Or will it?
DoubleBlind investigates
he ayahuasca church where a 22-year-old died in controversial circumstances has announced its closure following a damning wrongful death court judgment in which it was ordered to pay $15 million in compensation to the decedent’s family.
Brandon Begley died from hyponatremia, which is caused by an excess of body water, after consuming large amounts of liquids following a ceremony in which he took kambo, the non-psychoactive secretions of a frog that is said to have a detoxifying effect, and was later found unresponsive. An ambulance was called more than three hours after he had a catastrophic seizure. This occurred after three ceremonies with ayahuasca over Easter weekend in 2018.
Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth, in Orlando, Florida, filed for bankruptcy last month and claimed it was unable to pay the damages from the negligence lawsuit, despite an annual income of around $2.5 million. In a lengthy public statement issued last week, the church’s founder, Chris Young, a self-described “medicine man” and “purveyor of tribal medicine,” said the church had served ayahuasca 30,000 times since opening around a decade ago, making it one of the single largest ayahuasca churches in the world.
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Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth Is Officially Closing
