Reading a book wherein Robert Thurman proposes to "coin" the term psychonauts (1994) in re tibetan monks. This is from 1994 - can this be the first usage of this term? Mr. Wilson? Anyone?
I doubt '94 was the first use too. Didn't Leary use this term? I'll see what I can find.
I think Jim's right. I believe I ran into the term when I first started researching the field in the late 80s. I think it appears in Storming Heaven, and/or Acid Dreams. AD is available on Levity. I also think the term may go back to Leary. I'll do some looking tonight, although this is really one for Nexis, or how about the OED, Jim? (good luck)
Not in the OED. Not in Archaic Revival index. No index in Storming Heaven. Levity's search engine doesn't seem to be working. None of my Leary books have an index. Deoxy.org is crashing my browser. Ugh. Now I really want to know of course...
I should have looked in Ott to start. He's easily the best foot-noted and indexed researcher out there. He says "I have adopted the use of Ernst Junger's fine term psychonaut (Junger 1970)" and in typical Ott fashion goes on with even more info: "(although the term had been coined in German two decades earlier, an American researcher mistakenly claimed authorship of the neologism; Siegel 1989)" A look at the bibliography reveals: Junger, 1970, Annaherungen: Drogen und Rausch and Siegel, R.K. 1989, Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise
I guess Thurman wasn't the first to make this mistake. Good word, I think.
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- linda 3-01-2000 11:52 pm
I doubt '94 was the first use too. Didn't Leary use this term? I'll see what I can find.
- jim 3-02-2000 11:47 am [add a comment]
I think Jim's right. I believe I ran into the term when I first started researching the field in the late 80s. I think it appears in Storming Heaven, and/or Acid Dreams. AD is available on Levity. I also think the term may go back to Leary. I'll do some looking tonight, although this is really one for Nexis, or how about the OED, Jim? (good luck)
- alex 3-02-2000 1:21 pm [add a comment]
Not in the OED. Not in Archaic Revival index. No index in Storming Heaven. Levity's search engine doesn't seem to be working. None of my Leary books have an index. Deoxy.org is crashing my browser. Ugh. Now I really want to know of course...
- jim 3-02-2000 3:15 pm [add a comment]
I should have looked in Ott to start. He's easily the best foot-noted and indexed researcher out there. He says "I have adopted the use of Ernst Junger's fine term psychonaut (Junger 1970)" and in typical Ott fashion goes on with even more info: "(although the term had been coined in German two decades earlier, an American researcher mistakenly claimed authorship of the neologism; Siegel 1989)" A look at the bibliography reveals: Junger, 1970, Annaherungen: Drogen und Rausch and Siegel, R.K. 1989, Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise
I guess Thurman wasn't the first to make this mistake. Good word, I think.
- jim 3-02-2000 5:39 pm [add a comment]