I think Lilly may have been sort of primed for intense psychedelic experiences. He had angelic visions as a child, and had a very religious upbringing. He was also a very imaginative person, so perhaps that influenced his trips a lot.

I think it is not just "intense" it is whether you realize you had more or less the same experience that everybody else has when they take hallucinogens because it is written in our nervous systems or whether you believe you are "special" and receiving a unique message.

People in traditional cultures believed pretty much the same things before the empire [1] sent soldiers and scribes to your ancestor's village. Seen that way the old religion is "written into our nervous systems" and having the experience of a revelation is absolutely routine and ordinary and doesn't make you special. But if you grew up in a rich family and the skids were always greased for you it is easy to come to that conclusion.

I've known a few people, so far always male, who developed delusions of grandeur (e.g. they are the anti-christ [2]) around the time they took hallucinogens and it often is the beginning of a series of relationship problems, involuntary commitments, criminal charges and other misadventures.

[1] ... like those people who send in the Death Star and blow up your planet if you resist

[2] in the bible "anti-christ" is like "anti-racism", like anything that is against Christ is anti-christ, so if I tell some Christian that they should skip out on church and, i dunno, play video games or smoke weed or dance around my maypole, I am an anti-christ, not the anti-christ.

"Some Christian" is likely uncool. Some [people who are labelled] antichrists are cool. That's more about what happens when you extrapolate into the future.

Nepobabies (maybe Lilly) are mostly uncool. Being able to hold your acid is cool. Mostly. That's about timing, too, but there's also a purely social component.

Thinking you're special when you are not is uncool. Signalling that you think you're not special when everyone around you think you are is ...also uncool.

Why would the mods disagree?

There is no "empire of cool" because empire is uncool

Cool is neither social nor antisocial. Cool might be a [re]productive mix of both. (Maybe some would prefer "barely sustainable" here, that reintroduces "timing" as an essential ingredient)

Regarding your first paragraph, I don't think the psychedelic experience is predetermined by the substance. There are common traits we all experience on a substance of course, but everyone has a different nervous system. Maybe Lilly even had a touch of schizotypal personality disorder, I don't know. Based on what I've read from Robert Anton Wilson it seems like Lilly was always a strange person, and difficult to understand. I see a bit of narcissistic grandiosity in him. In all his interviews and writing he never really acknowledges his research failures, for example. I think these personality traits could have contributed to his far out experiences and strange belief system. I think he really liked being seen as out there.