“They say you need to feel a calling” – Evolute Psilocybin Journey Reports – Maximilian

They say you need to feel a “calling”

I’m still not sure I’d be comfortable saying out loud: “The mushrooms were calling me”. But it speaks to a deeper intuition that we might already, deep down, know the answers to the questions that keep us awake at night. Feeling called to a psychedelic journey really means that a voice inside us wants to be heard, and is searching for a way out. 

When I felt the calling, I was in a strange no man’s land of transformation where a new “me” was already growing, but the “old me” was clinging on to its incumbency for dear life. 

At this time, all the puzzle pieces in my life, my work, my relationships, my apartment, the way I spent my time and energy, no longer aligned. I have thought loops around myself on how to make a necessary change and knew that the answer would not come from more thinking but from allowing myself to really feel what was already true. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might find some of that on the other side of the journey that EvoSHIFT promised. 

Why EvoSHIFT spoke to me

Although I’ve grown a little softer and more open to mystery (not mysticism!) as I’ve matured past my youthful contrarian phase, at heart I still consider myself a sharp-toothed rationalist. I’ve studied cognitive science and am deep in the weeds of the theories around the neurological underpinnings of our self-construction, our habitual beliefs and behaviours and was open to evidence on the positive effects that psychedelics can have under the right circumstances. What I am certainly NOT usually open to are the “mushroom spirits” talking to me, about “ascending to the astral plane” when taking psychedelics, or by seeing through the “cascading digits of the matrix simulation”, when licking just the right toad in just the right way…(search for “DMT laser” on YouTube if you want to explore that rabbit hole…). 

Because the world of inner work, and psychedelic work is so often conflated with the mystical, the shamanic, I found it difficult to approach it without feeling that I’d be descending into a fringe drug delusion, disguised as inner work. This is where Evolute Institute felt meaningfully different. From the very start, they were very precise and careful around the potential of psilocybin and other forms of altering consciousness, showing epistemic humility where appropriate. I was not promised a magic mushroom bullet and the emphasis was very clearly on the inner work in the weeks and months around the psychedelic immersion, rather than the substance itself. Now, this is something my skeptic mind could work with!

The preparation

About a month before the retreat, I met the other participants in my cohort for the first time and the group couldn’t be any more eclectic. My fellow travelers came from several countries from within and beyond Europe, some were still in their late twenties and others way in their sixties. In any other context it would feel like we had nothing in common, and yet, almost immediately, I felt how we began weaving a shared space, or “container”, as the Evolute guys would call it, in which things could be said that otherwise can’t. “In there”, our jobs, titles and the mundane didn’t matter, and instead we were open to speak what’s in our heart, but also practice to listen fully to the others.

In our first live group session, we talked about setting an intention for our journey. A good intention, we learned, should act like a compass, guiding us through our walks into the unknown. Long before the program officially started, I started thinking about a worthy intention. Almost academically, akin to formulating the title for a doctoral thesis, and I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it could be. But after the session, I started thinking again. There was the intention that I was comfortable sharing and speaking out loud, because it was safe and clean. And then there was an intention that the quieter voice inside of me wanted to bring to the surface. I managed to negotiate a compromise shrouded in something that didn’t worry my ego too much, but that also assured that quieter voice, that it will have a chance to be heard. My intention became: “Show me how I can be more resolute, like a tree, and less frantic, like a bee”. The strangest thing is, even long before the psychedelic journey began, I started getting a feeling for the answers that would lie beneath this question.

The ceremony

A few weeks later, we all met in the beautiful retreat center in Athanor. It was a golden summer weekend and everything felt so welcoming and cozy, like nothing could ever go wrong in this place. On the second morning, after a day spent arriving, grounding, and weaving connections with the others, the day of the truffle ceremony came.

Despite the calm atmosphere, and the grounding exercises in the morning, I was anxious and my thoughts started racing. I think the others felt it too. It’s rare to face something so fundamentally unpredictable and powerful, like an experience where the person who goes in may not be quite the same one who comes out. 

Just after noon, the moment arrived. We gathered around a table by the “Moon Chapel,” a name that felt perfectly suited to what I imagined as our launchpad. 

