The Occult Sciences - Oniromancy or the Study of Dreams

By M. C. Poinsot

A republication of the 1897 edition. A study and interpretation of dreams including a key to various types of dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473357358

Book preview

ONIROMANCY

I

Antiquity of Oniromancy. Famous Dreams

ALL nations in all times were struck by the extravagance of dreams, and also by the coincidences which they noticed between the subject matter of their dreams and subsequent events. Therefore at an early date a premonitory value was attached to dreams, wise men began to comment on them, and a special science was born to interpret them.

This belief in the revelation of the future by the images of sleep came from the faith in gods who by this means sent to man warnings and counsel. It will thus be seen at once that Oniromancy (from oneiros, dream, and manteia, divination) is connected with intuitive divination, whilst the inductive divination interprets the signs of the thoughts of the gods. We have here an intimate communion with the intellect, a subjective (and not objective, by means of intermediaries) prediction, which is made by the direct coming of celestial light to the mind. This is how Aristotle understood it, whilst admitting that sometimes the language of dreams might be symbolical.

Oniromancy is a great realm which may be divided into two territories:—that of the observation of dreams, or Oniroscopy, and that of their interpretation, or Onirocritics. Plutarch and Cicero did not scorn to study it, and following them there are numerous authors from olden times to the present day¹ not to speak of many writers of Keys to Dreams, always drawn up at second hand.

One of these Keys, the most famous and extremely old, is that of Artemidorus of Ephesus which has recently been translated and commented on by Mr. Henri Vidal in a beautifully produced book with notes on the author, from which we gather the following information.²

Artemidorus was born at Ephesus in the time of Antoninus Pius. He practised Oniromancy in his native city, then a magnificent and famous town, and also Chiromancy, under the name of Artemidorus of Daldia. He had read all the treatises which had up to then appeared dealing with these matters, and had sought his enlightenment from Epicharmus, Antiphon, Strabo, Demetrius of Phalera, Apollodorus, Aristarchus, Aristides the magnetiser, Geminus the astrologer, and many others. He added his own experiences and was careful to distinguish between dreams which might have a premonitory value and others.

Mr. Vidal also refers to the interesting book which Mr. Boucher-Leclercq has devoted to the ancient history of the divinatory arts.¹ According to this author Onirocritics is as old as the world. But Jaucourt gives its origin more exactly by tracing it back to the Egyptian priests who were past masters of the art. But it is more probable that dreams have always moved those who had them.

Many dreams have become famous, either on account of the position of those who had them, or on account of the events which happened and which are claimed to have been foretold by them.

No child who has