This ‘Psychedelic Church’ Is Handing Out Magic Mushrooms

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This ‘Psychedelic Church’ Is Handing Out Magic Mushrooms to Hundreds of Members for Free—Yes, Really

Feb 19, 2025

It doesn’t mean that everybody’s tripping in church, but ingesting psychedelics can enhance the spiritual experience, the founder says.

The faithful who attend the Psychedelic Church of Colorado Springs have the choice to supercharge their spiritual experience. After a safety lecture, members may consume magic mushrooms, whose psychedelic ingredient, psilocybin, can cause hallucinations and altered perceptions.

Members can take the mushrooms at church, church events such as a course on learning to grow shrooms, or even at home. The doses available range from microdoses of 0.5 grams up to a 1.5 grams, according to the church’s website.

At the maximum dose, users can expect to hallucinate with eyes open or closed, see “vivid colors,” and have “distracted thought patterns,” the website describes.

Open since February 2024, the church hosts more than 300 members in an El Paso County house. Its founder, Benji Dezaval, says the psilocybin offering is legal under a 2023 Colorado law that decriminalized consumption of “natural medicines.” This includes the use of
psilocybin and DMT.

The law regulates natural medicine and its related products and businesses, “including healing centers, cultivators, manufacturers, and testers” and sets up a natural medicine division that issues licenses for such uses.

Dezaval says the church is legally compliant, and that all the neighbors except for one found it acceptable. The El Paso County Sheriff’s office was also aware of plans to open the church, according to the Colorado Springs Channel 11 KKTV news. “I’m not trying to be this mindless hippie who just wants to do what I want to do at the expense of others. I’m trying to help people,” Dezaval tells Channel 11.

Magic mushrooms are available as gifts and are not for sale, according to the news report, which includes footage of Dezaval’s basement dispensary. “Just as a church with sacramental wine is not a liquor store, we are not in the business of selling any natural medicines,” the church website states. “We are a spiritual community that sees the benefits natural medicines offer and wants to make them accessible to everyone. When we are at our healthiest—mind and soul—we can provide more love and light to all around us.”

Magic mushrooms and other psychedelic substances are illegal for recreational use at the federal level, but some lines of psychotherapy research are focusing on investigating these compounds.

Studies have shown that, like other psychedelic compounds, psilocybin could have therapeutic benefits for addiction, depression, and PTSD

A July 2024 Nature paper reported that the mushroom disrupts higher-order brain networks, which could explain psilocybin users’ intense feelings of connection to the greater universe.

Magic mushrooms and other psychedelic substances are illegal for recreational use at the federal level, but some lines of psychotherapy research are focusing on investigating these compounds. Studies have shown that, like other psychedelic compounds, psilocybin could have therapeutic benefits for addiction, depression, and PTSD.

A July 2024 Nature paper reported that the mushroom disrupts higher-order brain networks, which could explain psilocybin users’ intense feelings of connection to the greater universe.

The practice of consuming natural psychedelics began with the earliest humans, and has continued into the present day in various forms, including ceremonial, ritualized, and medicinal use. Federal law doesn’t interfere in religious practices and traditional or indigenous faith communities. For example, some Native American groups ingest sacramental peyote, a cactus that contains the psychoactive compound mescaline.

Ayahuasca tea ceremonies that originated among the Amazon in South America are seeing growth among groups in the U.S. and worldwide, including in certain churches. In 2020, growing interest in psychedelic-enhanced spiritual practice led to the start of the Sacred Plant Alliance, a California-based nonprofit association of 15 psychedelic churches that share best practices and advocate for the legal protection of sacred ceremonial practices.

In Colorado Springs, members of the Psychedelic Church don’t have to take magic mushrooms or DMT if they choose not to. For member Ryan Lohmeyer, the atmosphere at church isn’t chaotic, as some people might expect, he tells Channel 11. “You would think that you would come here, and people have their pupils wrapped around their foreheads and everybody’s tripping ... It is far from that. All the times that I’ve come here, I’ve never had that kind of experience.”