Mary Rose Barrington

SPR is sad to share the passing of Mary Rose early in the hours of Feb 20, 2020.  More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Mary Rose Barrington, MA, graduated from ghost stories to Lodge's Survival of Man while at school, and later took a turn as President of the Oxford University Society for Psychical Research. She joined the SPR in 1957, becoming a Council member in 1962. She has participated in many investigations and experiments, and has served on the Spontaneous Cases Committee since its inception. Before retirement she was a lawyer and charity administrator, and in the voluntary sector engaged actively in the causes of animal protection and voluntary euthanasia. In 1995 she was elected as Vice-President of the Society. Her most substantial publication is A World in a Grain of Sand: The Clairvoyance of Stefan Ossowiecki, written jointly with Ian Stevenson and Zofia Weaver (McFarland, 2005).

She appeared in the episode Ripples in Time of the British paranormal documentary television series Ghosthunters.

Outside of her parapsychology work, she supports animal rights and voluntary euthanasia. She was once a chairperson of the British Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

Selected Publications

Talking About Psychical Research: Thoughts on Life, Death and the Nature of Reality (2019)

JOTT: When Things Disappear... and Come Back or Relocate – and Why It Really Happens (2018)

A World In A Grain Of Sand: The Clairvoyance of Stefan Ossowiecki, by Ian Stevenson, Zofia Weaver, and Mary Rose Barrington, (2005).

Beyond The Boggle Threshold: Confessions of a Macro-Addict, in Men and Women of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections, ESPRIT Volume 2, edited by Rosemarie Pilkington, (2013).

Swan on a Black Sea: How Much Could Miss Cummins Have Known?. (1966). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Mary Rose Barrington. Volume 43. pp. 289–300.

"Apologia for Suicide," by Mary Rose Barrington, in "Suicide, The Philosophical Issues", edited by M. Pabst Battin and David l. Mayo. New York: St. Martins Press. 1981.