Dr. Vinod – Harry Stone – Peter Hurkos

To relate about the events that brought Dr. D.G. Vinod and Andrija together, and which opened the way for Andrija’s future work, I refer to Andrija’s book Uri Geller, the man who baffles the scientists.

At a party, given by Eileen Garrett on December 3rd, 1951, in order for Andrija to meet her friend and patron Frances Payne Bolton, Andrija was so focused on these two women and their work in progress, that he scarcely noticed the Hindu scholar dressed in white puttees and a black Nehru jacket. However, they did chat briefly, and Andrija learned that Dr. Vinod was a professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Poona. He was in the United States lecturing on behalf of the Rotary International Club.

They met again by chance on the train to New York on February 14, 1952. When Andrija apologized for not getting in touch with him, Dr. Vinod replied that destiny had brought them together at the proper time. Asked if he would be willing to come to Maine to participate in the telepathy experiments, Dr. Vinod expressed the desire to first meet Andrija again within two days in New York. At that time Dr. Vinod asked Andrija’s permission to hold his right ring finger at the middle joint with his right thumb and index finger. He said that he used this form of contact with a person to read his past and future. He did this for about one minute, whistling between his teeth as though he were trying to find a pitch. Then he leaned back, and for an hour told Andrija’s life story with utter precision. “His accuracy about the past was extraordinary,” according to Andrija.

It was to be ten months before Dr. Vinod would come to the Round Table. When he entered the great hall, a curious thing happened. Without saying a word or even taking off his overcoat, he walked straight to the library as if he had been there before. He sat down on a sofa and immediately went into a trance.

Then, at exactly 9 p.m., a deep sonorous voice came out of his mouth, totally unlike his own high-pitched, soft voice, saying in perfect English without an accent:

“M calling: We are Nine Principles and Forces, personalities if you will, working in complete mutual implication. We are forces, and the nature of our work is to accentuate the positive, the evolutional, and the teleological aspects of existence. By teleology I do not mean the teleology of human derivation in a multidimensional concept of existence. Teleology will be understood in terms of a different ontology. To be simple, we accentuate certain directions as will fulfill the destiny of creation. We propose to work with you in some essential respects with the relation of contradiction and contrariety. We shall negate and revise part of your work, by which I mean the work as presented by you. The point is that we want to begin altogether at a different dimension, though it is true that your work has itself led up to this. I deeply appreciate your dedicatedness to the great cause of peace, which is fulfillment of finitesimal existence. Peace is not warlessness. Peace is the integral fruitage of personality. We have designed to utiise you and thus to fulfill you. Peace is a process and will be revealed only progressively. You have it in plenty; I mean the patience that is so deeply needed in this magnificent adventure. But today, at the moment of our advent, the most eventful and spectacular phase of your work begins.

Andrija Puharich (AP): ‘It is helpful to have your guidance.”

We don’t guide, nor do we seek guidance, although we appreciate the sense in which you mean it. All of us, including yourselves, can claim no better than being the expressive instruments and avenues of this purpose.”

Einstein has privately felt the need of correcting himself. Infinitization of any mass, M_i, according to him, can be achieved by equating it with:

Mi=m₀c²/√(1-v²/c²)

An implication of this theorem, as yet unrevealed, will solve the problem of the superconscious.

The whole group of concepts has to be revised. The problem of psychokinesis, clairvoyance, etc., at the present stage is all right, but profoundly misleading – permit us to say the truth. Soon we will come to basic universal categories of explicating the superconscious. Just as Jesus said, “It is not work, but grace.” A fruitful, creative approach to the superconscious is indeed a progressive reception of grace.

We cannot really go on with experimentation in this direction, but if we get seven times the electrical equivalent of the human body – if we get it seven times – do you know what would result? It would result in sevenon of the mass of electricity. That’s a very strange term, but it’s true. If it gains sevenfold, corresponding approximation to light velocity will be ninety-nine per cent. That is the point where human personality has to be stretched in order to achieve infinization. This is one of the most secret insights.

