Evolute Institute · Outcome Data
Do Psilocybin Retreats Actually Work? Here Is Our Data
Every retreat website shows you testimonials. Almost none show you real measurements. We think you deserve both - so alongside the stories on our testimonials page, here is what we found when we surveyed our participants before their retreat and again three months later, across ten cohorts between 2022 and 2026.
Some of it is striking. Some of it is surprising for us. We publish all of it, including the part where a third of participants never answered the follow-up survey and the questions that barely moved. That combination - real numbers plus real caveats - is the only kind of outcome data worth reading.
Method
The one detail that makes this different: we waited three months
Most claims you'll read about psychedelic retreats are collected in the days right after the experience, when almost everyone feels remarkable. Psychologists call that the afterglow, and it fades.
Our second survey came three months after the first. And because the ceremony happens in week 4 of our twelve-week programme, that means roughly two months after the psilocybin session itself, at the end of the integration phase. Whatever these numbers show, they aren't the glow of a recent experience. They're what remained once ordinary life had resumed.
Results
What we found
Average increase on our 10-point inner-development index, from 6.59 before to 7.66 three months later. Statisticians would call this a large effect (d = 1.32).
of participants (37 of 42) scored higher three months later than before the retreat. 76% improved by at least half a point on the ten-point scale.
measured dimensions improved significantly - after applying statistical corrections that make it harder, not easier, to claim a result. None got worse.
cohorts with more than one respondent showed positive average change. The pattern repeated across every group we measured, over four years.
To translate that into something concrete: a one-point gain is the difference between rating "I know exactly what is important to me in life" a 6 and rating it a 7 - the shift from somewhat to clearly. Averaged across 25 questions and three months of ordinary life, that is a substantial change in how people describe their inner world.
Results
What changed most
The largest single movement was in the experience of connectedness - a 2.1-point rise, the biggest change we measured. The second most striking was self-criticism: participants reported judging their own flaws considerably less harshly (shown above, reverse-scored, as "being gentler with my own flaws"), which is the shift alumni most often describe in conversation, now visible in the numbers.
Limitations
What this does not prove
We had no control group. That means we can show that our participants changed, but we cannot causally prove with that study design that our programme caused the change. For instance, people who invest significant money and time in something tend to report improvement or simply expecting to change can produce change. All of those are potential contributors here, and honest reporting requires saying so.
A third of participants - 21 of 63 - never completed the follow-up survey. We checked whether they had started out different from those who did, and they hadn't (statistically indistinguishable at baseline) - that's the good news. But we cannot know how they changed, and it would be misleading to pretend otherwise.
Four of the 25 questions didn't improve statistically meaningfully. Acting despite fear, trusting a gut feeling, believing your future is in your own hands, and believing people can fundamentally change all improved but not enough to rule out chance. More data in the future will hopefully tell us more.
We know these changes held for three months - not that they last forever. We haven't yet measured at six or twelve months. When we do, we'll publish that too, whatever it says.
This is self-reported personal development, not medical treatment. Our programme is not therapy, and nothing here is evidence that psilocybin treats any condition.
Why it's public
Why we publish the unflattering parts
Because a percentage without a method is a marketing claim, and you have no way to tell the two apart.
We already publish our Psilocybin Retreat Evaluation Framework under an open licence, so that anyone - including other psilocybin retreat operators - can measure providers against the same standards, and we publish our own self-disclosure against it. Applying that standard to our own outcome data is the same principle: state the method, state the confidence interval, state the attrition, state which questions did not move. Then the numbers that survive mean something.
We are not aware of another legal psilocybin retreat provider in Europe publishing pre/post outcome data with full methods and limitations. We would genuinely like that to change - it is how a young field earns trust.
Method
How we measured it, in plain terms
Participants completed the same questionnaire twice: at the start of the programme and three months later. It contains 25 statements - things like "I know exactly what is important to me in life" - each rated from 1 to 10. We compare each person against their own earlier answers, not against anyone else.
Forty-two people across ten cohorts (August 2022 to February 2026) completed both surveys. We analysed the results with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, reported effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals, corrected for the fact that testing 25 questions at once inflates the chance of a fluke, and checked the result four different ways to make sure it didn't depend on any single judgement call. It didn't. The survey's internal consistency was high (Cronbach's α = 0.89).
These results come from EvoSHIFT, our 12-week psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands: medical screening by a psychiatrist, a doctor on-site throughout the ceremony, a 1:2 facilitator ratio, and two months of structured integration - the part of the programme these three-month numbers actually reflect.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do psilocybin retreats actually work?
For our participants, self-reported inner development rose measurably: across 42 people in ten cohorts, 88% scored higher three months after starting our programme than before it, with an average gain of 1.07 points on a ten-point scale (p < .0001). Because our evaluation had no control group, this shows that participants changed — it does not prove the retreat caused the change. The broader clinical literature on psilocybin is more rigorous than any single provider’s data and is worth reading alongside it.
How long after the retreat did you measure?
Three months after the first survey, which is approximately two months after the psilocybin ceremony itself. This deliberately avoids the “afterglow” period in the days following a psychedelic experience, when almost everyone reports feeling transformed.
How many people were in the study?
Sixty-three participants completed the baseline survey and 42 completed both surveys, across ten cohorts between August 2022 and February 2026. The 21 who did not complete the follow-up were statistically indistinguishable from those who did at baseline.
What exactly did you measure?
A 25-item self-report questionnaire covering self-awareness, gratitude and acceptance, empathy and connectedness, purpose and clarity, self-compassion, agency, resilience and courage, and creativity. Two items are negatively phrased and are reverse-scored before analysis, so that a higher score always means the more favourable state.
Is this scientific research?
It is an internal outcome evaluation conducted to publishable standards — pre-specified endpoint, non-parametric testing, effect sizes, confidence intervals, correction for multiple comparisons, sensitivity analyses and full disclosure of limitations — but it is not a peer-reviewed controlled trial, and we don’t present it as one. We also collaborate on peer-reviewed psilocybin research with universities including UCSF, Leiden and the University of Amsterdam.
Do the effects last?
We can say they were present three months after baseline. We have not yet measured at six or twelve months, so we cannot speak to longer-term durability, and we won’t claim it until we can.