Pastor Who Incorporates Magic Mushrooms in SF Church Defends its Practices on Fox News

Fox News host Jesse Watters appeared genuinely curious about magic mushroom religions during a segment this week with Dave Hodges, whose Zide Door church has locations in Oakland and San Francisco. Watters asked Hodges how his religion is even legal and if the pastor really did have religious experiences while using the illegal drug.

“So you’re saying you’ve seen God on shrooms?” Watters asked. Hodges said he has “spiritual visions” while using psilocybin mushrooms and at one point experienced actually being God.

“I was ripped out of my body and went through heaven and hell. … I didn’t exist, nothing existed, there was but this one consciousness, and that’s the consciousness that I call God,” Hodges said.

Hodges has become one of the leading figures in the American psychedelic religious movement, with his Zide Door church counting over 90,000 members. The church functions much like a magic mushroom dispensary, giving its members a location where they can purchase psilocybin mushrooms, unregulated cannabis and, most recently, DMT, a powerful psychedelic compound.

Magic mushrooms are still illegal in California, although local governments in San Francisco and Oakland have expressed support for the religious use of psychedelic drugs. The Oakland Police Department raided Zide Door’s Oakland location in 2020, claiming the organization was operating as an illegal dispensary.