When Dr. Vinod awoke from his trance after about ninety minutes of speech by the Nine, he had no recollection or knowledge of what had been said.

By the time that Andrija, and eight attendants, worked with Dr. Vinod for a month, they became convinced that they were not dealing with ordinary spirit communications, but with an unusual extraterrestrial intelligence. Andrija believed that the primary agent was not a single being, but a collegium of voices reaching man on earth. He called them the controllers of the universe operating under the direction of “The Nine”.

The communications were terminated at the end of January 1953, when the attendant group split up and Dr. Vinod returned to his home in India.

It would take twenty-two years before the communications with “The Nine” were resumed.

Although 1952 had been good for Andrija, both in scientific and economic progress, it had been a bad year for Jinny. Taking care of two small children, and running the Round Table alone much of the time had taken a heavy toll. After bearing another daughter in August she suffered severely from postnatal depression. It was unfortunately the beginning of a grave illness.

In 1953, the U.S. was involved in the Korean War, and Andrija, in spite of his medical discharge in 1947, was recalled into military service. On February 26, 1953, he was sworn in as a captain in the Medical Corps at the Army Chemical Center, Edgewood, Maryland. This was the headquarters for research in chemical, radiological and bacteriological warfare. In April Jinny and the children came to live with him in a small apartment at the army post.

Due to Joseph Me Carthy’s pursuit of Communists, everyone on this sensitive Army post feared that he would descend on them also. Andrija felt that he was under intense security investigation, and he wondered if the visit to Maine by the U.S. Department of the Army in August of the previous year had anything to do with it. Colonel Stanley had led him to believe that the U.S. planned to do basic research in telepathy. However, any open discussions of research possibilities while he was in the Army were out of the question because he did not have a security clearance. Although he was allowed to give lectures on his research in telepathy, Andrija nevertheless felt “muzzled”.

How terror-stricken and paranoid the Army, was is best illustrated by what happened to a pathologist working on classified research projects at the medical laboratories.

As chief of the Outpatient Department of the Post Dispensary, Andrija was treating this medical officer for a severe depression that he had developed since his security clearance was withdrawn. The reason, as he had been told, was, that in 1943 he had attended a meeting of the American-Soviet Friendship Society. This was an open public meeting at which the chief speaker was Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States. The Colonel’s attendance was being interpreted as a sign of an association with Communism, and therefore a danger to the security of the United States.

It is surprising that Andrija did not reaise that he too was a danger to U.S. security. Although he was not in the least interested in politics, his father was a red hot Communist. As a native of Yugoslavia, he was openly applauding the renaissance of his beloved country under the Communist leader Josip Broz, known as Tito. The U.S. Department of the Army must have known this. Also that Zlatko Balokovic, Andrija’s friend in Maine, was the spokesman for the New Yugoslavia in New York, and a personal friend of Tito. The friendship between Andrija and the Balokovic’ may very well have been the reason why the people in Glen Cove, Maine regarded Andrija’s work as Communist-inspired, and was also the cause of the investigation by the FBI in 1950.

All this certainly was an obstacle for me when I wanted to become a citizen of the United States in the 1960’s. To my surprise the immigration officer had kept asking questions about Andrija’s father and friends, and about my political inclination. Even my neighbors were questioned if I had ever shown any pro-Communist behavior. Sometimes, I had the feeling that I was being shadowed. When I told this to Andrija, he became even more suspicious. Each day, he checked the house for eavesdropping devices, and did the same to hotel rooms. If a person had dialed the wrong number, and hung up without saying anything, he was convinced that “they” were spying on his whereabouts.

I never became a citizen, for by the time my clearance came through I had gone back to Holland.

In retrospect, it is not surprising that Andrija became paranoid about being “watched by the CIA.” He, however, believed that the initial denial of a security clearance had to do with his work. He writes: “If the intent of the Army people was not to use my experience, but to slow down my work in Maine, they certainly had done a good job. Although I reaise that I could not have obtained a security clearance unless I was in the Army under 24 hour surveillance, it was a high price to pay.”