We measured and ground up our own truffles as the atmosphere started to become more and more serious. Handling the truffles felt like approaching a wild animal, only to discover it was gentle. As our truffle teas (and soups) were steeping, we gathered for a final, silent walk to the stone henge. The silence was electric as everyone started to take their attention inward. Then it was time to drink our truffle tea. With each sip, I felt the mind-wrecking loop of “do I feel anything yet?!” and “what the hell did I get myself into” spin in my head. I went for a final toilet break to calm my nerves, and as I was walking back I saw the sunlight in the window starting to flicker. 

Something big was about to happen. I remember thinking: “All systems ready, we’re ready for takeoff…”. I laid down and looked to my facilitator, who gave me a final, reassuring nod and smile which gave me the last bit of courage I needed to put on the eye mask and lay down.

My journey

The garden

I was fully expecting to be launched into space. My previous and only psychedelic experience using LSD started like being accelerated to hyperspeed for a journey into deep outer space. But this was very different. As the much gentler, and mysterious personality of the truffles introduced itself to my consciousness, I understood that this journey will not take me to a place far away, but back home. 

As “Cello Blue”, by David Darling was playing, I was first welcomed into a vast garden. My body became heavier and heavier, as the roots of the ancient trees started wrapping around me. For a moment I struggled, trying to resist the pull into the earth. But I got the message: The truffles wanted me to give my body to the garden and fully surrender. Only then would I be able to continue my journey. So I tried to let it. My body got buried deeper and deeper into the infinite network of roots in the earth of the garden. But just before becoming fully immersed, something stirred in me. I clenched my fists and the garden vanished instantly. 

The waiting room

I was thrown out into a strange borderlands between the psychedelic realm and outside reality.  A part of me knew this was “just” resistance at play. Another started a fight for dear life. My Ego had turned up the volume and started a big argument with myself. I kept repeating to myself:

“Just surrender.

Just receive.

Just ground yourself. “

All easier said than done.

In that moment I really didn’t want to lose control and the idea of being strangled by imaginary roots made me feel claustrophobic.

“Shit. Why was I doing this to myself?

Why did I come here again? To this place. Didn’t I vow to not come back?

I’m way too hot. Is this still normal? Is this still healthy?

The other people around me are way too loud. Are they losing their minds already? Am I?

My body feels uncomfortable.

My head hurts. Maybe something is actually going wrong right now.

The music is too sad. It’s pushing me to go where I don’t want to yet go“

And I realized that a question kept spinning in my head: 

“Should I take the top-up dose or not (we all had the option to take our top-up that we had prepared after about one hour). Did I need more of the poison? Or was it really medicine?

Will it make things easier and make me go deeper, or descend me into madness”?

But I recognised that this feeling felt very familiar. This feeling of being neither in nor out, stuck in an argument with myself, paralysed by fear of not knowing for sure. Later I came to call this the “waiting room”. One of the facilitators came to me and checked in.

“What do I say? What do I do?”

 I asked for 5 more minutes to think which came and went. And then it finally clicked for me:

There was no right or wrong answer. No cosmic judge to justify my decision to.

This was my journey. 

So I listened, and felt that what I came for was here for me to find. I had all the psilocybin working on my brain that I needed. So what I needed was not more substance, but to learn how to make decisions like this, even if the outcome is uncertain. In other words, I needed to learn to leave this waiting room, and the other waiting rooms in my life, and start exploring what is behind it. 

I did not take the top-up.

And there it was. An instant sense of relief, and surrender. In this moment, I also realised that I was actually really grateful to that part of me who raised its voice. One that knows the value of moderation, and tells me when enough is enough. It’s the part that reminds me of my inner resources and who takes responsibility and cares for others. This part of me has often been called a coward for holding back. But in that moment, I could see its quiet wisdom and the way it had kept me safe and guided me this far. My fists unclenched, and I let the music pull me back into my inner landscapes.

Sisyphus and his boulder

The coming six hours could have well been a lifetime. In different chapters, episodes and moments I traversed the mental and emotional landscapes of me as I exist across my entire lifespan, from early childhood, the present, and my imagined future.

