“The psychedelic experience played an important role in the development of my artwork and worldview. ”
“Knowing dosage and purity in a nurturing set and setting, especially with loved ones, can cause a mystical experience.”
Born on the south side of Chicago in 1989, I came from a family of creative people. But life didn’t start until my first psychedelic mushroom experience at the age of 16. It was my initiation, and was of profound significance. I’d awoken in a respect. But amnesia set in quickly. Leading to my interested in psychedelic culture and the artists, musicians, and thinkers that surround these transformative tools. Confronting and abandoning several addictions through self-administered psychedelic experiments inevitably led to overcoming a 5 year cigarette addiction and life long nail biting habit.
I am no longer afraid to speak openly about how psychedelics have impacted me, and how the war on drugs has damaged many. Tripping in the shadows no more. From unexpectedly enlightening experiences using more than likely impure possibly adulterated substances, to my accidental brushes with impure substances in an attempt to experience the healing effects of MDMA. Probably unconsciously seeking healing, I got quite the opposite experience due to illegality, unavailability, impurities, and inaccessibility to unbiased information about drugs.
.. But the future is so bright!
As science emerges and fear based hysteria resides around psychedelics and psychoactives generally, I hope my art, music and voice can be a part of the demystification and legitimization of these potentially therapeutic materials, known as the psychedelic renaissance.
In Gratitude,
Paul Mezinskas
March 2021