Russell Hausfeld contributed to the reporting of this story.

This is Part 4 of Psymposia’s investigation into the Church of Psilomethoxin. Click the links for Part 3, Part 2, and Part 1.

In July of 2022, The Intercept reported on politicians like avowed anti-anti-fascist Dan Crenshaw and MAGA figurehead Matt Gaetz — as well as Democratic Socialist Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez — rallying around legislation aimed at researching psychedelics for PTSD in veterans. While bipartisan efforts to “support the troops” are nothing new, the fact that politicians were advocating to dose veterans with psychedelics generated a relative flurry of media attention. 

The strategy of focusing on veterans, at least in the context of psychedelic medicalization, originated with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). However, having demonstrated a degree of “success” with this strategy, MAPS is no longer alone in taking this approach. Whether it’s corporations like Wesana Health and Unlimited Sciences using Marine Corps scout snipers to promote psychedelics for understudied interventions (such as treating traumatic brain injuries) or former Seal Team 6 members creating advocacy organizations like Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions (VETS), it’s become increasingly commonplace to find groups emphasizing their work with veteran populations in order to open Republican wallets and get Uncle Sam off their backs.

In 2019, MAPS founder Rick Doblin said the quiet part out loud to Boston magazine:

“There has been this conservative crossover. We got a pledge recently of $2.7 million from Elizabeth Koch, who is Charles Koch’s daughter, and we have gotten donations from Rebekah Mercer. We have managed to have incredibly good coverage on Fox News. We have had coverage on Breitbart, the Daily Caller, military websites, Navy Seal websites. I think the choice of working with PTSD and MDMA with a lot of veterans has been fundamental to our success. It’s insulated us from this ‘psychedelics, left-wing, counterculture hippies’ thing that we have taken 50 years as a culture to get past.”

In a recent interview with Martin Ball (a longtime 5-MeO-DMT practitioner who has admitted to vomiting on clients and engaging in other harmful practices), Church of Psilomethoxin (CoP) co-founder Ian Benouis, who is also a veteran, revealed that “supporting the troops” is a core component of his legal strategy for establishing entheogenic churches. Benouis’ statements on Ball’s podcast indicate that some of his legal advice for entheogenic churches involves operating in areas with conservative laws restricting government interference with religious practices (places like Florida and Texas), and maintaining public relation strategies which he believes make the government less likely to target the churches. 

Benouis said on the podcast, “We ask all our clients, ‘Are you working with veterans?’ And if they say ‘No,’ we ask ‘Why not?’” 

He explained that, in his opinion, the government doesn’t want to deal with the optics of busting a church that has helped out veterans. Demonstrating this strategy, CoP launched its church on Veteran’s Day 2021 and claimed in its Welcome Booklet that “veterans played a major role in assisting [Church] efforts” in bioassaying its sacrament. In other words, the Church claims to have used veterans as human guinea pigs to test its unverified, purportedly-novel drug.

It’s currently unknown whether or not Benouis’ “shield of veterans” strategy might deter zealous federal prosecutors from taking a closer look at CoP. However, the recent controversy surrounding the Church and its psilomethoxin-free mushrooms has led the Church to claim it is being victimized — not as a result of religious persecution by the state, but by “psychedelic capitalists.”

In its April 13 response to the Williamson and Sherwood preprint (a recent manuscript detailing chemical analysis which failed to detect any psilomethoxin in a sample of the Church’s sacrament), the Church claims that the preprint presents: 

“…a textbook example of the evils and horrors of psychedelic capitalism. These are the same evils and horrors many have speculated about, but had not previously seen, at least to this degree.”

What, exactly, are these “evils and horrors?” We don’t know, as the Church fails to provide any specifics in its response (beyond misidentifying Usona as a for-profit institution and presenting the specter of social media posts about an unrelated company, Panacea Plant Sciences, filing psilomethoxin patents). 

There truly are horrors of capitalism — and Psymposia has covered a number of the intersections of capitalism and psychedelics. Things like ATAI Life Sciences founder and COMPASS Pathways megafunder, Christian Angermayer’s, inclusion on the Presidential Advisory Committee for the murderous Rwandan dictator, Paul Kagame; the relationship and sheer volume of connections between psychedelic corporations and extractive industry; and the industry-wide silence in the face of therapist abuse caught on camera, to name just a few.

With regards to how they are victims of “psychedelic capitalism,” the Church vaguely gestures at “capitalist gatekeepers” with “monetary interests” who desire to “oust” the Church in service to “protecting their IP interests and exclusive control over new psychedelic compounds or any and all aspects of psychedelic therapy,” but fails to provide specifics.

There appear to be at least two glaring problems for CoP within this argument. 

First, neither the Church nor anyone else has identified “new psychedelic compounds” for gatekeeping in any of the Church’s mushrooms — a point which the Church (now) freely admits. 

Second, setting aside questions about the lack of safety and efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapy, the Church is a religious organization, not a provider of medical services. When Psymposia asked Church co-founder Greg Lake if CoP considers what it does to be psychedelic therapy, Lake replied,  “No I don’t… I don’t at all consider it, you know, psychedelic therapy.” As such, even if a company were able to exercise exclusive control over psychedelic therapy, it seems unlikely that would impede Church practices.

If someone were interested in offering a coherent critique of the Usona Institute and the capitalist interests that intersect with the organization, they might choose to focus on things like the shareholder oppression lawsuit that was filed against President and Co-Founder of Usona, Bill Linton, and his biotech firm, Promega Corporation. Among other things, the lawsuit alleged that Linton was inappropriately discounting the share price of Promega in order to operate Promega “for himself personally, Usona, and what he calls ‘humanity at large.’” Linton and Promega settled the suit for over $300 million, after the trial judge floated the idea of dissolving Promega in order to pay back shareholders if the parties couldn’t reach an independent settlement.

Additional questions about Usona might focus on longtime extractive energy executive Carey Turnbull’s involvement in the organization. In addition to his time as President and Treasurer of the non-profit Heffter Research Institute, Turnbull has fought against patents filed by COMPASS Pathways via his organization Freedom To Operate. However, as information has come to light about Turnbull’s role as founder and CEO of the for-profit Ceruvia Life Sciences — and Ceruvia’s attempts to develop and patent a synthetic psilocybin product, SYNP-101, to treat obsessive-compulsive disorders, cluster headaches, and alcohol use disorders — people have questioned the degree to which Turnbull’s opposition to COMPASS’ psilocybin patents stemmed from his own financial interests rather than out of service to public interest. Attorney Matt Zorn has described some of Turnbull’s commercial efforts as “Hot Psilocybin Patent Garbage.”

