Given the size of this enterprise, I am surprised that it has not been mentioned here at NAFPS before:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/soul-quest-florida-ayahuasca-church-chris-young/ [A 2025 article]
No Shame in the Neoshaman: The Deadly Rise and Fall of a Florida Ayahuasca Church
After a wayward youth, Chris Young reinvented himself as a neoshaman and built his own hugely lucrative psychedelic church, Soul Quest. But in his wake, he left a trail of debauchery, trauma, and death.
While Young has no Native American heritage, teaming up with an organization that presented itself as a branch of the Native American Church had its advantages; the official national council has a legal exemption from the U.S. government to use peyote as a religious sacrament—it wasn’t ayahuasca specifically, but it still offered some semblance of cover.
When, in 2016, the partnership hit the skids (Oklevueha’s members were derided by the official council as “fake Indians” who were only interested in getting high), Young split and set up his own Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth, applying to the Drug Enforcement Agency for an official religious exemption to consume ayahuasca. These choices defined Young’s life for the next eight years, as he blazed a trail of illegal psychedelic entrepreneurialism and flagrant cultural appropriation, openly advertising his services as an ayahuasca-serving neoshaman and raking in millions on a mind-bending quest to live his own American Dream.
Some of the highlighted quotes in the article:
“The organization that Young formed went on to serve ayahuasca to more than 30,000 people. Overall, it facilitated more psychedelic trips than any non-religious entity in U.S. history.”…
“We understand you want healing, but you can’t lie to us,” Young told the show, alluding to Brandon’s death. “If you lie, you die,” he added, crassly.…
“In short, reality is beginning to hit, and while many have been able to experience moments of genuine revelation, healing, and community through the neoshamanic movement of recent times, there are others who must now reckon with the harm wrought upon them by a generation of flawed gurus.”There is also an earlier article (2017).
https://www.vice.com/en/article/floridas-ayahuasca-church-wants-to-go-legal/
