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 plants and animals, known for its short-yet-intense effects.
About a quarter of the group raised their hands, some regulars and others first-timers. Once everyone’s church membership card was checked — issued after completing a safety screening — a facilitator pulled out a small device resembling a vape pen.
The facilitator explained the instructions and said smoking DMT was different from cannabis. He held the pen to each person’s mouth to take a puff, pausing and counting to four before they exhaled, wiping the mouthpiece off with a cloth in between each congregant.
After everyone had received their gift, the facilitator thanked the group for sharing the time together. And for the next few minutes, in the quiet pattering of the rain outside, participants seemed to go inward, not speaking, some closing their eyes, while the congregants who chose not to participate chatted quietly with each other.
Lee Mead, 43, attends the church events regularly. He works in a nonprofit and moved to Colorado Springs from Houston last August, not knowing anyone. And within a week, he discovered the Psychedelic Church on the app Meetup and decided to show up
“It’s not just a bunch of people doing drugs in some guy’s dingy basement,” said Mead. “It is nice down here. And it is more about the community than the substances.”
Lee Mead, left, and Benji Dezaval talk at the Colorado Psychedelic Church,