Taken further, someone might wonder if Usona’s arrangements with various research teams could present bottlenecks or strangleholds on developments related to psilocybin-assisted therapies, particularly with regards to data or intellectual property. One could even speculate or raise questions about what actually took place behind the scenes at the “gold shovel” Usona groundbreaking, where Promega executives, Usona personnel, bank presidents, and politicians like Rick Perry found themselves literally shoulder-to-shoulder. There’s certainly no shortage of questions that could be asked about what happens at the intersection of right-wing politicians, financial executives, and understudied medical interventions involving boundary-dissolving, suggestibility-enhancing drugs.

However, none of these lines of inquiry present meaningful capitalist motivations for two chemists, employed by Usona, to analyze the Church’s sacrament. It seems far more likely that the chemists — whose work has included synthesizing and studying novel psilocybin analogs — became interested in the claims the Church was making about the novel biosynthesis of an otherwise labor-intensive and fragile molecule. Alex Sherwood, listed as the corresponding author on the preprint manuscript, declined to comment for this article, telling Psymposia he’d prefer to let the science speak for itself during the preprint’s public peer-review period, and indicating there will be forthcoming updates prior to submitting the manuscript for formal peer-review.

It appears that on April 22, CoP Co-Founder Ian Benouis became aware of the lawsuit against Linton and Promega, taking to his Facebook to share a 2016 news article about the lawsuit and writing, “Usona is no longer a non-profit corporation, they are a public benefit corporation like MAPS.  I wonder if they will seek investor money also?  How does that benefit the public?” In a Facebook post the prior day, Benouis wrote (inaccurately), “Promega is a for profit company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Usona, a non-profit medical research organization.” 

In a subsequent post, Benouis again inaccurately wrote, “[updated for accuracy] Promega is a for profit company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Usona, a Public Benefit Corporation like MAPS” (square brackets in the original).

It is unclear why Benouis now believes that Usona is no longer a non-profit, as the Usona website FAQ states, “Usona is structured as a 501(c)(3) non-profit medical research organization. An MRO is a specific type of 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, designed to be engaged in the continuous active conduct of medical research.” 

It is similarly unclear why Benouis believes Promega is a “wholly owned” subsidiary of Usona in light of the fact that — following the 2020 settlement of the shareholder oppression lawsuit — Eppendorf AG, a German life sciences company, acquired a 13.7% stake in Promega. A stake which was explicitly acknowledged in Eppendorf’s 2020 and 2021 annual reports.

Psymposia contacted Usona to inquire whether its personnel or any partners of Usona are attempting to commercialize psilomethoxin; the synthesis methods the church claims to use to produce psilomethoxin; or any intellectual property and/or synthesis methods related to the production of psilomethoxin or related compounds. Psymposia also inquired about Usona’s non-profit status and relationship to Promega. 

In response to Psymposia’s inquiries, Usona spokesperson Karen Burkhartzmeyer wrote “Promega Corporation is a ‘C-Corporation’ domiciled in Wisconsin. A life science company founded in 1978, Promega is private and independent.” With regards to Usona’s non-profit status, Burkhartzmeyer wrote, “Usona Institute is a 501(c)(3) medical research organization, legally independent of Promega with its own board of directors….founded in 2014.” And finally, replying to the questions about psilomethoxin, Burkhartzmeyer concluded, “Neither organization has any interest in pursuing development or commercial activities regarding psilomethoxin.”

This, in turn, brings us to the question of how an organization making such dubious and demonstrably incorrect claims was able to gain so much traction within psychedelic spaces. The next article in this series will explore how psychedelic media organizations facilitate the promotion of questionable claims and misinformation by groups like the Church of Psilomethoxin and ultimately contribute to a space populated by charlatans and bad actors.

Russell Hausfeld contributed to the reporting of this story.

This is Part 3 of Psymposia’s investigation into the Church of Psilomethoxin. Click the links for Part 2 and Part 1.

Following more than a year of claims about the presence of psilomethoxin in the Church of Psilomethoxin’s (CoP) sacramental mushrooms — and recent revelations that these claims appear to be false  — the Church has offered a new take on its sacrament. It now states, “Our claims to the existence of Psilomethoxin, at this time, are solely based on faith, bolstered by our and our members’ own direct experiences with the Sacrament.”

One immediate question raised by this assertion is what, exactly, the “Anesthesiologist MD” Church member (discussed in Part 1 and promoted on CoP’s website) who injected Church sacrament “into numerous persons” understood themselves to be doing, and how likely it is to qualify as malpractice (whether faith-based or otherwise). Psychedelic chemist David Nichols told Psymposia, “Most Iikely the material injected into humans is a crude mushroom extract containing psilocybin and psilocin. Subjective experiences or faith by the church members is not acceptable as an analysis method.”

But this isn’t the only issue of “faith” (or safety) with regards to CoP. The Church’s response to the Williamson and Sherwood preprint states that “As a group of religious practitioners, the Church is entitled to rely on faith in believing that its sacrament contains Psilomethoxin. Other established religious organizations make claims their sacrament contains or represents certain things which it can not prove scientifically.”

Notably, CoP fails to specify the other religious organizations to which it is referring, or which sacraments it is likening to the mushrooms it cultivates and ships to its members. Perhaps the biggest question is how many of those sacraments contain Schedule 1 substances, unbeknownst to the people receiving them.

In addition to the health, safety, and ethical issues of giving people substances without their knowledge and informed consent, it is a federal crime for Church members to purchase (and the Church to sell) psilocybin- and psilocin-containing mushrooms, as well as to receive these scheduled drugs through the mail. 

In other words, CoP appears to be exposing its members to legal risk without their knowledge or ability to consent to that risk. The Church has repeatedly asserted that its sacrament is psilomethoxin — not psilocybin or psilocin. Therefore, CoP members arrested for receiving psilocybin-containing mushrooms could have a harder time claiming religious protections, as their sacramental mushrooms would be devoid of sacrament.

In its response to Williamson and Sherwood (the chemists who wrote the preprint debunking CoP’s sacramant, and who work for the Usona Institute), the Church states, “USONA chose to zero in on our Church for no apparent reason. The fact remains that faith is a perfectly normal, accepted, and fundamental part of most, if not all, religions.”

Alternatively, it could be that the reason that Williamson and Sherwood “zeroed in” on the Church was because it was making extraordinary claims about a novel psychedelic compound — one that has been a subject of interest for drug nerds ranging from anonymous forum lurkers to respected chemists like Alexander Shulgin and Marc Julia for decades. 

CoP goes on to state, “It is clearly established precedent in this country that individuals are completely free and protected in their right to believe in things they cannot prove and courts in this country are strictly forbidden from entertaining such an inquiry.”

