The study participants were all Christian seminary and theology students, of mainline protestant denominations. The study was run by an ordained minister (and doctor!) who was pursuing his PhD. Permission was granted to use marsh chapel by howard thurman, who (i hope) needs no introduction.
A statistically unlikely high percentage of study participants were subsequently ordained, and described the experiment as a spiritually significant / formative experience. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment#Doblin... and linked citations )
I don't think your objections hold water.
Public attitudes were very different. And the attitudes of Christians today are largely shaped by political battles that had not yet happened. Thus your current experience is not a good predictor of how easy it was to find Christians back then who would have been willing.
In fact I used to know some very conservative people who were exposed to LSD back in that early era. (They were old back when I knew them, and are dead now.) And based on what they told me, I would predict no resistance to such an experiment in 1962.
Also it wouldn't have mattered back then. In the early 60s, drugs were associated with neither conservativism or liberalism.
Anecdote time. My ex's grandfather was a very conservative, very Christian lawyer. He happened to also be a lawyer for some people who were involved with LSD in the early days, and hence actually tried LSD in the time frame of the research article in question. He used to laugh about how he was someone that nobody would think had taken LSD.
It was a different time.
Also, this took place in the 1960s. Post-"War on Drugs" indoctrination wasn't in effect, and consciousness expansion - the understanding that reality is greater than our limited and incomplete human senses can perceive, but that they can be enhanced - was popular. If you're interested in the range (and similarity) of entheogen experiences, there are many accounts from people across the world recorded on the web going back decades. It makes for very interesting history.
There's a very modern fear at play here, but it's fear of the state, not of gods. Substance use as a ritual aid aligns with both religious-historic accounts and evidence found in early Abrahamic temples. For example: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cannabis-found-alt...
There are a lot of Christians out there. I suggest not trying generalize them based on the relatively insignificant number you know.