The interest of this NR lies in its combining two sets of beliefs and rituals that already existed but belonged to two apparently radically separated religious bodies, the Church of Jesus-Christ of the Latter-Day-Saints (LDS), and the Native American Church (NAC). Though it is numerically a small community of 150 members, out of whom about 50 are regularly active, it has played an important role in the field of religious law because, from practically its inception in 1979 until the late 90s, it has been involved in several judicial cases revolving around the constitutionality of allowing the use of the hallucinogenic substance contained in the peyote button exclusively to the members of the Native American Church. It is thus mentioned in most studies of peyotism and/or the legal problems religious groups have to face in the U.S.A. I conducted an analysis of its history, doctrine and judicial commitment in the mid nineties, which the Church has used to prove its quality as a bona fide religion [1] and I am still in contact with its major leader Rev Anne Zapf. 

I will address here the main implications of its religious and legal controversy: did the Native members of the Native American Church receive preferential treatment when the Federal Government issued the peyote exemption and passed the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act? If the Peyote Way Church is a bona fide religion, why could it not practice the rituals only authorized so far to an ethnically defined community? What have the latest developments meant for its survival as a free cult?