Meant to post this a while back, after lmp asked me what I meant in another post!
Yes, Phantastes is sometimes said to be an allegorical work about the need for the human to shrug off the carnal and accept the spiritual. However I've heard otherwise (e.g. the stories are quite Jungian), and apparently MacDonald wasn't happy with those who simply said "this book is an allegory" as he claimed it was much more complex than that. Of course, MacDonald had some individualistic ideas about God and Christ, so it would not be easy to pinpoint the allegorical elements unless you knew MacDonald's philosophies (broadly, he disliked Calvinism, and predestination). I'll have to ask davem to dig it out for me and have another look.
I don't know about SoWM being allegorical. It all seems too familiar and real to me to be allegory.
