Bridger Jensen poured water to show how he prepares hallucinogenic mushrooms for what he calls a religious “tea ceremony.” The former therapist, with dark curly hair, a beard and a suit vest, is the founder of a group called Singularism.
Last November, Provo Police took their psilocybin and arrested Jensen. The case is now in federal district court, and it’s looking at whether this group is a legitimate religion.
Singularism’s building sits in a business park just off State Street in Provo. It has a modern feel inside with dark, marbled floors and white walls trimmed with gold accents. Mushroom paraphernalia is scattered throughout the decorations.
Before a tea ceremony, Jensen puts everyone through a screening process to “make sure that they fit the criteria to be able to do this, to do it right and to do it safely.”
He then makes the tea in front of his clients, known as voyagers, so they know what’s going inside. After drinking it, they go into a low-lit, quiet room with a comfy couch that feels like a therapist’s office, and the stage is set for their encounter.
“We believe that everybody has the same privilege and entitlement and opportunity to connect with the divine, and that every safe way to do it is a legitimate way to do it,” Jensen said.
He explained he has found psilocybin to be a necessary part of his spiritual journey and found others who felt the same. So he started Singularism in 2023, though he’s not the first group in Utah to use psilocybin as part of a religious ceremony.
It’s called Singularism, Jensen said, because a common experience for people who take psilocybin is a feeling of oneness with everyone. He doesn’t ask people to give up other religious affiliations. Jensen said he is still a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
During a voyage, Jensen or one of his trained, paid employees, who are called practitioners, document the participant’s revelations. This becomes their personal scripture, which makes the individual their own prophet, he said. In the future, Jensen plans to put together a collection.
“People have these overwhelming, powerful mastery experiences,” he said.
Some people interact with a heavenly father and mother, deceased relatives or future family, he said. As he flipped through a black binder of scripture, he recounted some of the experiences. One person said, “I withhold connection because of my fears.” Another, “I'm so afraid that people are going to be mean to me, but the truth is that I'm so much harder on myself than they have ever been.”
What makes a legitimate religion?
The November police raid took the scripture, along with about one pound of mushrooms. Jensen was charged with a second-degree felony — drug possession with the intent to distribute. He sued.
Psilocybin and other psychedelics became illegal in the U.S. in 1970 under the Controlled Substances Act. There were widespread health and ethical fears, but in recent years, the reputation of psychedelics has changed with the promise of mental health applications. In 2021, Johns Hopkins University said it was awarded the first National Institutes of Health grant in 50 years to research psychedelic treatment.
Provo Police, Provo City and the Utah County Attorney’s Office all either declined KUER’s request for comment or didn’t respond. In court documents, they argue Singularism isn’t a “sincere” religion and instead is a guise for selling drugs.
Deciding what religion is legitimate is very subjective, said Frederick Gedicks, professor emeritus of law at Brigham Young University, who specializes in religion. The U.S. Supreme Court itself hasn’t adopted a definition.
“It's really a case-by-case analysis,” he said. “There's an implicit bias toward majority or, at least, familiar religions.”
In Utah County, where the vast majority of residents are Latter-day Saints, it might sound crazy to drink mushrooms to meet God, especially since active members of that church eschew all drugs and alcohol. But, Gedicks observed, the notion of Jesus Christ rising from the dead could also sound crazy to an outsider.
The law does need to define religion in some way, though, or Gedicks said it would be the Wild West of people claiming illegal activity as a religious rite.
“The best approach, I think, is one in which one looks at general characteristics of religion and then compares those markers to the purported religion in front of the judge.”
That’s where attorney Mitch Stephens, who represents Utah County, argues that Singularism doesn’t measure up. According to court transcripts provided to KUER by Jensen’s lawyer, here’s how Stephens put it during two motion hearings in December and January:
“The evidence that you've heard is there's no uniformity, there's no ultimate ideas, there's no metaphysical beliefs or ethical system, there's no set of commandments, there's no accoutrements, there's no prophet,” Stephens told the courtroom.
He also argued that Singularism is “consistently blurring the line between any alleged religious belief and the practice of medicine or mental health therapy.”
Jensen believes therapy and religion naturally mix, but he admits he’s no more a prophet than anyone else communing with God and doesn’t have all the answers to life’s biggest questions.
“It's a religion that is not top down. It's bottom up,” he said. “People can have their own revelation, and we help them write their own scripture.”
In court, defendants played body camera footage from officers responding to a woman who had an adverse reaction to psilocybin at Singularism. Stephens said she did not say she was there for a religious or spiritual purpose, but to get treatment, and that her therapist referred her.
Utah County also said the fact that people can keep their other religious beliefs weakens Singularism’s religious argument, saying in the transcript, “It takes whatever you believe and adds mushrooms or marijuana.”
In that way, however, Jensen said they’re more like Buddhism – where you could be Buddhist and Christian at the same time. People experience the divine in lots of different ways through Singularism’s religious ceremonies.
“This is a passion that we have. This is our religion,” he told KUER through tears. “And so if I am wrong about all of this, I would like to know it. That's my thought. Because I don't know what sincerity is, if this isn't it.”
Echoes of Utah’s past
This isn’t the first time a Utah religious group has clashed with federal law. In the 19th century, Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy. They came to what would become Utah to flee religious persecution. Gedicks believes that’s reflected in the state constitution.
“They didn't want this to happen to anyone else. They wanted to protect religious liberty to the maximum extent possible,.” he said. “So one would expect, you know, 130 years later, that religious freedom would be a really powerful ethic underlying legal culture within Utah.”
But that’s not what Gedicks is seeing in the state and across the country.
“People in favor of religious liberty tend to be religious conservatives, and their support for religious liberty recedes when they see that culturally liberal practices are being protected, and that, I think, is unfortunate and is not true to our history.”
Judge Jill Parrish called Provo’s actions against Singularism ironic, given Utah’s history and the fact that the state enacted a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act last year.
She also said that it may seem suspicious that Singularism charges about $1,600 per tea ceremony, although Jensen said it isn’t always that much because he offers a sliding scale. But Parrish also pointed out that the LDS Church requires a tithing payment to enter its temples.
Ultimately, she sided with Jensen. She issued a preliminary injunction and ordered the city to return the mushrooms and leave Singularism alone while the case plays out. Society has to “apply its protections equally to unpopular or unfamiliar religious groups as to popular or familiar ones if that commitment to religious liberty is to mean anything,” Parrish wrote in her decision.
Next, the judge will rule on the city’s motion to dismiss the case and Jensen’s motion to stay the charges.
If Jensen eventually wins, Gedicks thinks it would be significant.
“You could imagine people thinking, ‘Whoa, even in Utah, this sort of a case, this sort of a religion is protected.’”
