Psychedelics & Climate: A Bibliography

Note 1: Nothing on this page or site should be interpreted as a clinical or non-clinical recommendation to use illegal psychoactive substances, either generally; to treat mental health issues; or to encourage pro-environmental behavior. The information below is presented for the purposes of contributing to further study and discussion of potential benefits and risks of these substances if, when, and where they become legal, and have gone through clinical trials.
Note 2: References to clients may have been adjusted in the interest of client confidentiality.

Introduction

by Andrew Bryant

Recently, I was working with a young woman suffering from extreme, debilitating climate grief and despair. She despaired at the guaranteed level of human and non-human suffering she believed was coming, on a level never seen before in human history. I could not argue with her (even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t) because she knew more than I did about the science. Besides, she’d had enough of people denying the reality she thought was so obvious: There is no hope. If I tried to look on the bright side, to inject some hope, I knew that she would never return to therapy. She needed someone to talk to and, not knowing what else to do, I just listened, asked questions, and took in the weight of it all.

Sometime, early in our work together, I was reminded of a quote from an interview with Stephen Jenkinson, who writes on death and dying:

“In the dominant North American culture we talk about health as a possession, something you have and are responsible for maintaining. But I see our health as like a tripod, a dynamic thing: One leg is your relationship with all other human beings. It’s not possible for you to be healthy when there are people living under a freeway overpass in cardboard boxes. Your health is dependent on theirs. The second leg is your relationship with all in the world that’s not human. If you have only these two legs, you can try to live a good life, but it’s like walking on stilts. The third leg is what gives you a place to rest, and that leg is your relationship with the unseen world, everything not described by the other two. Having all three constitutes health. That’s where it lives. This tripod sustains you. You don’t exist as an individual without these relationships. (emphasis added)

My client was walking - just barely - on the first two stilts: She was deeply impacted by other human beings, and loved the best parts of humanity (although she felt intense loathing and hatred towards those in power who knowingly perpetuate climate change); and she felt a deep attachment to the natural, more-than-human world. You could make the case, in fact, that she loved “too much” (at least, too much for just stilts), because those loves made the suffering so real, so intimate, so overwhelming, so clearly unnecessary. She could not make sense of how to live in the world with that awareness, and even refused to try to live in such a world because that would mean acceptance of the suffering.

It occurred to me that she lacked what Jenkinson called the third leg, “what gives you a place to rest… your relationship with the unseen world.” The way I understand this third leg is what we usually clump, somewhat clumsily, into the category of “spirituality”. Awareness of loss, without a sense of something more, without some bigger picture, means there is no meaning, and no possibility for meaning. To a person in this state, the only options appear to be nihilism, suicide, or perpetual, interminable grief.

I had recently read Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind and remembered his description of a study in which cancer patients who were struggling with anxiety and depression around their own mortality benefited from treatment with psilocybin (the chemical found in some psychoactive mushrooms) (see Griffiths et al, 2020, below). It seemed to me that the experience of mortality-anxiety/grief paralleled the experience of climate grief (see our article “What is climate grief? for a discussion of similarities and differences between climate grief and other types of grief). I wondered if the treatment could effectively enhance people’s capacity to tolerate grief and despair at the loss of the planet, and the loss of the future.

The use of psychedelics (for the purposes here, this refers to those tested in recent research: MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD, although other plant medicines have been used for healing and spiritual exploration by indigenous communities around the world) is frequently associated with experiences spirituality, loss of ego boundaries, and connection. What’s more, psychedelic use is associated with experiences of connection with nature (see Forstmann & Sagioglou, 2017). In fact, Albert Hoffman, the very first to discover and accidentally use LSD, wrote:

I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new consciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation. (Hoffman, 1980)

And,

It's very, very dangerous to lose contact with living nature. … In the big cities, there are people who have never seen living nature, all things are products of humans … The bigger the town, the less they see and understand nature. "Nearly 100, LSD's Father Ponders His 'Problem Child'" (New York Times, 7 January 2006)

Can a person suffering from climate despair benefit from controlled and guided administration of psychedelics, as a way of discovering the “third leg of the stool”? I do not know the answer to this question, but I share the resources below as a means of fostering and encouraging the exploration of this topic.

Bibliography

General Articles/books (by topic; some are not directly related to psychedelics, or climate):

Psychedelics & Climate

Psychedelics & Nature

Psychedelics & Connectedness

Psychedelics & Grief, Loss, and Death

Psychedelics & Macro-level Change

Research (grouped loosely by topic):

Psychedelics & Pro-environmental Attitudes or Behavior

  • Forstmann, Matthias; Sagioglou, Christina (2017): Lifetime experience with (classic) psychedelics predicts pro-environmental behavior through an increase in nature relatedness. In: Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) 31 (8), S. 975–988. DOI: 10.1177/0269881117714049.

