Mosaic scene from Homer s Odyssey in the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia
Odyssey Magazine has come full circle as the 250th July 2025 is released and as the 49th revolution around the sun begins. Once a journal for like-minded souls it has matured into the foremost, long-standing holistic and conscious living print magazine in South Africa and quite possibly the world today.
“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.
Jill 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 5000 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 Life Line, decided to take the leap of faith.
“If you can grasp the fact that matter is energy brought to a point of visibility and that thoughts can influence energy, then you have that which makes anything possible.” Friends of Findhorn.
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 Rose’s health having deteriorated.
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 the individual to take full responsibility for their own life – 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 through 2005 to 2007. 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 that “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, emerging stronger. With fewer competitors and Simply Green having won an eco-journalism award in 2010, Odyssey and its sibling were actively at the forefront of making the move to digital media consumption. In early 2011, Odyssey and its sibling launched fulltime 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 reads and impressions within 30 days’ of going live; and ultimately achieved in excess of 450 000”.
Debra Stevens-Robins is the fourth custodian of this well-read and much-loved magazine; that has not only survived, but thrived over four decades and enters its fifth decade in 2026. Her mission to celebrate conscious and holistic living; publishing content to nourish and inspire and to create a phenomenal advertising platform for advertisers across both its digital and print media platforms. Never losing sigh that the best things about Odyssey Magazine is YOU.
As this new chapter began, it became evident that what transpired pre and post the handing over the baton was divinely guided and surrounded by significant synchronicity.
Synchronicity, as defined by Carl Jung, refers to meaningful coincidences that defy simple cause-and-effect explanations. It’s the perception of two or more events happening simultaneously, where the events are connected by a meaning that goes beyond mere chance.
NEXT PART l and PART ll of this ‘New Chapter.
