113 lines
17 KiB
Markdown
113 lines
17 KiB
Markdown
---
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created: 2026-05-15
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updated: 2026-10-09
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title: Andrija Puharich
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aliases:
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- Andrija Puharich
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- Henry Karel Puharich
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- Henry Puharich
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category: "Medicine & Psychology"
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tags:
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- KeyFigure
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- Person
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- Parapsychology
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- CIA
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- MKULTRA
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- PSI
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- UriGeller
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- SRI
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- RoundTableFoundation
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- 1950s
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- 1960s
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- 1970s
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summary: "Physician and parapsychologist who lectured the Pentagon on ESP in psychological warfare in 1952, founded the Round Table Foundation, and brought Uri Geller to Stanford Research Institute in 1972."
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born: 1918-02-19
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died: 1995-01-03
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location: "Chicago, Illinois"
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relations:
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- type: founded
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with: "[[Round Table Foundation]]"
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start: 1948
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fn: 2
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Round Table Foundation]]"
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role: "director of research"
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start: 1949
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end: 1958
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fn: 6
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- type: head_of
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with: "[[Intelectron Corporation]]"
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role: "president and director of medical research"
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start: 1961
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fn: 10
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---
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Henry Karel "Andrija" Puharich (1918-1995) was a prominent American physician, research scientist, and parapsychologist who became a central figure in the [[United States|U.S. government]]'s investigations into [[Extrasensory Perception|ESP]] and [[Psychokinesis|PK]] during the [[Cold War]]. His lifelong quest to understand the nature of consciousness and anomalous mental phenomena led him to explore the intersection of science, mysticism, and the supernatural[^1].
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Born in [[Chicago]] on February 19, 1918, to poor [[Yugoslavia|Yugoslavian]] immigrants, Puharich had an early experience that shaped his future. As a milk delivery boy, he claimed to have calmed a vicious dog by sending "feelings of calmness and peace," leading him to believe in [[Telepathy|mind-to-mind telepathy]] and inspiring him to pursue medicine to understand the biological basis of such phenomena[^1]. He excelled academically, attending [[Northwestern University]] for philosophy and premedical studies before entering medical school. During his studies, he deeply contemplated the nature of the mind and consciousness, stating, "Understanding the nature of man’s consciousness... is my lifelong quest"[^1].
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After completing his medical degree in 1947, Puharich worked with leading physicians, including his mentor, Dr. [[Andrew C. Ivy]]. During his residency at the [[Permanente Research Foundation]], he formulated the Puharich Theory, which posited an unknown energy force linking the brain and nervous system to cells, with instructions flowing between them as "dynamics." He believed this energy radiated on the [[Electromagnetic Spectrum|electromagnetic spectrum]] but was beyond current measurement technology. His theory gained traction when [[Lloyd H. Beck]] and [[Walter S. Miles]] of [[Yale University]] reported that the olfactory nerve of a bee radiated energy in the infrared spectrum[^1].
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Inspired by microbiologist [[Paul De Kruif]], who warned him to "Beware the Establishment!"[^1], Puharich began lecturing on his ideas, merging philosophy, mysticism, and science. This attracted wealthy benefactors, notably [[Joyce Borden Balokovic]] and [[Zlatko Balokovic]], and later [[Alice Astor Bouverie]] and [[Marcella Miller du Pont]]. With their financial backing, Puharich established the [[Round Table Foundation]] in [[Glen Cove, Maine]]. His curriculum vitae gives the start of his directorship as 1948, and his trial testimony gives 1949.[^2] The foundation, named in homage to King Arthur, aimed to conduct experiments on ESP and related phenomena[^1].
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The [[Warrenton Estate]], Puharich's home and laboratory, became the center of his research. Here, he conducted experiments on audio waves and human hearing, collaborating with ear surgeon [[Samuel Rosen]], whose accidental discovery of the "Rosen stapes" operation brought prestige and grants to the foundation[^1]. Puharich's mystical beliefs deepened through his mentorship with [[John Hays Hammond Jr.]], a wealthy inventor and ESP advocate. Hammond, influenced by [[Nikola Tesla]], believed scientific inspiration could come from an unknown energy force in dreams. Together, they built a [[Faraday Cage]] to test ESP on [[Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) Waves|ELF waves]]. Their "Project I" involved psychics like [[Eileen Garrett]], whose ESP abilities reportedly increased inside the cage[^1].
