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We invite you to: ‘Live kindly, gently and consciously with Odyssey Magazine

Our Vision is to publish content to nourish, uplift, inspire and inform, exploring all aspects of engaged consciousness, the joy of living authentically, integrative approaches of complementary healing, spirituality, metaphysics, the intuitive arts and our integral connection with nature, planetary wellbeing and the mysteries beyond.

Passion

Doing what we love in the place we choose to be.

Authenticity

Delivering from the heart; the magazine we would want to read.

Collaboration

Collaborating to produce exceptional content.

Community

YOU are the best thing about our business.

Our multi-platform approach creates a phenomenal advertising platform for our advertisers. Print, digital and online magazine formats on multiple platforms, including: The Apple App and Google Play Stores, giving our advertisers both local and global coverage. Odyssey is a quarterly publication.

Odyssey Magazine, formed in 1977, is and always has been, targeted at the conscious individual who is pursuing, or would like to embark on, a holistic, green and healthful lifestyle to enhance both their personal wellbeing and that of our planet. Our commitment to wellness and green living is neither fad nor fashion; it is an unwavering commitment that extends to almost five decades.

Our History

Odyssey Magazine is in its 48th year and our 250^th edition is winter 2025.

Once a journal for like-minded souls, it has matured into the primary and only national conscious living magazine in Southern Africa today.

Jill Iggulden Stevens, who established Odyssey Magazine in 1977, handed over the baton to daughter-in-law Debra (Stevens) Robins, Editor, on 23.11.2018 in Cape Town, following the purchase of Odyssey Magazine from Chris and Silke Erasmus, who had nurtured this beautiful publication for 18 years.

The inspiration for Odyssey Magazine came to Jill in February 1977 while she was putting together the Maryland Reader, a 16-page booklet for learners who had just learned to read through the Lubach ‘Each-One-Teach-One’ literacy training programme. Jill had so enjoyed this project, in which she was able to inspire other teachers to write articles to motivate the newly literate readers, that Jill pondered the prospects of bringing out a magazine.

On July 7 that year, her dream of having a conscious living magazine was realised:

“I thought how wonderful it would be… a magazine with articles on religious philosophy, a new approach to education, alternative technology, parapsychology, holistic healing and the inter-relationship between thought and manifestation,” remembered Jill. She went on to say: “It seems like yesterday that Gerald Moskovitz and I emerged from the premises of Associated Press carrying our first few copies of Odyssey Magazine, literally hot off the press. The bulk of the 5 000 print copies ordered would be delivered to CNA’s warehouse manager at Buitengacht Street and the rest would be distributed by Mossie, on foot, to his established distribution network.”

Seven years later, a healthy and well-established publication was handed over to a new team – Rose de la Hunt and Jean Mitchell; Rose, with a 10-year tenure as a counselling director at Lifeline, decided to take the leap of faith.

Rose’s 17 years as editor of Odyssey coincided with a period of enormous growth and change in the world of spiritual ideas and experience. Rose described it as “truly a time of the ‘rebirth’ of the sacred” and during her tenure Odyssey was the only magazine of its kind in South Africa. In 2001 the magazine was taken over by Chris and Silke Erasmus following a deterioration in Rose’s health.

Before her passing to spirit, Rose wrote:

“For me those 17 years were incredibly rich and fulfilling, though I worked extremely long hours, the deadlines were relentless and things were not always easy. I really loved my work. And I felt blessed by the opportunities it brought me to meet many great and beautiful souls, visiting luminaries and ‘forerunners’ of a new kind of spirituality.”

In 2004, Namaste Magazine merged with Odyssey Magazine and they teamed up to become one. Namaste’s aim was to empower individuals to take full responsibility for their own lives – on every level – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual – a vision that is still infused in Odyssey Magazine today. Following the incorporation of Namaste into Odyssey Magazine and the opening of a Johannesburg office, Odyssey grew rapidly. In 2007, rather than publish monthly, a collective decision was made to retain Odyssey as a bi-monthly publication. In late 2008, Simply Green was launched and Odyssey reached its all-time circulation high of over 18 000, with a print readership roughly 10 times that number

Silke Erasmus shared her experiences with us, stating:

“The global downturn of 2008-09 hit Odyssey magazine and its sibling as severely as any other print publication, but both ultimately rode out the storm. Odyssey and its sister magazine were actively at the forefront of making the move to digital media consumption. In early 2013, both launched full time into digital. Whilst difficult and challenging, as well as requiring a whole range of new skills, the move proved to be almost immediately and dramatically successful in terms of producing highly readable and free digital publications. Issue 5 of December 2013 achieved a remarkable reach of over 366 000.

Debra Stevens-Robins made the decision to return to print in July 2019 and Odyssey now has a print reach of around 21 000 per edition and today the total digital reach is over 650 000, on average, per edition. Odyssey has maintained its place as the conscious magazine of choice steadfastly, with many ‘long-time’ and new loyal readers. Now in its fourth set of caring hands, the publication is, more now than ever, one of Southern Africa’s longest-standing magazines and continues its legacy of consciousness-raising content aimed at the self-empowerment of all.

Odyssey editor Debra Robins with founder Jill Iggulden Stevens.