Divination by Dreams

07/11/2023 pilgrim stranger Literature
Divination Witchcraft

Chapter 9 of Demonology and Theology (1650) by Nathanael Homes (1599–1678), edited and modernized.

Of oneirology, oneiromancy, somnispicy, or divination by dreams.

That there is such an unlawful art is evident by the Scriptures forbidding it:

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass … thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you … and that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death…

Deuteronomy 13:1-5

I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

Jeremiah 23:25

It appears by such passages that what we call divination by dreams, the Scripture calls prophesying by dreams, condemning it as unlawful.

That we may be clear in the matter, note that there are 4 kinds of dreams:

  1. Divine
  2. Natural
  3. Human
  4. Diabolical

The first is necessarily lawful and prophetic. The second and third may be lawful, as to the essence of dreaming as thinking and speaking according to the acting of reason, and they may be somehow indicative. But the fourth is neither lawful, nor prophetic, nor indicative—unless it be to show that which may be seen without a dream, namely, that such a man is much under the power of the Devil.

Divine Dreams

Divine dreams are either immediately presented to a man's understanding by the Spirit of God (Nu. 12:6; Job 33:15), or mediately by an angel presented to the imagination, and by the figments thereof conveyed to the understanding (Mt. 1:20; 2:13). For as the Devil, being a most intelligent and subtle spirit, can inject into our imagination such evil things (as we know by sad experience), both while awake or asleep, and make our minds receive them thence and think upon them, which not only our grace, but our very reason abhors; so much more a good angel, deputed by God to that end, can inject good things.

Now for these extraordinary divine dreams.

Divine dreams have ceased

First, it is most probable that they are ceased. Keckermann, a godly and most learned man, both in divinity and philosophy, has these words in his natural philosophy:

Seeing that diabolical dreams may impose themselves upon men, as if they were divine; therefore they are to be judged and discerned or discriminated by these two rules. First, that after the light of the Gospel is manifested, God no more acts by dreams. Secondly, whatsoever dream is conjoined with the danger of some sin or superstition, albeit it may seem divine, yet it is a diabolical dream.

Keckermann, Systema Phis. Book 3, Ch. 29

You see how his judgment is, that divine dreams are ceased to Christians. And it seems so to me, because in 1 Corinthians 13:8 it is said, "prophecies shall fail"—in Greek, be done away. Tongues cease. And knowledge (i.e., of mysteries of revelations, verse 2), done away. Now we see the gift of tongues gone, as well as the interpretation of mysteries, and so, in like manner, prophecies. Therefore, in opposition to all former ways of manifestation, the apostle puts an emphasis on Christ speaking: God speaks to us in these last days by his Son (Heb. 1:1-2). Christ, by his apostles, is to be the last extraordinary speaking until he comes again.

Differences between divine and divinatory dreams

Secondly, it is evident that the divine prophetic dreams mentioned in the Scripture are far different from divinatory or divining dreams which this evil age runs after:

First difference: those truly divine dreams concerned the great affairs of God and were of high importance to his Church:

  1. Of the coming of Christ (Mt. 1:20).
  2. The alterations of states and kingdoms that have opposed the Church, such as that of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2). He had the shell of the dream, but Daniel the kernel.
  3. The preservation of the Church, as that dream of which Pharaoh had the shell or type, but Joseph the kernel (Gen. 41).
  4. To bring his saints into request for interpretation of dreams, as an introduction to some great design. Therefore God put dreams into carnal men, that his saints might interpret them and be advanced for the good of the Church; so the story of the butler and baker (Gen. 40), and so partly to that end was Nebuchadnezzar's dream.
  5. To pull down Antichrist (Dan. 7; 11; 12).

Second difference: divine dreams were always very evident in the matter: The type was plain to signify what it meant (such as Jacob's ladder, to signify God's presence should be with him). Or the type was doubled in application to the person, as with Joseph: "your sheaves…made obeisance to my sheaf … the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me" (Gen. 37:7, 9); or else there was a plain interpretation given either to the one who dreamed (as to Daniel, Dan. 7), or to someone else (as the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream was given to Daniel, and Pharaoh's to Joseph), or to both. As to Joseph, and to his parents and brethren, who all understood the meaning; or the type was plain and doubled, and an interpretation too was given, as of that of Pharaoh's ears of corn and the cows.

God either made impressions of assurance on good men's hearts what the meaning of their dream was, or he sent his angels to expound to them, as with Daniel; or else exceedingly enlightened the saints by his Spirit to interpret the dreams of others, as they said of Joseph, that he was full of the Spirit of God (Gen. 41:38).

Third difference: divine dreams are agreeable to the revealed will of God. They do not contradict it, but comment and enlarge upon it. See all throughout the Bible the dreams that come after enlarge upon the truth previously revealed.

Fourth difference: divine dreams always tend to promote truth, holiness, godliness, edification, and the glory of God by these. In addition to what Keckermann said before, he adds: "Whatsoever dreams tend to superstition, and not to the glory of God, are diabolical."