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Puharich also investigated audio aberrations, collaborating with [[Warren S. McCulloch]], a cybernetics founder and [[Central Intelligence Agency]] asset. They discovered that a machinist hearing voices was actually picking up radio signals due to carborundum dust on his dental fillings, a finding that garnered attention from *[[The New York Times]]* and the [[U.S. Navy]][^1].
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Puharich's work caught the attention of the [[Pentagon]]. In 1952, Lieutenant Colonel [[John B. Stanley]] of the [[U.S. Army]]'s [[Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare]], who also served as an Army liaison to the CIA, met with Puharich. This led to Puharich delivering classified briefings and being recalled to military service in March 1953, where he worked at the [[U.S. Army Chemical Center]] in [[Edgewood Arsenal|Edgewood, Maryland]][^1]. His task was to find a drug that could enhance ESP, mirroring the Central Intelligence Agency's quest for a truth serum[^1].
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Puharich testified in 1968 that the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare of the Army approached him in 1952 and early 1953 to run a test (photographs sealed in opaque envelopes, held by a subject who described the contents), and that the results were given in confidence to the Army officers involved.[^3] From 1953 to 1955 he served as a captain in the Medical Corps and chief of the outpatient service at the U.S. Army Dispensary, Army Chemical Center, Maryland, where his curriculum vitae lists specialized training in chemical, radiological and biological warfare and classified responsibilities.[^4] [[Roger A. Beaumont]] wrote in [[Signal (magazine)|Signal]] in January 1982 that Puharich worked at the Army's Chemical and Biological Warfare Center at Ft. Detrick, Md., in the early 1950s.[^5]
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During this period, Puharich became obsessed with the hallucinogenic mushroom *teonanáctl* (God's flesh), after Alice Astor Bouverie informed him of [[Harry Stump]]'s channeling of an "Egyptian persona" that spoke of such a drug. Puharich learned of [[R. Gordon Wasson]]'s expeditions to [[Mexico]] in search of the mushroom and briefed his Army superiors on it[^1]. However, the CIA, through [[James Moore]], bypassed Puharich and approached Wasson directly, leading to Puharich being sidelined from the [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA Subproject 58]][^1].
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Puharich's personal life suffered during his Army service. His wife, Jinny, battled severe depression and underwent insulin shock therapy. After their divorce, Jinny died by suicide in 1959[^1]. Puharich later married [[Bep Hermans]].
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Upon his return to civilian life in 1955, Puharich continued his research at the Round Table Foundation. He experimented with *teonanáctl* on himself and others, including Harry Stump, with [[Aldous Huxley]] as a witness. While the experiments did not yield the divinatory powers Puharich hoped for in Stump, they highlighted the ethical complexities of his research[^1].
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After the death of Alice Astor Bouverie, a key financial supporter, and growing paranoia about CIA interest in his research, Puharich and [[Peter Hurkos]] traveled to Mexico in search of more mushrooms. The Round Table Foundation eventually closed in 1957[^1]. A Down East magazine account also gives 1957 as the year the foundation shut down, and Puharich's own curriculum vitae and trial testimony give 1958 as the end of his directorship.[^6]
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Puharich continued to work on secret government contracts, including for [[NASA]] and the [[Air Force Systems Command]], exploring concepts like "skin reading" - the idea that the skin could function as an organ of sensory communication beyond touch. He demonstrated this with deaf individuals, convincing [[Paul S. Henshaw]] of the [[Atomic Energy Commission]] of its legitimacy[^1].
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His interests also extended to psychic healing, leading him to [[Brazil]] to study [[Arigo]], a healer who reportedly performed surgeries with a pocketknife. Puharich documented Arigo's work, hoping to secure military interest in "psychic healing on the battlefield," though without success[^1].