While individuals are free to believe in things they cannot prove, they should still be able to make fully-informed decisions about what they choose to put into their bodies. As it stands, Williamson and Sherwood’s results indicate that CoP has been misleading its members and selling psilocybin-containing mushrooms under false pretenses, based solely on its own leadership’s faith — and despite every analysis to-date (including those run by CoP) failing to identify any psilomethoxin in analyzed samples.

In light of the fact that multiple Church co-founders are lawyers (who have repeatedly made unfounded statements on the record), this line of reasoning raises questions as to the soundness of the legal advice they’ve been offering to their entheogenic church clientele. In his bio, Church co-founder Ian Benouis claims that together, he and fellow co-founder Greg Lake have created “over sixty entheogenic churches around the US.” It may be prudent for those religious organizations to get a second opinion.

The question remains: does Church leadership really believe that, if a Church member were to be arrested and prosecuted, a jury would find them not guilty of manufacture, possession, and distribution of Schedule I controlled substances (psilocybin and psilocin) simply because their faith led them to believe their mushrooms contained only psilomethoxin — despite all analytical evidence to the contrary? Would prosecutors accept the argument that there was no international drug smuggling from Canada or Mexico (where the Church claims to conduct the alleged psilomethoxin biosynthesis) into the US, because Church members believed that their mushrooms only contained psilomethoxin? Would any claims of belief in psilomethoxin stand up in court in light of CoP’s acknowledgement that it was unable to identify any psilomethoxin in the mushrooms it was growing and distributing?

Perhaps more importantly, does CoP believe this faith confers protection to its membership? 

In the case of entheogenic churches who adequately inform their members of the drugs they will be receiving and ingesting, prospective members have the opportunity to weigh the various risks for themselves. For example, they can consider whether or not they wish to take the risk of assuming their use of criminalized substances will be protected by a religious freedom defense. In the case of CoP, the Church has led its members to believe that there are no scheduled substances in Church sacrament. In doing so, CoP has removed an important component of informed consent.

The claims that the Church has made carry both significant physical and legal risks, and Church members have every right to be informed about these risks. But claims of faith, alongside the various misleading public statements made by the Church and its founders, raise questions as to their standing with regards to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). 

RFRA is a US federal law that was passed in the wake of the Supreme Court Case, Employment Division v. Smith, dealing with Native American peyote use and “ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected.” RFRA establishes that the “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless doing so is the least restrictive means of furthering “a compelling governmental interest.”

This is relevant to CoP, as courts have historically upheld that there is a “compelling governmental interest” in mitigating the “risk” that sacramental drugs could be diverted to non-religious uses. It is unclear how the Church’s approach of selling mail-order mushrooms offers any guardrails to prevent such diversions. Furthermore, there is an open question as to whether the Church’s membership process (filling out an online questionnaire and paying a membership fee) meets the threshold of establishing membership in a bona fide religious organization.

The question of religious bona fides looms large, as at least one of the Church’s co-founders appears to suggest that the Church was created as a means of protecting the founders’ drug of choice. In a livestream interview with Zeus Tipado, co-founder Benjamin Moore said, “We knew immediately once we started working with [the allegedly psilomethoxin-containing mushrooms]…that this was something different and that we needed to protect it from any sort of interference by government or corporate America. So we needed to create some artifice of protection to protect it.”

Moore went on to tell Tipado, “So, we did just that…because that’s what America requires you to do….We churched it up because it is, it is a church. It is a holy spirit in my opinion and it lets us access the divine.”

Psymposia asked Lake what he would say to people who might suggest that the Church is really just a workaround or loophole to sell psilocybin-containing mushrooms within the context of prohibition. Lake responded “Um, well, I tell ’em, you know, look, if people feel that way…they for sure have the right to do that. You know what I mean? We’re a church. We’re a religious organization…you know, and we firmly believe that psilomethoxin is contained in our sacrament.” Lake continued, “No hard feelings here. I want people to try to make the best informed decisions for themselves. And if they don’t believe this or believe it’s a fraud or a workaround. Don’t join. That’s fine…Again, no hard feelings there.”

Moore and Lake’s words indicate that CoP might actually fit into a longstanding US tradition that has existed since the early days of drug prohibition: religious organizations constructed to provide cover from US drug laws.

One such notable organization, the Original Kleptonian Neo-American Church was founded by a disciple of Timothy Leary in the mid-’60s. In addition to claiming LSD as its sacrament, the Neo-American Church incorporated “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as religious hymns. Ultimately, despite some experts identifying the Neo-American Church as having a serious, fully formed theology, the judge overseeing the 1968 court case United States vs. Kuch determined that the Church’s rituals did not merit protection under the First Amendment.

The judge’s statements that he was unable to find “a religious discipline, a ritual, or tenets to guide one’s daily existence;” that “there is a conscious effort to assert in passing the attributes of religion but obviously only for tactical purposes;” and that “it is clear that the desire to use drugs and to enjoy drugs for their own sake, regardless of religious experience, is the coagulant of this organization and the reason for its existence,” sound like he could be addressing present day CoP leadership.

CoP’s words and actions also bring to mind the Oklevueha Native American Church (ONAC) and the allegations of “pretendians” leveled against ONAC and its founder, James “Flaming Eagle” Mooney. ONAC is another religiously structured organization, predicated on providing its members with access to drugs. Perhaps the most notable branch in recent years was Ayahuasca Healings, whose leader falsely claimed to be the first legal ayahuasca church in the US. In reality, it had no legal protection whatsoever. Psymposia has previously reported on Ayahuasca Healings’ founder, as well as the involvement of ONAC members at psychedelic events and their subsequent removal from those events. In numerous online bios, Benouis claims to have “created an Oklevueha Native American Church in 2015.” 

While the Church may be building on these long-standing American traditions of questionable psychedelic religions, it also seems to be taking a decidedly 21st century approach. For example, on April 26 (nearly two weeks after the sacrament had been debunked), CoP co-founder Benjamin Moore tweeted out a video clip of a live podcast from podcaster Tim Pool, featuring a cast of right-wing characters: Alex Jones, Tim Pool, Michael Malice, and Blair White. In the clip — which Malice retweeted to his nearly 620,000 Twitter followers — Malice (appearing made up as an actual clown) and White both endorse the Church and its sacrament, with Malice explicitly stating “It is legal,” and White proclaiming “I’m a proud customer.”