Who knows, in view of what happened to Andrija during the 1960’s and 1970’s, he may have been right.

The high price to pay that Andrija refers to was the desolate state the Round Table was in when his tour of Army duty had ended in 1955, and he returned to Maine. All work at the laboratory had ceased and the trustees of the Foundation had closed it down. Andrija felt devastated. “I entered the still and cold entrance hall. Here was my dream, as dormant as a tulip bulb in the ground in mid-winter. I walked through the animal barn. There were no dogs to greet me. The empty cages stood mute row on row.”

With the help of Gladys Davenport, and by working day and night, Andrija was able to reopen the Round Table and to hire two staff members. He was anxious to continue the work he had started with Harry Stone while he was in the Army. Harry Stone was a Dutch sculptor whom Andrija had met in New York at a party given by Mrs. Davenport. At that time the young sculptor had demonstrated his gift of psychometry by describing a picture while being blindfolded.

In the summer of 1954 Andrija received a transcript from Mrs. Davenport of some utterances which Harry had made while being in a trance state. Some of the utterances were in English and some in Egyptian. He spoke as though he was a “personality” who had lived some 5000 years ago. Though Harry had no knowledge of either vocaised or written Egyptian in his conscious state, he even wrote some Egyptian hieroglyphs when in trance.

The first time this occurred, Harry had been at Mrs. Davenport’s apartment in New York. When admiring a gold pendant, in the form of a cartouche, he had suddenly started to tremble all over, got a crazy staring look in his eyes, staggered around the room, and then fell into a chair.

After about five minutes he jumped up and clutched Mrs. Davenport’s hand. He kept saying: “Don’t you remember me, don’t you remember me?” He then asked for a pencil and paper and began to draw Egyptian hieroglyphs. Later on, when they were translated, they were supposedly “written through” Harry by one RA HO TEP, who claimed to be an Egyptian of Royal blood of the Fourth Dynasty. (Approximately 2700 B.C.) What fascinated Andrija was the trance description Harry had given of a plant that could separate the consciousness from the physical body. and that such a separated consciousness could operate independently of the limitations of the body. Andrija knew that the ancient Greeks and also the Shamans in Siberia had a tradition, from the earliest recorded times, of men who, by partaking of a plant could detach the psyche, or soul, from the body, travel far, and then return with intelligence, giving them supernormal wisdom.

The drawings of the plant, made by Harry in trance looked like mushrooms, and the description he gave was that of the toxic fly agaric, or amanita muscaria.

During the time Andrija was in medical school, he had spent three years of his spare time doing research work on neurophysiological problems, and the possibility of finding some drug that would stimulate latent extrasensory perception in human beings was very exciting to him. He now had a clue that a certain mushroom might be the answer.

He wrote to the Boston Mycological Society to find out if there were any places in New England where the amanita muscaria could be found. They wrote back that in the past some of their members had reported seeing such a mushroom, but that there was no way of predicting where it could be found since it never seemed to appear twice in the same place.

By scouring the woods all summer in Maine and Massachusetts, Andrija came to recognize the spots where mushrooms in general, and particularly the amanita muscaria might grow. It was through Mrs. Davenport, who, while she was in trance (for the first and only time in her life), described the spot, that they found their first specimen. By the end of August 1955 Andrija had an ample supply of amanita muscaria with which to begin serious investigation.

He first set out to analyze the mushroom chemically, and found three chemicals that were of interest for his study of psychic effects: muscarine, atropine and bufotenin. Muscarine stimulates the parasympathetic nerve endings, giving the user great muscular strength and endurance. (Think of tribal dances that go on for hours). After this initial stimulating effect, however, muscarine then acts as a poison and paralyses the very nerves, which it has stimulated.

