People
Mary Attwood MA
Co-Founder and Director
Mary is co-founder and director of The Centre for Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred, an art historian, author, mentor and business creative. She is co-founder and director of Channel McGilchrist, was the founding Chairman of the Victoria branch of The Arts Society, is a qualified practitioner of yoga, meditation and mindfulness, has published two books with Watkins, and will be publishing an ancestral family book in Summer 2023.
Mary’s teaching and research seek to offer a broader understanding of art, not as an object to be analysed, but as a bridge between seemingly disparate ways of understanding the world and our place in it. While honouring the historical, broadening perceptions of art beyond rationalising analysis, categories and styles, opens doorways both in us and in the image. But beyond this, how we look at art art can reveal ways of knowing and seeing that change not only what we see in art, but change us and the world around us, and can help us meet the complexities of modern living by offering a renaissance of humane values.
Mary regularly hosts our online seminars, talks and courses with our other director, Dr Louise Livingstone. She also teaches group sessions, including her monthly The Art of Seeing sessions, holds private and group gallery tours, and one-to-one sessions working with archetypal images as invaluable guides. Mary holds a BA hons degree in The History of Art from London University where her studies focused on Italian late medieval and Renaissance art and architecture, and an MA with distinction from CCCU where her thesis researched quattrocento Florentine Renaissance art from a broad context of ancient Greek philosophy, the neuroscientific approach of Dr Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis, archetypal psychology and Renaissance artistic approaches.
View Mary’s contributions to this site here.
Find out more at Mary’s website maryattwood.com
“Mary does not ‘teach’ as such; she introduces a painting (or an artist, or an idea) and then enters a process of mutual discovery as a co-explorer…” (Veronica Bennetts)
Louise Livingstone PhD
Co-Founder and Director
Louise is co-founder and director of The Centre for Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred and founder and director of the Heart Sense Research Institute – www.heartsenseresearch.co.uk. Louise taught on the MA Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred at Canterbury Christ Church University and completed her PhD there. The title of her thesis is: How can the thought of the heart offer effective ways of engaging with conflict? An imaginal and reflexive study. The project draws on the discourses of transformational learning, depth psychology, holistic science, cultural history, esoteric wisdom and religious philosophy.
Louise’s work aims to re-imagine the long-forgotten wise and intelligent heart for contemporary times; illuminating through research, contemplative action and nourishing dialogue how the heart as a focal point of compassion, love and kindness, and as an organ of perception and wisdom, is a valuable and vital ally in our world of increasing global challenges, injustice and inequality. Her research has wide applicability in terms of social justice, sustainability, and the development of eco-consciousness. She also holds an MSc in Holistic Science, with distinction, from the Schumacher College, Devon, UK.
Louise has recently welcomed a new cohort of Heart Sense participants eager to connect with, and begin their own conversation with, their heart. As well as this, she has been co-facilitating monthly Gaia Gatherings with her husband, Jay; sending heart-centred healing to the Earth and her subjects. The Gaia Gatherings take place on the last Tuesday of the month, and were inspired by Louise and Jay’s popular Conversations with Gaia 6-week course.
View Louise’s contributions to this site here.
“Louise’s teaching sessions on Goethean inquiry were an important part of our learning and her researches into the thought of the heart go to the very core of spiritual scholarship and practice. I was able to use her “transference dialogues” as a form of imaginal enquiry to communicate with a formerly inaccessible part of myself – truly transformative learning.” (Janice Emmott)
Angela Voss PhD SFHEA
Co-Founder & Visiting Lecturer
As co-founder and visiting lecturer, Angela Voss currently supports the Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred Diploma through her wealth of material, much of which can be found on the Centre for Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred website. Prior to this she was involved in devising and teaching Masters programmes in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred in Canterbury UK, along with some wonderful colleagues. Her passion for Renaissance music and culture led her to delve into the magical world of the fifteenth century magus Marsilio Ficino, and from there to the Western esoteric traditions and the power of the symbolic to awaken the human soul. She has written extensively on Ficino’s astrological music, on astrology and divination, Neoplatonism and magic, and on transformative learning. She has also practiced as an astrologer and tarot reader.
View Angela’s contributions to this site here.
“The determination and untiring vision of Angela Voss have been essential in blazing a trail of imagination through all our work at Kent” (Geoffrey Cornelius)
Simão Cortês MA
Visiting lecturer
Simão Cortês is an astrologer, academic and a dream researcher. He has been exploring symbolic and divinatory techniques since 2012. In 2018 he concluded his Master’s in Myth Cosmology and the Sacred where he developed a Creative Project focused on dreams. He is now pursuing a PhD about the relationship between dreaming and education. His main interests are dreams, astrology, ancient philosophy and the intersection of animism and social justice issues.
View Simao’s contributions to this site here.
Geoffrey Cornelius PhD
Visiting Lecturer
View Geoffrey’s contributions to this site here.
William Rowlandson PhD
Visiting Lecturer
Dr William Rowlandson is an entity currently operating as Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury. He is the author of Sartre in Cuba—Cuba in Sartre (Palgrave, 2017), Imaginal Landscapes (Swedenborg Society, 2015), Borges, Swedenborg and Mysticism (Peter Lang, 2013), co-author with Angela Voss of Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence (Cambridge Scholars, 2013) and contributor to DMT Dialogues: Encounters with the Spirit Molecule (Park Street Press, 2018, ed. David Luke & Rory Spowers). Author of books and articles on Latin American cultural and political history, Cuban literature, Borges, Swedenborg, mysticism, psychedelics, the Imaginal, Faery, and the Daimonic. University Sustainability Champion, co-founder of Canterbury Climate Action Partnership (CCAP), gardener, composter, vermiphile, mycophile, drummer, proud tree-hugger, megalithomaniac and weirdonaut. Father of two girl entities.
