Peter Hurkos

Peter Hurkos was a Dutch psychic who gained international fame for his purported abilities, particularly psychometry—the act of divining information from an object through touch. A former house painter and World War II concentration camp survivor, Hurkos claimed his psychic powers manifested after he suffered a traumatic brain injury from a fall in 1941¹.

In the fall of 1956, Hurkos was brought to the Round Table Foundation in Maine by Henry Belk, a department store tycoon and one of Andrija Puharich's investors. Hurkos's arrival boosted morale at the foundation, and he formed a close bond with Harry Stump, another psychic working there¹.

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, a key financial supporter of the foundation¹.

Hurkos's psychometric talents were observed by 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 it¹.

After the death of Alice Astor Bouverie, Puharich and Hurkos traveled to Mexico in search of more God's flesh mushrooms. Despite the turmoil, the Round Table Foundation continued its activities, with Hurkos participating in experiments involving Telepathy, Dowsing, palmistry, and Eyeless Sight¹.

In the 1960s, Puharich and Hurkos traveled to the Sixth Naval District Personnel Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, to demonstrate ESP and psychometry to submariners¹.