Atropine alone first stimulates the central nervous system and then paralyses it. It causes hallucinations, and may lead to convulsions. Curiously enough, however, it also counteracts the effects of muscarine. According to Andrija, this may be the reason for the disagreement in the literature as to the poisonous effects of the amanita muscaria.

The third drug, bufotenin has an excitatory effect, like adrenaline. It is also known as a hallucinogenic drug.

With this knowledge Andrija was ready to test the psychic effects of the mushroom on human beings.

He prepared extracts from different parts of the plant and found out that the toxic principle was only present in the warts and the skin of the cap. He therefore used preparations made entirely from these parts of the mushroom. He and other volunteers took the mushroom by chewing it. As was to be expected each individual showed a different effect; from hot to cold flashes, disturbance of vision, and blotchy skin. Almost everyone, however, experienced a lowering of the pulse rate, and a slight lowering of temperature. Interestingly enough, none of the ‘normal’ subjects, and thirty-five were studied, experienced any noteworthy psychic effects.

This was quite different with Harry Stone – who by then was employed as a laboratory subject in Maine. Afraid of what Harry’s reaction might be, Andrija had been reluctant to give him the mushroom. It was, however, Harry himself who one day, when Aldous Huxley was visiting, and while deeply in trance, asked for it. By dramatic sign language, he indicated that the RA HO TEP personality wanted the mushroom brought to him. When the mushroom was placed in front of Harry, Andrija saw for the first time the secret detail of how the mushroom was to be used. Harry applied the mushroom on his tongue and on the top of his head, in ritualistic fashion. Five minutes later he woke up, and began to stagger around as though he were heavily intoxicated with alcohol.

Andrija had a syringe of atropine ready, but he first wanted to do a quick MAT test, to see if Harry’s clairvoyance had increased. A MAT test, which is short for Matching Abacus Test, consists of two matching sets of ten different pictures. Each set of pictures is placed in a row. Both rows of pictures are shuffled and placed under an opaque screen so that the sensitive (the receiver in telepathy) can handle them, but cannot see them. He is also blindfolded. The pictures are placed in a plastic box so that the receiver cannot touch the surface of the pictures, but the sender can clearly see them. The receiver then puts his left hand on one box in the row closest to him. The sender now knows the picture that the receiver will seek in the other row. When the receiver passes his right hand over the other row, the sender, by telepathy alone, tries to influence the receiver to pick up the correct picture. When the receiver makes his choice, he picks up the plastic box and places it opposite the one under his left hand. If the two pictures correctly match it is called a hit.

Andrija’s aim in the clairvoyance test with Harry was to find out if Harry could ‘see’ through the covered plastic boxes. He quickly blindfolded Harry and placed before him the covered MAT test. Within a matter of seconds, Harry completed the entire test. He literally threw the two sets of picture blocks together. When Andrija took the cover away from the blocks, he was amazed to find that Harry had scored ten correct matches. During a previous series of tests, Harry had obtained just a chance score.

Not daring to waste any more time, Andrija quickly gave Harry a large dose of atropine, and removed the remaining particles of the mushroom from his tongue. Within fifteen minutes Harry was ‘normal’ again.

From a book of his collected letters, I quote Aldous Huxley’s account of his visit:

“I spent some days, earlier this month, at Glen Cove, in the strange household assembled by Puharich – Gladys Davenport and Mrs. Puharich, behaving to one another in a conspicuously friendly way; Eleanor Bond, doing telepathic guessing remarkably well, but not producing anything of interest or value in the mediumistic sitting she gave me; Harry, the Dutch sculptor, who goes into trances in the Faraday Cage and produces automatic scripts in Egyptian hieroglyphics; Narodny, the cockroach man, who is preparing experiments to test the effects of human telepathy on insects. It was all very lively and amusing – and I really think promising; for whatever may be said against Puharich, he is certainly very intelligent, extremely well read and highly enterprising. His aim is to reproduce by modem pharmacological, electronic and physical methods the conditions used by the Shamans for getting into a state of traveling clairvoyance. At Glen Cove they now have found eight specimens of the amanita muscaria. This is very remarkable as the literature of the mycological society of New England records only one previous instance of the discovery of an amanita in Maine. The effects, when a piece as big as a pin’s head, is rubbed for a few seconds into the skin of the scalp, are quite alarmingly powerful, and it will obviously take a lot of very cautious experimentation to determine the right psi-enhancing dose of the mushroom.”

