Author name: Leonie Staas

Our growing disconnect from nature is contributing to human unhappiness and destruction of nature. Could psychedelic experiences help us to reverse this vicious cycle? There are many, many people for whom psychedelic states lead to environmental epiphanies, and momentum is growing in the psychedelic community to turn such epiphanies into real-world societal change. In Part 1 of this article, I presented the current scientific knowledge around this potential, and explored the mechanisms through which such ecodelic properties can be unlocked. But facing a challenge so monumental as climate change and the breaking of all our planetary boundaries, does it really matter what I do as an individual? And what if it did – how would we apply ecodelics in practice?

Individual action matters

Through my work at the IEA, the necessity of behavioral changes became very clear: just like the IPCC’s latest Assessment Report, the data showed that without them avoiding dangerous tipping points in the earth system will be impossible – technology alone is not enough. So we urged governments to make the right behaviors accessible and affordable: building train lines, banning short-haul flights, or making sure that prices reflect the impact on earth. However, this top-down approach, while it must be part of the picture, never seemed to address the root for me – the lack of solidarity, community, and long-term thinking in our cultural psyche. 

Climate change and the loss of our planetary support systems and biodiversity are complex, planetary-scale threats that call for planetary-scale solutions; on all levels: political, economic, social, and moral. They are collective action problems. But calling for collective action without addressing individual motivation is absurd. I argue that the individual level must be a part of facing any systemic predicament. The ‘they up there’-argument is a subtle form of denial that overlooks the fundamental interconnectedness and feedback mechanisms within societies. Our challenge is personal as much as it is civilizational; it was able to grow to civilizational dimensions precisely because we consistently refuse the personal – not out of malice, but out of fear. As a recent study published in Philosophical Psychology concludes: any problem of collective action must include changes at the individual level. Yes, we need policy change – but we cannot passively wait around for it. Psychedelic experiences can make us recognize our power to catalyze each other and the institutions we are a part of. 

Redefining responsibility

If we count our emissions for a small reduction in greenhouse gases, we are bound to become disheartened. Rather, we must count them to exercise our own capacity to move in a different direction and be the change we want. Because the impact that really matters is how we affect the system – the people – around us. It’s about what kind of lifestyle we model to friends and family, what signals we send to the market, what kind of job we choose, what processes we do or do not make ourselves complicit with, what kind of conversations we dare to have. It’s about whether we care, whether we hope, and what kind of vision we radiate – all this matters to a degree impossible to quantify. Every little action we take has a ripple effect beyond our ordinary comprehension. This is where psychedelics come in.

They allow us to not only believe in but feel our crucial role in the web of events by revealing a perfect paradox: we can experience ourselves as incredibly small and unimportant – suddenly no longer the sole center of the universe – and for that very reason, we discover the freedom to move into our full integrity. Zooming out to scales of time and space much beyond ourselves, we can recognize the perfect path-dependency and lawfulness of all events, and thereby learn to let go of our tiring and futile attempts to reject or control the course of the world. In a wonderful irony, this sense of trust and surrender liberates us to focus our energy on the only way we truly make a difference: by taking ownership of our immediate decisions and actions. By the very act of letting go, we can reclaim our agency. The psychedelic experience can imprint on our minds that in a system as wickedly stuck as ours, the best place to start is always right where we are. 

This newfound sense of responsibility is not based on fear, guilt, or ideological conviction, but simply on love – the most powerful motivating force. Both doom and possibility become self-fulfilling prophecies, and the choice is on us. As Christiana Figueres, the “woman behind the Paris Agreement” says: “Impossible is not a fact, it’s an attitude.” Stepping up for change in this state of mind does not originate from anxious self-preservation or angry righteousness but from a life-affirming goodwill and the joy of solidarity, and it is this stepping up that is the most effective in alleviating fear and hopelessness. Real healing must involve action, and psychedelics can provide the impetus. Because whether we’ll succeed or not becomes less important than who we want to be in the process. According to Nature Climate Change we are sitting on an enormous latent climate movement, and “a change in one factor can unlock potent, self-reinforcing feedback cycles, triggering social-tipping dynamics”.. I believe that one factor is whether we feel care, connection, and agency. As eco-philosopher Kathleen de Moore said: “People often ask me, What can one person do? The answer is, Stop being one person.”

Ecodelics in practice

Western science is only beginning to understand the true transformative potential of psychedelics, and many questions remain unanswered. However, science doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel: existing but threatened traditions use psychoactive plants to cultivate a relationship with the natural world, not as “environmental action”, but as a way of life. There is much to learn from them, for example in terms of acknowledging the role of group settings and long-term integration.

