Robert Heinlein supposedly coined the phrase mind map in one of his novels. I have read all of them over the past 30 years, and don't remember running across mind map. Does anyone know in which of his novels the phrase is found?

I am fairly sure I never saw the term in any Heinlein writing. Wikipedia and numerous other web sources copying each other say that Buzan got his idea from Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics (likely) and s-f novels of Heinlein and van Vogt (less plausible). The mind map is a very simple thing, after all, and the additional fluff that Buzan imbued it with has since been stripped away as impediments. Put a concept in the center. Draw hierarchical radial lines with topics as they occur. Everything else, even the links between equivalent branches, is superfluous gravy.

It seems stretching things to credit anyone with an idea that's about as intuitive as socks. Heinlein spent far more time excavating the linguistic implications of General Semantics.

Thank you very much for the clarification. I didn't think Heinlein ever said anything about mind mapping but I wanted to be sure.