Dr. Angela Voss is an expert in mythology, astrology, and Western esotericism. She’s also one of the two editors of Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, whose imminent publication I recently talked about here. In conjunction with that post, she has asked me to help spread the word about an exciting new graduate program in these subjects that she has helped to create in the UK. Conveniently, this is a request that plays right into my already-existing plans, since I was planning to mention the new graduate program at some point anyway! In the past few months I’ve seen various announcements and updates about its development and planned launch in January 2014, and have thought the whole thing looks and sounds quite fascinating.
As you’ll see from the following description, the program also lands right in the middle of the same territory explored not only by the Daimonic Imagination book but by portions of this very blog. I urge you to click through the title link below to the program’s page at the Canterbury Christ Church University site, where you can read more details on the specific subjects to be covered. Items that leap out at me personally include “”The nature of mythopoeic thought: symbol and metaphor,” “Renaissance art and theurgic magic,” “Jung, Corbin and Hillman on active imagination,” “The return to the gods in transpersonal psychology,” and “Subliminal mind and the unconscious.”
Maybe somebody among The Teeming Brain’s audience will find that this is just the thing they’ve been looking for.
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Announcing a new Masters programme in Canterbury, UK:
MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred
TUTORS:
Wilma Fraser (director)
Geoffrey Cornelius
Angela Voss
Marguerite Rigoglioso (guest lecturer)
This interdisciplinary Masters programme draws on studies in psychology, anthropology, theology, esoteric philosophy, a range of wisdom traditions and the arts. It offers a discerning investigation into seemingly non-rational modes of knowing, exploring the cosmological sense of the sacred, the widespread practices of symbol-interpretation and divination, and the cultural role of the creative imagination. The programme will appeal to all those seeking to enrich their lives through the study of the history, philosophy and rituals of Western sacred and esoteric traditions, and will be of particular interest to teachers, practitioners and therapists in the fields of contemporary spirituality and well-being who would like to engage more deeply with the foundations of their work. Students will be required to submit four essays, a creative portfolio and review, extracts from an ongoing reflective Learning Journal and a dissertation. The MA is taught at alternate weekends Jan-June, with additional Wednesday mornings for full-time students. The second half of the year consists of supervised research with a presentation weekend in September. Students will be required to submit four essays, a creative portfolio and review, extracts from an ongoing reflective Learning Journal and a dissertation.
For the student handbook and all admin information (including fees) contact Michelle Childs post.compulsory.education@canterbury.ac.uk, 01227 863458. For information regarding course content, contact Angela Voss angela.voss@canterbury.ac.uk
We also welcome enquiries for M.Phil and Ph.D research in related areas.
The cosmology of mediumship and/or shamanism is a very different one than monotheism. in the Bible, in Genesis.. the story of Jacob’s Ladder is probably the best example in the Bible of a ‘pagan’ cosmology sharing space with the monotheistic one.. it is an elohist perspective, communion with angels, and the story has a similar idea running through it as the underlying principle behind Shinto which is communion with kami .
Many people I have talked to speak of the sacred and the paranormal through a monotheistic cosmology. but when you work from a different perspective.. the idea of Potential contact with myriad plurality of divinity, you give yourself a much higher chance of success through enlarging your field of correspondence.
Entreating communion with kami, would not work in a monotheistic cosmology. It works because you give yourself a chance to commune and have fealty with the myriad of the local.
It is the difference between whether someone can do that by themselves, or need someone else to channel into them, claiming lineage.