Stichting Het Johan Borgman Fonds (The Johan Borgman Foundation)

Description of your institution:

Name of institution: Stichting Het Johan Borgman Fonds (The Johan Borgman Foundation)
Mailing address: PO BOX 40 / zipp code: 3980 CA / town: BUNNIK / country: The Netherlands
Email address: info@hjbf.nl
Website: www.hetjohanborgmanfonds.nl

Description of how and when your institution started acquiring archival, library or artifact collections relating to parapsychology:

Started in 2007 – and soon upscaling e.g. special building for this project since July 2008.

Your main collections in the field, including the names of prominent creators:

We collect books, journals and archival holdings on Spiritualism and parapsychology as a science in the Netherlands in the 20th century (period 1880 – 2010).
The goal is not to keep these collections ourselves but to offer them – for free – to official (national, regional & university) archival institutions and (national and university) libraries. Primarily in The Netherlands but occasionally we offer these materials also to international institutions.

Your collections page relating to parapsychology holdings:

We have a page on our foundation website mentioning the processed collections and we have a Facebook and LinkedIN page mentioning daily activities e.g. collections recently obtained and/or visitors using the collections at our HJBF premises.

Finding aids for your main parapsychology collections:

See our foundation website.

Any relevant external websites of prominent creators of your holdings:

The websites of the regional archives and libraries to which we donated the collections. On these websites the detailed indexes of our collections are publicly and for free available to everyone.
e.g. 1) National Royal Dutch Library

2) Regional Archive: Gelders Archief has three different collections from us:
– Collection 3176: Johan Borgman. This collection has a focus on Mr. Johan Borgman, his personal live, his poetry, his art paintings and his healing practice. See: click here.

– Collection 3177: The Foundation Johan Borgman Fonds. This includes a unique collection on Psychic Healing in the Netherlands in the 20 th century. Books, journals and archives of Dutch Healing Societies. See: click here.

– Collection: (number not yet known. Handed over but on-line availability is in process) of the ‘Foundation Spiritual Centre Netherlands’. A Spiritual foundation based on the work of the Arthur Findlay college in the UK. This foundation was active from 1983 – 2002. HJBF has the ownership on the complete archive of this foundation. Will be available for free to the public in the autumn of 2018.

3) Regional Archive Utrecht: Collection of the Dutch Spiritualist society HARMONIA (1888 – 2010). This is a huge archive about the history of Spiritualism in The Netherlands. It contains books, journals, documents, pictures, and some artifacts. It is listed under two numbers (1390 and 1841) because after the first donation in 2013, two additional accruals were made of newly acquired materials in 2015 and 2017. A 4th addition is ready to be handed over soon.
See: click here.

4) City Archive of Amsterdam. Collection: Dutch Spiritual Church Foundation (1938 – 1993). This collection has been handed over recently but is not yet available on-line. Will be available to the public for free in the autumn of 2018. The Dutch Spiritual Church Foundation was a society with a strong connection to Spirituality and Christianity. Founded in May 1945 and closed down in 1993. In the 1950’s this society was rather influential and also international active. It was connected to the ISF and had chapters in The Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, Swiss, etc.

5) IGPP Germany. Over the years we have also donated a dozen small archives, many books, journals and video tapes to the archival project and library of the IGPP in Freiburg, Germany. All listed on their website and the University library website.

6) Books and journals. In the past years we have also donated many books and journals to university libraries in The Netherlands (Groningen and Rotterdam), USA, and Canada. Also we have donated to some private collections that are in compliance with our policy. E.g. recently a large collection to the AFU in Sweden.

7) Next to this archiving work we organize (international) conferences and present about our collections at international conferences and study days by e.g. Dutch SPR, UK SPR, German WGFP, PA, and several conferences outside the scope of parapsychology. E.g. Study evening in 2017 at the Society for Young Historians.

Published works created using your parapsychology collections, including books, plays, artwork, both non-fiction and fiction:

Over the years a variety of articles published in Dutch and/or international journals. Some written by ourselves and others written by BA/MA/Phd. Students, visiting researchers and Dutch and international (newspaper) journalist.

In 2017 we had two significant nation wide exposures to the general public
1: National newspaper article (both printed (in three newspapers) and on line.
2: Item on Dutch national TV in a -very well respected – history program: click here.
This also has a follow up on short radio items and even a live item by WK at a special day about the history of Utrecht.