People on here love to call me a drug addict who has nothing going for him with "brain damage". I can assure you that anyone who has made these claims has NO IDEA what they are talking about.
Mushrooms (psilocybin) are literally so safe that I personally think we should NOT consider them being a controlled substance.
1. They are not pharmaceuticals. They leave absolutely 0 toxicity to the body. And when I say 0, I mean literally 0. They literally couldn't even find the LD50 of psilocybin on humans. That's how safe it is. The only toxicity you could possibly get is if you consume a wrong species of mushroom that contains toxins, but even that has nothing to do with the psilocybin itself.
2. They don't cause a physical dependence. The actual substance itself doesn't cause addiction because it doesn't alter your reward system in ANYWAY.
3. Not even considered a gateway "drug".
4. It can make you open new experiences and give you self-actualization.
But bad trips are possible
Also I think generally what people are looking for in psychedelics can be found in creativity and imagination instead (like the arts)
People also think from a spiritual perspective that these drugs create a sinful state of drunkenness, so Christians should avoid them
The only "compromise" I have been able to consider would be microdoses, which could hypothetically avoid drunken states but offer maybe some of the benefits you're looking for (changes in thought processes and emotional experiences)