Smythies, J(ohn) R(aymond) (1922-)

University lecturer and psychiatrist who has written widely on parapsychology. He was born on November 30, 1922, at Naini Tal, U.P., India. He studied at Cambridge University and the University of British Columbia. He settled in Edinburgh and for many years was a senior lecturer at the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Edinburgh, and a consultant psychiatrist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Scotland (1961-73). In 1973 he was named C. B. Ireland Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 1957 he began a lengthy tenure as editor of the International Review of Neurobiology.

In addition to his many papers on psychological and psychiatric subjects, Smythies has special interest in the theoretical basis of ESP. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), London, and has published various articles in the Journal of the SPR and Tomorrow. He also attended the International Conferences on Philosophy and Parapsychology and Un-orthodox Healing, St. Paul de Vence, France, 1954, and the Conference on Parapsychology and Psychedelics, New York, 1958.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Smythies, John Raymond. Science and the ESP. London: Routledge & K. Paul: 1922. Reprint, New York: Humanities Publications, 1967.

Smythies, John Raymond, and Arthur Koestler, ed. Beyond Reductionism: New Perspectives in the Science of Life. London: Hitchinson, 1969. Reprint, New York: Macmillian, 1970; London: Hutchinson, 1972.