Guy Lyon Playfair
| Guy Lyon Playfair | |
|---|---|
| Born | India |
| Occupation | Parapsychologist, author |
| Nationality | British 
|
| Period | Contemporary |
| Genre | non-fiction, biography |
| Subject | Parapsychology |
Guy Lyon Playfair (born 5 April 1935) is a writer best known for his books about parapsychology.
Additionally, Playfair has worked for several US, British and Brazilian magazines, newspapers and publishing houses. From 1967 to 1971 he worked in the press section of the US Agency for International Development in Rio de Janeiro. Widely travelled, he has lived in Brazil for several years. His books have been translated into about 15 languages. He has also written numerous articles for magazines in several countries, and has worked as researcher and consultant on numerous radio and television programmes.
For two years, Guy Playfair worked with IBPP, Brazil's first and only serious psychical research organisation. He has been a member of the British Society for Psychical Research since 1973 and was elected to its Council in 2004. He has contributed several articles and book reviews to its journal and newsletter.
Guy Playfair was a consultant for the infamous BBC production "Ghostwatch" which aired on Halloween night 1992 on BBC One in the United Kingdom. In the end credits of the programme he is credited as "Psychic Consultant".
In his first book, The Unknown Power (first published as The Flying Cow by Souvenir Press Ltd., UK 1975) he brings a wide reading in the literature of psychical research to bear on Brazilian paranormal phenomena, including those events connected with Francisco Candido 'Chico' Xavier, Zé Arigó and others. In The Indefinite Boundary (first published by Souvenir Press Ltd., UK 1976), Guy Playfair reviews evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena.
He wrote a study of time cycles in connection with paranormal phenomena in The Cycles of Heaven (1978). With Maurice Grosse he investigated the Enfield Poltergeist over one year, as recorded in This House is Haunted (1980). His book If This Be Magic, an inquiry into hypnotism, was published in 1985. He then collaborated with Uri Geller on The Geller Effect (1986).
Playfair's book The Flying Cow expressed his admiration for the Brazilian medium Chico Xavier. A review in the New Scientist wrote "Many books misuse science to gull the reader (and, perhaps the author as well, and The Flying Cow is just one more)". The magician Bob Couttie described Playfair as "devoted believer in Uri Geller" and the "author of an assortment of credulous books on paranormal subjects." The science writer Martin Gardner criticised Playfair's endorsement of Geller and described him as a "hack writer on the occult".
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