GLOSSARY · WORDS AND HISTORY

Aldous Huxley

The English novelist who took mescaline with Humphry Osmond in 1953, wrote about it in The Doors of Perception, and corresponded with Osmond for a decade, including the exchange in which “psychedelic” was coined.

Aldous Huxley was the novelist whose friendship with the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond put him at the start of psychedelic history. After reading Osmond’s work on mescaline, he wrote to him in spring 1953; in May 1953 Osmond stayed at Huxley’s Los Angeles home and led Huxley and his wife Maria through their first mescaline experience (Abraham, 2020).

Huxley described that experience in The Doors of Perception (Brar et al., 2026). He and Osmond wrote to each other for eleven years, until Huxley’s death in 1963 (Abraham, 2020). In those letters they argued about a name for these drugs: Huxley proposed “phanerothyme”, and Osmond answered with “psychedelic”, the word that stuck (BMJ, 2004).

A reproduction of a 1956 Huxley letter to Osmond about naming the drugs is part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s 2026 psychedelics exhibition (ROM, 2026). Huxley is often quoted as an advocate, but his role in the record is as a writer and correspondent, not a researcher.

Sources

Last checked October 26, 2026.