We are working very hard to get #Veterans the Help they need. Thanks @michaelmalice @MsBlaireWhite @Timcast for being amazing and sharing this energy. #psilomethoxin #psychedelics #microdose #hikrodose #OneLove pic.twitter.com/7M0TgOGAKt

— Benjamin Moore (@p5iloBenjamin) April 27, 2023

And “customer” may, in fact, be a more accurate descriptor than “believer.” A post on CoP’s Instagram page proclaims, “10% commission on sacrament purchases. Invite your friends and save money,” with a caption that reads: 

“Introducing the ‘Spiritual Equity Credit’ referral program for members of the Church of Psilomethoxin. Members can earn spiritual equity credits by referring new members through their unique referral URL, which can be found in their Referral Program Dashboard in the Member Portal area. The credits can be used to subsidize payment required to obtain the Church’s sacrament offerings, making them more accessible. More info available on website, link in bio ”

Between CoP’s ongoing misleading statements about the presence of psilomethoxin in its mushrooms, its “referral for drug credit” scheme, and the price it charges its members for its “sacramental supplement,” it’s hard to see the Church as anything other than a pay-to-play (pay-to-pray?) international mushroom growing and selling hub. In addition to claiming to produce its mushrooms in Canada and Mexico, Benouis has publicly confirmed the Church will ship sacrament internationally.

Despite the considerable evidence that CoP has been misleading its members and the general public — and appears to be using false narratives and religious claims to sell Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms at a significant markup — the Church has been quick to assert that it is actually the victim of religious persecution at the hands of “psychedelic capitalism,” namely, the Usona Institute. Part 4 of this series will examine those claims.

Russell Hausfeld contributed to the reporting of this story.

This is Part 2 of Psymposia’s investigation into the Church of Psilomethoxin. Part 1 can be found here.

In a livestream with Zeus Tipado on April 25, Church of Psilomethoxin co-founder Benjamin Moore announced that the Church is reverting back to its original name, “The Church of the Sacred Synthesis.” In response, Tipado enthusiastically suggested that such a change could prevent much of the pushback CoP has recently encountered, and offered a colorful analogy. “Let’s say for example, I create the Church of Canned Peas, you know? And I’m giving people peas and canned peas and then all of a sudden somebody’s like, ‘These aren’t peas, it’s…creamed corn!’ You know, then it’s like, ‘I was under the impression that I was getting…peas, but it’s actually corn!’…If the church was called Church of Food, then it doesn’t matter what you get, corn or peas. You get whatever!”

Tipado went on to say, “Regardless…if it has psilomethoxin or if it doesn’t have psilomethoxin…I think just taking that out would just better the whole perception of the Church when people hear about it. So I’m very happy that you guys are going through that change…I think that’s going to help the entire image of the church, just that simple change.”

While changes to CoP’s website and social media pages indicate that the Church is currently exploring a “Church of Food” approach, there are still many unresolved issues and questions with regards to its claims about its sacrament: peas psilomethoxin (a name the Church trademarked in 2022).

In numerous interviews with CoP founders, as well as on its website, Church leadership references comments made in 2005 by the renowned psychedelic chemist Alexander Shulgin (whom CoP considers to be the “Church’s godfather and prophet”), regarding the possibility of a mycological biosynthesis of psilomethoxin. In the “Ask Dr. Shulgin Online” section of his website, Shulgin replies to an inquiry about why 4-HO-5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (psilomethoxin) wasn’t included in his book, TiHKAL, stating:

4-Hydroxy-5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine would be a fascinating compound to explore. The reason it’s not in TiKHAL is that it is virtually unknown. The only report of it in the chemical literature was a paper published by Marc Julia’s group at the Pasteur Institute in 1965….The synthesis is quite a frightening thing….I’m not surprised that no one has pursued the compound.

However there is a very interesting study that took place in Leipzig about 15 years ago. Jochen Gartz, a mushroom explorer whom I know quite well, has done some fascinating studies with Psilocybe species by raising them on solid media containing strange tryptamines that are alien to the mushroom. Apparently the enzymes that are responsible for the 4-hydroxy group of psilocin are indifferent to what it is they choose to 4-hydroxylate….I’ll give you even odds that if you put spores of a psilocybe species on cow droppings loaded with 5-MeO-DMT you would come out with mushrooms containing 4,5-HO-MeO-DMT. This way you avoid a 10 step synthesis by growing a psychoactive mushroom that contains no illegal drug.

While Church leadership has repeatedly referenced Shulgin’s speculation as though it were established fact, it should be clear that Shulgin’s speculation is just that — speculation. Yes, it’s based on Gartz’s published work, but Gartz didn’t publish about biosynthesizing psilomethoxin.

CoP explanations of the biosynthesis appear a bit muddled. In some interviews CoP leaders claim the process involves adding 5-MeO-DMT freebase to the mushroom substrate, while in other interviews they claim it entails 5-MeO-DMT salts. Meanwhile, in a Facebook post, Church co-founder Ian Benouis claims “all the cows that have eaten 5-meo-dmt containing phalaris grass making manure when inoculated with psilocybin spores have naturally been making psilomethoxin for thousands of years…” The Church has not made its biosynthesis method available for public scrutiny or peer-review. 

Regarding production of the Church’s sacramental psilomethoxin, Lake told Psymposia it is made in a “production facility in Canada. People that we, you know, have a very close relationship with — or members of our church, who do it in Canada.”

Asked whether those producers confirmed the presence of psilomethoxin, Lake responded, “No, absolutely not. I mean, we all know there’s no reference sample, right? So, it’s like, you know, in our view, they couldn’t tell us one way or the other.”

When CoP was asked on its Instagram page why it hadn’t “submitted a paper for publication in a scientific journal,” the Church replied, “We are a religious organization. Not a medical or scientific one. Submitting papers to scientific journals is outside the scope of our purpose.”

The psilomethoxin assertions aren’t the only questionable claims made by CoP leadership regarding mycological biosyntheses. In a recent podcast with Martin Ball — a longtime 5-MeO-DMT practitioner who has admitted to vomiting on clients and engaging in other harmful practices — Benouis claims to “have a friend…in Oregon [who] fed THC, delta-9 THC to mushrooms and they 4-hydroxylated it.” Benouis fails to provide any supporting evidence for this claim, instead using it as a jumping off point for his belief that the “mushrooms can do the heavy lifting” of synthesizing psilomethoxin. In his conversation with Tipado, CoP co-founder Benjamin Moore repeats this 4-hydroxylated THC claim, again without evidence.

CoP’s “Scientific Response” to the Williamson and Sherwood preprint — a recent manuscript detailing chemical analysis which failed to detect any psilomethoxin in a sample of the Church’s sacrament — was written by its “Director of Sacred Science/Sacred Synthesis,” Adam McKay. McKay’s bio refers to him as a “chemist and physicist” with a BS in Chemistry and Physics, as well as a minor in Mathematics. It also claims he has worked as an analytical chemist for a dietary supplement manufacturer and two pharmaceutical companies. According to his LinkedIn, McKay’s longest period of employment was as “Manager and Head Tutor” for a company called “Integral Tutoring” for about eight years.

