A Magic Mushroom Odyssey
Conn Carroll
Remember Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey?
It begins with a tribe of ape-like creatures being chased away from a watering hole by a larger tribe of ape-like creatures. But the next day, an alien monolith appears and somehow inspires that first tribe of apes to learn how to use bones as weapons. They do so to great effect, chasing the other, larger tribe away from the watering hole. In the end, the victorious leader of the first tribe throws a bone-weapon into the air in celebration.
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In the transition to the next scene, that bone dissolves into a spaceship, taking an astronaut to a space station. The implication is that this alien monolith was the key step in our transition from primitive animals to tool-using, space-traveling humans.
Now sub out the alien monolith and sub in psychedelic mushrooms, and you are now familiar with the founding theology of the fastest-growing religion in the San Francisco Bay Area. Popularized by a man named Terence McKenna in the 1990s, proponents of “stoned ape theory” believe that our primate ancestors first encountered psychedelic mushrooms while tracking their prey through their droppings. Being omnivorous, these hungry primates took a break from hunting and sampled the mushrooms, leading to humanity’s first religious experience.
“The Religious Evolution doctrine states that Magic Mushrooms were the reason for the evolution of both human communication and the concept of religion itself,” according to the Church of Ambrosia’s website. “Monkeys trying to explain spirits and God to each other.”
Founded in 2019 by Dave Hodges, the Church of Ambrosia now sells 17 different strains of psilocybin mushrooms for as little as $8 a gram and as much as $144 an ounce. It also sells cannabis for as little as $3 a gram or $60 an ounce.
All you need to do to buy mushrooms or cannabis from the Church of Ambrosia is be at least 21 years old, fill out a form attesting to your belief that “entheogenic plants” are a “part of your religion,” and pay a $5-a-month membership fee. In just four short years, the Church of Ambrosia has grown to 80,000 dues-paying members and spends a reported $100,000 a month on security alone. You don’t even have to attend Hodges’s weekly sermon — which is delivered at 4:20 p.m., of course, on Sundays.
Technically, the Church of Ambrosia is breaking the law by selling both psilocybin and cannabis, but the city councils of both Oakland and San Francisco have passed resolutions supporting the use of psychedelics such as psilocybin, and possession of cannabis is legal in California.
The police raided the Church of Ambrosia’s Oakland, California, location in 2020, but despite confiscating the cannabis, cash, and mushrooms on site, it filed no charges. In fact, the church is suing in federal court to have its drugs and money returned.
“To me, this is real faith; this is real religion. I absolutely believe that psilocybin mushrooms are the first way that we ever experienced [that] there is more to this existence, and without a doubt, this has the answers and the experiences that all religions wish they could provide,” Hodges told SFGate.
Whether you believe, as Hodges claims to, that humans evolved from mushroom-eating monkeys is up to you. But as Hodges expands his church into San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, I think his investment is safe.
If San Francisco refuses to close open-air drug markets run by foreign cartels selling fentanyl to overdosing homeless people, why would the city go after a magic mushroom pastor?