John Beloff Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Beloff had been interested in parapsychology from an early age and served as president of the Society for Psychical Research from 1974-1976. He was an executor of Arthur Koestler’s will in 1983 and was instrumental in setting up the first UK chair of parapsychology, the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh in 1985.

John Beloff (19 April 1920 – 1 June 2006) was an English psychology professor at Edinburgh University and parapsychologist.

Beloff was born and brought up in London, and was from a Russian Jewish family. His parents were Semion (Simon) Beloff (born Semion Rubinowicz) and Maria (Marie) Katzin. His paternal great-grandmother was Leah Horowitz-Winograd, the sister of Eliyahu Shlomo Horowitz-Winograd and a descendant of the Hasidic master Shmelke Horowitz of Nikolsburg (1726–1778). He was the brother of the historian Max Beloff, the politician and educationalist Renee Soskin, the biochemist Anne Beloff-Chain, and the journalist Nora Beloff. He served in the British Army in the Second World War. He worked in an architect’s office, then studied at London University, where he graduated in 1952. Shortly after graduation he married Halla Parker, a fellow student of psychology who was ten years younger. Together, they spent a year at the University of Illinois, and then enrolled to a doctorate program at Queen’s University Belfast, defending their PhDs in 1956. In 1962 they both were offered jobs at the same department of University of Edinburgh and worked there until retirement. John and Halla had a daughter Zoe, who became an international artist.