26
The Theory of Dreams
DREAMS
AS DIVINE
GUIDANCE
Our more recent ancient ancestors
believed divine guidance came only
from without. Biblical stories emphasize
this, with constant reference to those
celestial voices and visions dreamed
by the prophets and reported to the
multitudes. Yet ordinary people may
have been able to foretell the future,
with the more prudent dreamers
keeping quiet—either unable to record
their prophecies or, more likely,
remaining silent through fear of reprisal.
US_026-027_As_divine_guidance.indd 26 17/09/2019 16:03
Dreams as Divine Guidance
Dangerous times
If a dream held a message or glimpses of the
future not foretold by an accepted prophet of
God, it was blasphemous to early Christians.
They had embraced the monotheistic 18th-
dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten’s insistence that
there was only one God (as did Moses, who
was raised in Egypt), communicating His wishes
through a chosen few—chiey His main
followers. Joseph and Daniel are recorded to
have received dozens of dreams from God,
faithfully reported in the Bible.
But ordinary people kept silent—for the next
1,000 years or so. Then two Europeans in the
15th and the 16th century began taking risks,
despite the fear of punishment. One such was
Old Mother Shipton of Yorkshire, England, who
described her visions in rhymed couplets,
largely domestic in content—though she did
predict horseless carriages, which came
hundreds of years later, and that iron boats
would navigate the seas. (She also predicted
the world would end, 211 years before the
Mayans’ inaccurate forecast for this century, so
her gift was at times awed.)
Burning witches for presumed rejection of
the Church’s teaching started in southern
France in the 14th century. That grim practice
spread to England in the 16th century. Mother
Shipton avoided a terrible death by disguising
her dream visions in verse: hard to decode
clearly enough to condemn her to the res.
A fellow sensitive, French-born Nostradamus
penned Les Propheties, a set of extraordinary
insights (did he dream them, or use a crystal
ball?) in dense quatrains published in 1555. The
book became a bestseller over the next few
centuries and, incredibly, is still in print.
Many researchers since have been
skeptical of his prophecies, yet the Provençal
physician is credited with forecasting the two
World Wars, nuclear destruction, the attack
on the World Trade Center, and catastrophic
climate change.
US_026-027_As_divine_guidance.indd 27 04/06/2019 11:15
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