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The Cora Center is closing its doors, becoming the latest in a line of psilocybin “service centers” to shutter as revenue from guided mushroom trips fails to cover business costs.
Cora, located at Northeast Broadway and 27th Avenue, will host a “closing group journey” for eight people on Jan. 24 before ceasing operations at the end of the month, Cora says on its website. The price for the trip is $800 to $1,200.
“After many months of listening, discernment, and care, we have made the deeply difficult decision to close,” Cora staff wrote. “This decision was not made lightly. The current climate in the field, along with increasing regulatory and operational demands, has made it no longer possible to sustain this space in a way that is aligned, resourced, and whole.”
Psilocybin service centers, where people can take state-regulated psychedelic trips, often to improve mental health, have struggled to stay in business since the first one opened in June 2023. A website maintained by the Oregon Health Authority shows that 23 centers have been licensed. Six of those have surrendered their licenses, and another six have let them expire. The site also says 27 service centers have renewed their licenses. (OHA says the numbers often overlap, “therefore total counts across each license type will potentially be greater than the total number of licenses issued.”)
Cora has a more idealistic vision for psilocybin than most service centers. On its website, it describes psychedelic therapy as a “collective endeavor” that requires returning to the “roots of our shared and individual traumas” in order to “transmute” them and recall our “true nature.”
“We are dreaming toward a world where psychedelic medicine is respected and destigmatized, and importantly, the culture bearers who have protected and stewarded this sacred work for generations are at the forefront of our movements,” Cora says on its website.
Cora didn’t immediately return an email seeking more details on its closure.
“Over the course of our time as a community, Cora Center has had the honor of supporting more than 350 participants in deeply intentional, healing-centered journeys,” Cora staff wrote on the website. “We have held offerings rooted in collective liberation and ancestral remembrance, including the Black Liberation Medicine Retreat, quarterly ceremonies centering BIPOC communities, and seasonal solstice and equinox ceremonies honoring cycles of death, rebirth, grief, and renewal.”
