Religious Freedom Requires Religious Responsibility

By Paul Ryder, PhD, and Bridger Lee Jensen, MS

Together we lead two emerging American entheogenic religious communities: the Congregation for Sacred Practices and Singularism. We come to this work through different histories and institutional strengths, but we share a conviction: religious freedom and religious responsibility must develop together.

America’s conversation about psychedelic spirituality too often narrows to the right of access – should people and which people should have access to entheogenic sacraments? Access matters, of course. Sincere religious communities should be able to practice without unnecessary government interference. But the more demanding questions surround how those freedoms will be exercised—and whether institutions entrusted with powerful sacraments will earn the confidence of their members and the public. We must ask not only whether these practices deserve protection, but how they can be held responsibly. How are sincere ministers selected and trained? What clerical standards guide their work? Who provides supervision when difficult situations arise? How are communities protected from misconduct and bad faith actors? How are powerful spiritual experiences integrated into lasting religious practice rather than treated as isolated events? 

Religious freedom and religious responsibility belong together. If entheogenic religion is to mature as a respected part of American religious life, the conversation must widen. 

Historical religious communities offer us important lessons. Religious traditions endure not simply because they produce extraordinary experiences, but because they help people build lives around what those experiences reveal. They form leaders, establish ethical expectations, create communities of belonging and accountability, and translate spiritual insight into love, service, and daily practice. 

That lesson is especially important for entheogenic religion today. After decades in the underground, psychedelic spiritual practice is emerging into public visibility. That visibility brings opportunity, but also scrutiny. Across the broader psychedelic field, well-publicized failures, ethical breaches, and stories of harm have made clear that powerful experiences without responsible containers can become destabilizing, confusing, or exploitative.

The answer is not fear. Nor is it retreat. The answers is sustainable organizational growth, and united ideologies that converge greater movements that reflect the greater consciousness

The next wave of work in bringing entheogenic religion into the light requires transparent governance, meaningful education, legal practice, careful screening, clear ethical standards, competent ministers, continuing formation, supervision, and credible processes for addressing conflict and harm. It also requires humility about what we know and a willingness to refine our practices through experience, research, and honest review.

Our institutions bring complementary strengths to that task.

Singularism is a multiversal contemporary religion that trains clergy to serve humanity with various ceremonies, including with entheogenic sacrament, and other religious rites. In a 2026 landmark ruling, a federal judge ruled that trained Singularism clergy were sincere and existentially humble in their claims. Singularism has set numerous precedents most notably as the first religion to ever be approved federally for its mushroom-based ceremonial practices, for the purpose of alleviating suffering and providing faith affirming direct mystical experience to all religious beliefs. In Jensen vs. Utah County, litigation centered on Singularism’s sacramental use of entheogens, and not only found that Singularism meets the requirements for a sincerity as a religious organization, but also adds existential humility as a new criterion that expands the very definition of religion. Singularism brings experience defending the religious freedom of its faith, combined with a rigorous, clinically-informed approach to the modern landscape of entheogenic religious ministry. 

The Congregation for Sacred Practice (CSP) is a religious community and seminary that trains and engages in multisacramental ceremony as well as non-sacramental religious practices. Its accredited seminary forms ministers that hold members broadly on the Path of Awakening through practice and community. It also teaches ceremonial religious practices involving whole-fruit psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, and 5-MeO-DMT, placing each within a common framework of spiritual formation, medical and demographic screening, sacrament-specific licensure, formal ethical certification and review, individual mentoring, group supervision, continuing education, and community governance.

Our two organizations share deeper alignments as well. Neither Singularism nor CSP believes that sacrament alone constitutes religious life–and neither distribute sacrament to the public. Entheogens belong within a wider ecology of prayer, study, ceremony, embodied practice, relationship, service, and community. The aim is not simply to facilitate religious ceremonies, but to support people in awakening to their own fearless unfolding and living loving lives of individual and collective excellence.

CSP and Singularism also share the belief that, as modern ministers, we are responsible for developing contemporary American religious forms with our own theological commitments, ethical frameworks, ceremonial and ministerial standards, and accountable institutions. We acknowledge with deep gratitude and recognition of the Indigenous and ancestral traditions that have carried sacred relationships with many entheogenic substances across generations. We also acknowledge the underground practitioners that continued to evolve and deepen this work with the great risk of legal prosecution and social approbation. As contemporary organizations developing our own faith commitments and ceremonial rites and rituals across different contexts, we are cautious to not appropriate their traditions, but seek to learn, honor, and hold their work in the highest regard. 

No organization has all the answers. Best practices must remain alive, engaged, and potent: tested through experience, refined through study, and strengthened through dialogue among communities willing to learn from one another. That is why CSP and Singularism have chosen to partner to responsibly create increased protection and increased training and ethical practice. Together, we will work to strengthen ministerial education, policy and procedures, ethical standards, certification and licensure, screening and preparation, supervision, community support, governance, and the integration of spiritual experience into enduring religious practice.

The longevity of this movement will not be determined by the availability of sacrament alone. It will be determined by whether the communities that steward these sacraments are worthy of the trust placed in them. If entheogenic religion is to endure, access must be accompanied by accountability. Spiritual experience must be matched by spiritual formation. Legal protection must be joined with ethical seriousness. And religious freedom must walk hand in hand with religious responsibility.

We believe this is possible. More than that, we believe it is necessary.

The future of entheogenic religion in America can be spiritually deep, legally serious, ethically rigorous, multisacramental, community-rooted, and oriented toward the flourishing of life. But that future will not create itself. It will require institutions willing to mature, ministers willing to be formed, communities willing to be accountable, and leaders willing to collaborate in service of something larger than themselves.

If you find yourself interested in learning more, we are hosting an open house on Monday, July 27th, 4pmPT/5pmMT/6pmCT/7pmET.

You can sign up and get the link here.