Although the work with Harry Stone as a telepathic subject continued through 1955, his trance “messages” became more and more feeble. His last trance communication was on February 7, 1956, during which time he covered a page with very poorly written hieroglyphs, which were completely illegible.

It was not until 1958 that Andrija found the time to continue the analysis of the first, and subsequent trance utterances by Harry. He wondered if the ancient Egyptians had the same tradition as the Greeks and the Shamans, and if there was a connection between this phenomenon and the amanita muscaria. His ardent study of Egyptology and hieroglyphs resulted in his book, The Sacred Mushroom, published by Doubleday in 1959.

While Andrija was conducting his research with Harry Stone, poor Jinny was in and out of the hospital. She suffered from schizophrenia, and had to undergo insulin shock treatment. The first time had been in the summer of 1954.

When I met Andrija on Friday, April 13, 1956, he had just returned from Madison, Wisconsin, Jinny’s hometown, where she was again hospitaised.

Little did I suspect that on that Friday my life would change completely. In my book Au Pair, I have covered in detail the events that preceded that day, and I shall not recount them here. Suffice it to say that on that day I was fired from my job as a dental hygienist, and that I met Andrija, who was staying at Mrs. Davenport’s in New York with his three daughters. I must, however, relate how we met, for I believe that it was meant to be.

On my return home from the dental office, feeling despondent about losing my job, I had found a peculiar note from my landlady: “Dear Bep, if you’re home before six, please call the baby-sit office. They said that they tried to call you at work, for they need you tonight. When I said that you would probably be home late, and that they should try someone else,

the lady said that they especially wanted you for this job. Sounds interesting. Good luck!”

I must add that during the past months I had been babysitting through that office off and on, but not lately.

At the time I felt flattered that they had especially asked for me, looking back I think that destiny was at work.

It was love at first sight between the little girls and me. They were very outgoing, beautiful, and fun to be with. I can still hear their excited voices: “She is so nice, daddy. She calls us Iene, Miene, and Mutten, they’re names from a Dutch nursery rime.”

When Andrija and Mrs. Davenport learned that I was without a job, they begged me to come to Maine to take care of the girls until I would leave for Holland with my friend Ram at the end of July.

When Andrija had returned to Camden in 1955, Jinny had been temporarily out of hospital and back with him and the children. In order for Jinny not to be burdened with the goings-on at the Round Table, they had decided to live in the guest cottage of the Balokovic’s.

I loved the little red house, right at the foot of “bald mountain” as the girls called the steep mountain with the flat top. I also loved Maine. The cold, crisp air was invigorating, the countryside beautiful. The way of living easy and relaxed. Such a contrast with hectic New York.

Ram, who had been a little apprehensive about my new job, agreed when he came to visit. “Bep truly enjoys her work in Maine,” he wrote to my parents, “it is beautiful country and very healthful. I am so happy that she no longer lives in that noisy and busy city of New York. “

Shortly after his visit, Ram wrote that he had decided not to go to Holland with me, but instead to go directly to India, to study for a year. Did he suspect that I had become utterly fascinated by Andrija?

When Andrija took me in his arms to console me after I had received Ram’s letter, and whispered words of love, I was lost. I’ll never forget those words: “I love you, Bep, and I need you. The children love you too, and we can’t live without you anymore. We’re such a happy little family. Please come back to us after your visit to your parents.”

Were we “young and foolish” to fall in love, as Andrija asked me in September of 1994?

