HURKOS, PETER 1911–1988

Professional psychic who became famous for his work with the police during the 1960s. He is perhaps best known for his involvement with the Charles Manson murders in 1969.

Hurkos was born in Dordrecht in the Netherlands on 21 May 1911. He didn’t exhibit psychic talent until July 1941 when a brain operation saved his life after he fell from a ladder and slipped into a coma. When he awoke from the coma he claimed he was psychic and could hear noises in his head. He discovered an ability to play the piano, having never played before, and was able to tell others personal information and predict deaths. Later Hurkos stated that he had had a near-death experience while in his coma. He found himself sucked up into a great pyramid of light where a jury of bearded men told him he had not finished his work on earth and that he now had great power in him and must use it for good. He was also told that he would hear music from the otherworld and would be able to play it on the piano.

In 1946 Hurkos attended a psychic demonstration and performed better than the psychic on stage. The theatre immediately offered him a contract and his fame spread. In 1947 he took on his first detective case. The method he used for solving crimes was psychometry. He claimed to get the strongest energy vibrations from clothing but he also worked with locks of hair, nail clippings and from photographs. He said that he could hear voices speaking to him when he touched the items. He would often sleep with the items and awake with information.

In 1956 Dr Andrija Puharich, a neurologist and parapsychologist, brought Hurkos to the United States to test his powers. He was also tested by parapsychology researchers Charles T Tart and Jeffrey Smith, who found no evidence of ESP in his readings of hair samples. Despite this, and the fact that his career had more lows than highs, Hurkos stayed in America and gained celebrity status. William Belk, who financed Puharich’s experiments, lost money in uranium searches based on Hurkos’s advice, and in the Boston Strangler case Hurkos failed to identify Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to the killings. In the Charles Manson case Hurkos did get the name Charlie and was able to describe ritualistic killings by a gang preoccupied with sex and drugs, but after two weeks of working on the case he was dismissed for unknown reasons.

Hurkos predicted he would die on 17 November 1961, but in fact he died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on 25 May 1988.