While the psychedelic community begins to acknowledge the potential for psychedelics to treat ecological anxiety and grief, the idea that they could support tangible societal change is still mocked as magical thinking in some circles. I argue that both processes are two sides of the same coin. I am not advocating for everyone to take psychedelics. Neither should we direct people into taking them “for nature”. An important principle for ethical psychedelic sitting or guiding is to not disrupt or influence the individual’s very own process of meaning-making. This principle must be protected under all circumstances, even under that of climate disaster. However, psychedelics unfold their true potential when they are used with intent. We take psychedelics to process grief, gain insight, harness creativity, or even just enjoy sensual stimulation. 

Our task now is to find practical ways to leverage this powerful tool with the intention of healing the rift between us and our planet. An example of this is the “journey protocols” that PSYCA is designing. They are tools to use psychedelic trips intentionally; to heal from ecological anxiety or grief, to foster a lost connection with the natural world, to access a stronger commitment for day-to-day behavior change, or to uncover creative ideas and new solutions for the climate crisis. Another example is their “climate action guide”, which helps people, once they try psychedelics, to get involved in environmental projects. Other organizations go even further: in Mexico, a psychedelic treatment center is offering politicians free ibogaine treatments to become “better public servants”, and for their insight to “ripple outward to all the lives they impact”.

I advocate for positioning nature-connectedness as a valid and urgent reason for a psychedelic session: it will be vital to treat the rising mental health threats of ecological anxiety and grief, and it could be supportive in catalyzing societal change. Access should be democratized and made accessible not only to those with a clinical diagnosis but all of us. I as a “healthy normal” was in truth not that healthy at all. As founder of ACER Integration Rosalind Watts points out: “it is no sign of health to be well adapted to a sick society”. This is not a political stance; nature-relatedness is a basic psychological human need. Our relationship with nature has been turned into a question of political orientation for centuries when it has always been an existential one. There is no personal health without planetary health and no planetary health without personal health.

True healing

However, when debating psychedelics for moral enhancement it is important to emphasize that psychedelics are not inherently a solution for reducing harm. If we want psychedelics to have any impact on our environmental conduct, we must first understand the core of the problem, and ensure that the psychedelic experience is removed from that same toxic framework. Our environmental crisis is primarily a moral issue based on extreme social inequality, and psychedelics are readily palatable, if contextualized accordingly, to preserve this, as a recent case study exemplifies. Increased social and environmental solidarity is a potential outcome, not an inherent feature of the psychedelic experience. It is the set, setting, and intention within which it unfolds that enables its eco-delic qualities, and to those not interested in this affordance, psychedelics can – and will – remain something else. I do argue, however, that in times of ecological collapse, psychedelic care can and should take a stance. In exploring which combination of drug, set, and setting delivers the most holistic healing, it cannot follow the same principles that got us into this mess. 

Our interconnectivity, our being “all one”, is one dimension of reality, and experiencing it can be life-changing. But if this experience is worn like a badge of honour, it comes at the expense of the other fundamental truth: the subjective joy, pain, and autonomous value of other living beings, human and non-human. As more and more people jet-set around the globe to join the race for the most mind-blowing psychedelic experience, many cause more harm to the environment than they alleviate. Holistic healing, it turns out, happens as soon as we finally transcend our purely selfish motivations of ease, grandeur or self-optimization. Our understanding of nature-relatedness must evolve: it is not about hugging more trees; it is about coming back to our true nature – which is kind and selfless. This is done by moving through our pain. If a culture that encourages distraction and narcissism is the only container for the psychedelic experience, even nature-relatedness and interconnectivity itself may not lead to those behaviors that are in service of the wider world. But if we support a psychedelic culture – including preparation and integration – that emphasizes an orientation towards the whole as a fundamental part of healing, there is every chance that they can. Opening to pain and practicing selfless compassion is, I believe, essential to turn psychedelics into ecodelics.

ACER Integration is a good example of how insights from psychedelic states can be nurtured and extended into ordinary life through an ongoing community that emphasizes care. Psychedelics are an opening, a window of opportunity for diving into the long, slow, and deep process of reconnection that many of us so desperately need. 

As Alnoor Ladha explains, what will be key is to move from the wellness-centered goals of self-improvement, self-realization, and self-expression so prevalent in the West towards an approach to psychedelics more motivated by curiosity about our true nature and how we can be of service. We have to learn how to trip selflessly.

