When Bridger Lee Jensen opened a spiritual center in Provo, Utah, he contacted city officials to let them know what would be happening there: The religious group he had founded, Singularism, would be conducting ceremonies involving a tea made from psilocybin mushrooms. "Singularism is optimistic that through partnership and dialogue, it can foster an environment that respects diversity and upholds individual rights," Jensen wrote in a September 2023 letter to the Provo City Council and Mayor Michelle Kaufusi. Jensen, who wanted to "establish an open line of communication" with local officials, said he would be happy to answer their questions and invited them to visit the center.
Jensen's optimism proved to be unfounded. The city did not respond to his overture until more than a year later, when Provo police searched the Singularism center and seized its sacrament: about 450 grams of "mushrooms and mushroom-like material" that the group kept inside a locked safe. The seizure was the result of an investigation in which an undercover officer posed as a would-be Singularism facilitator.
That raid happened on November 11, 2024, less than eight months after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox had signed the state's version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). That law likely protects Singularism's psychedelic rituals, a federal judge ruled last month. U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish granted Jensen's request for a preliminary injunction against city and county officials, ordering them to return the mushrooms and to refrain from further interference with the group's "sincere religious use of psilocybin" while the case is pending.
