Psychedelic consumption is linked to the following things: prosocial and proecological behavior, empathy, openness, less materialistic value orientation, egalitarism, hope, creativity, greater mindfulness capacities, lower distress, higher energy, greater sensory sensitivity, and better neuropsychological functioning (see sources below).
But as stated, MKULTRA instrumentalized them to subvert the counterculture movement. During psychedelic experiences, you become very prone to spooks and this is what they did. However, with better education and in a better setting, you can hinder that. Psychedelics can traumatize, manipulate or heal. The guy who introduced psychedelics into the USA was Owsley Stanley located in the environment of the University of Berkeley. It's not surprising that drug prohibition which was introduced by the Nixon administration to criminalize the counterculture and civil rights movement still upholds and thereby restricting research. Nonetheless, due to psychedelics' therapeutical potential, more and more studies emerge. According to Walsh and Vaughan (1993), self-transcendent experiences can have transformative effects such as more moral behavior, better attentional capacities, greater positive emotions, redirected motivation, higher present-moment awareness, and cultivation of wisdom. IMAO they can cultivate societal progress (Wilber, 1983) but aren't inherently positive because the interpretation depends on one’s experiences, expectations and intentions (Simpson, 2014; ).
Psychedelics elicit in acute dosage so-called self-transcendent experiences which Yaden and colleagues (2017) defined as “transient mental states marked by decreased self-salience and increased feelings of connectedness to other people and one’s surroundings”. So, the alienation from humanity and nature (neoliberal pseudo-individualistic materialistic indoctrination) can be temporarily suspended. This dereifying mode of existential awareness is a form of pure dialectical consciousness nondual and self-transcended (also called nondual awareness or transcendental consciousness) which is IMAO a nonrepresentational mental state. In fact, some people became revolutionaries thanks to psychedelic experience. I know some of them by myself. Even Buddha is argued to have a trip that made him enlightened.
Sources:
Bouso, J. C., González, D., Fondevila, S., Cutchet, M., Fernández, X., Barbosa, P. C. R., … & Riba, J. (2012). Personality, psychopathology, life attitudes and neuropsychological performance among ritual users of ayahuasca: a longitudinal study. PLoS One, 7(8), e42421.
Dolder, P. C., Schmid, Y., Müller, F., Borgwardt, S., & Liechti, M. E. (2016). LSD acutely impairs fear recognition and enhances emotional empathy and sociality. Neuropsychopharmacology, 41(11), 2638.
Forstmann, M., & Sagioglou, C. (2017). Lifetime experience with (classic) psychedelics predicts pro-environmental behavior through an increase in nature relatedness. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 31(8), 975-988.
Hendricks, P. S., Thorne, C. B., Clark, C. B., Coombs, D. W., & Johnson, M. W. (2015). Classic psychedelic use is associated with reduced psychological distress and suicidality in the United States adult population. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 29(3), 280-288.
Lebedev, A. V., Kaelen, M., Lövdén, M., Nilsson, J., Feilding, A., Nutt, D. J., & Carhart‐Harris, R. L. (2016). LSD‐induced entropic brain activity predicts subsequent personality change. Human brain mapping, 37(9), 3203-3213.
MacLean, K. A., Johnson, M. W., & Griffiths, R. R. (2011). Mystical experiences occasioned by the hallucinogen psilocybin lead to increases in the personality domain of openness. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 25(11), 1453-1461.
Nour, M. M., Evans, L., Nutt, D., & Carhart-Harris, R. L. (2016). Ego-dissolution and psychedelics: validation of the Ego-Dissolution Inventory (EDI). Frontiers in human neuroscience, 10, 269.
Soler, J., Elices, M., Franquesa, A., Barker, S., Friedlander, P., Feilding, A., … & Riba, J. (2016). Exploring the therapeutic potential of Ayahuasca: acute intake increases mindfulness-related capacities. Psychopharmacology, 233(5), 823-829.