  • Harms, A. (2021). Accidental Environmentalism: Nature and Cultivated Affect in European Neoshamanic Ayahuasca Consumption. Anthropology of Consciousness. [PDF Link]

    • Abstract: Existing research demonstrates a positive connection between psychedelics and increased nature relatedness. Enhanced affective ties toward nature are widely framed as being built into the pharmakon itself, and the relevance of experiences remains little understood. This paper turns to neoshamanic ayahuasca ceremonies in Europe, exploring the way specialists and attendants refer to nature in speech and performance. I argue that ritual framings performed during these ceremonies provide fertile ground for affective ties to emerge through substance‐induced experiences. I trace such framings by exploring how medicine and healers are being coded; how specific materialities are rendered meaningful; and how individual experiences are discussed at such retreats. I argue that even while participants prioritize individual healing, personal development, or the satisfaction of psychonautical curiosity, environmentalism appears to be anchored by the proceedings themselves. Thus, this paper opens up for analysis ceremonial substance use as a contact zone where coherence is produced intersubjectively.

  • Nilsson, M. (2020). Catalysts for transformation: a systematic literature review exploring the interlinkages and potential role of classic psychedelics to social-ecological sustainability. Master Thesis Series in Environmental Studies and Sustainability. [PDF Link]

    • Abstract: Most of classic psychedelic literature indicate its potential benefit to society and the environment during a time of rapid environmental degradation and climate change– hinting its potential role to sustainability and socio-ecological transformation. There is virtually no study drawing the explicit interlinkages of classic psychedelic research to sustainability science but it is observed that there are overlapping themes to the psychedelic experience and inner-sustainability concepts. Therefore, this paper explores the transformative capacity of psychedelics with the aid of a systematic literature review, 68 scientific articles were identified for analysis. Explicitly elucidating the role of psychedelics to personality & value orientation, connectedness to nature, political perspectives, spiritual significance and worldviews. The objective of this study is to explore the extent to which classic psychedelics catalyze inner transformation and promote systemic change, using the frameworks of Leverage Points. This paper concludes that classic psychedelics have the capacity to influence inner connections, transcend the cognitive mind, promote enduring changes in personality traits, and convey meaning-making. Therefore, it can potentially be used as a tool for deep leverage, influencing systemic change via interventions (e.g. nature relatedness, mindfulness or spirituality). However, careful discernments must be made as classic psychedelics should not be viewed as a solution to our impending crisis but rather be considered and respected for its healing and transformative capacities, enabling one to recognize the needed behavioral changes required to achieve transformation, systemic change and a more sustainable future for all.

Psychedelics & Nature-relatedness

  • Gandy, S., Forstmann, M., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Timmermann, C., Luke, D., & Watts, R. (2020). The potential synergistic effects between psychedelic administration and nature contact for the improvement of mental health. Health Psychology Open, 7(2). [link to PDF]

    • Abstract: Therapeutic psychedelic administration and contact with nature have been associated with the same psychological mechanisms: decreased rumination and negative affect, enhanced psychological connectedness and mindfulness-related capacities, and heightened states of awe and transcendent experiences, all processes linked to improvements in mental health amongst clinical and healthy populations. Nature-based settings can have inherently psychologically soothing properties which may complement all stages of psychedelic therapy (mainly preparation and integration) whilst potentiating increases in nature relatedness, with associated psychological benefits. Maximising enhancement of nature relatedness through therapeutic psychedelic administration may constitute an independent and complementary pathway towards improvements in mental health that can be elicited by psychedelics.

  • Irvine, Alexander, David Luke, Freya Harrild, Sam Gandy, and Rosalind Watts. ‘Transpersonal Ecodelia: Surveying Psychedelically Induced Biophilia’. Psychoactives 2, no. 2 (June 2023): 174–93. https://doi.org/10.3390/psychoactives2020012.

