New Horizons Research Foundation Occasional Papers

Following the deaths of his parents A.R.G. (George) Owen and Iris M. Owen Robin E. Owen transferred to the Survival Research Institute of Canada the remaining records relating to the psychical research experiments that the Owens conducted in Toronto, Ontario, during the early 1970s. Included among his parents’ papers were a collection of 53 research reports, papers, proposals, briefs, notes and reviews. The Owens had numbered the main series of papers from 1 through 46, with numbers 23a and 31a interpolated. There are also five unnumbered papers.

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.” George and Iris Owen were the principal researchers in both those organizations. It is hoped that a historical sketch of those organizations might be prepared at a later date.

The majority of the NHRF occasional papers were written by George and/or Iris Owen. Canadian artist Katherine C. Verschaeve contributed one paper. Five reports dated 1985-1986 were prepared by students Susan M. Intner, Jeremiah A. Farrington, A. Jensine Andresen, and Mark Bonchek, working under the auspices of the PEAR Laboratory at Princeton University.

To make the occasional papers 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. As Directors of the PEAR Laboratory project, Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne have approved inclusion of the reports prepared by the Princeton University students.

George and Iris Owen’s cerlox bound copies of the occasional papers, from which the copy presented here was digitized, have been deposited in the Department of Archives & Special Collections at the University of Manitoba.

Following is the list of NHRF occasional papers that may be downloaded for educational and research purposes only.

List compiled by Walter Meyer zu Erpen, Archivist (February 2013)

