Two Church Founders Walk Onto a Stage: A Night with Courtney Close and a Surprise Guest
When Courtney Close, founder of Hummingbird Church, arrived for what was billed as a one-on-one conversation about growing a psychedelic church or community, she brought a twist with her: Suzi Kalypso, Priestess and founder of Temple of Eden. Suddenly we didn't have one psychedelic church founder on stage. We had two, and two who know each other well. What followed wasn't an interview so much as a conversation we were all lucky enough to sit inside of.
Courtney and Suzi arrived at this work from different directions, and that contrast made the night. Courtney spent more than two decades in the corporate world, most recently as a VP of Insurance Operations, before dedicating herself to ceremonial facilitation. For nearly ten years she's organized ceremonies, retreats, and community gatherings across the United States, Peru, Brazil, and Bali, bringing serious operational muscle to work that's usually run on heart alone.
Suzi's road ran through marketing, real estate, event production, and the hard-won resilience of raising two kids as a single mother. Five years ago, after a series of life-changing spiritual experiences, she founded Temple of Eden, a multi-sacramental spiritual community in California devoted to healing, personal sovereignty, and direct communion with the Divine. Today she leads ceremonies, trains future facilitators, and champions harm reduction and trauma-informed care.
Different origin stories, same destination: building sacred containers where people can heal, and figuring out how to keep those containers standing.
This is where the night earned its title. Growing a psychedelic church isn't just ceremony and community. It's law, logistics, boundaries, and a hundred unglamorous decisions nobody warns you about. Courtney and Suzi traded stories back and forth seamlessly: navigating legal gray areas, setting boundaries with participants, handling social media in an industry where platforms don't always want you there, and the sheer operational weight of running an entheogenic practice with integrity.
They finished each other's thoughts, gently disagreed, and laughed at shared war stories. Hearing two founders compare notes in real time gave the room something no solo interview could. It was a masterclass disguised as a conversation between friends.
A night like this could easily have wandered. It didn't, and that's a credit to Hannah Jo, who guided the flow with a light but sure hand, knowing when to let Courtney and Suzi run, when to steer, and exactly when to open the floor. The audience Q&A landed at just the right moment, and the questions showed why: people in this community aren't just curious about this work, many of them are doing it. Facilitators, aspiring founders, and practitioners came ready to share where they're stuck, and Courtney and Suzi met every question with the same candor they'd brought all night.
This is exactly what District216 exists to do. The psychedelic ecosystem won't grow on ceremony alone. It grows when the people building it get in a room together, compare notes, and tell the truth about what's hard. Two church founders on one stage, holding nothing back, is how a movement matures into an industry with integrity.
It was a beautiful night. If you missed it, don't miss the next one. And if you're building something in this space, bring your questions. This community has answers, and more importantly, it has people who've lived them.
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