America's First Legal Ayahuasca 'Church' Lets You Trip on Hallucinogenic Tea

America's first legal ayahuasca church is now open in Washington state with plenty of hallucinogenic tea to go around.

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Americans have been traveling to South America for years to trip on ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew prepared by shamans in places like Brazil, Guatemala and Peru. Now Americans only have to go as far as Washington state, provided they've got the money. 

Elbe, Washington's 160-acre Ayahuasca Healings ranch has been granted church status. That, according to VICE, makes it the nation's first legal ayahuasca church, and it's technically open to the public. 

The Daily Beast reports that the price to go on a retreat to Ayahuasca Healings, which includes drinking the hallucinogenic tea inside a teepee,  is around $1,500. 

People who use ayahuasca have described the experience as life altering, transformative and extremely intense. Writer Peter Gorman has written that it often leads to people having spiritual revelations as to what their purpose is on earth. Others have said that it has helped them confront, and overcome, their fear of death. 

In The Yage Letters, William Burroughs described taking it as "the most powerful drug I have ever experienced. Yage is not like anything else. It produces the most complete derangement of the senses.” 

The church's website lists a host of problems that it says ayahuasca can help with, including a lack of direction, PTSD, drug addiction, depression and even being broke or homeless.

Another issue it seems like ayahuasca can solve: not being really, really high. 

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