 | |
| Formation | 2008 (2008) (legally approved since 2014)[1][2] |
|---|---|
| Founders | Vicki Kraft[1] |
| Type | Non-profit psychedelic church |
| Location | |
| Website | flowerofthedivinemother |
Flor da Mãe Divina, also known as Flower of the Divine Mother (FDMD), is a non-profit Santo Daime ayahuasca church located in Southern California.[1][3][2] It was founded by Vicki Kraft and is located specifically in Redondo Beach, California.[1] The church is notable in being one of only a handful of legal psychedelic churches in the United States.[1][3][2] It was founded in 2008 and applied to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to legally operate in 2014, receiving approval 6 months later.[1][2] Santo Daime is a Christianity-based syncretic religion, but Flor da Mãe Divina diverges from this and is instead about Christ consciousness (higher or divine consciousness) and the divine feminine.[1]
See also
References
- Lattin, Don (26 October 2022). "A Legal Ayahuasca Church Thrives in Southern California". Lucid News - Psychedelics. Retrieved 24 June 2026.
- Janik, Tarryl (1 May 2023). "Soul Quest Church of Mother Earth: Ayahuasca Decriminalization and the Struggle of an Institution to Become a Church". MINDS@UW.
In 2014 a Santo Daime group in Southern California called the Flower of the Divine Mother applied directly to the DEA for accommodation to operate and was approved as well.
- Stoddard, Brad (2023). "Entheogens: Psychedelic religion in the United States, part one". Religion Compass. 17 (10). doi:10.1111/rec3.12474. ISSN 1749-8171.
Admittedly, the U.S. government has only officially recognized that a handful of groups have the right to consume for religious reasons what are otherwise illegal psychoactive substances. These groups include Native Americans, whose use of peyote is protected by the most recent version of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act; União do Vegetal, a group in New Mexico that consumes hoasca or ayahuasca (Beyer, 2010); two branches of Santo Daime in Oregon, a group that consumed Daime or ayahuasca (Dawson, 2013); Flower of the Divine Mother church in Los Angeles, a group affiliated with Santo Daime in Oregon (Lattin, 2022); and Oratory of Mystical Sacraments, a church in New Hampshire that consumes mushrooms (Hayward, 2020). If there are more churches that have obtained full legal recognition, they have kept their status private and not, to my knowledge, shared it with the public.