because the article spends the first half taking a cynical stance of "but can we reeealy believe what people say about their experiences" and spends the latter

because the article spends the first half taking a cynical stance of "but can we reeealy believe what people say about their experiences" and spends the latter half first talking about the authors experiences and then more or less stating that those experiences were wrong, or at least not the original intent of the indigenous culture. part of the PR problem with psychedelics is its easy status for cynical evaluation: "everything we hear is anecodotal, and furthermore the subject of discussion was tripping anyway, how can it be believable." it is probably hoped by those sharing experiences to provide reasonable sounding arguments to break through the cynicism.