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In 1970, Puharich met [[Itzhak Bentov]], who introduced him to [[Uri Geller]], an [[Israel|Israeli]] with extraordinary psychokinetic and telepathic abilities. Puharich became obsessed with Geller, believing he could secure a government research contract if he could test him under laboratory conditions. His efforts led to Geller being tested by the Central Intelligence Agency at [[Stanford Research Institute]] (SRI), though the CIA viewed Puharich as a "potential liability"[^1]. Puharich acted as Geller's official manager, often involving the press, which complicated the CIA's desire for secrecy[^1].
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Throughout his life, Puharich maintained a theory that extraterrestrials were trying to send messages to humans through psychic people, and that ELF waves were responsible for the sicknesses of the age[^1].
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Andrija Puharich died tragically in 1995, alone and impoverished, under threat of eviction from the estate of his last benefactor, [[R. J. Reynolds]]. He was 76 and suffering from dementia, kidney failure, and gangrene[^1].
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The CIA's own history of its interest in parapsychology, written in 1977, began with Puharich: "in 1952 the [[Department of Defense]] was lectured on the possible usefulness of extrasensory perception in psychological warfare," citing his paper "On the Possible Usefulness of Extrasensory Perception in Psychological Warfare" as "delivered to a 1952 Pentagon conference." Kress states that parapsychology "induced one of the earliest U. S. Government parapsychology investigations" when the chief of the CIA's [[Office of Technical Service]] became interested in ESP, and that technical project officers then contacted [[Stephen Abrams]] of [[Oxford University|Oxford]], who prepared a review under [[Project ULTRA]] (draft report, December 14, 1965). Puharich's curriculum vitae dates the paper November 23, 1952, presented to a conference on psychological warfare, Department of Defense, Pentagon.[^7] The Kress footnote cites a Washington Post item of August 7, 1977 (J. Wilhelm, "Psychic Spying?"). In January 1973 an officer of the [[Office of Research and Development (CIA)|Office of Research and Development]], reviewing the SRI film of Uri Geller, wrote that "Geller's connections with Dr. A. Puharich, with whom many unsavory reports have been linked, also is disturbing."[^8]
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### Patent litigation
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In 1963 Puharich applied for a patent, Serial No. 291,096, on a Method and Apparatus for Creating a Controlled Condition for the Observation of the Sensory Abilities of a Human Subject. The Patent Office rejected the claims and the Board of Appeals affirmed. The district court entered judgment for the Commissioner of Patents, and on June 25, 1969 the D.C. Circuit affirmed, Circuit Judge [[Leventhal]] writing that the device was "a kind of cage."[^9] From 1961 Puharich was president and director of medical research of the [[Intelectron Corporation]] in New York, which he testified was formed "to develop and market certain of my ideas and patents in the field of hearing."[^10]
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### Round Table Foundation in CIA Records
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A questionnaire submitted in 1952 by the Select Committee of the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] created by House Resolution 561, Eighty-second Congress, Second Session, to investigate tax-exempt foundations and comparable organizations (the [[Cox Committee]]) is held in CIA records as a 78-page copy approved for release on December 5, 2001. The foundation address list in the questionnaire includes "Round Table Foundation," Glen Cove, Maine, between the [[Religious Education Foundation]] and the [[Rubicon Foundation]].[^11]
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An anonymous mid-1960s paper in the CIA's files, "The World of the Supra-Sensory," states that Puharich "was director of a nonprofit foundation in Maine for several years where he studied various sensitives under 'scientific' conditions" and "was responsible for bringing Peter Hurkos to this country."[^12]
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### Round Table Foundation in the Maine Press, 1949
