---
aliases:
- Peter Hurkos
- Pieter van der Hurk
born: 1911-05-21
category: Psychics & Remote Viewers
created: 2026-05-15
died: 1988-06-01
location: Dordrecht, Netherlands
summary: Peter Hurkos was a Dutch psychic who gained international fame for psychometry
  - divining information from objects by touch - and was studied by Andrija Puharich
  at the Round Table Foundation in 1956 before achieving notoriety as a police psychic
  consultant in the United States.
tags:
- Person
- RemoteViewer
- PSI
- Parapsychology
- 1950s
- 1960s
title: Peter Hurkos
updated: 2026-05-17
---

Peter Hurkos was a Dutch psychic who gained international fame for his purported abilities, particularly psychometry - the claimed ability to divine information from an object through touch. A former house painter, Hurkos claimed his psychic powers manifested after he suffered a traumatic brain injury from a fall in 1941[^1].

In the fall of 1956, Hurkos was brought to the [Round Table Foundation](/organizations/round-table-foundation/) in Maine by [Henry Belk](/people/henry-belk/), a department store tycoon and one of [Andrija Puharich](/people/andrija-puharich/)'s investors. Hurkos's arrival boosted morale at the foundation, and he formed a close bond with [Harry Stump](/people/harry-stump/), another psychic working there[^1].

Puharich began regularly dosing Hurkos with hallucinogenic mushrooms, specifically *teonanáctl*, using himself as a control. Under the influence, Hurkos became fixated on outer space, claiming to see a flying saucer and extraterrestrials on Owl's Head beach. He also reported seeing ghosts and experiencing premonitions, including a poltergeist incident that coincided with the unexpected death of [Alice Astor Bouverie](/people/alice-astor-bouverie/), a key financial supporter of the foundation[^1].

Hurkos's psychometric talents were observed by [Bep Hermans](/people/bep-hermans/), Puharich's au pair and later wife. Hermans recalled that Hurkos, while blindfolded, could provide detailed information about the owner of an object simply by touching it[^1].

After the death of [Alice Astor Bouverie](/people/alice-astor-bouverie/), Puharich and Hurkos traveled to Mexico in search of more *God's flesh* mushrooms. Despite the turmoil, the [Round Table Foundation](/organizations/round-table-foundation/) continued its activities, with Hurkos participating in experiments involving [Telepathy](/concepts/telepathy/), [Dowsing](/concepts/dowsing/), palmistry, and [Eyeless Sight](/concepts/eyeless-sight/)[^1].

In the 1960s, Puharich and Hurkos traveled to the Sixth Naval District Personnel Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, to demonstrate [ESP](/concepts/extrasensory-perception/) and psychometry to submariners[^1].

[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.