GaryJJSpate (talk | contribs) Created page with "{{PersonInfobox |name=Guy Lyon Playfair |born=5 April 1935, Quetta, British India |died=8 April 2018, London, England |occupation=Journalist, parapsychologist, author |known_for=Investigating the Enfield Poltergeist; author of This House Is Haunted |status=Deceased }} '''Guy Lyon Playfair''' (5 April 1935 – 8 April 2018) was a British writer and psychical researcher, best known for his year-long investigation of the Enfield Poltergeist alongside Maurice Grosse..." |
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Latest revision as of 12:24, 5 August 2026
Guy Lyon Playfair (5 April 1935 – 8 April 2018) was a British writer and psychical researcher, best known for his year-long investigation of the Enfield Poltergeist alongside Maurice Grosse, and for his subsequent account of the case, This House Is Haunted (1980).
Early life and education
Playfair was born in Quetta, British India, the son of British Army officer and writer I. S. O. Playfair and novelist Jocelyn Playfair. He was educated in Gloucestershire and studied modern languages at Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating in 1959. He then completed National Service as a Russian translator with the RAF in Iraq, before moving into journalism.
Brazil
From 1961, Playfair worked as a freelance journalist in Brazil, writing for Life magazine, The Economist, Time, The Guardian, and the Associated Press, alongside four years with the press office of the US Agency for International Development in Rio de Janeiro. It was in Brazil that his interest in the paranormal began, following a direct experience with a psychic healer. Initially sceptical, he became increasingly convinced by what he observed, going on to work closely with Brazilian parapsychologist Hernani Guimarães Andrade, founder of the Brazilian Institute for Psycho-Biophysical Research. Playfair joined the Society for Psychical Research in 1973, and his first book, The Flying Cow (1975), documented Brazilian psychical phenomena, including chapters on medium Chico Xavier and psychic surgeon Zé Arigó.
The Enfield Poltergeist
Playfair returned to England in 1974, and in 1977 joined Maurice Grosse to investigate the Enfield Poltergeist on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research, remaining on the case for over a year. Together they collected more than 140 hours of tape recordings, running to over 500 pages of transcripts, alongside testimony from at least thirty other witnesses. His 1980 book on the case, This House Is Haunted, sold roughly 98,000 copies and was reprinted as recently as 2012. A special committee later assembled by the SPR to re-investigate the case, the Enfield Poltergeist Investigation Committee, issued a 194-page report in 1981–82 that likewise concluded genuinely paranormal incidents had occurred at the house.
Later career
Playfair remained active in psychical research for the rest of his life, investigating further poltergeist and haunting cases, twin telepathy, and claims of psychokinesis and metal-bending, including a collaboration with claimed psychic Uri Geller on The Geller Effect (1986). He was elected to the Society for Psychical Research's governing council in 2004, a position he held until his death.
Death
Playfair died on 8 April 2018, at the age of 83 — the same morning BBC Radio 4 happened to broadcast an edition of The Reunion devoted to the Enfield case.