Haynes, Renée (Oriana) (19061994)
British novelist, historian, and writer on psychical research.
Haynes was born on July 23, 1906, in London and was educated
at private schools and an open-air establishment run by
Theosophists. She then attended St. Hughs College, Oxford
(B.A. honors, 1927), where she majored in law and history.
From 1928 to 1930 she worked for the publishers Geoffrey
Bles, Ltd., London. Her literary career began in 1928 with her
book Neopolitan Ice. Through the 1930s she wrote Immortal John
(1932), The Holy Hunger (1935), and Pan, Caesar and God Who
Spake by the Prophets (1938). She worked for over a quartercentury
for the British Council, London, becoming director of
book reviews (194167).
She joined the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), London,
in 1946, edited the societys Journal and Proceedings for
more than a decade (197081), and served a tenure as a vice
president. She was most interested in spontaneous phenomena
and shied away from statistical studies. She argued that the psychic
aspect of existence was an integral part of human life, an
observation made in part from incidents in her own life, including
some vivid precognitive dreams. She wrote a number of
books on psychical research, but is most remembered for her
centennial history of the society. Haynes died in 1994.
Sources
Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of
Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York Paragon
House, 1991.
Haynes, Renée. The Hidden Springs An Enquiry into ExtraSensory
Perception. London Hollis and Carter, 1961. Rev. ed.
Boston Little, Brown, 1973.
. Philosopher King The Humanist Pope Benedict XIV.
London Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970.
. The Seeing Eye, The Seeing I Perception, Sensory and
Extra-Sensory. New York St. Martins Press, 1976.
. The Society for Psychical Research A History
18821982. London McDonald, 1982.
Omez, Reginald. Psychical Phenomena. Translated by Renée
Haynes. New York Hawthorn, 1958.
