Colorado Psychedelic Church Benji “Dez” Dezaval holds up a jar of mycelium, a liquid culture used to grow mushrooms, at Colorado Psychedelic Church on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Parker Seibold, The Gazette) Benji “Dez” Dezaval, spiritual director and founder of the Community of PACK Life, holds a handful of mushrooms to be distributed to members of Colorado’s Psychedelic Church on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Each attendee is allowed one “communal offering” of carefully weighed hallucinogenic mushrooms or DMT per week. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette) Benji “Dez” Dezaval, spiritual director and founder of the Community of PACK Life, holds a handful of mushrooms to be distributed to members of Colorado’s Psychedelic Church on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colo. Each attendee is allowed one “communal offering” of carefully weighed hallucinogenic mushrooms or DMT per week. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette) Colorful decorative mushrooms on yard signs and scattered on the ground serve as the breadcrumbs that lead the way to the Colorado Psychedelic Church.
They point to the lower level of a large home in eastern Colorado Springs, where a trippy world awaits.
Congregants sink into cushy, enveloping chairs, couches and a bean bag or two. Amid a tasteful decor of hanging faux greenery and low lighting, members wander in and out of the basement and talk, listen to founder Benji “Dez” Dezaval pontificate, play board games, share snacks, receive their weekly “communal gifts” of carefully weighed hallucinogenic mushrooms and seek to encounter the divine through an altered state of mind.
Partaking of the practice changes people for the better, Dezaval says, pointing to himself as an example.
“They saved my life. They fixed my brain. Everything you hear about the healing and transformative properties is true,” he said.
The congregation, which the state of Colorado does not recognize as a church, has grown so popular, it needs more room beyond a portion of his home, Dezaval said.
Membership has ballooned from 20 people when he started the congregation in February 2024 to 450 participants now.
Recently donated access to two parcels of land in Peyton and Fountain, […]
The Colorado Psychedelic Church in Colorado Springs growing as fast as fungi
