Wait, Mormons Are Allowed to Use Ketamine?

Stephanie is a registered nurse who works as a guide at a ketamine therapy clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. She's also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, part of a small but growing group of Mormon people engaging with psychedelic medicine. Not long ago, that would have seemed not only taboo, but outright forbidden.

“There’s the conventional side of any religion,” she tells me by phone, “But the work I do with ketamine is more spiritual. It might seem like I’m straddling two worlds. But religion and spirituality can go hand in hand.” 

Stephanie’s not alone. As psychedelic medicine enters the mainstream, more LDS members, both practicing and post-faith, are cautiously exploring its potential. Ketamine can be an easy point of entry: As a doctor-prescribed, medically sanctioned therapeutic-dissociative with psychedelic properties, it doesn’t carry the same stigma as “street drugs” or substances purchased from a dealer.

The buzz about Mormons trying ketamine began with Jen and Zac Affleck, stars of the Hulu reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” According to Women’s Health, their relationship was "on shaky ground" after season one, marked by issues such as Zac's "infamous rage texts.” Seeking to salvage their marriage and improve their mental health, they turned to ketamine therapy in late 2024, prior to filming season two.

Despite coming from a devout Mormon family and having no prior experience with alcohol or drugs, Zac’s interest in ketamine was piqued by research he conducted while in med school at Midwestern University in Arizona. "There's nothing in the Mormon guidelines that says you can't do ketamine,” he told Women’s Health. “It’s in the gray area.”

The episode sparked online chatter—Mormons doing ketamine?!—and eventually, a tip from Dr. Quinn Snyder, an emergency physician who owns Kadelyx, the Phoenix clinic where Stephanie works. Snyder confirmed that LDS church members are a consistent part of his patient population. That includes the Afflecks, who received ketamine therapy there prior to their appearance on the show

“We have no shortage of Mormon clients,” he tells DoubleBlind. “We have guides, actually”—like Stephanie—“who are Mormon as well. It seems to be a demographic that is amenable to doing ketamine… I think by virtue of the fact that it's prescribed by a doctor. That takes a lot of the concern away.”

Kadelyx offers guided ketamine experiences in a clinical setting. Every session includes breathwork, intention setting, a supervised “journey,” and finally, integration. Clients wear eye masks and headphones, selecting music to align with their emotional goals. “The outcomes are undeniable,” Snyder says. “People walk out different. Some come off meds. Some go months without needing another session. And I’ve gotten more gratitude from these patients than I ever did in the ER.”

Stephanie, who was raised LDS in the small town of Pima, Arizona, described her personal turning point in 2018. By then, she had been working as a trauma and ER nurse for years, when a shooting occurred at the hospital where she was on shift. The experience left her with persistent PTSD.

“My life moved on, but I carried these haunting images with me,” she explains. “Even after trying trauma therapy and talk therapy, I’d still occasionally get these images.”

Eventually, she sat with psilocybin for the first time. “During my first mushroom journey, I brought to mind this image that had been haunting me for over a year, and I was able to change it in a way that it could be safely put to bed,” she says. “I was no longer replaying the loop. It was something that I was okay with.”

She came out of the experience “blown away” by the healing. “If this can help me, think of all the other people it can help,” she realized. “That's what really pushed me toward holistic health and healing.”

Because psilocybin remains illegal in Arizona, Stephanie focused her professional work on ketamine, which she says has similarly life-changing results for her clients. Before becoming a guide, she reflected deeply on whether this work felt aligned with her lifelong faith, and ultimately decided it was part of a calling from God, or “Heavenly Father.”

Far from taking her away from her Mormon faith, working with ketamine has actually increased Stephanie’s spiritual connection to it.

***

The LDS Church’s health code, known as the “Word of Wisdom,” prohibits “intoxicating substances,” a phrase typically interpreted to include alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and illicit drugs. But the code isn’t specific about psychedelics. More importantly, it allows exceptions for medicines prescribed by a doctor—including medicinal cannabis, which the Church sanctioned in 2020 if deemed “medically necessary” by a licensed provider.

Not everyone experimenting with psychedelics is still active in the Church. One interviewee, who asked not to be named, described himself as a “Jack Mormon,” or someone who no longer practices, but grew up deeply religious in Utah, well aware of Church codes prohibiting drug use. 