Acknowledgements

The author expresses a special thank you to Georgia Kareola and Jasmine Virdi for their contribution.

New term – old story

Nature-connectedness, our subjective sense of our relationship to the natural world, is at an all-time low globally, and so is the health of our planet as well as our own. What we are experiencing is a vicious cycle of disaffection between mental suffering, environmental destruction, and further estrangement from the natural. How can we disrupt this cycle and turn it around? In this opinion piece, I argue that psychedelics can be used as a tool for turning a vicious cycle into a virtuous one. Psychedelics can be turned into “ecodelics”. 

“Ecodelics” is a term coined by Richard Doyle in 2015, describing the power of psychedelics to induce ecological awareness and encourage eco-friendly behavior. The term might be new, but the idea is not. Throughout psychedelic history in the West, many believe that psychedelics are an essential tool for rekindling our relationship to nature and transforming our societies. This includes many prominent figures – from philosopher and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna in the 1980s to author and journalist Michael Pollan today. 

Swiss chemist and discoverer of LSD, Albert Hofmann suggested that the deepest potential of psychedelics is the opening to a more ecological consciousness: “Alienation from nature…is the causative reason for ecological devastation and climate change. Therefore, I attribute the absolute highest importance to consciousness change.” But the story is much older than this – for many Indigenous cultures, such as the Mazatec people of Oaxaca, fostering a connection with the natural world has been an inherent feature of psychedelic use for millennia.

The counter-cultural hippie movement of the 60s and 70s demanded a radical shift towards environmental consciousness for the first time in Western history, and many believe it was fueled by LSD. The euphoria of the time ebbed off and the movement was oppressed, including through the 1971 War on Drugs Act. But could it be that the movement was crushed, not because it was powerless, but because it was too powerful in threatening the cultural and political status quo? The 60s and the present time are not two distinct events, they are two chapters of one story – and it seems that today, the story continues.

Growing momentum

Today, there is a lot of new momentum in connecting the psychedelic and environmental causes: the climate action movement Extinction Rebellion was formed thanks to a psychedelic experience, and so were many other environmental organizations and projects. 

New organizations such as PSYCA – “Psychedelics for Climate Action” build global communities and actions around this idea. According to PSYCA founder Marissa Feinberg, “a consciousness shift is critical to catalyzing collective climate action.” Even in the business world, psychedelics are starting to make changes: researcher Bennet Zelner brought CEOs to Amsterdam to do psychedelics; as a result, their leadership styles shifted towards more empathy and purpose. 

New scientific research into ecodelics

Western science is starting to grow interested in the connection between psychedelics and nature, with ecologist Sam Gandy and clinical psychologist Rosalind Watts trying to wrap their heads around it through research and practice.

Sample sizes are still small, but the emerging data is consistent. A 2022 paper found that psychedelic use predicted “nature relatedness” – a type of connection that goes beyond love or knowledge of nature and includes respect and affection for it even when it isn’t useful or aesthetically pleasing. It also predicted objective knowledge and concern about climate change, concluding that “there is a reliable association between psychedelic use and enhanced relatedness and empathy towards one’s environment.” 

Another recent work on “psychedelically induced biophilia” highlights that this connection is “passionate and protective, even among those who were not previously nature-oriented”. Multiple meta-analyses have shown that nature-connectedness is a reliable predictor of a broad range of pro-environmental behaviors, regardless of political views. Just this month, a study found that intentional use of psychedelics can transform eco-anxiety into equanimity, resilience, and environmental action.

Why is this the case? Why should temporary, chemically induced experiences that create changes at the individual level contribute to problem-solving at the societal scale? At the University of Maastricht, a new research project on “psychedelics for planetary health” is seeking to answer this question: researcher Sarah Roche is preparing a study to illuminate the cognitive mechanisms that could link the psychedelic experience to ecological behavior. 

Based on my personal journey from behavioral modeling for the climate transition, through burnout caused by climate anxiety and grief, to a renewed sense of agency, purpose, and hope brought about by psychedelic states, I propose three major mechanisms by which psychedelics could help us realize the changes we want: courage, presence, and connection.

#1 Courage

The critical decade to avoid dangerous tipping points in the climate system is running out fast, and unparalleled uncertainty is destabilizing us. The denial, distraction, polarisation, and conflict we see around the world are all expressions of being afraid. How can we avoid panic or depression to paralyze us at a time when we need to step up our game? 