Psymposia contacted McKay to confirm his credentials and professional experience. McKay declined to provide verification, instead directing Psymposia to re-read his LinkedIn, disregard his tutoring “side business,” and contact Stony Brook University. Psymposia was unable to verify McKay’s claims of being a physicist.

While reporting this story and reviewing publicly available information about McKay online, Psymposia watched a video titled “Psilomethoxin Deep Dive with Chemist Adam Mckay.” In the video, Mckay attempts to unpack the biosynthesis of psilocin, explaining, “the fungi has all these enzymes that make [psilocin] by a bunch of procedures.” He then launches into a similarly vague explanation of how mushrooms (which he repeatedly refers to as “the plant”) make psilomethoxin. How likely is it that McKay will succeed in synthesizing a reference standard of psilomethoxin — a procedure Shulgin called “a frightening thing?” Only time will tell.  

In CoP’s “Scientific Response” McKay refers to Williamson and Sherwood’s paper as “Williamson and Heldreth’s paper,” seeming to confuse social media commentary from the CEO of Panacea Plant Sciences, David Heldreth, with the preprint written by the Usona researchers. McKay then claims the paper “appears to be put forth by two individuals associated with a for profit organization.” Usona Institute, the organization that employs Williamson and Sherwood, is a non-profit medical research organization. 

Rather than offering scientific analysis, McKay goes on to claim that the “chain of custody” of the sample of the alleged psilomethoxin is at issue, stating that “There is no evidence to support that it is authentic sacrament, stored and transported properly, and unadulterated.” Psymposia asked McKay what the proper storage and transportation protocols would entail, but McKay declined to comment. 

Psymposia is aware of three analyses performed on the Church’s sacrament — in addition to the multiple analyses the Church claims to have run — all of which have failed to find psilomethoxin. While CoP has raised “chain of custody” objections to the sample an anonymous Church member (whose identity Psymposia has independently verified) provided to the Usona researchers, it is unclear why it has not submitted its own sample for HPLC or UPLC analysis.

In light of McKay telling Psymposia, “I will not be commenting anything [sic] for 4 months [sic] time,” Psymposia turned to noted psychedelic chemist David Nichols for his thoughts about the Church’s statements regarding chemical analysis of its sacrament. Nichols told Psymposia that “The church has a completely nonsensical and nonscientific position.”

In response to the Church’s assertion that “No one can claim, at this juncture, positive identification of Psilomethoxin until a reference sample for comparison is obtained,” Nichols told Psymposia:

“If a reference standard was necessary to identify a new natural product, no new natural products would ever have been identified. That is simple logic that anyone can understand. You don’t need an already synthesized standard molecule before you can identify the presence of that molecule for the very first time in a natural product. Rather, the Williamson and Sherwood paper uses proper analytical methodology to show that there is nothing in their ‘psilomethoxin’ sample with the properties of the claimed compound.”

Rather than identifying specific methodological failings of the Williamson and Sherwood paper in the “Methodology” section of CoP’s response, McKay mostly opts to speak in generalizations, stating, “Chromatography is highly sensitive to solvent mixture ratios and pH yielding variable results even on the same instrument run consecutively without significant controls and safeguards in place.”  McKay continues, “In a credible analysis the method used needs to be validated and robust. With chromatography in particular, this entails such steps as repeated injections of the standard to indicate the instrument’s reliable functioning, blank measurements for background noise, and threshold of detection measurements.”

Contrasting sharply with McKay’s objections, Nichols told Psymposia that “Organic compounds can be identified by specific analytical methods such as high-resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC-HRMS), which will give the exact molecular weight of a compound out to four decimal places, allowing one to calculate the molecular formula of the compound. Ultra performance liquid chromatography was used to identify how many tryptamines were present in their standard sample. [Williamson and Sherwood] easily identified psilocybin, psilocin, and baeocystin. However, the exact molecular weight of psilomethoxin is 235.1441 and there was no additional HPLC peak corresponding to that exact molecular weight.”

It appears that CoP believes its psilomethoxin somehow remains elusive to most forms of scientific drug testing. Whether in response to GC-MS, HPLC, or UPLC testing, the Church has found reasons to cast doubt on the results, while simultaneously asserting the reliability of bioassays (eating the mushrooms and reporting the subjective experiential effects). 

In the case of Williamson and Sherwood’s analysis, McKay ultimately appeals to his own authority, contending, “As a chromatography specialist for small molecule drugs of [sic] almost a decade in FDA [Food and Drug Administration] regulated labs these findings would never stand as reported here due to the lack of the 3 aforementioned control steps alone.”

Given that the Usona chemists in question were not seeking to manufacture drugs for human consumption, citing FDA procedures seems to be a distraction from the actual question of whether or not Williamson and Sherwood’s analytical methodology was sound. Psymposia asked McKay why he chose to reference the FDA in CoP’s response, but he declined to comment.

Nichols told Psymposia that “It is reasonable to assume, based on the HPLC retention times of the standard tryptamine mixture that the authors examined, that psilomethoxin would have appeared at some point prior to the 4.5 minute total elution time of the sample. There is definitely no psilomethoxin in the sample analyzed by Williamson and Sherwood.”

Perhaps the most glaring issue with CoP’s entire “Scientific Response” is the fact that the Church and its leadership have claimed on its website that its sacramental “fruiting bodies contain only Psilomethoxin (a non-scheduled substance) and not psilocybin and psilocin.”

Church leadership has reiterated this point on numerous podcasts, or failed to correct podcast hosts who have made this point to them. So even if we were to accept all of McKay’s objections to Williamson and Sherwood’s analysis, the presence of psilocybin and psilocin in the Church mushrooms that were analyzed is adequate to debunk CoP’s claims about its sacrament. And, of course, there’s the fact that the Church has now made the argument that it never claimed to have positively identified psilomethoxin in its sacrament in the first place.

Why, exactly, is CoP leadership comfortable taking the position that they never identified psilomethoxin in their sacramental psilomethoxin? Apparently, it comes down to faith, a core component of most religions. In the United States, many religions and faith-based practices have rich histories, interwoven with attempts to avoid persecution, and the Church claims it’s no different. Who, you might ask, is persecuting CoP? According to the Church, it has become a victim of “psychedelic capitalism.” Parts 3 and 4 of this series will examine some of the Church’s claims about its faith, its persecution, and its understanding of psychedelic capitalism.

There are many arenas in which appealing to faith is perfectly acceptable. However, with regards to the intersection of faith and chemistry, Nichols told Psymposia, “Subjective experiences or faith by the church members is not acceptable as an analysis method.”

Russell Hausfeld contributed to the reporting of this story.

