Who coined the term ‘psychedelic’?
Hallucinogenic drugs have enormously impacted human culture, having been used throughout history for various reasons. Their versatility is reflected in the various connotations assigned to the word psychedelic, which can describe a substance like LSD, a rock band like the Grateful Dead or even a general atmosphere.
Plants and fungi with psychedelic properties have been used in indigenous medicinal practices for thousands of years. Yet, modern psychedelic research into these drugs only began in the West in 1938, when Albert Hoffmann first synthesised lysergic acid diethylamide. Hoffman became the first person to ingest LSD five years later, and studies have continued ever since. Today, the most famous psychedelic drugs are LSD, DMT, mescaline and psilocybin, the latter of which is found in magic mushrooms.
When Hoffman made the revelation, he could not have been aware of the cultural transformation his discovery would induce. The synthesis of LSD gave way to a period of scientific and cultural investigation into the drug’s possible benefits. In the 1950s and early ’60s, LSD-assisted therapy became popular among scientists like Humphrey Osmond, who used it as a treatment for alcoholism. Indeed, studies into the use of drugs like psilocybin in this way are ongoing. This was also the era of Project MKUltra and Operation Midnight Climax, the latter of which saw the CIA secretly administer LSD to patients to analyse the drug’s effectiveness as a form of mind control.
Osmand was the first to coin the term ‘psychedelic’ in the 1950s, drawing from the Greek word for “mind-manifesting”. He subsequently introduced the word to author and neuronaut Aldous Huxley. In a letter to the writer, Osmond wrote: “To fathom hell or soar angelic / Just take a pinch of psychedelic”. By this time, Humphrey had already introduced Huxley to the wonders of mescaline, with the author’s trip inspiring his incredibly influential book The Doors of Perception, which was adopted as a sort of hippie mantra in the 1960s.
With the help of Huxley, Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and psychologists like Timothy Leary, LSD became the drug of the countercultural era, while psychedelic became an umbrella term associated with the movement as a whole. By this point, hallucinogens were everywhere. In 1962, a group of Christian volunteers at Harvard University were given psilocybin, with nine out of ten reporting a spiritual experience.
A year after the ‘Summer of Love’ in 1967, LSD was made illegal for medical and recreational purposes by the US government. Then came the wave of horror stories relating to the drug. First, the acid-tinged Manson Family Murders of 1969. Then, just under a decade later, the Jonestown massacre of 1978, when 900 members of the American cult The Peoples Temple died in a mass suicide-murder. Surprisingly, the word psychedelic didn’t pick up many negative associations and is most commonly associated with medical research and the music of the 1960s.
