Hunt Priest, M.Div., is the founder of Ligare: A Christian Psychedelic Society and was a participant in the Johns Hopkins/NYU Psilocybin Study for Religious Leaders in 2016. At the time he was in the study, he was rector (senior pastor) of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Mercer Island, Washington. His encounters with psilocybin opened him to the healing and consciousness-raising power of sacred plants and fungi and their connection to his own Christian practice and ministry. In the summer of 2016, he accepted the position of rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, Ga. where he still lives. The epiphanies he had at Hopkins forever changed the trajectory of his work and led him to to start Ligare in 2021.

He served The Episcopal Church as a priest for 20 years, resigning his ordination in 2025 to continue his work at the intersection of psychedelics, religion, contemplative Christianity, and mental health.