Author's Biography
Born on February 19, 1918, in Chicago, ANDRIJA HENRY PUHARICH
M.D., has made significant contributions to medicine, neurophysiology,
mind sciences, and medical electronics through his researches
and inventions in these fields.
Puharich graduated from Northwestern University Medical School
in 1947 and completed his residency in internal medicine at Permanente
Hospital in California. His interest in psychic research developed
from an academic curiosity about telepathy.
Puharich established in 1948 the Round Table Foundation in Maine.
There he conceived and developed a series of experiments to enhance
ESP in sensitives by means of electronic systems. Among his colleagues
and research associates were author Aldous Huxley and Dr. Samuel
Rosen, world-renowned ear surgeon. Puharich's first research subject
was Eileen Garrett, the late medium who founded the Parapsychology
Foundation, and the results of this research convinced him that
telepathy existed.
Puharich brought the Dutch sensitive Peter Hurkos to America for
investigation and was the first to study this gifted psychic.
His experiments teaming Hurkos with another sensitive, Harry Stone,
produced extraordinary results when both subjects were in an electrified
Faraday cage. These experiments are now regarded as classic in
the field. Puharich also studied the Indian sage and teacher Dr.
D. G. Vinod, whose powers of materialization and contact with
nonterrestrials opened new possibilities in preparing the way
for Puharich's future work.
In 1958 Puharich moved his laboratory to Carmel, California, where
he continued his researches and served as a consultant to industrial
corporations, foundations, and universities.
In 1960 Puharich headed a research expedition to Oaxaca, Mexico,
to study the sacred mushroom rite of the Chatino Indians. He is
the first known outsider to participate in the sacred rites of
the Chatinos and to document it on film. The following year he
went to Hawaii at the invitation of David Bray, last of the royal
line of Kahuna priests. After intense training and development,
which awakened his own powers of consciousness, Puharich became
the first non-Hawaiian to be initiated into the Kahuna priesthood,
a tradition dating back thousands of years. While in Hawaii, Puharich
discovered the first hallucinogenic mushrooms ever found in the
islands.
Later that year, Puharich moved to New York and founded Intelectron
Corporation (with J. L. Lawrence), to develop electronic systems
for aiding hearing in nerve deafness. He served as president and
director of research for ten years and holds fifty-six United
States and foreign patents for his inventions. He has also applied
for patents on his systems to enhance ESP, which have become the
issue of a long-standing debate with the U. S. Patent Office and
are assuming the stature of classic cases in the legal literature.
From 1963 to 1968 Puharich led a number of medical research expeditions
to Brazil to study the healer Arigo. Arigo's totally unorthodox
surgery and healing powers defied every rule of medicine. While
in Brazil, Puharich first became aware of UFOs, where he saw and
photographed a number of them.
In 1971 all of his previous professional training and skills,
investigative researches, and field studies led him to Israel,
where he became the first scientist to investigate seriously the
phenomena of Uri Geller.
Puharich is listed in Who's Who in the East, American Men of Medicine,
Leaders in American Science, Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology,
and many other biographical listings for achievement and contribution.
His numerous professional memberships include the New York Academy
of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science,
Aerospace Medical Association, and the American Association for
Humanistic Psychology.
Puharich has published over fifty papers and articles in scientific
and professional journals and written two books, The Sacred
Mushroom, 1959, and Beyond Telepathy, 1962, both published
by Doubleday & Company, Inc., and both reissued by Doubleday
in paperback editions (The Sacred Mushroom, 1974, and Beyond
Telepathy, 1973). He has collaborated on a book by John G.
Fuller, Arigo: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife, T. Y. Crowell
& Co., New York, 1974.
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