Research Overview

From the start, Shefa recognized the need for data-grounded research on the scale, needs, and spiritual dimensions of Jewish psychedelic experience — for communal leaders, clinicians, funders, and researchers alike.

With that goal in mind, and in partnership with Common Era and Emory University, Jewish Journeys came to life. Published in July 2026, this unprecedented population study of Jewish Americans’ perspectives on psychedelics explored the attitudes, practices, and needs of the emerging Jewish psychedelic community in the United States.

How Shefa is translating Jewish Journeys findings into addressing communal needs:

Jewish Journeys largely focused on studying the experiences of the 70% of Jews underserved by institutional Jewish life. The study confirmed something Shefa has heard in retreat circles and integration calls for years: people across the Jewish community are already having profound psychedelic experiences, largely without support, guidance, or a framework for what they mean.

❋ Guidance people can trust

Respondents wanted support on their own terms, not a single prescribed path. That's the logic behind Shefa's interdisciplinary facilitation team: facilitators, therapists, and spiritual care providers working together, licensed and trauma-informed, so no one has to choose between clinical rigor and spiritual depth. Our partnership with a dedicated Indigenous facilitator at every retreat extends that same principle of trustworthy guidance into reciprocity with the traditions these medicines come from.

❋ Closing the safety gap

Two-thirds of respondents reported challenging experiences, and most wouldn't feel equipped to help a friend struggling in the aftermath, let alone find support for themselves. Shefa is building toward that gap through the Trip Siddur's integration frameworks, a growing safety and integration resource library, a directory of vetted preparation and integration practitioners, and a Jewish Medicine Code of Ethics grounding consent, boundaries, and communal responsibility in Jewish values.

❋ Community is the medicine.

The single biggest reported shift after psychedelic use was a desire for community. That desire isn't unique to any one slice of Jewish life. Shefa is building toward it directly, with retreat cohorts designed to outlast the retreat itself and resources meant to be used together rather than alone.

Here's how those findings are shaping our work:

❋ Evidence, not just spiritual framing

The report found that spiritual language alone doesn't meet people's need for grounded information. Shefa's continued research partnership with Emory's Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality exists for exactly this reason: our theological and ritual work stays accountable to what the data actually shows, not just to what we hope is true.

❋ A wider door into Jewish practice

Most respondents said their psychedelic experiences didn't feel explicitly Jewish, even though many were Jews having them. That's not a sign that these experiences sit outside Jewish life. It's a sign that a narrow definition of "Jewish" leaves most people's real experience unaccounted for. Shefa's retreats welcome participants across the full spectrum of Jewish belief and affiliation. Our theological work, drawing on Lurianic Kabbalah and Hasidic sources, treats ancestral, painful, and unexpected material as legitimate ground for meaning-making, not just the material that already arrives “looking Jewish.”

Shefa’s research goals

  • RESOURCE leaders with the data and insights necessary to develop appropriate strategies and offerings to serve the evolving needs of the Jewish psychedelic community

  • PRODUCE the information that informs Jewish communal policy, pastoral care, and healing practice

  • EQUIP professionals and community leaders to engage in this work with wisdom, nuance, safety and integrity

  • PIONEER research frameworks and methodologies that may serve other religious, ethnic, and other special interest communities, the outcomes of which will influence clinical care and national conversations around access and safety