At some point, I imagined myself as Sisyphus with his boulder, rolling it up the mountain, just to see it roll down again. I felt the desire to just get stronger and stronger. Maybe one day I would be strong enough to get it all the way to the top. Maybe if I became a giant, I could finally make it! A question arose: “Who is it really, that needs me to be a giant?”. For a moment I stopped pushing the boulder to look around. I wasn’t alone. 

The scenery shifted and became a theatre and I took a seat in the front row. One by one, the people who matter most in my life stepped onto the stage. Each approached the microphone to offer their kind words.

My siblings told me they were proud of their big brother. My colleagues said they admired my creativity and resourcefulness. My friends thanked me for my loyalty and love.

And finally, my mother stepped forward. She told me she had always been there to bear witness, even in the moments when I had carried more than was fair, when I had carried it for both of us, and felt alone in doing so. Even if she couldn’t take the weight from me then, she saw it, and will remember it forever.

My inner judge looked at me, and I looked back. We shared a moment of connection and then he was kind enough to step aside, and allow me to fully let all these messages land, without “but, but, but”. What all these people were telling me was: “You already ARE a giant”. To all the people who matter, I was, and what else mattered? Tears flooded my eyes and I felt almost ashamed to be so dismissive of the role that I am already having. And for thinking that all that I was already doing was just a boulder that never got anywhere. I understood that my effort was being witnessed by those who matter. And in that moment I understood that I could feel that, while also leaving all my ambitions of things I wanted to achieve in this world intact. For a while at least, Sisyphus was freed from his impossible task.

The ladybug

Later, towards the sunset of the journey, I went outside. As I was laying down and fulfilling every stereotype of a hippie who starts hugging trees, I met a little lady bug. She landed on my arm and just couldn’t find a way to take flight again. It just kept falling back to my hand and it looked like its wings were just not working right. I felt for this little being and felt an overwhelming sense that I really wanted it to succeed and not give up! So, naturally, the lady bug and I huddled together and tried to work this out! I believed in the little insect and sent it all my love,  encouragement and a little bit of borrowed confidence. And at some point I felt it was ready. We agreed that I will count to three.

One… two… and THREE! The little ladybug lifted from my finger and set out on its own adventure. As I watched it, I recognized a deep well of kindness and care that I could now feel as a strength, instead of a weakness. I decided that I want to allow more of it. And maybe all I needed is to hear the same count to three that I just gave this ladybird.

The feminine

Just when I thought that the journey was about to come to an end, I started feeling something strange in my body. It started as electric jolts in my arms and legs, and heat in my chest. It was getting more and more intense until it was too much for me to hold. Even though I didn’t yet fully feel what it was. One of the women who were facilitating our journey must have sensed something and gently touched my shoulder and arm. She gently whispered a soft “shhh”, just like a mother would to a child.

This was it. It was too much. A tsunami of emotion rose up and engulfed me completely. I wept with a force I hadn’t known since I was a child. Wave after wave swept through my body, untying a knot that felt older than me.

But there was no pain, and no guilt. There was just gratitude. I let myself fall deeper and felt safer and stronger the more I let go. I don’t know how I knew, but in that moment I knew that I was being shown what it meant to be held by the ethereal feminine force itself. This was the source from which all life breathes, and at the same time the chaos that unravels it back into nothing. And I, like everyone, am a part of this ever-changing creative flow.  

Sunset

And here I was, slowly emerging back to reality (at least as I usually know it). I was thinking that during this journey I will sit myself down, take a good hard look into my life and the future and get myself ready to make some bold decisions. I wanted to become that big “tree”, and needed to know where to plant my roots. But instead I learned that I already am the tree I was trying so hard to become. Strong and growing and already providing shade and fruits for the people who actually matter. Planted firmly in the garden of life, I discovered my birthright to be here. I felt connected to the very same source as all of life, borrowing the very same energy. It didn’t answer all the questions I had, but it gave me clarity and a sense that everything I need to move forward is already within me, even without certainty.

If you have made it this far, and you are concerned that the mushrooms may have deep fried my brain, then I understand. There is no set of words that can fully capture this associative and hyperreal canvas of knowledge that unfolds for us when we journey. And no doubt, there is a long way to go to translate all that I experienced into real wisdom. The image came to me that it’s like zip files. Yes, they contain all the information already, but they are useless without unpacking. And this unpacking is what we get to do in the days, weeks and years after an experience like this, during integration. But how?

