My religious journey involved religious trauma. Same with other initial TDA members. As we healed and rediscovered spirituality, we set out to build a safe worship community. As we contemplated safety in worship, we saw that the common attributes of religion (hierarchy and dogma) actually promote abuse in many different churches, because attributes tend to make institutions and leaders big, but worshippers small. The problem of fraught power dynamics is baked into the design. TDA decided to eliminate those toxic elements from our worship community.

Communing with the Divine, I saw TDA organized like mushroom mycelium, where decentralized autonomy builds a strong collective that produces fruit. In this way, TDA’s tenet—each individual can commune with the Divine and receive guidance—(1) invites individual members to autonomously seek the Divine (as both pilgrim and prophet) and (2) allows TDA community to evolve out of organic connections and the efforts of independent members to exercise their religion.

Members seek the Divine in lots of different ways, like meditation, prayer, study, nature, yoga, fasting, art, music, ceremonies, rites, rituals, and holy sacraments. I marvel at the fresh ways members use these tools to make their worship vibrate with life and energy. Freed from the spiritual shackles of dogma and declarations, members explore the Divine with curiosity and eagerness. It is amazing where members find the Divine and how beautiful the lessons are that they receive through communion.

I often laugh, when I overhear joyfully divergent exchanges regarding the Divine. Without pausing to note the differences, one member calls the Divine “he.” Another, “she.” A third uses “they.” A fourth, “it.” Because TDA community mushrooms out of the substrate of autonomy and investigation—not hierarchy and dogma—religious differences actually connect, rather than divide. And, in this way, organic nodes of TDA community begin to form.

Members first seem to connect in small groups of friends, resembling the way early Christians worshipped in house churches. In this house church model, members independently create, plan, and host any and all events and activities. No central organization has anything to do with any of these gatherings. These volunteer-led offerings are private, and each host decides the terms of the event. Beyond the small house-church gatherings, some members invite bigger groups to connect, like the Salt Lake City Sunday group, the Utah County Sunday group, Revival, and the Delle. Again, each of those independent groups set their rules

TDA is always a work in progress, as members breathe life into it by building their connections with the Divine and with other members. Because there is no central entity directing things, TDA constantly fits itself to the formative energies and actions of its membership. It is fascinating to watch members and congregations stop looking for some leader in an org chart to provide ideas, direction, edicts, and resolutions, and, then, feel their way into the concept that they are fully in charge of their journey. When people are not commanded, they commune, connect, and create.

Psychedelic sacraments exemplify the evolving nature of TDA. TDA started as the mushroom church. But, TDA’s tenet says nothing about mushroom sacrament. As people started joining TDA, the autonomous worship of some new members did not include psychedelics. This isn’t heresy or apostasy. It is diversity, which expands and evolves TDA community as their religious needs and practices are included.

One of my favorite TDA moments—when I thought maybe we are getting a few things right—came one morning, as Sara and I were taking a stroll. A man excitedly stopped us to thank us for starting TDA. He said that he attended a single TDA event. The event reignited his spirituality. He stopped drinking (after a 30-year addiction), and he found his way back to the church of his youth and the fellowship of that congregation. I was so happy. That is exactly how I want TDA to work. Without getting any hooks into him to keep him from it, TDA helped the man find his path and his god and, with it, peace and happiness.

TDA is here. Take as much or as little of it as you need. You owe it nothing. You are in charge of you. I wish you well.

- Steve Urquhart