Between Summer 1972 and September 1978, the New Horizons Research Foundation published nine issues of New Horizons.
As a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario, the purpose of the New Horizons Research Foundation (NHRF) was ‘to promote research on the frontiers of science and disseminate information.’ The closely affiliated Toronto Society for Psychical Research (TSPR) was a voluntary society and non-profit organization; its purpose was ‘to explore and interpret those presumptively paranormal events commonly described as extrasensory perception and psychic phenomena.’ It is hoped that a historical sketch of those organizations might be prepared at a later date.
The majority of articles in the New Horizons Journal were written or edited by A.R.G. (George) Owen and/or Iris M. Owen with contributions from Joel L. Whitton, Raymond Bayless, Margaret H. Sparrow, Frank McInnis, Wilbur Franklin, Vicki Branden, and William Q. Wolfson, among others. A number of articles deal with the TSPR’s experiments, in which a sitter group created the fictional ghost named Philip. The group met from 1972 until 1977 and was able to communicate with the imaginary “Philip” through raps in the surface of the table; in addition, repeated psychokinetic table movements were observed and filmed. Issue no. 5 (January 1975) presented the “Proceedings of the First Canadian Conference on Psychokinesis and related Phenomena” that was held in Toronto in June 1974.
You can learn more about the lives and psychical research of George and Iris Owen in this biographical sketch.
To make the articles more generally accessible for research and educational purposes, the Survival Research Institute of Canada has undertaken to digitize and make them freely available, consistent with the Owens’ wishes as confirmed by their son Robin E. Owen. Financial contributions toward the work of safeguarding and making additional material available will be gratefully accepted; please visit our Donations page.
While living in Toronto, Iris Owen had the complete set bound into a single volume. Iris’ bound copy, from which the copy presented here was digitized, has been deposited in the Department of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Manitoba.
Following is the list of individual issues of the New Horizons Journal that may be downloaded for educational and research purposes only.
- Vol. 1, no. 1 (Summer 1972) (3.5 M)
- Vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer 1973) (2.2 M)
- Vol. 1, no. 3 (January 1974) (1.8 M)
- Vol. 1, no. 4 (July 1974) (2.2 M)
- Vol. 1, no. 5 (January 1975) (3.8 M)
- Vol. 2, no. 1 (April 1975) (2.7 M)
- Vol. 2, no. 2 (June 1976) (2.5 M)
- Vol. 2, part 3, issue 8 (June 1977) (3.7 M)
- Vol. 2, part 4, issue 9 (September 1978) (1.8 M)
You can also download the complete set (all nine issues) in a single PDF, but it is a very large file (28 M).