The head of a Detroit church that uses psychedelic mushrooms as its Holy Communion has been in a year-and-a-half-long legal battle with the city, which has asked a Wayne County judge to shut down the place of worship.
The city contends Soul Tribe International Ministries, a nondenominational church, is a nuisance and should be closed, but Robert Shumake, the head of the church, said the city is violating his rights to freely practice his religion — Shamanism — and share it with others.
“The Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows us to have access to our sacred plant. That’s the law,” Shumake said. “God gave us a system. There is a plant in the ground that deals with everything in our body. It exists for our mental, our spiritual and our physical (health).”
Shumake filed a lawsuit against Detroit last month, arguing the city is violating the Constitution by forcing the church, which once had as many as 150 to 200 members, to remain closed. But the city, which filed a request to finalize the church’s shutdown in September, said Shumake has no right to sell mushrooms to people.
“The Subject Property is poorly masquerading as a church but is instead a distribution center for unlawful controlled substances, contrary to (Detroit’s city code),” according to the complaint. “It has no license, nor medical or scientific oversight, to sell mushrooms to Detroit citizens.”
Shumake sued the city of Detroit and several city employees, including Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallet, City Councilman James Tate and former Police Chief James White.
Tate did not respond to a request for comment about Shumake’s lawsuit but applauded the church’s closure in a post on Facebook in October 2023 after the church was shut down by the city. He called the closure a “win for (district one).”
“We have been actively working to discontinue the efforts from ‘Soul Tribe’ dispensary that was occupying the historic Bushnell Church in Southfield Fwy.,” Tate wrote. “There was illegal, non-ordinated, non-licensed drug sales happening here.”
At the core of the fight between Shumake and the city is whether the church is violating a proposal he helped bring to the ballot in December 2021 that decriminalized the possession and use of entheogenic plants, including psychedelic mushrooms.
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