metachemistryn.
/ˌmɛtəˈkɛmᵻstri/, U.S. /ˌmɛdəˈkɛməstri/ Now rare.
The chemistry of things which are supersensible.In quot. 1962 with reference to the supposedly mystical effects of hallucinogenic drugs.
ΚΠ
1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits xiv. 238 It seems an affair of race, or of meta-chemistry.
1856 Westm. Rev. Oct. 283 Vitiated as all thinking was in those days by the à priori method which turned physics into metaphysics, physiology into metaphysiology, and chemistry into metachemistry, the labours of the Alchemists were nevertheless in great part experimental.
1916 Amer. Econ. Rev. 6 137 The term ‘meta-politics’..is as old as De Lolme and Coleridge. So too, a ‘meta-chemistry’, dealing with ‘the chemistry of the supersensible’.
1962 A. Huxley Island ix. 141 Neurotheology, metachemistry, mycomysticism.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1856