As a teenager, he read scripture daily and aspired to go on a mission (a Mormon rite of passage in which young members are sent far from home to proselytize the religion). But when he moved across the state for college, things started to shift. He began using cannabis in 2009, around the same time that he stopped attending church. “I don't think that one caused the other,” he says. “It came at a time when my folks were getting divorced. I was coming of age and having to figure out what was right for me.”

“I started getting anxiety attacks at church,” he adds. “I didn’t know why. There was some sort of energy, or it may have been a psychological trigger.” As he was wrestling with whether to go on a mission, a therapist told him something that changed everything: “You don't have to.”

“He was the first person who gave me that permission,” he recalled. “And that rang true. I was like, ‘oh, I can just be myself. I don't have to play this double life.’”

Later, he tried mushrooms—a “great experience.” More recently, he's seen several members of his girlfriend’s “very religious” family undergo ketamine therapy. “They needed it to be administered and sanctioned by mainstream medicine,” he says. For Mormons, “it’s always been like, ‘no drugs, that's the rule.’ But when it's medicinal, it's okay. They don't mind that their cough medicine has alcohol in it.”

***

Our anonymous “Jack Mormon” called attention to the fascinating theory—admittedly speculative—that psychedelics played a role in early Mormon spiritual experiences.

“There were a lot of miracles in those early days,” he says. “My own ancestors supposedly experienced whole rooms lighting up [and] people speaking in tongues.” 

There is evidence—compiled quite thoroughly by the Journal of Psychedelic Studies in 2019—that the colorful visions of Church founder Joseph Smith may have been inspired by an entheogen like peyote, psychedelic fungus, or even the secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad. 

Scholars have also speculated that Smith administered psychoactive plants like Datura in sacraments during ceremony to inspire mystical visions in converts. While there’s no documented proof of psychedelic use in early Mormonism, the idea speaks to a broader point: Spiritual experiences and altered states may not be as mutually exclusive as some religious doctrines suggest.

What is documented, however, is that the Word of Wisdom wasn’t strictly enforced in the early Church. Many early leaders drank alcohol and smoked tobacco. Only after Smith’s death did the Church adopt a staunchly prohibitionist stance, when it reformed after migrating west under the leadership of Brigham Young, and especially in the 20th century, as it aligned itself with American conservatism.

Today, that legacy of rigidity is starting to soften at the edges.

***

For some Mormons, psychedelic healing doesn’t contradict their faith—it enhances it. Stephanie said that preparing to become a guide wasn’t about abandoning religious teachings, but integrating them. She spent weeks in reflection. “I prayed about it. I meditated,” she says. “I had to make sure I wasn’t carrying shame into the work.”

With regard to that “gray area” in the Word of Wisdom, she ended up concluding, “Why would some sort of formal code become more important to you than your own deep awareness and understanding?”

Stephanie believes the Church is evolving, if slowly. She knows at least ten Mormon people in her local community who have tried ketamine therapy, and several others who she’s personally sat with. Others have taken up meditation, or alternative healing with essential oils and homegrown herbs. “The viewpoints are expanding,” she says. “And as the science continues to expand, so will the culture.”

The LDS Church has not taken an official stance on ketamine, and did not return requests to comment for this story. Yet, as ketamine becomes more widespread and normalized within healthcare settings, it’s offering LDS individuals something rare: psychedelic healing that doesn’t require breaking religious code. 

The anonymous source wonders if ketamine might even be more attractive to Mormons than other long-accepted treatments for depression. 

“Practicing Latter-day Saints want to keep their bodies free from mind-altering substances to maintain their spiritual connection,” he says. Receiving ketamine therapy every few months under the guidance of medical professionals “might sound like a better option than taking a daily antidepressant with side effects.” Snyder agrees that getting off daily meds is one of the main reasons people come to his clinic. 

There’s no question in Stephanie’s mind that psychedelic therapies have strengthened her relationship with spirit. She aims to share that sense of connection with everyone she treats, whether Mormon or not.

“Every time I administer an [intramuscular] injection, I take a sacred pause,” she says. “I give gratitude. And that is my moment to connect with God.”

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