COLORADO SPRINGS (RNS and NPR) — The door to the Colorado Psychedelic Church doesn’t look like much — a walkout basement to a home in an eastern Colorado Springs neighborhood.
Faux foliage dangles from the walls, a tabletop fountain trickles nearby, and on a recent Tuesday in May, about 20 people were seated on couches under dim green lighting, while soft meditative music filled the air.
At the front of the room sat Benji “Dez” Dezaval the church’s founder.
“Hey y’all,” said Dezaval, welcoming people inside with a big laugh, purple-tinted glasses and a shawl draped around his shoulders. “I’m glad we waited.”
This weekly guidance — one of many community events the church hosts in a given week — is not unlike a regular book club or Bible study. The evening’s conversation centers on this month’s theme: what it means to be maternal, timed to Mother’s Day.
A typical Tuesday meetup like this one might begin with some socializing over shared snacks brought by a congregant. Then the group settles in for a sermon, or lecture, followed by a conversation with reflections on the day’s topic. The meeting closes with an optional offering of psychedelics.
Multiple strains of psilocybin spores sit ready for cultivation at the Colorado Psychedelic Church, Friday May 30, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Photo by Jeremy Sparig, for CPR News)
On this particular Tuesday, it was one puff of DMT, or dimethyltryptamine, a compound found naturally in some plant …