AI Summary
5 min read🎙️ The Speakers & Context
- The Format: Investigative field report with on-site interviews and expert calls.
- The Key Players:
- Pastor Dave Hodges: Founder of Zide Door Church, the world's largest psychedelic church (135,000+ members); credible as a serial cannabis activist turned visionary leader post-mushroom revelation, scaling a "mushroom church" into a multi-million revenue operation.
- John Rapp: Psychedelic church lawyer; ex-corporate litigator (Exxon, Microsoft) pivoting post-son’s opioid death to pro bono defense of 300+ churches; expert on RFRA exemptions and "Myers test."
- Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi: Planet Money host/reporter; embeds at Zide Door for skeptical, boots-on-ground exploration.
- The Vibe: Exploratory and pragmatic—curious about legality/profitability, blending journalism with mild awe at scale amid risks.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Pastor Dave Hodges**
- 2 (01:43) **Inside Zide Door Church**
- 3 (03:03) **Rise of Psychedelic Churches**
- 4 (08:08) **Lawyer John Rapp's Background**
- 5 (12:24) **Legal History and Exemptions**
- 6 (15:57) **Building Legally Defensible Religions**
- 7 (19:17) **Zide Door as Economic Outlier**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Book tour dates and ticket info here.
Just as every market has its first movers, every religion has its martyrs — the people willing to risk everything for what they believe. Pastor Dave Hodges just might be a little bit of both. He’s the spiritual leader of the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants, in Oakland, California which places psilocybin mushrooms at the center of their religious practice.
Today on the show, like its 130,000+ members, we’re going to take a trip through the psychedelic mushroom megachurch. We’ll meet one of the lawyers trying to keep psychedelic religious leaders like Pastor Dave from running afoul of the law, and get a peek into how the government decides whether a belief system counts as sincere religion.
This episode was reported with support from The Ferriss – UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship.
Subscribe to Planet Money+
Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Eric Mennel. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
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Just as every market has its first movers, every religion has its martyrs — the people willing to risk everything for what they believe. Pastor Dave Hodges just might be a little bit of both. He’s the spiritual leader of the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants, in Oakland, California which places psilocybin mushrooms at the center of their religious practice.
Today on the show, like its 130,000+ members, we’re going to take a trip through the psychedelic mushroom megachurch. We’ll meet one of the lawyers trying to keep psychedelic religious leaders like Pastor Dave from running afoul of the law, and get a peek into how the government decides whether a belief system counts as sincere religion.
This episode was reported with support from The Ferriss – UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship.
Subscribe to Planet Money+
Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Eric Mennel. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
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