Origin of Term
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή (psyche, "mind") and δηλείν (delein, "to manifest"), hence "mind-manifesting", the implication being that psychedelics can access and develop unused potentials of the human mind. The word was coined in 1957 by British psychiatrist, Humphrey Osmond, the misspelling loathed by American ethnobotanist, Richard Schultes, but championed by the American psychologist, Timothy Leary.
Aldous Huxley had suggested to Humphrey Osmond in 1957 his own coinage phanerothymic (Greek "phanero-" visible + Greek "thymic" spiritual, thus "visible spirituality"). Recently, the term entheogenic has come into use to denote the use of psychedelic drugs in a positive and non-recreational context.
Read more about this topic: Psychedelic Drug
Famous quotes containing the words origin of, origin and/or term:
“The origin of storms is not in clouds,
our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
spillways free authentic power:
dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
to break the armored and concluded mind.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow’s dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)