Church Expels Reverend After Psychedelic Study

Happy Monday! Welcome to another edition of The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter delivering independent journalism about psychedelics straight to your inbox.

Today’s lead story is about an Episcopal reverend who was ousted from the church for exploring the spiritual power of psilocybin mushrooms. Religion and psychedelics have always had a fraught, complicated history despite their long-standing relationship. But should a priest really lose his collar for trying to deepen his connection to God?

We explore this, and so much more, below.

Stay sane out there 💙
Mary Carreón
Editor-In-Chief

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Episcopal Priest Ousted After Participating in Psilocybin Study

The Episcopal Church has deposed Rev. Hunt Priest after his participation in a psilocybin study and subsequent advocacy, exposing a growing rift over psychedelics in religious life.

The union between religion and psychedelics has long played out in underground circles. It’s an issue that’s appeared in court. It’s the topic of numerous books and panel discussions. Large swaths of people believe the psychedelic experience even inspired the major religious texts. But the relationship between psychedelics and religion remains contentious, despite movements to legalize, decriminalize, or petition the DEA for religious and spiritual use. That tension was on display on August 5, when the Episcopal Church officially expelled one of its own for participating in a psilocybin mushroom study and becoming an advocate.

Hunt Priest — an Episcopal priest of two decades — was formally deposed from ministry, according to Religion News, ending a career he once believed would carry him to retirement. His sin, at least in the eyes of church leadership, was using the moral weight of his collar to legitimize psychedelics, most of which remain banned under federal law. As NPR reported, Bishop Frank Logue of the Diocese of Georgia concluded after a 13-month inquiry that Rev. Hunt Priest had engaged in “conduct unbecoming” clergy, citing misrepresentation and misuse of pastoral authority.

For Hunt Priest, the path to excommunication technically began in 2016, after participating in a Johns Hopkins research lab, where he volunteered for a study on clergy and psilocybin. The trip, which he later described as “deeply Christian,” upended his ministry. By 2021, he left the pulpit to found Ligare, a nonprofit devoted to convening Christians curious about psychedelics. It wasn’t long before questions of risk, legality, and spiritual legitimacy caught up with him.

Critics didn’t just come from the church. The Rev. Joe Welker, a Harvard Divinity School student and early Ligare intern, resigned in protest. In his telling, the group downplayed the darker sides of psychedelic use, even hosting a legal retreat in the Netherlands without adequate medical oversight.

“I felt there was a reckless disregard for public safety,” Welker told NPR. He later blasted the Johns Hopkins study itself as “unethical,” arguing that researchers manipulated clergy into supporting a pro-psychedelic agenda.

The Hopkins trial wasn’t without its own baggage. An internal audit flagged conflicts of interest, noting that funders with ties to psychedelic legalization were involved in the study. Even so, its results were still groundbreaking: 96% of the clergy participants rated their psilocybin trip among the most spiritually significant experiences of their lives. For Hunt Priest, that was proof of the medicine’s power. For Welker, it was proof of…the devil?

The dispute spilled into ecclesiastical court after Hunt Priest’s lawyer fired off a cease-and-desist letter to Welker last year. The move, riddled with inaccuracies, only sharpened scrutiny. Investigators concluded that Hunt Priest blurred the line between “safe” and “legal” use of psychedelics, and that his priesthood had become little more than a stamp of approval for Ligare’s mission. Faced with the church’s most serious disciplinary sanction, Hunt Priest signed the deposition agreement.

And yet, the controversy hardly killed the conversation. In Oregon, where psilocybin has been legalized, at least one Episcopal bishop has voiced openness to its potential. Other denominations are quietly weighing resolutions on decriminalization. Hunt Priest himself insists Ligare does not promote illegal use and frames his deposition as evidence of the urgent need for dialogue.

“On these hot-button cultural issues, there’s a cost to being out front,” he told NPR. “I’m willing to bear it.”

Whether martyr or cautionary tale, Hunt Priest’s fall marks a turning point. The psychedelic question has leapt from fringe internet forums into the church bulletin — and it isn’t going back underground.

Inside Vancouver’s First Microdose Café

This Friday, we’re taking you inside a trippy new café where the menu swaps cappuccinos for LSD shooters, mushroom tonics, and other psychedelic curiosities. It’s part head shop, part social experiment, and maybe a glimpse of the future.

At the center is Dana Larsen — a buccaneering activist-turned-entrepreneur who thrives in the gray zones prohibition creates. When the laws keep psychedelics underground, it’s the outlaws who end up running the show.

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