PSYCHIC--HURKOS

Psychic by Peter Hurkos ; Published by Bobbs-Merril Company ;Pages 224; Price U S $ 12/-

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Peter Hurkos is beyond doubt the world's foremost psychic. He was born May 21, 1911, in Holland and died on June 1, 1988 in Los Angeles. He acquired his psychic gift in 1941 after having fallen from a scaffolding and sustained a brain injury. He was in a coma for three days at the Zuidwal Hospital. Upon regaining consciousness, he discovered he had developed an ability to pierce the barriers that separate the past, present and future. With stunning accuracy, he was able to see into the unknown.

Hurkos gained worldwide acceptance as a psychic detective, working on cases involving missing planes, persons, and murder victims after his fall. Some of his most illustrious cases were "The Stone of Scone" , "The Boston Strangler Multiple Murders" , "The Missing Thai Silk King, Jim Thompson" , "The Ann Arbor Co-Ed Murders" and "The Sharon Tate Murders" .

In 1956, Hurkos was brought to the United States by Dr.Andrija Puharich, to be tested at his Glen Cove, Maine medical research laboratory. For two-and-a-half years he was tested under tightly controlled conditions. The results convinced Dr. Puharich that Hurkos' psychic abilities were far greater than any he had ever tested . . . a remarkable 90% accuracy.

Hurkos' forte was psychometry, the ability to see past-present-future associations by merely touching objects.

"I see pictures in my mind like a television screen. When I touch something, I can then tell what I see." - said Peter Hurkos.

Hurkos has also participated in missing persons and murder investigations across the United States.

Hurkos’s gift (psychometric) has been devoted to locating missing persons ; he's worked with various police departments helping to solve cases; he was featured in the Boston Strangler case.

During his early career as a psychic entertainer, Hurkos employed his psychic powers to discern details of audience members' private lives that he could not otherwise have known.

James Randi analyzed his performances and professed to have identified a number of standard cold reading techniques. For example, Hurkos might begin with something seemingly personal but actually quite common: a surgery. Hurkos would not specify that the subject underwent surgery—it could be any recent surgery of personal relevance to the subject.

Other common techniques included guessing numbers of people in families , including nonsense words in his presentation that could be interpreted by the subject to have any one of many meanings, and guessing on the importance of common names, which could be permutated as needed. (He most commonly used the name "Ann," which would give him a success with anybody who had a relative or friend or teacher or boss or co-worker named Ann, Anna, Anastasia, etc., at any time in his or her life.)

Hurkos and his supporters maintained that he was a great psychic detective. In 1964, Attorney General Edward W Brooke of Massachusetts said Hurkos had come ''uncannily close'' to describing the person suspected in the Boston Strangler case. By 1969, he cited the successful solution of 27 murder cases in 17 countries. However, in some cases the detectives assigned to these cases countered that Hurkos contributed no information unobtainable from newspapers and, in some cases, that he had no part in the investigations whatsoever.

Hurkos made notable claims contrary to popular belief such as the claim that Hitler was alive and living in Argentina.

In 1964, Hurkos was put on trial on the charge of impersonating a federal agent, found guilty, and fined $1,000.

In the case of murderer J .N. Collins, he sometimes claimed the killer was blond and at other times brown-haired so that he could claim victory either way. He claimed to have identified Charles Mansion to police. In fact, Hurkos had been to the Tate residence to do a "reading," but his guesses, including descriptions of how the "killings erupted during a black magic ritual known as 'goona goona,'" were inaccurate.

A story about Hurkos' alleged psychic powers entitled "The Man With The X-Ray Mind" appeared in Frank Edwards' 1959 book “Stranger Than Science”.

Many authors have critically examined various details of Hurkos's life and alleged ESP in more than 75 published books.

He also appeared in several motion pictures as himself, including The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena and Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. George Vokosec portrayed Hurkos in The Boston Strangler, the 1968 movie adaptation of Gerold Frank's 1966 book . His life may also have been the basis for the 1979 Stephen King novel The Dead Zone.

At the time of his death, Peter Hurkos resided in Los Angeles. He failed to predict accurately the date of his own death.

Peter Hurkos gained notoriety as a psychic during the late 1960s when he helped police solve the Tate-La Bianca murders by telling them that the man behind them was bearded and called Charlie who turned out to be the bearded, Charles Manson. Hurkos penned a trio of books, and has been profiled on a number of television documentaries and specials.

Hurkos was decorated as a war hero by Queen Juliana of The Netherlands.There is a statue commemorating Hurkos and seven other Dutch Underground war heroes in the Center Square in Rotterdam.

He had been a consultant to every President of the United States from Eisenhower to Reagan. Hurkos received countless police badges from police chiefs around the world, including one from the International Police Association, and Interpol. His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, decorated Hurkos stating; "I hope you will always use your God-given Gift for the betterment of mankind. Use it as an instrument to touch the people, to help them."

Hurkos astounded international audiences with his amazing psychic demonstrations.
He also appeared in several motion pictures as himself: "The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena" ; "Mysterious Monsters" ; and "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" . 20th Century Fox highlighted his abilities in the motion picture "The Boston Strangler" which starred Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda and George Kennedy and was directed by Richard Fleisher.

Hurkos published three books: Pyschic, The Psychic World of Peter Hurkos and Peter Hurkos : I have many lives . His achievements have been the focal points of more than seventy-five books.

One example from this book:

Hurkos was in an hospital after a fall--- when a man entered his room.

" I found myself staring intently at the stranger in shocked disbelief.

I turned to the nurse and asked, “Who is that man?.

"Stop him. He is going to be killed. He is a British agent and the Germans know about him. He will be killed in Kalver Street.Stop him.”

Hurkos was ignored.

Two days after his release from hospital, the British agent, who had been parachuted into Netherlands was killed in Kalver Street by the Gestapo---Page 18.

P.P.Ramachandran

31/05/2020.