with tweaks to the laboratory process to make it less visually trippy and more conducive to DMT-style relaxation. The church was certified by the Texas Secretary of State’s office in November 2021 as a nonprofit. “We have a unique gift here and we have to protect it from the government,” Benouis says of the church’s substance-slash-sacrament. To defend the open consumption of the drug, they made use of a 2006 Supreme Court ruling that backed the right to access controlled substances as part of religious observance. He, Begin and his two other veteran friends Benjamin Moore and Greg Lake, the author of The Law of Entheogenic Churches in the United States, set up the Church of Psilomethoxin shortly after.
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