Editor’s note: As Psymposia was preparing to publish this article, the Church of Psilomethoxin changed its website and social media channels to refer to it as the “Church of the Sacred Synthesis.” Given that the events reported in this article occurred when the Church was calling itself the “Church of Psilomethoxin,” Psymposia has decided to continue using that name for the sake of clarity.

What happens when a group of veterans and lawyers start a psychedelic church?

It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but since Veterans Day 2021, it’s been a question that an increasing number of people have been asking about The Church of Psilomethoxin (CoP). This recently-formed “entheogenic church” — started by Ian Benouis (who participated in Psymposia’s 2015 Drug War Stories), Greg Lake, Benjamin Moore, and Ryan Begin — recognizes the drug psilomethoxin as its “universal sacrament” and “sacramental supplement,” and has been promoting its services and sacrament on a number of podcasts and social media outlets. This has left many wondering what exactly psilomethoxin is, and just how this church allegedly became the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of this esoteric compound practically overnight. 

On its website and in various interviews, CoP claims to have developed a novel biosynthetic approach for producing its sacrament, allegedly by adding 5-MeO-DMT to the growing substrate of Psilocybe cubensis, which purportedly caused the fungus to convert the 5-MeO-DMT into psilomethoxin within the mushroom fruiting body. Throughout 2022, CoP’s homepage claimed that the “fruiting bodies contain only Psilomethoxin (a non-scheduled substance) and not psilocybin and psilocin” (emphasis added).

Once the Church approves prospective members and receives a membership fee of $55.55, the Church advertises that it ships powdered psilomethoxin-containing mushroom fruiting bodies — its spiritual sacrament — to its members for $175 for a half-ounce or $300 per ounce.

To say that these claims raised eyebrows among psychonauts would be an understatement. For years, underground chemists on web forums like the DMT-Nexus have explored “doping” mushroom substrates with a variety of chemicals, from tryptamine HCl to melatonin, and posting their findings (including analytical results) for discussion. In January of this year, a post titled “4-HO-5-MeO-DMT & The Church of Psilomethoxin” appeared on the 5 Hive forum. Two months later, in March, skeptical responses began to pop up in the thread, eventually accompanied by analytical results from high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV) on a sample reportedly obtained from CoP. The analysis failed to detect psilomethoxin or other unexpected compounds, but did detect psilocybin, psilocin, and baeocystin.

On April 12 it became apparent that CoP’s claims had caught the attention of researchers operating beyond the realms of online drug forums. Usona Institute chemists Samuel Williamson and Alex Sherwood released a preprint manuscript (a preliminary version of a scientific paper made available prior to peer-review) titled, “Fungi Fiction: Analytical Investigation into the Church Of Psilomethoxin’s Alleged Novel Compound Using UPLC-HRMS,” detailing their analysis of “purported psilomethoxin material” provided by the Church, using ultra performance liquid chromatography with high-resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC-HRMS). The sample for their analysis was provided to the chemists by an anonymous CoP member, whose identity Psymposia has independently verified.

Upon analyzing the sample from the Church, the researchers concluded that their results “strongly indicate that the material distributed by the Church of Psilomethoxin does not contain the novel compound psilomethoxin (or 5-MeO-psilocybin) as claimed.” The paper closes by stating that the Church’s “claims of producing a novel compound, psilomethoxin, by incorporating 5-MeO-DMT into the substrate of cultivated Psilocybe mushrooms are more akin to ‘fungi fiction’ than reality,” asserting that, “our analysis revealed that the material distributed by the Church primarily contains known tryptamines, specifically psilocybin and psilocin, with a trace amount of baeocystin.” 

In other words, CoP appears to be sending plain old cubensis mushrooms through the mail — at a markup of $50-$200/oz compared to the street prices reported by Erowid.

The Church was quick to respond to the preprint, publishing a statement titled “Psychedelic Capitalism, Scientific Integrity, and a Wider Look Into Current Events; Response to USONA Article” on April 13. 

The statement, riddled with errors and self-contradictory claims, offers a case study in psychedelic charlatanism. For instance, throughout CoP’s response, it references Facebook comments by David Heldreth of Panacea Plant Sciences (a corporadelic firm whose website raises far more questions than it answers) and repeatedly conflates Heldreth and his comments with the preprint by the Usona chemists Williamson and Sherwood. 

When questioned about the Church confusing authorship of the preprint, Greg Lake, one of CoP’s founders, claimed the language in the Church’s response was intended to highlight Heldreth’s statements as defamatory. “A republish is just as liable as the original publisher is what I was getting at there,” Lake told Psymposia. However, the final section of CoP’s response explicitly refers to the preprint as “Williamson and Heldreth’s paper,” an error that Lake’s explanation fails to address.

In order to avoid muddying the waters further, Psymposia has chosen to focus its reporting on the points raised by the Usona researchers and CoP’s replies to those points.

Before unpacking the Church’s statement, it should be noted that on April 14, CoP’s website was set to forward all pages to entheogenesis.io. The redirect led to a $300 per ticket “one-day very intimate consciousness event” hosted by CoP and scheduled for the following day, where the “Sacrament, Psilomethoxin will be offered in ceremony for further expansion and connection to unity consciousness in their experiences throughout the day in a safe and loving container.” The Church also removed public access to its Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube pages. By April 20, it appeared CoP had begun deleting social media pages, with its Instagram profile returning an error message, rather than a private profile; but by April 23, it had returned to a publicly visible private page.

To summarize, in the days following the release of the preprint by Usona researchers, CoP leaders responded with an evasive denial and effectively took the Church website and social media channels offline. At the same time, they forwarded people to their in-person event where they planned to distribute the recently-debunked sacrament. Lake said the Church’s online presence was minimized because recent interactions were causing “very negative energy [in] our team.” 

When CoP’s website flashed back online on April 21, a message read “At this time, we are only accepting members who have been referred by another member and verified,” and most of the site’s content was only accessible to members. Most pages simply read, “This content is for Members only” and invited members to log in with their credentials. The website went offline on April 22, but on April 23 it reappeared, again with most of its content only accessible to Church members. 

Returning to the response itself, perhaps the most notable point the Church offers is its assertion that, “The individuals attacking and attempting to discredit our Church, seemingly operate off the erroneous assumption that the Church has made the claim that Psilomethoxin has been positively identified in its Sacrament. Had they taken time to read through our website content and other materials, they would have known their assumption to be incorrect.” 

Read it once. Read it twice. Then read it again. Yes, you read it correctly. The Church of Psilomethoxin says that it has never claimed to have positively identified psilomethoxin in its sacrament. However, in numerous materials reviewed by Psymposia, CoP has repeatedly asserted that its sacrament is psilomethoxin. So if the Church’s sacrament is psilomethoxin, how is it possible that its psilomethoxin doesn’t contain any psilomethoxin?