  • Kettner, H., Gandy, S., Haijen, E. C., & Carhart-Harris, R. L. (2019). From egoism to ecoism: Psychedelics increase nature relatedness in a state-mediated and context-dependent manner. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 5147. [PDF link]

    • Abstract: (1) Background: There appears to be a growing disconnection between humans and their natural environments which has been linked to poor mental health and ecological destruction. Previous research suggests that individual levels of nature relatedness can be increased through the use of classical psychedelic compounds, although a causal link between psychedelic use and nature relatedness has not yet been established. (2) Methods: Using correlations and generalized linear mixed regression modelling, we investigated the association between psychedelic use and nature relatedness in a prospective online study. Individuals planning to use a psychedelic received questionnaires 1 week before (N = 654), plus one day, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 2 years after a psychedelic experience. (3) Results: The frequency of lifetime psychedelic use was positively correlated with nature relatedness at baseline. Nature relatedness was significantly increased 2 weeks, 4 weeks and 2 years after the psychedelic experience. This increase was positively correlated with concomitant increases in psychological well-being and was dependent on the extent of ego-dissolution and the perceived influence of natural surroundings during the acute psychedelic state. (4) Conclusions: The here presented evidence for a context- and state-dependent causal effect of psychedelic use on nature relatedness bears relevance for psychedelic treatment models in mental health and, in the face of the current ecological crisis, planetary health.

  • Luke, D. Psychedelics and Species Connectedness.

  • Luke, D, ed. Ecopsychology and the Psychedelic Experience. Vol. 4. European Journal of Ecopsychology, 2013.

  • Lyons, Taylor; Carhart-Harris, Robin L. (2018): Increased nature relatedness and decreased authoritarian political views after psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. In: Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) 32 (7), S. 811–819. DOI: 10.1177/0269881117748902.

  • Nayak, S. M., & Griffiths, R. R. (2022). A single belief-changing psychedelic experience is associated with increased attribution of consciousness to living and non-living entities. Frontiers in psychology, 1035.

    • Introduction: Although the topic of consciousness is both mysterious and controversial, psychedelic drugs are popularly believed to provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness despite a lack of empirical evidence.

      Methods: This study addresses the question of whether psychedelics change the attribution of consciousness to a range of living and non-living entities. A survey was conducted in 1,606 respondents who endorsed a belief changing psychedelic experience.

      Results: Participants rated their attributions of consciousness to a range of living and non-living entities before and after their psychedelic experience. Superstitious beliefs and belief in freewill were also assessed. From before the experience to after, there were large increases in attribution of consciousness to various entities including non-human primates (63–83%), quadrupeds (59–79%), insects (33–57%), fungi (21–56%), plants (26–61%), inanimate natural objects (8–26%), and inanimate manmade objects (3–15%). Higher ratings of mystical experience were associated with greater increases in the attribution of consciousness. Moreover, the increased attributions of consciousness did not decrease in those who completed the survey years after the psychedelic experience. In contrast to attributions of consciousness, beliefs in freewill and superstitions did not change. Notably, all findings were similar when restricted to individuals reporting on their first psychedelic experience.

      Discussion: This study demonstrates that, among people who reported belief-changing psychedelic experiences, attribution of consciousness to various entities increases. Future prospective psychedelic drug administration studies that control for expectancies are needed.

  • Pöllänen, Elin, Walter Osika, Cecilia U. D. Stenfors, and Otto Simonsson. ‘Classic Psychedelics and Human–Animal Relations’. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 13 (January 2022): 8114. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19138114.

  • Sagioglou C, Forstmann M. Psychedelic use predicts objective knowledge about climate change via increases in nature relatedness. Drug Science, Policy and Law. 2022;8.

    • Abstract: Lifetime psychedelic substance use has previously been linked to nature relatedness and pro-environmental behaviour. Yet, participants’ responses to the self-report measures in these studies may have been affected by stereotypical associations or confirmation bias. We therefore re-examined this link by measuring three pro-environmental dependent variables: nature relatedness, concerns about climate change, and objective knowledge about climate change. Additionally assessing lifetime experience with 30 psychoactive substances, we collected an international convenience sample for an online survey (n = 641), Controlling for age, educational attainment, and covariation in substance use indicators, psychedelic use (primarily the use of psilocybin) predicted objective knowledge about climate change directly, and indirectly via nature relatedness. Further, it predicted concern about climate change indirectly via nature relatedness. The results suggest that the relationship of psychedelics with pro-environmental variables is not due to psychological biases, but manifests in variables as diverse as emotional affinity towards nature as well as knowledge about climate change.

Psychedelics & Grief, Loss, or Death

  • Griffiths, R. R., et al. (2016). Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial. Journal of psychopharmacology, 30(12), 1181-1197.

    • Abstract: Cancer patients often develop chronic, clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety. Previous studies suggest that psilocybin may decrease depression and anxiety in cancer patients. […] High-dose psilocybin produced large decreases in clinician- and self-rated measures of depressed mood and anxiety, along with increases in quality of life, life meaning, and optimism, and decreases in death anxiety. At 6-month follow-up, these changes were sustained, with about 80% of participants continuing to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety. Participants attributed improvements in attitudes about life/self, mood, relationships, and spirituality to the high-dose experience, with >80% endorsing moderately or greater increased well-being/life satisfaction. Community observer ratings showed corresponding changes. Mystical-type psilocybin experience on session day mediated the effect of psilocybin dose on therapeutic outcomes.

