Evolute Institute is a Netherlands-based personal and leadership development organization combining legal psilocybin-truffle retreats with medical and psychiatric screening, structured coaching, and long-form integration. Founded in 2022 by Dr. Dmitrij Achelrod (PhD, Hamburg & Oxford University, research focus on health services research) and Christopher Kabakis (Affiliate Professor at ESCP Europe Business School), Evolute works with people who are succeeding by every outward measure and still sense something is missing, often entrepreneurs, executives, and leaders, seeking clarity, deeper connection, and lasting psychological change.
The Evolute Institute was born out of the vision of a world where each person, particularly those in positions of leadership and influence, has the insight, competence, and courage to bring their unique gift to the world and to meaningfully contribute to the greater good. Where leaders proactively engage in opportunities for personal maturation to connect more deeply with their innermost purpose, realizing and embracing the full scope of their potential and responsibility (response-ability: your ability to respond).
We want to contribute to a world where the continued inner development of people leads to a greater capacity for self-leadership, for leading and empowering others, and for re-inventing our organisations and ecosystems towards more awareness, kindness and long-term flourishing.
Growth happens across three overlapping domains of development. Working on one reinforces the other two - the model is meant to be worked as a whole, not as three separate tracks.
Meaning doesn't come from any single domain alone - it emerges from working on the self, one's relationships, and one's wider systems together.
A researcher in the field of public health and former senior manager at a leading health data science start-up, Dmitrij has spent his career at the intersection of healthcare systems and human potential.
A leadership and communication consultant, coach and facilitator, Christopher runs a personal and business coaching practice that includes presence-based and somatic approaches, built over years of international business experience.
Out of our own personal experiences with Altered States of Consciousness, our wish was born to bring this work to people we have been engaging mostly with: entrepreneurs, organizational leaders and other curious minds - proactive people with a yearning to nurture a more fulfilling life, to tap into their potential, and to initiate ventures in alignment with their heart and sense of purpose.
The Evolute Institute brings together a strong team of experienced facilitators & guides, personal & executive coaches, as well as psychological and medical doctors / psychiatrists to bring a series of scientifically informed and wisdom tradition-inspired personal development approaches to leaders in Europe. We create unique spaces for mindset development & personal growth, particularly for entrepreneurs, organisational leaders, change-makers and other curious and pioneering minds.
We provide leaders the environment and support they need to safely embark on an empowering and deep exploration of self. We strive to create a unique space for transformative learning, where personal, leadership and organizational development meet in a context of altered states of consciousness. In addition to consciousness-altering technologies such as darkness retreats, meditation, wilderness experiences, psychedelic-assisted inner work, and breathwork in a safe, legal and supportive setting, we employ a diverse array of reflective, contemplative, and experiential exercises as well as business, personal and peer coaching to support profound insight and personal and leadership growth of our program participants.
Four areas of practice - each a distinct capacity we develop in participants, rather than a single method applied uniformly.
We work with several modalities, or "mind technologies," to induce altered states of consciousness and peak experiences. The primary ones are breathwork and bodywork, meditation, darkness retreat experiences, and professionally guided psychedelic experiences with legal psilocybin truffles in the Netherlands.
Participants are introduced to techniques of contemplative practice, including the ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) framework, Somatic Experiencing, IFS, and more - building awareness and presencing capacity, and helping participants become more grounded and better able to self-regulate and to relate in new ways to themselves, others, and the world.
We curate a coherent yet diverse group of leaders who support each other during and beyond our programs. Pioneering minds walking their developmental questions together - potentially lifelong. Being part of a trusted, like-minded group increases the impact of the individual work, which is why group composition is personally curated rather than left to open enrolment.
Evolute draws on developmental frameworks - including adult development theory, Spiral Dynamics, interpersonal neurobiology, attention-schema theory, Buddhist and Taoist-inspired thought, and systems thinking - that help participants recognize which personal and leadership mindset they typically operate from, and how to access higher-level mindsets.
All four capacities are applied within a clinically grounded, safety-first framework, informed by academic research rather than positioned as a substitute for medical and psychiatric oversight.
Evolute's core program, EvoSHIFT, runs as a 12-week arc: individual and group preparation, a four-day on-site psilocybin ceremony at Centrum Athanor in the Netherlands, and structured group and individual integration afterward. Concretely:
A facilitator-to-participant ratio throughout the program - for every two participants, one facilitator.
A Medical Doctor physically present during every ceremony - not on call, in the room.
Medical and psychiatric screening conducted by a psychiatrist before anyone is accepted.
