“You can’t research the natural medicine movement in America without your face popping up,” people tell Benji “Dez” Dezaval, founder of Colorado Psychedelic Church.

“We are the talk of the town,” he says matter-of-factly but with pride that the idea of using psylocibin as a healing agent for fostering spiritual development is mushrooming.

Dezaval opened his house of worship in the basement of his east-side residence in February 2024 with 20 members. A year later 450 people claimed membership.

The congregation is now at just over 2,500 members, who have connected with the church to “find meaningful healing and community,” he said.

Because of the exponential jump in followers, earlier in June the congregation held a grand opening of its permanent location in a strip mall at 5028 N. Academy Blvd.

The storefront has daily hours and a mounting list of services, events and activities for the masses. Painting with a Trip is a new offering, for example, and Friday lounge night is the most popular.

The 3,500-square-foot space is decorated with a hallucinogenic mushroom theme and black-light artwork. Dezaval holds up a T-shirt he created that says, “Y’all got shrooms?”

It’s the most frequently asked question he hears.

The location hosts communal ceremonies, preaching from the pulpit, hang-out nights and individual tripping sessions guided by one of eight “clergy of the sacrament.”

Clergy provide spiritual direction as well as crisis intervention for congregants to “properly partake” of the medical mycology that the church grows, extracts and turns into edible forms.

Media outlets from around the world have reached out to tell the story of the church in Colorado Springs, and today people are traveling from out of state and overseas to join, the founder said.

“What we’re doing has picked up a lot of momentum and attention,” Dezaval said. “There is nobody in the state operating like we are. We are truly unique; we’re bringing something that’s authentic and beautiful to the state and the city.’

After Colorado voters in 2022 approved legalizing psychedelic mushrooms with a 53.6% majority — which decriminalized personal possession, growth and the use of natural psychedelic fungi for adults ages 21 and older — state-licensed healing centers opened with supervised therapeutic sessions.

While the city of Colorado Springs does not allow such treatment centers, Colorado Psychedelic Church operates under First Amendment rights, Dezaval said, and therefore does not require state licensing or city authorization.

“We’re not a dispensary, we’re not a retail shop. We are a church and do not need to be licensed but look to DORA for guidelines and to show our good intentions,” he said.

It’s also not recognized by the state or Internal Revenue Service as a church.

Colorado Psychedelic Church cannot charge for “magic mushrooms,” which are offered in the form of drinks, capsules, tablets, solid pieces and products such as chocolate bars.

There are fees for some services, such as individually guided sessions, which start at $250, and ceremonies with “sacraments” – referring to distribution of hallucinogens. Free-will donations are accepted for expenses such as food and guided trips.

“It helps cover clergy sitting with you for six to eight hours,” Dezaval said. “It wouldn’t be sustainable to ask people to donate that much time without having them be compensated.”

So, clergy receive a stipend for their services for their work.

But Dezaval said he doesn’t subscribe to the idea of mushrooms being the “second green rush,” behind the commercial boom that followed marijuana legalization in Colorado.

Instead, he said he is driven by a vision to spiritually help people overcome issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and hopelessness.

Native Americans pioneered the therapeutic powers of hallucinogens, Dezaval said. “We’re not just some sketchy place. This is real faith, this is real community, this is a real church.”

Because of reports of mycological treatment centers not fulfilling the requirements of monitoring people who have imbibed in “magic mushrooms,” the Department of Regulatory Agencies, which oversees facilitator credentialling and practice standards, announced this year it would change what it means to have “harm-reduction resources” on-site.

“Places have found the bare minimum to open and sell mushrooms, so you have places that are just dispensaries,” Dezaval said. “We have congregants come in and say they were handed a pamphlet and asked what they want to buy, and that’s irresponsible.

“A lot of times people are hopeless, lost in their depression, lost in their anxiety and don’t look and see that if they’re on anti-depressants, they should wait. It’s dangerous.”

The church originally looked for a permanent location in Denver.

“We were having a hard time, so I told our real estate broker if we can find something in Colorado Springs, that would be great,” Dezaval said. “But I wasn’t as hopeful.”

The site they found, next door to a marijuana dispensary and close to a liquor store, has been welcoming, he said.

“I wanted to find a location that wasn’t just a strip center but that had a community around it. We love our neighbors.”

City zoning allows for a religious institution to go into most zoning districts with the exception of industrial areas.

The spirituality of the congregation focuses on tenets Dezaval created, including “honor the universal truths that revere the self, recognize our own divine souls, our souls resonate with community, and we embrace the communal experience.”

More congregants are in their 40s and 50s than younger ages, he said.

“We’re not a medical facility, we’re not licensed facilitators. We are a community brought together by the solid understanding that we resonate best with others,” Dezaval said. “We’ve become separated from our own divinity, and we help you connect with it.”