John Beloff

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Beloff (born April 19, 1920 - June 1, 2006 ) was a British psychologist and parapsychologist .

Life

Beloff, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, studied psychology at Birkbeck College and University College London . After graduating, he worked at the University of Illinois and Queen's University Belfast ; he received his doctorate from the latter in 1956.

At that time he was already interested in parapsychology. In 1962 he published his first book, The Existence of Mind, which was created as a reaction to Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind and in which he advocated a holistic dualism of matter and spirit. The following year he and his wife were given positions in the psychology department at Edinburgh University .

In 1973 his second book Psychological Sciences appeared, and in 1974 his collection of essays New Directions in Parapsychology appeared, for which Arthur Koestler contributed an afterword. From 1974 to 1976 he was President of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), which he joined in 1962.

In 1983 he learned that he had been named by Koestler as one of his executors. His task was to find a British university that would use the fortune donated by Koestler to set up a chair in parapsychology. This was eventually launched at Beloff's own university in Edinburgh.

In 1985 he retired. Until 1999 he was editor of the SPR journal Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.

His brother was the historian Lord Max Beloff . John Beloff had been married to the social psychologist Halla since 1952, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

Fonts

  • The Existence of Mind. McGibbon & Kee, London 1962; Citadel, New York 1962.
  • Psychological Sciences. A Review of Modern Psychology. Crosby Lockwood Staples, London 1973, ISBN 0-258-96873-7 .
  • (Ed.): New Directions in Parapsychology. Elek, London 1974.
    • German edition: New ways of parapsychology. Walter, Olten / Freiburg 1980, ISBN 3-530-60710-X .
  • with John R. Smythies: The Case for Dualism. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville 1989, ISBN 0-8139-1206-7 .
  • The Relentless Question. Reflections on the Paranormal. McFarland, London 1990, ISBN 0-89950-417-5 .
  • Parapsychology. A Concise History. Athlone Press, London 1993, ISBN 0-485-11405-4 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Beloff, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British psychologist and parapsychologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1920
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 2006