Ayahuasca church granted religious-use rights by County

PHOTO VIA HANGTHEBANKERS.COM

UPDATE: We originally published that Soul Quest was a part of the Oklevueha Native American Church, but a representative of the ONAC reached out to us with the following statement:

“Hi Brendan,

I recently was sent a copy of an article that contains one very important piece of misinformation. I am sure that is not your intent and realize you may have been misinformed. Chris Young and the Soulquest group are no longer associated with Oklevueha Native American Church and, as far as we know, have not been authorized by any Native American Tribe as an NAC (Native American Church). When they were a branch of our organization they were legitimate, but because they refused to follow the guidelines in our Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct, they were put on probation and their legal protection and right to use the name, logo or any associated items connecting them to Oklevueha NAC was removed.

You may want to correct this for your readers and, if the information that they are still part of ONAC came from Chris or his people, please inform us so that we can take legal action to induce him to stop. It is possible that he did not make that connection and that you just assumed he was still part of our organization. If so, please also let us know that so we can put this matter to rest.

Thank you.” — Shaun McCausland, ONAC Public Relations

 

Soul Quest, the local branch of the larger Oklevueha Native American Church that we wrote about in August, HERE, has found a new home in East Orlando.

Soul Quest, was founded by Chris Young who preaches the gospel of ayahuasca and psychotropic medicines to treat addiction, among other things. Soul Quest members are able to consume otherwise illegal and Federally-controlled substances as part of their religious practices, as they see them as earth-based medicines.

Soul Quest used to host weekly events at Mills 50 arts venue True Serenity but will now be located at 1371 Hancock Lone Palm Road [GMap].

The following statement was released by Chris Young of Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth, concerning the move and the purpose behind the church.

“One session with a psychedelic substance can have better results than years of psychotherapy, says William Richards in his book Sacred knowledge. He is a clinic psychologist from John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA. In this book he writes about his 30 years research with psycho-active substances to treat depression, trauma’s and addictions. 

In the Dutch magazine Psychologie (November 2016) you can also find a long article about the help of psychedelic substances like MDMA, LSD, Psyclocybin and Ayahuasca in psychotherapy. At this moment I see more and more confirmation from the scientific and academic world for the work that we are already doing long time.

Nevertheless I want to state loud and clear that ayahuasca is more than a psychotherapeutic tool. In the first place ayahuasca is a spiritual tool that opens us up to the spiritual worlds from Light and from Darkness. Therefore it is very important that ayahuasca ceremonies are guided by people that are trained to work with this medicine in a spiritual way and knows how to deal with the Darkness that is always a part of this ceremonies.”

As shown in the document below, the church’s new home was just recognized by the Orange County Board of Zoning Adjustments for official religious use. There are a number of upcoming retreats and events for those interested. Click HERE to see the calendar.