Inside the Zide Door: The church that uses mushrooms as sacrament

Explore the captivating journey of Zide Door, the Church of Ambrosia, where nondenominational faith meets entheogens, as it navigates the complexities of religious freedom and drug enforcement laws while fostering a community united in the spiritual exploration through cannabis and magic mushrooms. — Shannon Ratliff

When you step into Zide Door, the Church of Ambrosia, you’ll quickly realize it’s unlike any traditional church you’ve ever encountered. There is no stained glass or ornate architecture here, but instead, bright blue pew benches adorned with a cannabis leaf garland.

Down the aisle, a slightly raised platform decorated with red toadstools. There stands Dave Hodges, the pastor and founder of Zide Door, dressed in the regalia of a Roman Catholic Bishop, but with a twist. His robe and hat are covered in cannabis leaves, with mushrooms delicately embroidered all around.

Every Sunday at 4:20 pm, Hodges delivers sermons about the powers of sacred mushrooms and his personal experiences with them, all while smoke fills the room due to the communal joint being passed around by the church’s members.

What is Zide Door?

The Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants was founded in January 2019 in the city of Oakland, California, to provide safe access to entheogens for religious purposes. Hodges asserts that the Church of Ambrosia is a legitimate nondenominational, interfaith religious practice that embraces the use of entheogenic plants, primarily cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms, as sacraments.

The church believes in the Doctrine of Religious Evolution, which they refer to as the new “Stoned Ape Theory.” Similar to the Stoned Ape Theory, early humans accidentally came upon psychedelic mushrooms, ate them in high doses, and experienced changes in their minds that led to the development of human communication and consciousness.

To take the theory one step further, the Church of Ambrosia proposes that magic mushrooms also catalyzed the emergence of religion. The early humans who consumed mushrooms created religion due to experiencing otherworldly entities and wanting to convey these complex concepts to one another.

Cannabis also plays a crucial role in this religion, as they claim that using it religiously helps open one’s “inner eye.” This allows users to understand life and what the world is teaching them. Spirits communicate to humans through entheogens like these two substances, so they play a pivotal role in the religious practice.

Sacraments of Zide Door

Across from where Hodges gives sermons is a dispensary that sells untaxed cannabis and seventeen different strains of magic mushrooms, with various psilocybin-based products such as teas, granola, chocolate, and capsules. Each purchase comes with a detailed guide on how to prepare for each trip, how to dose, how to avoid a bad trip, and a reminder that “mushrooms cannot kill you; they can only make you think they can.”

The church has 60,000 members, who donate five dollars every month to cover sacrament and security guard fees.

Hodges tried psychedelic mushrooms for the first time shortly after Oakland decriminalized natural psychedelic substances. He went from the minimum starting dose of two grams and quickly moved up to substantially high doses of 30 grams — all within the span of two months. Hodges claims that these psychedelic experiences allowed him to discover life-changing revelations, leading him to share this knowledge and experiences with others.

“Honestly, when I first started smoking cannabis, I was more of an atheist, and as I smoked it more, I became more of an agnostic, and as I went through life, I became a little bit more spiritual, but it wasn’t until I got to the mushrooms that I actually experienced the consciousness of God. Cannabis can help you understand your life and the things around you. Mushrooms can take you places much further than that,” Hodges said in an interview with the Oaklandside.

Although Zide Door initially only provided cannabis to its patrons, Hodges soon added mushrooms to the menu after discovering their spiritual aspect. Since then, the establishment has grown in both popularity and controversy.