AUTHOR(S) NUMBER PAPER TITLE, DATE, PAGINATION & NOTES ABOUT ANY PAGES EXCLUDED
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF none The New Horizons Research Foundation: A Brief History, 1970-1984 (unpublished report, January 1985; 24 pages)
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF 01 The UFO Phenomenon and its Relationship to Parapsychological Research (A New Horizons Paper, September 1984; 14 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 02 Lunar Influences? (A New Horizons Review, October 1984; 10 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 03 Joseph Glanvill and the Demon Drummer (A New Horizons Paper, December 1984; 17 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 04 Strange and Anomalous Phenomena: Anomalistics (A New Horizons Monograph, January 1985; 73 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 05 The Ghosts of Galloway (A New Horizons Paper, April 1985; 15 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 06 The Rise and Decline of Behaviourism: In Honour of Arthur Koestler (A New Horizons Review, April 1985; 30 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 07 Creativity (A New Horizons Research Foundation Paper, April 1985; 25 pages (not all included in download))
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 08 Men across the Sea: Possible American Contacts before 400 AD (A New Horizons Paper, July 1985; 38 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 09 Animals, Plants, and Men in the Americas before Columbus (A New Horizons Survey, August 1985; 27 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 10 Unknown Forces?: Problems of Geomancy, Animal Navigation and Dowsing (A New Horizons Research Foundation Paper, October 1985; 33 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 11 Sleep, Dreams, and Associated Paranormal Phenomena (A New Horizons Paper, November 1985; 34 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 12 Vision and Perception, Auras and Illusions (A New Horizons Paper, January 1986; 38 pages (not all pages included in download))
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF, and A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 13 Holistic Health (A New Horizons Research Foundation Paper, February 1986; 34 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 14 Formative Causation: The Sheldrake Hypothesis (unpublished paper, February 1986; 40 pages (not all pages included in download))
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 15 More Men Across the Sea: Pre-Columbian American Contacts, Real or Imaginary, 400 AD to 1492 AD (A New Horizons Paper, February 1986; 23 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 16 Fraud, Folly, and Fallibility (A New Horizons Research Monograph, May 1986; 118 pages)
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF 17 “Scratching Fanny”: The Ghost of Cock Lane (A Report by New Horizons Foundation, October 1986; 26 pages)
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF, and A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 18 Teleportation (A New Horizons Research Paper, October 1986; 33 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 19 Borley Rectory: “The Most Haunted House in England” (A Report by New Horizons Foundation of some Investigations made into this alleged Haunting, October 1986; 77 pages). Includes a copy of two issues of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research relating to Borley Rectory: Vol. 51 (1956) by Eric J. Dingwall, Kathleen M. Goldney, and Trevor H. Hall; and Vol. 55 (1969) by Robert J. Hastings.
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 20 Poltergeists in Canada (A New Horizons Research Paper, October 1986; 28 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 21 The Evidence for Survival (A New Horizons Research Paper, November 1986; 32 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 22 The Functions and Physiology of Memory (A New Horizons Research Foundation Paper, January 1987; 46 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 23 Miracles (A New Horizons Paper, March 1987; 13 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 23a Parapsychological Method and Miracles: Invited Lecture delivered to the Parapsychological Association 36th Annual Convention, Toronto, Canada, 1993 (lecture not published in PA Proceedings, 1993; 25 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 24 Stigmata and Physiological and Other Phenomena of Mysticism: In Honour of Father Herbert H. Thurston, SJ (A New Horizons Review, March 1987; 71 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 25 Morphogenetic Fields and Children (A New Horizons Note, April 1987; 20 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 26 Subjective Biases and Parapsychological Phenomena: The Magetism of Emotions (A New Horizons Research Paper, September 1987; 25 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 27 Probability: Puzzles and Paradoxes (A New Horizons Note, October 1987; 31 pages (not all pages included in download))
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 28 Parapsychology and Sociology (A New Horizons Research Foundation Paper, October 1987; 43 pages (not all pages included in download))
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 29 Notes Introductory to a Conference on Parapsychology and Physics (unpublished notes, October 1987; 85 pages (not all pages included in download))
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF 30 Modern Urban Legends (A New Horizons Note, November 1991; 24 pages)
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF 31 Child Abuse and Satanism (A New Horizons Note, November 1991; 25 pages)
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF 31a Satanism and Child Abuse: Invited Lecture to the Division of Humanistic Psychology of the American Psychological Assocation in Toronto, Canada, 1993 (??unpublished?? lecture, 1993; 11 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 32 The Mysterious Crop Circles (A New Horizons Note, December 1991; 64 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 33 On the Cutting Edge of Research (A New Horizons Research Paper, Summer 1992; 18 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 34 The Evolution of Theories of Dreaming (A New Horizons Paper, November 1992; 19 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 35 Cryptozoology: “Animals which live in dark and hidden places” (A New Horizons Paper, November 1992; 44 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 36 The Mysterious Crop Circles: An Update (A New Horizons Note, January 1993; 15 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 37 Mysterious Fires: Spontaneous Human Combustion (A New Horizons Paper, January 1993; 52 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 38 False Memory Syndrome and Dreams (A New Horizons Research Paper, January 1994; 19 pages)
Mrs. Katherine C. Verschaeve 39 Creativity in Painting (Circulated with permission of the Author by the NHRF, March 1987; 6 pages)
Susan M. Intner, Jeremiah A. Farrington, and A. Jensine Andresen 40 The Glastonbury Zodiac (A New Horizons Research Report, January 1985; 45 pages)
A. Jensine Andresen, and Mark Bonchek, both of Princeton University 41 Proceedings of the Ley Hunter’s Moot: Saturday and Sunday, 19 and 20 July 1986, Manning Hall, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1, England, UK (Report prepared for the New Horizons Research Foundation by A.J. Andresen and M. Bonchek of Princeton University, 1986; 10 pages)
A. Jensine Andresen, Princeton University 42 Notes on Aspects of Geomancy (Limited circulation by permission to New Horizons Research Foundation associates, 1986; 23 pages)
A. Jensine Andresen and Mark Bonchek, both of Princeton University 43 Magnetometer Surveys of Prehistoric Stone Circles in Britain, 1986 (Report on a New Horizons Research Project, November 1986; 39 pages)
A. Jensine Andresen and Mark Bonchek, both of Princeton University 44 Studies on Presumed Ancient “Zodiacs” in Britain (Report on a New Horizons Research Project, November 1986; 31 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF 45 Dr. Robert Thouless and His Test for Human Survival of Death (A New Horizons Research Brief, August 1987; 64 pages; not yet released on SRIC website, pending copyright approval)
Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF, Joel L. Whitton, MD, Raymond Bayless, and Frank J. Riley 46 Papers on the “Philip” Experiment and Audio Phenomena (Reprinted from the New Horizons Journal, 1975-1977; 24 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF none The New Horizons Research Foundation: Proposals for Activities in the Period commencing 1 July 1983 (A typical annual proposal of work, 1983; 17 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF none The New Horizons Research Foundation: Report for the year 1 July 1983 to 30 June 1984 (A typical annual report, 1984; 14 pages)
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF none A Research Brief on Experiments to be Conducted by the Toronto Society for Psychical Research in 1987 and 1988 (September 1987; 16 pages (not all pages included in download))
A.R.G. Owen, MA, PhD, Vice-President, NHRF, and Iris M. Owen, SRN, NHRF none Society for Scientific Exploration: Third Annual Meeting, Princeton University, Oct. 29-31st 1984 (November 1984; 4 pages)

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