Otto Schmitt and the Archaeus Project: adventures in the anomalous

This work recounts the author's experiences with Otto Schmitt, and the Archeus Project (AP), an organization that discusses matters relating to human potential, with members coming from the local business, medical, and technological communities. The AP membership met monthly and eight or nine invited lectures were given at those meetings, as well as occasional talks by one of the AP members. Topics presented ran the full gamut of the world of the anomalous and strange: UFOs, Bigfoot, psychic healing , homeopathy, parapsychology, and dowsing but there were also less controversial topics such as the treatment of coma patients, recognized astronomical anomalies, mind-body interaction, and the practice and philosophy of the martial arts. This work focuses on AP's investigations of paranormal phenomena such as the claimed psychic metal-bending abilities and the ability to produce bizarre phenomena inside locked and sealed boxes. Though the group accepts the possibility that genuine paranormal phenomena might exist, some events that others would like to pass on as psychic were investigated by AP and the group learned that the phenomena could be explained in ordinary terms.