Climbing to the top of bald mountain for a picnic, Andrija acted as a true Knight of the Round Table. He chopped at branches and undergrowth with the vigor of a youth to make the going easy for his Maiden. He swore to protect me with his life if a predator came near. He was gallant and amorous, a real Sir Galahad. We swam in Hosmer pond with the girls, and at night he told me about the mysteries of the mind. He gave me The Imprisoned Splendor, a book by Raynor Johnson. In it he wrote: “May this help to fully release your splendor” During those three wonderful months, he was my gentle and kind teacher, and although we may have been young and foolish, and full of tears later on, he set me on the path of learning, for which I’ll be forever grateful.

When in the spring of 1956 Andrija began to look for more research subjects for the telepathy experiments, Henry Belk brought the name of a Dutch psychic, Peter Hurkos to his attention, and suggested that the Belk Research Foundation should try to bring him to the Round Table.

With the arrival of Peter, a new era began at the Round Table Foundation. Had Eileen Garrett and Harry Stone been of a quiet nature, Peter was loud and rambunctious. He was in his late forties, a huge man, six feet three inches tall and full of vitality. He was always good-humored, and loved to tell jokes, especially dirty ones.

His extraordinary psychic gifts had manifested after he fell from a ladder onto his head in 1944. He suffered a brain injury and lay in a coma for three days. On regaining consciousness, he found he had acquired an ability to “see into the unknown.”

In spite of their conflicting natures, Peter and Harry got along famously and formed a great telepathic team. The experiments, which were conducted when they were both in the charged Faraday cage, produced extraordinary results. They are recorded in Beyond Telepathy.

Although I did not like Peter, he was just too gross for my taste; there is no denying that he was a great psychic. Being a novice to the field of ESP, I was awed by his feats in the field of psychometry and telepathy. When handed a sealed envelope, he unerringly described what was inside. Or, when given an object, like a watch, a ring, or whatever, he could, while being blindfolded, tell in great detail about the person to whom the object belonged. He was right 90 per cent of the time. What intrigued Andrija was, that, while psychometrising photographs, Peter not only described the images on the photograph, but also got intelligence that was not physically recorded on the film. Even more intriguing was that Peter often got images from a photograph that had been next to the photograph given to him. It made Andrija wonder whether some form of energy is transferred from the person to the film, and from one photograph to another, and which remains on the photograph as a permanent record. From Peter’s readings it almost seemed that when a picture is taken of a person, the film not only captures the person, but also the past and future history of that person. How a sensitive could tune into this vast reservoir of intelligence presented to Andrija the greatest mystery of the mind.

The transference of more than the physical image of a person when taking his picture is a fascinating concept, and may explain why there are people who fear that it will capture their soul. Other people set great store by having their picture taken, as I found out when I visited India a few years ago. It had amazed me that even complete strangers wanted to have their picture taken with me. They would give me their address and beg me to send them the photograph. It was explained to me that being of a “high caste”, my karma would “rub off” on to the others in the picture.

Peter’s telepathic ability was also astounding. I’ll never forget the time when Andrija, Peter and I were sitting in the kitchen at the Round Table having a cup of coffee when Peter all of a sudden turned pale. “I see a hand with blood,” he whispered. “It has to do with Jim. It’s terrible. You must call him right now, Andrija.”

While Andrija was on the telephone with his friend Jim in New York, Peter kept rubbing his wrist. “He’s going to do it again,” he suddenly yelled. “They must watch him all the time. He’ll do it again. You must warn Jim, Andrija.” Sweat dripped from Peter’s forehead and he was very agitated. When Andrija returned he was as pale as Peter. “Jim just had a phone call from a psychiatrist in Albuquerque,” he told us. “Apparently Ern’s brother Art has been very depressed and tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrist.”

I remember how stunned we were. How could Peter have sensed that someone tried to commit suicide hundreds of miles away? And how could he predict that Art would try it again? For that is exactly what happened. After he had been in the hospital for three weeks and seemed quite his old self again, he had asked for a newspaper and his reading glasses. As soon as he was alone, Art broke the glasses and slashed both his wrists. Fortunately he was given medical attention immediately.