Integración

The weeks that followed were strange. While still in Athanor the magic was so present and obvious. It was holy ground, where life was pure and where the banalities of everyday life didn’t matter. But eventually, we all travelled home. We went back to work, opened our E-Mails, joined the same old video calls and continued with our routines as if nothing happened. The immediate “afterglow” lasted for a few more days but then it felt more like trying to mimic what it was like to be someone who just had a profound experience. Telling others about it, wanting to relive that feeling, but with each time it was just a little harder to fully bring back the memory.

I told myself that it was a fallacy to confuse the memory of an intense trip, with a true change. But it all felt so vague. How does one “integrate”? And how will I know I’m done, or at least making progress?

So I went through the motions: Showed up and shared during the integration sessions, wrote in my integration journal, drank herbal tea from my “integration cup”, and listened to the music that played on our journeys. Yet, it didn’t feel like any of these big insights and emotions really landed anywhere. 

Ok, so I was a tree now. Apparently. But so what? My life was still my life. I was still me.

But as the days went by and I started having more experiences and interactions, I began noticing a slight shift in reality, mainly in my relationships. Like a fine razor that made me feel that in some interactions and relationships I felt a little more aligned and alive than before, while in others I felt like I was pulled back and slowed down. It was like confronting slightly different versions of myself that other people had buffered and expressed through their expectations. This is where I started noticing the real inner conflict between my “old self” who was doing its best to continue living in the same patterns that it used to before, warning me to let go of the stability and safety it offered. And then there was the “new self”, which already existed before EvoSHIFT, but now got so much more strength and confidence that it was ready to set itself free.

This is what is challenging about real change. It’s almost never a seamless transition from A to B. Usually, we have to get through this unpleasant bottle neck in between, where we simultaneously experience excitement and wonder for all is made possible now as well as loss and grief for what needs to be let go. Ah! I recognised in that moment that actually quite a lot was happening, bubbling and brewing underneath the surface. I was just in the waiting room. And this time I was ready for what was on the other side of it.

Cocoon

I went to a festival in a forest by a lake. It wasn’t your usual techno rave, but more like what a festival might look like if it were the natural continuation of the EvoSHIFT journey. Free from the routines and roles of everyday life, it became a playground for my “new self”. A place to stretch, stumble, and grow stronger. With new faces, spontaneous play, and unexpected moments, it offered countless chances to practice what I had learned: staying grounded in uncertainty, opening to connection, and meeting the world with a lighter, more generous spirit.

The most important of these lessons was learning to sit with discomfort, allow for uncertainty, and accept paradox instead of fleeing into avoidance. The festival became a kind of conversation with chaos. One that showed me how to trust its rhythm, and how, if I stayed open, it could reveal gifts and insights far beyond what analysis and control could ever produce.

It was there, that for the first time I experienced a sense of emotional insight about a dilemma in my life, that underpinned much of the uncertainty about everything else. Probably it was the core dilemma that brought me to EvoSHIFT in the first place. And this time the answer was not vague and metaphorical, but clear and operational. From a place of inner clarity I knew what to do. And I found the inner strength to accept and welcome all of the emotions that I will need to allow myself to feel once I would. I felt the cocoon crack open.

Now as I am writing the last paragraph, almost three months have passed since EvoSHIFT, and I am looking around at all that happened in my life. I have this desire to travel back in time and show my past self around. Let him in on the secret of all that he can look forward to and not be afraid. At the same time I know that this is just the start, and that there is a future version of me who probably wants to come here and tell me the same thing all over again. I know now that life will keep reshaping itself through ripples and tidal waves. But I feel ready now as I’ve learned to bend, to grow, with roots firmly anchored in the ground. And if in the future I don’t know, I now know exactly where to look.

“In the depths of my wounds, in what I had named “darkness”, I found a blazing Light that guides me now in battle. I became a warrior when I turned towards myself, and started listening.”

From the poem by Jeff Foster, read to us before the ceremony