  • McGovern, H. T., Leptourgos, P., Hutchinson, B. T., & Corlett, P. R. (2022). Do psychedelics change beliefs?. Psychopharmacology, 239(6), 1809-1821.

    • Renewed interest in psychedelics has reignited the debate about whether and how they change human beliefs. In both the clinical and social-cognitive domains, psychedelic consumption may be accompanied by profound, and sometimes lasting, belief changes. We review these changes and their possible underlying mechanisms. Rather than inducing de novo beliefs, we argue psychedelics may instead change the impact of affect and of others’ suggestions on how beliefs are imputed. Critically, we find that baseline beliefs (in the possible effects of psychedelics, for example) might color the acute effects of psychedelics as well as longer-term changes. If we are to harness the apparent potential of psychedelics in the clinic and for human flourishing more generally, these possibilities must be addressed empirically.

Psychedelics & Belief Changes

  • Kähönen, Juuso. ‘Psychedelic Unselfing: Self-Transcendence and Change of Values in Psychedelic Experiences’. Frontiers in Psychology 14 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1104627.

  • Langlitz, N., Dyck, E., Scheidegger, M., & Repantis, D. (2021). Moral psychopharmacology needs moral inquiry: the case of psychedelics. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 1104.

    • Abstract: The revival of psychedelic research coincided and more recently conjoined with psychopharmacological research on how drugs affect moral judgments and behaviors. This article makes the case for a moral psychopharmacology of psychedelics that examines whether psychedelics serve as non-specific amplifiers that enable subjects to (re-)connect with their values, or whether they promote specific moral-political orientations such as liberal and anti-authoritarian views, as recent psychopharmacological studies suggest. This question gains urgency from the fact that the return of psychedelics from counterculture and underground laboratories to mainstream science and society has been accompanied by a diversification of their users and uses. We propose bringing the pharmacological and neuroscientific literature into a conversation with historical and anthropological scholarship documenting the full spectrum of moral and political views associated with the uses of psychedelics. This paper sheds new light on the cultural plasticity of drug action and has implications for the design of psychedelic pharmacopsychotherapies. It also raises the question of whether other classes of psychoactive drugs have an equally rich moral and political life.

  • Nayak, S. M., Singh, M., Yaden, D. B., & Griffiths, R. R. (2023). Belief changes associated with psychedelic use. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 37(1), 80-92.

    • Background: Psychedelic use is anecdotally associated with belief changes, although few studies have tested these claims.

      Aim: Characterize a broad range of psychedelic occasioned belief changes.

      Survey: A survey was conducted in 2374 respondents who endorsed having had a belief changing psychedelic experience. Participants rated their agreement with belief statements Before and After the psychedelic experience as well as at the time of survey administration.

      […]

      Results: At both the factor and individual item level, higher ratings of mystical experience were associated with greater changes in beliefs. Belief changes assessed after the experience (an average 8.4 years) remained largely unchanged at the time of survey.

      Conclusions: A single psychedelic experience increased a range of non-physicalist beliefs as well as beliefs about consciousness, meaning, and purpose. Further, the magnitude of belief change is associated with qualitative features of the experience.

  • Nour, Matthew M.; Evans, Lisa; Carhart-Harris, Robin L. (2017): Psychedelics, Personality and Political Perspectives. In: Journal of psychoactive drugs 49 (3), S. 182–191. DOI: 10.1080/02791072.2017.1312643.

  • Pace, B. A., & Devenot, N. (2021). Right-wing psychedelia: Case studies in cultural plasticity and political pluripotency. Frontiers in Psychology, 4915.

    • Abstract: Recent media advocacy for the nascent psychedelic medicine industry has emphasized the potential for psychedelics to improve society, pointing to research studies that have linked psychedelics to increased environmental concern and liberal politics. However, research supporting the hypothesis that psychedelics induce a shift in political beliefs must address the many historical and contemporary cases of psychedelic users who remained authoritarian in their views after taking psychedelics or became radicalized after extensive experience with them. We propose that the common anecdotal accounts of psychedelics precipitating radical shifts in political or religious beliefs result from the contextual factors of set and setting, and have no particular directional basis on the axes of conservatism-liberalism or authoritarianism-egalitarianism. Instead, we argue that any experience which challenges a person's fundamental worldview—including a psychedelic experience—can precipitate shifts in any direction of political belief. We suggest that the historical record supports the concept of psychedelics as “politically pluripotent,” non-specific amplifiers of the political set and setting. Contrary to recent assertions, we show that conservative, hierarchy-based ideologies are able to assimilate psychedelic experiences of interconnection, as expressed by thought leaders like Jordan Peterson, corporadelic actors, and members of several neo-Nazi organizations.

