From Allegory to Anagoge; the question of symbolic perception in a literal world

This paper contributes to a collection arising from the first Sophia Trust Conference on ‘Astrology and the Academy’ held at Bath Spa University College in 2003. The conference was ground-breaking in its theme of the ways in which astrological study can be introduced into the academy. Angela Voss addresses the question of how systems of divination such as astrology can be studied from the perspective of the epistemology of symbolic discourse, and suggests the need to deepen both practitioners’ and academics’ understanding of divinatory practice through the analysis of symbolic modes of perception. This essay reflects some of the concerns of the new MA in the cultural study of Cosmology and Divination at the University of Kent, Canterbury, convened by Dr Voss, and as such is representative of a new inter-disciplinary approach to the phenomenology of divination