A review of CoP documents offers insight as to the claims the Church has made. For example, its Welcome Book for New Members explicitly states, “The Church of Psilomethoxin was established in November of 2021 immediately after the discovery and confirmation of our holy sacrament, Psilomethoxin” (emphasis added). While lawyers are known for splitting hairs — and this is a Church whose founders repeatedly emphasize their legal backgrounds — it seems unreasonable for the Church to argue that it never “made the claim that Psilomethoxin has been positively identified” when CoP’s own documents explicitly cite its “confirmation” of psilomethoxin.

If we can avoid getting hung up on the contradictory notion that the Church of Psilomethoxin has never claimed to have “positively identified” psilomethoxin “in its Sacrament [psilomethoxin],” there’s a litany of claims from CoP’s website that bear examining. 

For example, on a page titled “Psilomethoxin: The History, Testing, Pharmacodynamics, and Pharmacokinetics,” the Church states:

“An Anesthesiologist MD [medical doctor] in the US who is a member of our church purified the molecule and injected it into numerous persons subcutaneously and reported no adverse responses.”

In light of CoP’s statement that it never positively identified psilomethoxin, how could it claim this anesthesiologist purified an unidentified, possibly non-existent molecule? It also raises the far more alarming question of what, exactly, this anesthesiologist “purified” and injected into “numerous persons” — especially given that they were “purifying” fungal material. 

One can’t help but think back to the case study published in 2021, which purportedly documented the case of “a 30-year-old man who injected psilocybin [‘mushroom tea’] intravenously resulting in an extended stay in the intensive care unit because of multiple-system organ failure.”

Psymposia asked Greg Lake about the claims of purification and subcutaneous injection, which CoP published on its website. Lake was quick to deny any official Church involvement, saying, “It was just merely reported to us. It wasn’t done at our direction or anything like that. So yeah, no, we didn’t like pay or command or get anybody to do that.” Lake did not elaborate as to if or how CoP attempted to verify the claims of purification and injection prior to posting them on its website, or why Church leadership chose to amplify these claims, specifically.

In a bout of apparent honesty further down the “Testing” section of the page, the Church admits:

We have performed GC-MS [gas chromatography–mass spectrometry] multiple times on our sacrament and to date, no one has been able to detect the molecule using this destructive testing process.  

According to the Church, it was unable to identify the presence of psilomethoxin via repeated analysis with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. In other words, CoP has no evidence for the presence of psilomethoxin in its mushrooms.

However, despite a lack of any supporting evidence, CoP leadership argues this actually means that the mushrooms did contain psilomethoxin, but the analysis process destroyed the psilomethoxin in the sample. It would seem more plausible that CoP’s attempts at psilomethoxin biosynthesis failed, and that the cubensis mushrooms — which no one has demonstrated can produce psilomethoxin — failed to produce any psilomethoxin for the Church. Instead, CoP asserts:

GC-MS methods are not capable of directly analyzing drugs that are nonvolatile (does [sic] not vaporize easily), polar (water soluble), or thermally labile (destroyed by heat).

We believe that Psilomethoxin is non-volatile, polar, and thermally labile and therefore a poor candidate for testing through this process.  

Our church personally bioassays each batch of our sacrament for efficacy and safety.

Apparently, rather than analyzing their samples via other methods like readily-available HPLC (as in the case of the 5 Hive forum member) or UPLC (as in the case of the Usona researchers), the Church leaders decided that their repeated inability to identify psilomethoxin via GC-MS analysis, combined with bioassays (eating the mushrooms) actually indicated that the mushrooms “contain only psilomethoxin…and not psilocybin and psilocin.” When asked about these types of claims, Lake told Psymposia, “People have that right as an individual human to make a decision on what they want to consume themselves or not. And now, like you say with the [Williamson and Sherwood] article, there’s plenty of information out there. People can read the article, believe it, or, you know, talk to one of our members and believe them. You know?”

In numerous podcast interviews (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) CoP founders Lake, Benouis, and Moore state outright, imply, or fail to correct podcast hosts who say that CoP’s sacramental mushrooms contain “only a non-scheduled substance,” “psilomethoxin,” “mostly psilomethoxin,” “little to no psilocybin,” and other similar statements. Despite the Church’s recent denials, it seems clear that any reasonable person would understand these statements as CoP leadership claiming that the Church of Psilomethoxin grows and distributes mushrooms that contain psilomethoxin.

CoP’s April 13 reply to Williamson and Sherwood contains numerous ad hominem fallacies and generalized objections to the preprint, while offering minimal, if any, supporting evidence. At various points, the Church states: 

“…these parties seem to be so fixated on attacking and discrediting the Church that they have either seen the Church’s statements and completely disregarded them (because it doesn’t support their baseless attacks) or have not taken the time to assess the entire situation before publicly disparaging the Church.”

“…it is evident their desire to try and discredit and disparage our Church has also significantly and negatively affected the quality of their science.”

“…the article at issue is based upon extremely poor scientific standards.”

“…scientifically, the claims made in the subject article are highly dubious at best.”

“…the subject article is of such a poor scientific/methodological standard…[it] is not reflective of them meeting [US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] standards.”

While there are numerous additional examples throughout CoP’s response, this list offers evidence of the Church’s generally dismissive statements about the Usona researchers’ findings. Furthermore, the claims about FDA standards appear to be a red herring and are particularly odd in light of the Church’s admission that it has also been unable to identify psilomethoxin in any of its samples and simply believes in its presence as a matter of “faith.” 

When questioned, Lake directed all questions regarding scientific claims to the Church’s “Director of Sacred Science/Sacred Synthesis,” Adam McKay, who declined Psymposia’s request to elaborate on why the Church referenced FDA standards or how they would be relevant to Williamson and Sherwood’s analytical findings.

Setting aside CoP’s list of vague objections, the Church’s response can largely be classified as falling into three arenas: claims about chemistry, faith, and “psychedelic capitalism,” all of which will be covered in upcoming articles. Psymposia has contacted additional psychedelic chemists and researchers to weigh in on the Church’s various claims. 

When asked about a number of chemistry-related claims, McKay told Psymposia, “I will not be commenting anything [sic] for 4 months [sic] time other than the fact that I am proceeding in the direction of validating a proposed mechanism and producing a reference standard for the church.”

Hamilton Morris — one of the world’s most renowned drug journalists — has been hired as a full-time consultant for COMPASS Pathways, a publicly traded corporation focused on medicalizing psilocybin.

