Renée Haynes

Who is Renée Haynes?

Renée Oriana Haynes was a British novelist and psychical researcher.

Haynes was born in London and attended St Hugh's College, Oxford receiving a BA and majors in law and history. Haynes worked with the British Council as a director of book reviews. She joined the Society for Psychical Research in 1946 and edited the society's journal from 1970 to 1981.

Her book The Hidden Springs argued for extrasensory perception. The psychologist C. E. M. Hansel gave the book a negative review claiming Haynes had ignored studies which provided no support for ESP. Haynes had written about the Fox sisters but Hansel wrote her account was incomplete and "no mention is made of their long history of exposures or of the fact that they made a full public confession in which they stated that all the phenomena with which they were associated were faked."

Haynes wrote a biography of Pope Benedict XIV. Eric Cochrane in a review criticized the book for original research and concluded "anyone who wants to know who Benedict really was and what he really accomplished would do better, at least until an adequate biography is written."