Andrija Puharich

Andrija Puharich (February 19, 1918 – January 3, 1995) — born Henry Karel Puharić — was a medical and parapsychological researcher, medical inventor, physician and author, known as the person who brought Israeli Uri Geller (born 1946) and Dutch-born Peter Hurkos (1911–1988) to the United States for scientific investigation.

Biography

Puharich was born in Chicago, Illinois, one of seven children born to Croatian immigrants. His father had emigrated from what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, entering the U.S. in 1912 as a stowaway. At home Karel's parents always called him "Andrija," which apparently wasn't his name at birth but just his parents' nickname for him. When Karel, as a young boy, started attending school, his parents enrolled him under the name "Henry Karl Puharich," feeling he would be more easily accepted with that name than with the foreign-sounding name "Karel Puharić." Thereafter he often signed his name as "Henry Karl Puharich." He didn't start using his nickname "Andrija" as his first name until sometime in the later part of his life.

During World War II, Puharich attended Northwestern University as a student in the Army Specialized Training Program. He earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and pre-medicine in 1943 and received his M.D. from the Northwestern University School of Medicine in 1947. His residency was completed at the Permanente Research Foundation in Oakland, California, where he specialized in internal medicine. From 1953 to 1955, he served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps; in this capacity, he was assigned as Chief, Outpatient Service, U.S. Army Dispensary, Army Chemical Center, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. By this time he was already presenting papers on the possible military usefulness of paranormal phenemona.

During that time, he was in and out of Edgewood Arsenal Research Laboratories and Fort Detrick, meeting with various high-ranking officers and officials, primarily from The Pentagon, CIA, and Naval Intelligence. The Edgewood Arsenal is currently officially called the Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Puharich was impressed by the stories about the Dutch psychic Peter Hurkos and invited him to the U.S. in 1956 to investigate his alleged abilities (see below). In 1960, Puharich investigated materialization séances at Camp Chesterfield, but discovered the use of cheesecloth being used to fake ectoplasm. Puharich played himself on '' Perry Mason'' television series, in the episode, "The Case of the Meddling Medium," in 1961. He conducted a series of three tests to help determine the ESP of Mason's client accused of murder. During the third test, the actual murderer was exposed.

In 1971, Puharich met Israeli psychic Uri Geller and endorsed him as a genuine psychic (see below). Puharich wrote a supportive 1974 biography of Geller, a subject he had investigated with the help of Itzhak Bentov, among others. He also investigated and thought favorably of the Brazilian psychic surgeon Zé Arigó, providing an afterword for his 1974 biographer. Puharich also investigated Mexican psychic surgeon Pachita. One of his books is ''The Sacred Mushroom: Key to the Door of Eternity'', describes his work with psychics.

In the 1970s, Puharich claimed he had investigated the effects of a low frequency radiation beam that the Soviet Union had been testing. According to Puharich the beam was based on the work of Nikola Tesla