🫠 Psychonaut POV

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re not saying we’re a religion. But if reading our newsletter has become your sacred Sunday ritual, we’re not mad about it. 🙏

Clementine Kruczynski isn’t an attorney. But with all due respect to our readers with JDs, there’s a good chance she knows more about religious law than anyone you know. (Before we go any further, pinky promise never to take our emails as legal advice, k? Great.)

We spoke to Clem about the sacred medicine church setup no one’s talking about, the risks of starting a 501(c)(3), and what anyone who wants to lead a medicine community should know first.

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What led you to become a student of psychedelic and religious law?

My partner-in-the-work Astra and I were called to make a church well before it was a trend. At first, we thought we were supposed to go the 501(c)(3) route, but God kept blocking that path. And at every chapter of this process, we have listened to God—I call this "communion." I work this way, where I receive information and implement it, always in service to the mission, in service to the Creator.

After trying different approaches for three or four years, I found myself asking for guidance, like "I'm doing what you asked me to do. Show me the way!" About two weeks after that point, I was introduced to private law and the private domain. I came across and studied under a former judge on certain rights that we're bypassing or voluntarily giving up. I was blown away by this whole other type of church that nobody talked about, even while attorneys in the field were still telling me to do a 501(c)(3).

Immediately I had to learn everything! Most people are never taught these things, so we literally just give away our rights because we don't know better. Once I learned about the private domain, everything started flowing easily.

How did you conclude private domain organizations could be a better choice than conventional nonprofits for medicine work?

Both paths have their pros and cons, and neither path is best for everyone. With the 501(c)(3), you incorporate through the state and file with the IRS, and most people think, "Okay, I'm a church now. I can serve psychedelics." That's not actually true. There's no legal permission to serve psychedelics until you get the Controlled Substances Act exemption from the DEA. Most churches, especially if you're not indigenous, won't get that exemption. For those that do, the process is extreme. You have to tell them where you get your medicine, how much you have, where it is at all times, and who has access to it.

With a 501(c)(3), you have to incorporate with a state first, becoming what's called a “statutory entity.” Now you're subject to any and all public regulations and mandates, and your status can be revoked at any time. The 501(c)(3) has only existed since 1954. The idea of a church being a public corporation under government control is a relatively new paradigm. You don't have total free speech, you have financial reporting requirements, and you lose privacy. It's not a true separation of church and state.

On the other hand, the private domain path allows for the type of church that's always existed, under collective agreements and community ethos, like with tribal nation states. This type of "church" goes back to the beginning of our country. With God as its authority and community agreements as its “law,” it sits outside of government regulation. This was the norm in our country until 1954. I've read cases from the mid 1800s where judges are saying, "Why is this case even in the courts? Judges have no jurisdiction over private ecclesiastical affairs." Even today, The Episcopal Church, the 14th largest Christian denomination, is still a private unincorporated association.

Can you explain how contract law between a church and its members provides protections that other structures might not?

Private contracts technically exist outside the jurisdiction of any public entity, whether that's governmental agencies, courts, city councils, or corporate entities like the IRS. It all comes down to jurisdiction. When bringing a case to court, you have to prove jurisdiction and put it in the right court. If you and I do a business deal together and have a private contract, unless we have a dispute and agree to take it to public court, that contract isn't subject to governmental regulation. It's not the domain of a government entity.

For private churches, you specify in the agreement that any disputes or conflicts must be handled within the private conflict system of the church. Traditionally, churches would have their own ecclesiastical government or tribunals to handle disputes, and resolution had to be sought there first. If not resolved internally, then there’s arbitration options. Through contract law though, the ruling of the ecclesiastical government is legally binding.

I recently met an attorney in California with 25 years of litigation experience who's seeing these PMA (Private Membership Association) contracts being upheld in court consistently. The Constitution itself in Article 1 Section 10 states that no state shall make any law that impairs the obligation of a contract. Contract is king. The Constitution itself is a contract, or technically a compact, according to some. To me, this extends to a spiritual, metaphysical level, too. Consent and contracts are what hold together the entire system.

You led a medicine community of your own before taking on this advisory role. Why make that pivot?

Actually, I still run our community, and we still do the medicine work with weekly men's and women's circles and so on. Community is absolutely central to everything we do. My personal motivation comes from always being rejected or ostracized as an outsider. I'm deeply misunderstood, and until I learned I was autistic, I didn't understand why. So for me, it's essential to create spaces for people based on principles where we lean in when it's hard and don't give up on each other.

The advisory role brings everything together. It unites eleven years of full-time community building and teaching experience with everything I've learned about private churches, leadership, and conflict resolution. I get absolutely thrilled by the research. I can lose myself for days when I'm really on a trail. It's critically important to me that we get our communities on a sovereign footing.

The deeper element is that God is my authority, and God is the authority of our church. I believe that going the 501(c)(3) route puts the government between you and God. As my teacher said: "It's the difference between an IRS church and God's church."

What advice would you give to others feeling called to create sacred spaces for entheogenic healing?

Do your own shadow work and be open to feedback. That’s essential for personal leadership development. Then, have your house in order. Be an oak tree, not a tumbleweed. Understand the nervous system for facilitation. But most importantly, know your rights. Educate yourself thoroughly. I see people getting set up with private entities where they're effectively sovereign nation state leaders, but they don't know anything about the law. They're flying blind. In my opinion, it's unethical to set these organizations up for other people without teaching them about the liabilities and weaknesses. The education element makes the difference between safety or vulnerability for you and your people.

We're hearing about more raids right now, more seizures of packages. This is still a gray area. In my view, the only real insurance is knowing your rights. If you're not learning the law alongside facilitation skills and ethics, then you're putting your home, your family, and the people you serve at risk. I make no guarantees because there are no guarantees in this work, even with a 501(c)(3).

This is a conversation that needs to happen publicly. We need to be engaging with lawyers and educating people about the rights of the private domain. Are we really saying that the type of church that existed for 200+ years before the 501(c)(3) isn't legitimate? What's more legitimate: something that was created by the state less than a century ago, or an ancient system of collective agreements based on ethics and accountability? This isn't someone's invention—this is how communities have always worked.

Want more from Clementine?

Register for her next free masterclass, or join her Facebook group, to learn more about forming a private medicine church.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.