Trippy Transformation: Exploring the potential role of psychedelics in achieving sustainable development at a deeper systems level

Abstract

The dominance of Capitalist systems within Western societies has resulted in paradigms and ontologies that are not only unsustainable but are actively destructive to the well-being of people and the planet. Through the leverage points perspective stemming from systems change literature, intervening within the lever of intent - or the paradigms, values, and goals making up a system - is often advocated for within sustainability transformations but is recognized as being extremely difficult to achieve in practice. Current research around psychedelics points to these substances as holding the potential for catalysing these changes. This potential has been discussed within a limited number of studies but never empirically explored. This research aimed to do that by empirically investigating whether and how psychedelic experiences result in sustainability-relevant changes at the individual level and to explore how individuals with psychedelic experiences can contribute to sustainable transformations at the collective level. A qualitative analysis of 18 in-depth interviews was conducted with individuals who have had multiple experiences with psychedelics in order to explore how psychedelics change an individual and how these changes relate to sustainability. Respondents reported positive changes in ways of being related to their emotions and physical self, their spirituality, their sense of reality, and the ways in which they moved and acted within the world. Some of these were directly tied to psychedelics while others were reported as more general changes. These results were then analysed through concepts of inner transformation and paradigm shifts as related to sustainability, finding that there is strong potential for psychedelic experiences to result in both sustainability-relevant inner transformation and a shift away from dominant, unsustainable paradigms and towards more sustainable alternatives proposed in literature. At the collective level, a workshop consisting of individuals with psychedelic experiences was conducted to co-design action around three realms of sustainability transformation: re-connecting to nature, re-thinking knowledge, and re-designing institutions. Workshop participants were able to collectively come up with innovative concepts and followed the co-design elements of empathy, connectedness, and self-awareness. The overall results provide evidence that psychedelics may be able to act as catalysts for the deepest set of leverage points by shifting paradigms as has been proposed within sustainability literature. Beyond any existing literature, an important new possibility that this research indicates is psychedelics' potential to both transcend paradigms and create an entirely new being. This potential implies that there is an even deeper leverage point to be explored in future research: ontological metamorphosis.