  • Timmermann, C., Kettner, H., Letheby, C., Roseman, L., Rosas, F. E., & Carhart-Harris, R. L. (2021). Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs. Scientific reports, 11(1), 22166.

    • Can the use of psychedelic drugs induce lasting changes in metaphysical beliefs? While it is popularly believed that they can, this question has never been formally tested. Here we exploited a large sample derived from prospective online surveying to determine whether and how beliefs concerning the nature of reality, consciousness, and free-will, change after psychedelic use. Results revealed significant shifts away from ‘physicalist’ or ‘materialist’ views, and towards panpsychism and fatalism, post use. With the exception of fatalism, these changes endured for at least 6 months, and were positively correlated with the extent of past psychedelic-use and improved mental-health outcomes. Path modelling suggested that the belief-shifts were moderated by impressionability at baseline and mediated by perceived emotional synchrony with others during the psychedelic experience. The observed belief-shifts post-psychedelic-use were consolidated by data from an independent controlled clinical trial. Together, these findings imply that psychedelic-use may causally influence metaphysical beliefs—shifting them away from ‘hard materialism’. We discuss whether these apparent effects are contextually independent.

  • Yugler, S. T. (2020). Lost Rites: Decolonizing Masculinity Through Psychedelic Initiation, Liminality, and Integration (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute). [PDF Link]

    • Abstract: Ceremonies of initiation, and the resulting psycho-spiritual transformation they evoke, were excommunicated from Western culture, resulting in the internalized archetype of the toxic masculine shadow, which affects multitudes of men today. Ritualized encounters with psychedelic medicines can play an integral role in helping men embrace novel ways of relating with themselves, their community, and the natural world through accessing archetypally initiatory and liminal states of consciousness. This thesis examines how initiatory experiences involving psychedelic medicine can help modern men integrate healthy masculine archetypes and adopt relational, ecologically oriented worldviews. A three-part integration framework is presented that assists participants in applying lessons from liminal states of consciousness to create a meaningful life characterized by one’s relationship with their community, the earth, and one’s innermost self. Embracing a hermeneutic methodology, foundational texts are examined that draw upon the traditions of depth psychology, anthropology, ecology, indigenous perspectives, and emerging psychedelic research.

Connectedness & Conservation

  • Weinstein, Netta, Andrew K. Przybylski, and Richard M. Ryan. ‘Can Nature Make Us More Caring? Effects of Immersion in Nature on Intrinsic Aspirations and Generosity’. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin 35, no. 10 (October 2009): 1315–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167209341649.

  • Zylstra, M. J., Knight, A. T., Esler, K. J., & Le Grange, L. L. (2014). Connectedness as a core conservation concern: An interdisciplinary review of theory and a call for practice. Springer Science Reviews, 2(1), 119-143.

    • Abstract: Calls for society to ‘reconnect with nature’ are commonplace in the scientific literature and popular environmental discourse. However, the expression is often used haphazardly without the clarity of the process involved, the practical outcomes desired, and/or the relevance to conservation. This interdisciplinary review finds that the Western disconnect from nature is central to the convergent social-ecological crises and is primarily a problem in consciousness. Connectedness with nature (CWN) is therefore defined as a stable state of consciousness comprising symbiotic cognitive, affective, and experiential traits that reflect, through consistent attitudes and behaviors, a sustained awareness of the interrelatedness between one’s self and the rest of nature. CWN sits on a continuum comprising information about nature and experience in nature but is differentiated as a more holistic process for realizing transformative outcomes that serve oneself and their community. Various instruments are available to measure the CWN construct, although their cross-cultural transferability is unclear. Multiple benefits of CWN linked to physical and psychological well-being have been identified and CWN is distinct in that it supports happiness and more purposeful, fulfilling, and meaningful lives. CWN has been found as a reliable predictor and motivation for environmentally responsible behavior (ERB). CWN may benefit conservation discourse by providing: a more compelling language; hope and buffering frustration in the face of environmental crises; a more enduring motivation for ERB; and an accepted avenue for tackling ‘fuzzy’ concepts often avoided in conservation. Bolstered by interdisciplinary collaborations and action-oriented education, CWN presents itself as a radical but necessary prerequisite for realizing desired conservation and environmental behavior outcomes.

 
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Psychedelics and Climate Change by Andrew Bryant is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.