To perform the transformation that our physical realities demand from us, we need the type of consciousness that does not respond to change with fear. To enact meaningful behavioral change for a greater good in our own lives, let alone encourage it in our communities or nations, we must first develop the capacity to come eye-to-eye with the enormity of our loss and uncertainty. For many, the hesitation to engage in environmental problems like the climate crisis stems from a perceived incapability of handling grief and despair.

Psychedelics can allow us to open Pandora’s box and move through our challenging emotions, allowing those active in the cause to keep doing this important work, and those in denial or fear to become empowered. The existential fears caused by the state of our planet are not unlike the existential fears around terminal illness that psychedelics have been shown to treat very effectively. They show us the way to a type of awareness spacious enough to hold despair and active hope side by side, not letting fear paralyze us. Christiana Figueres, the “woman behind the Paris Agreement” explains how grounding herself in her difficult emotions was essential to generate her deep impact: “it is that being grounded in our emotions that generates deep clarity of what needs to be done; it puts two things side by side: yes, I am in deep pain, and es, precisely because of that I am committed to do everything within my sphere of influence.” In this way, our pain becomes fuel for our commitment.

This can be as big as organising a protest or changing one’s job, or as small as buying locally or having an honest conversation with a family member. No matter how big or small, the resolution to enact change often requires swimming against the stream. Finding the courage to challenge social norms is one of the most powerful interventions one can make today, and psychedelics are (in)famous for encouraging this through increased cognitive flexibility. They offer an experience of inner validity to one’s intuitive voice, a powerful trust in one’s own sense of right or wrong. This allows us to question all the social institutions we take for granted, and envision better ones.

#2 Presence

Much of the damage we do to the earth stems from a belief that joy and happiness will be attained through our endless chase of gratifying experiences. Cultural myths around scarcity, competition, and individuality have fostered a habit of prioritising instant gratification – even over our own deeper values. However, what makes us truly human at a deeper level is our unique ability to become mindful and present, to observe our impulses and yet choose to act in accordance with the human being we want to be.

This state of presence reconnects us to a sense of joy and abundance, training our ability to find beauty in the immediate and radiate a sense of care and possibility to those we interact with. In times as scary as ours, this is an essential skill set to remain resilient and engage in a compassionate, constructive, and transformative manner. Living with contentment in the present, even discomforts, such as taking a long train ride instead of a plane, can become gratifying experiences of mindfulness and solidarity, knowing that they are done for the greater good. A more profound sense of fulfillment then arises, one grounded in freedom, self-respect, and love. Psychedelics can be used as a powerful teacher for cultivating these very qualities. 

A growing number of studies confirms that psychedelics can foster this heightened state of present-moment awareness, openness to experience, as well as non-reactivity – key components of mindfulness. Only when we notice our own behaviors – and only when we begin to identify more strongly with our values than our cravings – can we succeed in changing them.

#3 Connection

It is this shift in identity that I believe is at the core of the connection between psychedelics and the environmental movement. Psychedelic experiences can provide a direct, highly personal, and emotionally significant experience of oneness with the natural world. It is this emotionally significant experience of belonging, experienced in the body rather than the mind, that makes all the difference. “We’re all connected”, while obvious to the intellect as a physical reality – only hits home once it is directly experienced in a way that moves us. Johns Hopkins University researcher Roland Griffiths explains: “The core mystical experience is one of the interconnectedness of all people and things, the awareness that we are all in this together. It is precisely the lack of this sense of mutual caretaking that puts our species at risk right now.”

Psychedelics can alter our self-boundaries and increase our empathetic concern. By reducing the grip of our ego, they can open the doors for real love towards other humans as well as animals and plants, even those alive in the future – a process called “moral circle expansion”. A study by researcher Carhart-Harris and others confirms: psychedelics can cause “subtle shifts away from self-focus, individualism, a desire for financial success and competitiveness” towards more “intrinsically oriented cooperative, accepting, inclusive and communitarian values”. Harm to nature becomes harm to self. While this experience is temporary, for many it is so profound that it has a lasting effect on whom they care about. In this way, psychedelics can motivate us to orientate our lives towards the collective will. 

The question remains whether individual action can truly make a difference for a predicament so globalized and complex as the environmental crisis. In Part 2 of this article, I will explore this question, based on the modeling results of my work as a behavioural specialist at the International Energy Agency (IEA). And I will expose ethical concerns and practical implications of psychedelics for planetary action: where lies the boundary between brainwashing and use with intention, and who can we turn to to learn how to use ecodelics in ethical ways?

Acknowledgements

The author expresses a special thank you to Georgia Kareola and Jasmine Virdi for their contribution.