Another event that shook us up badly took place shortly after Peter had come to Maine.

Arriving at the laboratory on the morning of July 18. Andrija had found Peter already there. Peter looked as if he had not slept all night and was quite upset. He told Andrija a strange story of having seen a luminous mass in the hall the previous night. At first he had thought that it was a light shining from the opposite wall, but there was no light. When he looked at the luminous ball again it suddenly moved towards him. He even felt a cold breeze on his face, as it went by. Always swearing on something or other, Peter now swore on the grave of his mother. “I saw something, Andrija, I swear it. I’ve never been so frightened in all my life.”

Not taking Peter very seriously, Andrija suggested that they go to work and forget about luminous balls, ghosts and spirits.

Later that morning the son of Mrs. Davenport called that his mother was dead. She had died sometime during the night.

Peter was heard muttering: “I was right, I did see something, and I now know what it was.”

When Andrija came home late that evening, I hardly recognized him. His face was ashen, and his eyes were red and swollen. Not wanting to be comforted, he pushed me away, and without another word went to his room.

Gladys Davenport had been a kind lady and was loved by everyone. Only a few days before she had visited the laboratory, and, like always, she had been in a joyful mood, and seemed in perfect health.

The coroner could not find a physical cause, and her sudden death remained inexplicable.

Why didn’t Andrija speak to me for a whole week? It was not until shortly before I was to leave for Holland that he came out of his depression. He made love to me with an almost angry passion, saying over and over again that I had to come back, that he now needed me more than ever.

Feeling guilty about my life of deceit, and frightened by the strange things that went on at the Round Table, I resolved not to return to Maine.

I had, however, not reckoned with Andrija’s power of persuasion. Five weeks, and many beautiful love letters later I was back. But not for long.

Instead of the promised love: “The future will not begin until you are securely locked in my arms. Sigh deeply my love for the sacred love to come,” I found loneliness and confusion. Why didn’t Andrija mention that Jinny had improved and was coming home?

I do not want to burden the reader with what happened to me. However, I was part of the drama and I feel that I must recount some of the events that changed the course of Andrija’s life.

When Joyce Balokovic found out about Andrija’s and my “sordid love-affair”, she booked passage for me on the S.S. Rijndam. I got the message “to stay away, or else…”

Was it love, need, or anger at Joyce that made Andrija double his efforts to get me back again? I want to believe that it was love and sincerity: “I look upon the mistakes I made with you and reaise that I should have hidden my love for you. It was stupid to reveal my love while in the midst of a stormy life – that you could not possibly understand. But foolishly I wanted a haven in your arms and heart. Secondly, I would have slowly worked to get you to understand the nature of my life. And thirdly, I would have cleared up my personal life before ever whispering those fatal words to you.”

When I returned once more to the United States, it was February 1957.

Jinny’s trial visit home had not worked out, and although the little girls needed me, I could not go to Maine. Instead I got a job in New York, and met Andrija whenever he was in town.

With the loss of Mrs. Davenport’s financial support, and the hostility of the trustees, Andrija had had a rough time keeping the research going. He was a changed man. He had taken up drinking and smoking, and had outbursts of anger at, and distrust of the people who still worked at the Round Table. This had resulted in the sudden departure of Harry Stone in December of 1956.

The work with Peter Hurkos continued through 1957, and produced some startling data. To recount them, I will quote from Andrija’s journal: “On August 23, 1957, after Hurkos had been administered the preparation of the mushroom, he slipped into a semi sleep state in about twenty minutes and began to talk. He saw what he called “a miracle in the sky. ” When asked what this miracle was, he was not capable of giving it finite description. These are the words he used.. “There is going to be a miracle in the sky. It is coming. I cannot tell you precisely what it is, except that I see it as an earth-ball. It is in the sky, and everybody in the whole world can see it.”

