I think the right way to think of it is as an _experience_. It doesn't make you smarter or more creative, any more than going on a backpacking trip or reading a good book -- it just gives you a new way of seeing the world and your place in it temporarily. What you do with that experience is going to be highly personal.

I know that people can become out-right messianic after an LSD trip, but people can be similarly evangelical about travel or books or, obviously, religious experiences.

later edit: I actually do think it's more to it than that, for two reasons -- one is that while you're on acid, your brain tends to make wild connections between things that you wouldn't ordinarily do, but I don't think that's good or bad, necessarily -- it's like running an LLM on a very high temperature, it can be funny and interesting, but it's very hit and miss. The second is that I think it triggers a lot of self-reflection (to say the least) and can help you recognize and break out of negative personal patterns -- but that also tends to be what people think of as "bad trips".