Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi

Just like marijuana dispensaries, the church can't use the normal banking system because they're dealing with federally outlawed substances.

The whole place runs on cash.

Dave says the money from the church does afford him a comfortable life.

It means he doesn't have to work several days a week that he can instead spend with his young son.

Without a forensic dive into Dave's finances, we can't know for sure.

But it doesn't seem like he's splashing out, given how much attention that would draw, and the fact that the police have already confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff from the church.

Dave says that in addition to doing charitable churchy things like toy drives, a portion of this money also goes to other psychedelic churches, helping them prepare for their legal tangles with the government.

Which gets to the strange collective limbo that all of these churches are in at this moment.

When it comes to mushrooms, at least, the U.S.

is a legal patchwork.

There are these legal islands of relative safety, places like Oakland and Seattle that have decriminalized mushrooms.

That means that local governments have directed their law enforcement to treat mushroom crimes as their lowest priority.

And in those places, it's become relatively easy to get these substances, with or without a church.

But that doesn't mean churches are in the clear.

For example, in Zydor's case, there were ultimately no charges filed after that raid.

But Dave says he never recovered the things that were taken.

And these drugs are still illegal according to many state laws and everywhere federally.

Over the past few years, there have been several cases brought against psychedelic churches.

For example, an ayahuasca church in Florida and its owner were found guilty of negligence after a participant died following a ceremony.

Other churches have been rated as fronts for drug distribution.