Santa Cruz, USA (PinionNewswire) — Rising Phoenix Entheogenic Temple (Mushroom Church) opened its doors in Santa Cruz on October 15, 2025. The launch marks Santa Cruz’ first entheogenic temple to operate in the city since the council passed a ‘decriminalize nature initiative in 2020, becoming the 3rd US municipality at the time to effectively decriminalize psilocybin or psychedelic mushrooms.
Located at the north of the city, near Costco and UC Santa Cruz, the Rising Phoenix Entheogenic Temple will focus on providing religious sacrament to an existing, and growing base of members in a community that has a long history of psychedelic acceptance and practice. The Temple operates on the premise of religious freedom, a core principle of the First Amendment, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1983), which prohibits the government from interfering how the religion is operated.
Over the past year, Rising Phoenix has served hundreds of members that have had to drive from the Monterey Bay Area to secure their religious sacrament at its Temples in San Francisco. The launch of a Rising Phoenix Temple in Santa Cruz now allows the psychedelic community in the region to access safe, tested, and trusted psilocybin in a Santa Cruz location focused on the local community’s needs. The Temple is billed as a sanctuary for those seeking spiritual growth, healing, and enlightenment through the use of entheogens, or magic mushrooms.
With over 45 strains of Psilocybe Cubensis, landrace strains, and exotic mushroom species available at the Temple, Rising Phoenix offers a diverse range of options that cover a spectrum of inward and outward settings, body and mind feelings, and visual effects. The strains include premium indoor-grown mushrooms, outdoor foraged strains from the Santa Cruz mountains, landrace strains and exotic species that are rare and difficult to source. Rising Phoenix offers the broadest range of magic mushroom strains of any Temple or Church in North America, and it continues to uncover new and exotic strains and species for its menu each month. Rising Phoenix is a strong proponent of ensuring that the products that it sources are rigorously tested, and it displays these results alongside the available sacrament within the Temple.
As a spokesperson for Rising Phoenix noted, “While the use of psilocybin is central to our Member’s religious exercise, health and safety must constantly remain at the forefront of anyone we are working with to ensure that only the very best products are being sourced for our Members. We’ve been working with local Santa Cruz cultivators and foragers since we opened in San Francisco, so it seems fitting that we’re now launching a local Temple in Santa Cruz.”
The Temple stems from Entheoism, a 501(c)(3) multifaith earth-based religion that takes inspiration from different parts of the twelve major religions – Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. Its members, ‘Entheoists’, share a central belief that entheogens like magic mushrooms are a sacred spiritual tool for unlocking ancient wisdom and to better connect and commune with the Divine. The Temple’s members come from all walks of life and denominations and membership is free to those that sincerely believe in the use of entheogens as part of their free religious exercise under the First Amendment.
The magic mushroom / psychedelic sacrament at the Santa Cruz Temple will include a range of products including psychedelic beverages, chocolates, gummies, pills, capsules, fruit stems and caps, teas and coffee. Entry is membership based, restricted to 21+ and only persons that demonstrate sincere religious beliefs, and an understanding of its faith, are admitted as members. To remain a member of the Temple and keep obtaining sacrament, persons must continue to show they have a good faith intention to practice and explore the Temple’s religion and spirituality faithfully.
As a spokesperson for the Temple further explains, “The Santa Cruz location will allow us to do more great work at a time when religious and spiritual guidance are needed more than ever. The free-standing house on Fern Street that we have secured has a lovely garden area and dedicated rooms for our members to focus on healing their souls, and revealing their truths. We have hundreds of Members that currently commute from the area to San Francisco to get their sacrament, so we are beyond excited to now operate closer to where these Members live and work”.
Mushrooms have been present on the planet for over 700 million years. Some scientists argue that psychedelics have been consumed by humanoids since the brain started developing over 10,000 years ago, and even earlier by animal species. Today, globally, there are hundreds of clinical trials posted for studies involving Psilocybin as a treatment for multiple conditions ranging from depression, PTSD, cardiac repolarization, OCD, Parkinson’s Disease, cancer, alcoholism, and more.
Membership is complimentary and you can join at https://app.joinit.com/o/rising-phoenix or learn more about the Temple at www.risingphoenixet.com. Rising Phoenix Entheogenic Temple Santa Cruz will be open daily from 10am to 8pm to all sincere believers and members at 212 Fern Street, Santa Cruz.