Building Post-Church Spaces for Community, Transcendence, and Personal Growth with Colin Pugh of the Brooklyn Psychedelic Society

EPISODE #79 - This week we're thrilled to welcome on the podcast Colin Pugh, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Psychedelic Society. Colin is the Executive Director of Brooklyn Psychedelic Society (BPS), an organization founded in 2015 whose mission is to serve as a prototype of a psychedelic co-op, which is to say a democratically governed, community-based healing center. BPS's current focus is on creating Trellis, an open-source community-based healing model that maximizes the safety, accessibility, and effectiveness of psychedelic journeying both underground and above. Colin is originally from Syracuse, NY and has lived in Brooklyn, NY for the past nine years.We talked about how Colin first came into contact with psychedelics, how he connected with the Brooklyn Psychedelic Society and eventually became its Executive Director, and how he helps the BPS today grow a model of community-based healing that could one day spread across the country. We then dive into Justin's idea of "post-church spaces" aimed at intentionally nurturing community, transcendence, and personal growth outside of religious institutions. If you care about how we can find rich, healing community outside of traditional religion, then you're going to love this discussion!Yes Collective is co-hosted by Justin Wilford, PhDJustin Wilford, PhD, is a co-founder of Yes Collective, an educator, a writer, and an emotional health coach. He earned doctorates from UCLA (cultural geography) and UC Irvine (public health), and specializes in translating complex, scientific ideas into actionable programs for mental and emotional health.