According to COMPASS Pathways Chief Communications Director, Tracy Cheung, Morris will be advising the company on research related to new psychedelic compounds that could be developed into therapies. He will also carry out chemistry research at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia with the COMPASS Discovery Center team there, which is led by Dr. Jason Wallach. 

The Discovery Center was started by COMPASS in 2020 and consists of a network of labs across the United States working to develop innovative therapeutic approaches for neuropsychiatric indications, according to Wallach. 

Morris, a graduate of The New School in New York City who studied anthropology and chemistry, said: “For over a decade, Jason and I have worked together studying the chemistry and pharmacology of psychedelics. Working with the COMPASS team will allow us to make strides in developing novel psychedelics that could have tremendous medical and scientific value.”

In 2016, COMPASS Pathways quietly switched from a nonprofit entity to a for-profit entity, and has since received criticism from researchers, patent examiners, and the broader community of psychedelic users. More recently — in March 2021 — David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s Soaps, “sounded the alarm” on “COMPASS’s interference with Oregon’s psilocybin therapy program.” Additionally, the legitimacy of COMPASS’s patents has been challenged by Freedom to Operate Inc. (FTO), a nonprofit founded by Carey Turnbull—a board member of Usona Institute, President of the Heffter Research Institute, and CEO of Ceruvia Lifesciences. Following a number of FTO challenges, a patent examiner at the UK Intellectual Property Office released an opinion stating that multiple patent claims filed by COMPASS were not inventive or novel, based on prior art. 

COMPASS Pathways’ CEO and founder, George Goldsmith, has a professional history of facilitating corporate networking and “cozy relationships” with regulators across industries (from resource extraction to military contractors). COMPASS recently announced its participation at Citi, Morgan Stanley, and HC Wainwright investor conferences — notable because Goldsmith previously helped rehabilitate the images of financial institutions at his previous company, Tapestry Networks, in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

In 2018, Morris expressed some of his reluctance to cast judgement on the company in a discussion with Cambridge House International. Cambridge House is a company which specializes in resource investment conferences and assisting in raising capital for the junior mineral exploration industry — a risk-tolerant sector which took an early interest in psychedelic pharmaceutical investments. 

During this conversation, Morris admitted that there was a lot of controversy around “a company called COMPASS Pathways that is associated with Peter Thiel. And a lot of people in the psychedelic community are afraid that this represents the first step in a sort of corporate commodification of the psychedelic experience.” He said that he was reluctant to weigh in about the subject because he had had a lot of “difficulty finding concrete information on what COMPASS Pathways is doing.”

Morris acknowledged that there are questions of fairness that were worth addressing around corporate entities entering the psychedelic space. But he also noted that he believes corporate interest could serve the public’s benefit. 

 “I think there are a lot of people in the cannabis world who felt that they had sacrificed their freedom — people who had gone to prison, people who were activists, people who dedicated their lives to the plant — and then they felt that these newcomers, these business people, came and reaped all the benefits of their hard work,” Morris said. “But the flipside is that that sort of white-collar corporate interest, I think, had a really important role in pushing cannabis toward legalization. So there’s a push and pull there that’s important to recognize and which makes me somewhat reluctant to outright dismiss companies like COMPASS Pathways because who’s to say that that isn’t what ultimately pushes things toward the direction of legality and that would have a positive impact on everyone.”

Morris concluded his thoughts about COMPASS Pathways by saying that he was cautiously optimistic about the way things were heading and hopes “that everyone behaves responsibly and…that COMPASS Pathways doesn’t turn out to be the malevolent corporate entity that some people in the psychedelic community seem to think that they are.”

Beyond joining a controversial company, Morris’ hiring as a full-time consultant for COMPASS Pathways presents potential conflicts of interest between Morris’ journalistic career and his corporate consulting career. 

Beginning as a monthly column for Vice Magazine in 2009 and evolving into a documentary film series, Morris’ “Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia” series has become one of the most popular journalistic endeavors covering psychedelic drugs and culture. Many of his fans see Morris as one of the most trusted voices in the media when it comes to psychedelic substances. 

During an interview with “Mind and Matter” podcast, Morris indicated that — while chemistry is his current focus — he plans to continue to write, podcast, and potentially make more films in the future. In journalism, questions about conflicts of interest arise when a journalist is paid by a corporation or individual in an industry they are covering.

For example, columnist David Brooks was critiqued for using his New York Times column to promote his Facebook-funded Aspen Institute project — Weave — without disclosing his financial ties, and proceeding to write corporate blog posts for Facebook. And sports reporter Karen Crouse was recently suspended from the New York Times for writing glowing columns about Michael Phelps without disclosing that she is co-authoring a book with the swimmer. One doesn’t need to look far for other instances of this behavior among journalists.

Journalist Tim Schwab, writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, notes that “the Society of Professional Journalists — and most newsrooms — have codes of ethics that instruct journalists, in the first place to avoid conflicts of interest. Disclosure [of financial ties] is a last resort, if conflicts are absolutely unavoidable.”

Psymposia asked Morris — who, alongside being a full-time consultant for COMPASS Pathways, is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the company Mind Cure Health — how he plans to navigate future conflicts of interest between his corporate consulting job and his journalistic endeavors. 

Morris has not responded to Psymposia’s requests for comment on this matter or regarding critiques of COMPASS Pathways and their patents as of publication. However, Morris did discuss his future with Vice on “Mind and Matter”, stating that he will not be working with the company on a fourth season of “Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia.” A source from Vice also informed Psymposia that they understood that Morris would no longer be working with Vice after season three of the show. 

On “Mind and Matter,” Morris said: “People will say, ‘Why are you with that dumpster fire company Vice?’ Well, it’s expensive to make documentaries…I will take money to make these projects from whoever will give it to me.” Morris said he would not be making another season of his show following season three, citing extremely long hours, lack of support from Vice, and four months of unpaid work during the pandemic. 

When asked by podcast host Nick Jikomes if he had a project that he was working on next, Morris said that he planned to work full time as a chemist for the foreseeable future.

“I think the plan is now to just do full time chemistry for a while,” Morris said. “For years I’ve worked with this brilliant chemist, Jason Wallach, at the University of the Science in Philadelphia and in recent years there has been a lot of interest in the psychedelic sphere and there’s a lot of funding that has emerged….We have funding to do some really cool work…Chemistry was, like, a thing I did on the weekends and that was great and it was a nice kind of side project in my life. But I would love to spend more time just doing chemistry. I won’t stop, you know, podcasts and writing and things like that. But unless there’s a… different network [that] offers a really miraculous sum of money to do something, I think I’m probably going to be taking a break from that and maybe I’ll try to make a movie at some point in the future.”

For now, it looks like Morris will retire his camera and film crew for beakers and burners, helping expand COMPASS’s ballooning patent portfolio.