When asked if this meant a planet, he said, “No.” When asked if this meant a comet, he said “No.” I asked him all the possibilities I could think of in the way of natural aerial phenomena. I even asked him if this was going to be a flying saucer. Again he said “No.” I must say, that in reference to this statement, which is very vague, it is difficult to relate it to any specific event. The only event that seems to bear any resemblance to the words that Peter uttered was the launching of the Russian earth satellite on October 4, 1957. But Peter himself feels that it is yet to come.”

When I read in Andrija’s journal that Peter supposedly had encountered space people, I vaguely recalled that he had seemed quite perturbed for a while, and that he kept talking about flying “sausages” as he called UFO’s. This was in September when I had succumbed again to Andrija’s entreaties to come to Maine.

The following is also from his journal:

“Besides this vision (The “earth-ball”) Peter Hurkos was plagued by another set of experiences which occurred from August to November 1957. One day near the end of September he came to me and said.

‘Andrija, you know that my powers are my powers. I don’t believe in spirits or ghosts, and I always thought that flying saucers were baloney But believe me, Andrija, I swear on my baby’s eyes, I have been awakened many nights by beings from flying saucers. Last night again. I went down to the rocks by the ocean, and at about four in the morning, all of a sudden there appeared a flying saucer over the water about 100 meters away. It was about 15 meters across and shaped like a lens. It was all transparent. I could see through it like through glass. But it glowed all kinds of changing colors. Here I will draw exactly what I saw.’

Peter then quickly made a sketch of a biconvex shaped object and its interior He was quite emphatic that the power plant was in the center of the craft.

‘As this saucer hovered over the water,’ Peter continued, ‘it lit up everything around it, including the spot where I sat on the rock. Then suddenly there were two beings standing near me. They were small, and looked very old with young bodies. They wore tight fitting outfits that looked like leather motorcycle suits. They just looked at me. No word was spoken. But I felt that they were telling me things, and I understood it. I don’t remember anything that was told me. Suddenly they were in the saucer that had come close by. Then there was fire and smoke, and the saucer went away silently. You have to believe me, Andrija that’s what I saw. I didn’t want to tell you, but it’s driving me crazy.’

I didn’t know what to say. I could not believe it, but neither could I deny it.

Peter said that the rocks were probably blackened where the saucer had taken off. We did go to the spot at low tide, but there was no evidence of a burn on the rocks. “

Peter supposedly had more of these sightings, but so far I have not been able to find any reference to them in Andrija’s books or journals. The only other reference to space people where Peter is involved is in the book Uri, where Andrija describes his strange encounter with a Dr. Charles Laughead, who thinks that Andrija and Peter are “brothers from space”. Andrija later received a letter from this Dr. Laughead with two “communications” from a medium. One of them was a very similar message as was given through Dr. Vinod in 1952.

“M calling:

At the moment of our advent, December 31, 1952, your most spectacular phase of work began. We are Nine principles and forces. The nature of our work is to accentuate certain directions as will fulfill the destiny of creation.

We used the body or brain of Dr. “V” We can and are using other bodies also.”

When Peter Hurkos was given Dr. Laughead’s letter to psychometrise, he said that he saw people in black, but couldn’t see their faces. “They are in a costume that can withstand thousands of degrees Centigrade heat. This is nothing to laugh at. It is all quite serious.”

As the reader may know, Peter Hurkos became famous, gaining worldwide recognition as a psychic detective, working on cases concerning murder victims, missing persons and aircraft. Among his most famous cases were the Boston Strangler multiple murders and the Sharon Tate murders in Los Angeles.

He has received many badges from police chiefs around the world, including one from Interpol.

He is said to have been a consultant to every U.S President since Eisenhower, and a personal friend of the Reagans.

He died in 1988, at the age of 77.

When the year 1957 came to an end, Andrija saw his dream go up in thin air for the second time. But this time there was no turning back.

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