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Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays in Astrology and Divination
Author(s): Patrick Curry (Author, Editor), Angela Voss (Author, Editor)
- Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Publication Date: 22 Jan. 2008
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 345 pages
- ISBN-10: 1847183611
- ISBN-13: 9781847183613
Book Description
Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays in Astrology and Divination represents the cutting-edge of contemporary thought and research on divination. The thirteen authors come from a variety of academic disciplines, ranging from anthropology and classics to English literature and religious studies, and all address the question of divination, astrology and oracles in a spirit of critical but sympathetic inquiry. The emphasis is on a participatory and reflexive approach which is firmly post-positivist, seeking to understand the divinatory act on its own terms within widely varying contexts – ancient Greek and Chaldean philosophy and theurgy, Theravadan Buddhism, Biblical studies, Elizabethan Hermeticism, Jacobean drama, Heideggerian philosophy, Medieval scholasticism, 19th century occultism, contemporary Guatemalan divination and Western medical practice. The authors are all teachers or researchers in the area of divination and symbolism, which is a new disciplinary focus developing at the University of Kent, Canterbury under the aegis of the MA programme in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination. The essays in this volume originally contributed to an international conference of the same name held there in April 2006.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘…all papers reflect the currently renaissance of divination studies within humanities and social sciences and will undoubtedly further stimulate this development.’Audrius Beinorius, Vilnius University, Acta Orientalia Vilnensia Volume 9, Issue 1, 2009’…a central theme is that divinatory knowledge involves a different mode of insight and a corresponding shift in perception. The essays range over many cultures and schools, including Chaldea, Stoicism, lamblichus, Theravadan Buddhism, astrology, medicine and Mayan culture. The tension between divination and the normal approach of academic studies is particularly fruitful and brings the reader to a deeper understanding of the meaning of participatory knowledge.’Network Review, Summer 2010
About the Author
Patrick Curry teaches on the MA programme in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination at the University of Kent. He has written books on astrology, divination, and environmental philosophy. He is currently working on a study of enchantment. Angela Voss is convenor of the MA programme in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination at the University of Kent. She has specialized in Renaissance astrology and magic, particularly the work of Marsilio Ficino on whom she has many published papers and a recent book.
