Psychedelics and hallucinogens

The text discusses the challenges of naming a class of drugs that profoundly alter sensory perception, thinking, and emotion without clouding consciousness. It critiques terms like 'hallucinogen' for failing to capture the complexity of human response, reserving 'true hallucinogen' for substances causing delirium. The author endorses 'psychedelic,' coined by psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond in the 1950s from Greek roots meaning 'mind manifesting,' as the most suitable term for drugs that expand the mind without impairing orientation.

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Abstract

Abstract The defining characteristic of this group of drugs is their ability to induce profound changes in sensory perception, patterns of thinking, and emotion without at the same time clouding the mind. Terminology is difficult, because it always seems to be judgement-laden; one person’s psychotomimetic (psychosis mimicker) is another’s psycholytic (literally mind loosener, and by implication, consciousness expander). Hallucinogen is a widely used label derived from the Latin alucinari (‘to wander in the mind’), which somehow fails to do justice to the complexity of the human response to these substances. The term true hallucinogen is perhaps most appropriately applied to crude natural preparations, or to those drugs which disrupt mental functioning to the point of delirium (a mixture of delusions, hallucinations, confusion, disorientation, and memory disturbance) with loss of external frame of reference. For those drugs which have the property of ‘blowing the mind’ without impairing orientation and consciousness, the word coined in the 1950s by the psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond in the course of his correspondence with Aldous Huxley seems very suitable. ‘Psychodelic’ was derived from the Greek words psyche (mind) and delos (visible). The minor modification, psychedelic, became the noun and adjective of choice.