Without psychedelics, initiations such as the Freemasons or Rosicrucians go through have the advantage of impressioning the initiate with ever-elevating levels of confidence, exposing the initiate to states of mind wherein vulnerability to new programs (new ideas, emotional experiences, and personality traits, amongst other things) may be taken on, and teaching the initiate important esoteric lessons.

The biggest advantage I see, even if not always why initiations are conducted, is a gradual loss of pride in favor of an increasing tendency to see all sentient life as being apart of one thing the individual "I" is not separate from, & an increase in an emotion of compassion. I rank as second place the ability to shake off conditioned and imprinted beliefs and tendencies.

Psychedelics and initiations may be combined. The most important problem with this I perceive is that old adage of "Set and Setting", if some of the material of the initiation is subconsciously understood only before the initiation there is no way to tell whether the programs taken on to shake off old conditioning and beliefs are actually positive, a wanted instead of an unwanted change.

Psychedelics like LSD may drastically elevate love, but who wants that to manifest as obsessive love and fanatical dedication to, for instance, cabbage leaves? If during the peak of the trip one performs a self-initiation that it turns out is mainly about worshiping cabbage, & finally Understands the intended meaning while the initiation is being performed, zealous devotion to cabbage leaves, obsessive love of heads of cabbage, may indeed manifest.

One solution is to design your own system of initiation, with a clearly defined purpose in mind for what you want to get out of the ceremonies. LSD and similar drugs promote such a huge opportunity for reimprinting that even if you aren't the world's greatest writer, designing a self-initiation then performing it on yourself as the drug peaks will most likely be effective at re-creating your psyche. Aside from that, it is just important to use discernment concerning the quality and merit of the initiations borrowed from the writings of others for purposes of psychedelic self development.