psyche-delic
“psyche” is an ancient Greek term which mean "soul" and dēloun mean "to make visible, to reveal", basically "mind-revealing" and adding both it becomes- “psychedelic”. It is similar to “entheogenic”, but when the drug culture got little hold on streets in 60s, more specific term was introduced by Humphry Osmond so as to differentiate people practicing psychoactive for ‘spiritual use’ from those using it for ‘a try and for dance music’ i.e. psychedelic. The culture of using psychoactive plants and chemicals mainly considered to be psychedelics, especially after the wave during mid 60s when most people between age group of 18-24 years started using chemicals such as LSD and mescaline produced by unlicensed local laboratories.
"To fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of Psychedelic"
-- 1956 in a letter to Aldous Huxley
In 1952, Osmond began working with psychedelics (particularly mescaline & LSD) while looking for a cure for schizophrenia at Weyburn Mental Hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada. During this time, he suggested that mescaline allowed a normal person to see through the eyes of a schizophrenic and suggested that it be used to train doctors and nurses to better understand their patients. His research attracted the attention of Aldous Huxley, who volunteered to be a subject. In May 1953, Osmond introduced Huxley to mescaline for the first time, an experience described in Huxley's Doors of Perception. With Al Hubbard, they developed a method of using LSD to cure alcoholics of their addiction by attempting to mimic the experience of the extreme low of delium tremens.
(Published on erowid.org)
"Psychedelics could be used as a psychotherapeutic tool without attempting to mimic psychotic states"
- Osmond & Al Hubbard
An estimated 1-2 million Americans have used LSD in 1970