Groups capped at 6–10 participants per retreat.
At least four individual 1:1 coaching sessions per participant, before, during and after the retreat, plus group prep and integration.
Each retreat group is personally reviewed and selected by our co-founders, for compatibility, readiness, and seriousness of intent.
EvoSHIFT is Evolute's core program, but not its only one. EvoDARK is a substance-free darkness retreat in Germany, designed for deep introspection through extended sensory darkness rather than psilocybin. The Evolute Private Retreat offers the same program individually or in a very small, custom-designed group. And Evolute 1:1 Coaching is standalone psychedelic integration coaching, for people preparing for an experience or processing one they've already had.
Evolute's facilitators bring backgrounds across:
Evolute Institute collaborates with research groups and institutions across Europe and the US, including the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the Carhart-Harris Lab at Imperial College London, Universiteit Leiden, the University of Amsterdam, the University of St. Gallen, ESCP Business School, Leuphana University, and Hochschule für angewandtes Management.
These collaborations also make ongoing research possible: participants are welcome to take part in current studies conducted with our academic partners. Ask your facilitator or the Evolute team for details on studies currently open for participation.
Explore Research →We researched what the highest standard for this work should actually look like, then built it into a framework - and checked our own program against it, in public. It's available here, so any researcher, provider, prospective participant, healthcare professional, journalist, or policymaker can be part of it.
A ten-domain, evidence-graded protocol for evaluating any psilocybin retreat provider - what to check before, during, and after a retreat, with explicit stop-signs and a verification worksheet. Co-authored by Evolute and open for modifications - a collaborative project for researchers and providers alike.
Read the Framework →Our own answer to that framework's Ten Essential Questions - a domain-by-domain account of how EvoSHIFT is run, submitted against the same standard we'd want a participant to hold any provider to. It's a self-disclosure, not an independent certification, and we say so directly in the document itself.
Read the Self-Disclosure →Evolute works with people who are doing well by most external measures, and who still feel that something important is stuck or missing. It's rarely a crisis, and rarely a matter of dropping out - more often it's a quieter sense that the achievement isn't reaching the part of life it was supposed to. We see psilocybin as a catalyst, not a shortcut and not a treatment - a way to access and accelerate a process that's already available to you.
Dr. Dmitrij Achelrod,
Co-Founder Evolute Institute
We invite you to schedule a call with us. Together, we can delve into any questions you might have. We can explore whether one of our retreat programs is right for you at this time.
Evolute Institute maintains a 1:2 facilitator-to-participant ratio, a Medical Doctor physically present during every ceremony, and psychiatric screening before acceptance, combined with a 12-week program of preparation, ceremony, and integration. Each retreat group is also a curated cohort, personally reviewed and selected by co-founders Dr. Dmitrij Achelrod and Christopher Kabakis for compatibility, readiness, and seriousness of intent.
Yes. A Medical Doctor is physically present on-site throughout every EvoSHIFT ceremony and every participant undergoes medical and psychiatric screening by a psychiatrist before acceptance.
Evolute Institute was founded in 2022 by Dr. Dmitrij Achelrod (PhD, Health Economics, Hamburg & Oxford University) and Christopher Kabakis (M.Sc., Affiliate Professor at ESCP Europe Business School).
Evolute co-authored a public evaluation framework for psilocybin retreat providers, then measured its own EvoSHIFT program against that framework and published the results as a self-disclosure, domain by domain. Rather than asking participants to simply trust its safety claims, Evolute makes both the standard and its own results against that standard publicly checkable.
Yes. Evolute Institute collaborates with research groups including the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the Carhart-Harris Lab at Imperial College London, and Universiteit Leiden, and participants can take part in ongoing studies with these academic partners.
Evolute Institute also runs EvoDARK, a substance-free darkness retreat in Germany for people seeking the same depth of inner work through extended sensory darkness rather than psilocybin.
Evolute Institute draws on established frameworks including ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), Hakomi-style mindfulness, adult development theory, Buddhist and Taoist-inspired thought, Spiral Dynamics, and systems-level transformation, applied by individual facilitators rather than presented as one proprietary method. These frameworks are used within a clinically grounded, safety-first approach, informed by academic research rather than positioned as a substitute for medical and psychiatric oversight.
* I agree to receive communication from Evolute Institute. My data will not be given to any other third party providers.
Groundbreaking ideas by leading thinkers in conversation with our Evolute hosts. Gain unique insights into your own path of personal, professional and spiritual growth. For free.
By signing up you agree to receive communications from Evolute Institute. Your data will not be shared with any third party.