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The [[Portland Press Herald]] (Sunday Telegram section) of January 9, 1949 carried a staff-written story by [[Jim Moore]], datelined [[Camden, Maine|Camden]], headed "Secrets Of Life." It reported that Dr. Henry K. Puharich, a Chicago physician then about thirty, with his wife Virginia (born Jackson) and their daughter Svetlana, aged eighteen months, had settled at Camden, near Zlatko Balokovic and his wife, and had set up the "Round Table Foundation Laboratory of experimental electrobiology" in a converted barn on the [[Bald Mountain]] retreat. The story gave his schooling as a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a medical degree from Northwestern University, followed by a rotating internship at [[Permanente Hospital]] in [[Oakland, California]], and described Mrs. Puharich as a former [[Office of War Information]] editor and Northwestern laboratory assistant. It stated his theory, which it said he had presented in 1946 to a zoology seminar at the [[University of California]] and to the [[Society of Junior Fellows]] at [[Harvard University|Harvard]], that nerve units radiate and receive energy waves, with the "plasma membrane" acting as a piezo-electric crystal that behaves as a radio receiver and transmitter. The story added that the theory might explain the microphonics of the ear and might account for mental telepathy by electronic equipment "which may not yet be developed," and that his crystal work was done with Dr. [[Raymond C. Tibbetts]] of Camden.[^13]
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### Reference in the Scott Jones papers
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The finding aid of the C. B. "Scott" Jones papers at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]] lists, in Series 6 ("Special Assistant to [[Claiborne Pell|Senator Claiborne Pell]]"), under Reports and organizations, a file titled "National Science Foundation: Andrija Puharich reports and correspondence." The saved container tree gives the title only, without dates or box number.[^14]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
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[^2]: Henry K. Puharich, curriculum vitae and direct testimony, Transcript of Record, Appendix, Puharich v. Brenner, No. 22286 (D.C. Cir.), Appx. 22a and the curriculum vitae in the appendix. https://archive.org/details/dc_circ_1968_22286_henry_k_puharich_v_edward_j_brenner
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[^3]: Transcript of Record, Puharich v. Brenner, Appx. 66a-67a.
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[^4]: Curriculum vitae, Transcript of Record, Appendix, and CIA-RDP96-00787R000100190001-2, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000100190001-2.
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[^5]: Roger A. Beaumont, "On the Strategic Potential of ESP," Signal, January 1982, p. 39, CIA-RDP96-00788R001700360003-3, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700360003-3.
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[^6]: Henry K. Puharich, curriculum vitae and direct testimony, Transcript of Record, Appendix, Puharich v. Brenner, Appx. 22a; Down East, "When a Shadowy Maine Estate Was an Epicenter of Psychics and Psychedelics," https://downeast.com/history/psych-out
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[^7]: Curriculum vitae, Transcript of Record, Puharich v. Brenner, Appendix, list of papers; CIA-RDP96-00787R000100190001-2.
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[^8]: Kress, Kenneth A. "Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions," *Studies in Intelligence,* vol. 21, no. 4, winter 1977, declassified. Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Research and Development, memorandum ORD-413-73, "Briefing by Stanford Research Institute," January 24, 1973, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400070029-2.
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[^9]: Transcript of Record, Puharich v. Brenner, No. 22286, Appendix; Puharich v. Brenner, 415 F.2d 979 (D.C. Cir. 1969), https://static.case.law/f2d/415/cases/0979-01.json.
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[^10]: Henry K. Puharich, curriculum vitae and direct testimony, Transcript of Record, Appendix, Puharich v. Brenner, No. 22286 (D.C. Cir.). https://archive.org/details/dc_circ_1968_22286_henry_k_puharich_v_edward_j_brenner
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[^11]: "Questionnaire submitted by the Select Committee of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, created by House Resolution 561, Eighty-second Congress, Second Session, to investigate tax-exempt foundations and comparable organizations," CIA-RDP91-00682R000300080029-3, CIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp91-00682r000300080029-3.
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[^12]: "The World of the Supra-Sensory," anonymous typescript, CIA-RDP96-00787R000400040032-1, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00787r000400040032-1.
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[^13]: Jim Moore, "Secrets Of Life," *Portland Press Herald* (Portland, Me.), January 9, 1949, p. 61, https://www.newspapers.com/image/848421406/.
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[^14]: University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, collection COU:4004 (the C. B. 'Scott' Jones papers), ArchivesSpace resource 346, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/346, container tree for Series 6.
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