Now dreams are not to be judged except by all of these collectively; never by the subject, for bad men as well as good men have dreamed true divine dreams; nor by the object only, because some things may be lawful in all dreams. But dreams are to be judged by the weightiness of matter, by the clarity of the manner, by their agreeableness to the Word, and by their end to promote godliness, and God's glory.

But because we have no such dreams of future things in these days, we are not, therefore, to pretend a justifiable divination by dreams. If we, by heavenly-mindedness and by help of the Spirit of God, dream of the future judgment, eternal bliss, the ruin of the Church's enemies, or anything else known to us by the Word of God, these are dreams about prophesies, not prophetic dreams; they are devotional, not divinatory.

And if we have no prophetic divine dreams which proceed from God, and carry our minds towards God according to his Word, we have no sort of divinatory dreams left for us, but such as we are to speak against, as to the matter of divination and foretelling by them; accordingly as God speaks against them in his Word (as we heard before).

Natural Dreams

Secondly, we come to natural dreams, which arise from mere natural causes, as either from the predominant qualities of a man's disposition and temperament in health or sickness. It is true that a man who is not intellectually disabled has many notions of divine and human things in his head, which have a part in augmenting or enhancing the content of his natural dreams, but the rise and spring from which such dreams proceed are the predominant qualities and overflowing temperaments of the body, so that these affect the underlying character and system of the dream.

  • From the predominance of a sanguine temperament proceed dreams of cheerful colors, things, and actions, such as of red and damask roses and flowers, purple saffron flowers, music, banquets, dances, leaping, laughter, jesting, etc.
  • From the predominance of a phlegmatic temperament proceed dreams of waters, navigation, swimming, fishing, baths, rains, snows, lakes, rivers, drownings; also dreams of weight hindering one's movements, which is by reason of phlegm depressing and slugging the stomach and body.
  • From the predominance of a choleric and fretful temperament, suitable to the color yellow, proceed dreams of yellow things, as also of brawling, fighting, battles, burnings, and flying (as is suitable to the speedy fury of this temper).
  • From the predominance of a melancholic temperament, suitable to the color black, and an earthy, cold, and heavy temper thereof, proceed dreams of black smoke and vapor, of darkness, night, death, obscure solitary places, ruins of old buildings, hell, the Devil, strangling, decapitation, etc.

Thus these dreams indicate a man's natural temper or sickly distemper, but do not foretell anything.

Human Dreams

Some philosophers call these animal dreams, and the reason may be because these kind of dreams are such as are formed in the night out of images, imaginations, and representations of the actions which the mind had conceived during the day, which are newly impressed upon the animal spirits and dwelling there more tenaciously, as in a storehouse, ready for the operation of the mind to renew and digest them into dreams. But since beasts have imaginations (for we see that dogs can dream), and since the dreams of men have some notions of rationality in them, therefore accordingly I call these human dreams. Of these the Scripture speaks: "a dream cometh through the multitude of business" (Ecc. 5:3). And we find it true by many experiences that all men, as they use different arts or ways, dream differently, which Claudian the poet articulates:

What sensible notions we revolve in the day return in the sleep of night. The wearied hunter reposed to sleep has his mind upon woods and dens of wild beasts; judges dream of controversies; wagoners or coachmen, of wagons or coaches, and their careful running with their horses and stages. As for me (says Claudian), the study of the Muses solicit me, in the sleep of night, with their daily arts.

Therefore, these dreams do rather retrodict than predict; they indicate what we have been doing, or, at most, what the habit of our minds is. As Aristotle says, "The just man dreams of justice," as experience will tell a man accustomed to a particular vice that he will dream of the acting that vice. But they do not foretell what men shall do any more than the disposition and habit in their minds will tell them in the daytime, if acquainted with their own heart, what they are likely to do if they strive not against it. Much less do these dreams foretell what shall befall them any more than what naturally attends the acting of those habits.

Objection: We find by experience that what we dream often does punctually come to pass.

Answer: But dreams as dreams (which is the pin of the question) do not foretell. Many things may come to pass according to our dreams which are not foretold us by virtue of our dreams, for:

  1. Some events are merely contingent and accidental in relation to our dreams, which is also what Keckermann and the great philosopher Aristotle confess. For example, suppose a man, in his second sleep, should dream it would be day before long. This dawning of the day soon after his dream, though necessary to the revolution of the heavens, was merely contingent to the dream. It was by happenstance that the dream preceded, and so the dawning followed it. A hundred similar instances could be given, but we intend brevity.
  2. Some notions of the imagination are passionate, moving much hope or fear, at least, upon some probabilities. According to these deeper impressions, a man more pronely and distinctly dreams. It is true that those probable things come to pass, but not as foretold by our dreams; rather, by our probable fears and hopes that such things would come to pass, which have been maintained in our thoughts while awake. As to dream upon probable conjecture that we shall hear of the death of such a dear friend, whose death we feared while awake because we had not heard of them in such a space of time as we would have otherwise in normal circumstances, etc., and accordingly, soon after, we hear he is dead.
  3. There is a natural and rational dependence between causes and effects, and between signs and things, necessarily connected in nature. Hereupon in our meditations during the day we foresee such a thing, and during our sleep in the night we dream the same,, and the thing comes to pass. It was just our reason, while awake, that predicted this, not the vain dreams by night. Just as the shining of light at the dawning more clearly indicates that the sun is about to rise than does an object standing open to the east by casting a shadow towards the west, so our dreams by night are but a shadow in comparison to our reason while awake.
  4. Many heeding dreams more out of a sinful superstition than for any just cause give themselves over to a kind of confidence and subjection whereby they believe that it shall be, must be, and cannot be otherwise than according to their dreams. Such people hereby tempt themselves to do that which they dreamed; so their dreams come to pass only on account of their own acting upon them, not because of any prediction. It is just as some melancholy person who does many strange things only because he has a strange idea that he must, unavoidably, so act, even though the necessity was manufactured in the spinning imagination of his own brain.
  5. Satan often tempts the sons of men to do according to the dreams of dreamers, that he may bring his diabolical dreams, by this introduction, into credit; of which we shall shortly speak. So that in this artifice, the dreams of men predict nothing, but only Satan effects an event in accordance with the dream (by divine permission). Just as if one was relating a dream he had about his adversary striking him on the ear, and a bad neighbor, after hearing this discourse, goes forth and persuades that adversary to accordingly strike the dreamer on the ear at their next meeting, and he does it, by persuasion of that bad neighbor; does it at all follow that there was any prediction in this dream? It is similar with the Devil's temptings and effectings according to men's dreams. And this may be as well in other men, and their affairs, of which another man dreams, as well as in the man and his own affairs who dreamed that dream.
  6. God, by his providence and in just judgment on those who so heed dreams, permits that their dreams should be somewhat fulfilled, so that these things come to pass, not according to a virtue of prediction in dreams, but by the just judgment of God, because men, before they sleep, do not pray against sinful dreams, and after sleep do not slight their dreams, but credit and confide in them (2Th. 2:10-12).

Thus of the third sort of dreams, which we call human dreams.

Diabolical Dreams

Fourthly, we come to diabolical dreams. That the Devil can be the main cause of dreams, which we call diabolical, is apparent in that:

  1. Since he has been such a cause of dreams, as we shall soon show, therefore he can be so still (his wit and wickedness not ceasing); and these times not better in reformation of manners, but rather worse.
  2. He can suggest, as appears by woeful experience, evil thoughts to us when we are awake, different from the many objects and things that then our senses and thoughts are drawn after; therefore much more to us while asleep, when the operation of the senses has ceased.
  3. If he could represent evil dictates before the mind of Christ (Mt. 4), he can inject them into us.
  4. If he could present the shape of a dead man to living Saul (1Sa. 28:14), he can represent other images and imaginations of things.
  5. Good angels have caused good dreams (Mt. 1; 2); therefore, proportionately and by the rule of contraries, bad angels can cause bad dreams.

Question: How may we know whether a dream is diabolical, since evil dreams may arise from inward corruption?

Answer:

  1. By the contraries to the notes of divine prophetic dreams, as when dreams seem never so good in the matter of them, yet they are dark and confused in the digest; and are of personal slight things, and do not promote the revealed truth of the Word, and godliness of conversation, and the glory of God, but rather have a tendency and consequence to lead to superstition. For such dreams as these are outside of the sphere of proper natural causes or human actions, and therefore must be from Satan.
  2. They are diabolical especially when one has a strong impression on his mind that such dreams are prophetic or divinatory.
  3. They are necessarily diabolical when they proceed neither from any observation of the senses, nor actions of the body, nor thoughts of the mind during the day.
  4. When they are horrid, not only to grace, but where no grace is, even to morality, civility, common reason, and the instinct of poor lapsed nature.

If these signs are not sufficient, consider the following general observations and specific examples of diabolical dreams, as have been attested by Keckermann. Valerius Maximus, Master Perkins, and Alsted.

  1. They tell us that diabolical dreams are when, while a man is asleep, the Devil, as it were, oppresses, besieges, surrounds—indeed, in a manner possesses—his thoughts, forming and fashioning in them representations and dreams whereby he is stirred up to idolatry, superstition, etc. Such dreams for the most part are obscure, uncertain, and mixed with vain fantasies and lies, which is a prime symptom of diabolical somnispicine, or divination by Satanical dreams.
  2. They tell us that some diabolical dreams are solicitous dreams, which are solicitously obtained of the Devil by adjurations, vows, devotions, sacrifices, oblations, or other religious performances; as of those somnispices (diviners by dreams) counted in a kind religious. Such were the dreams:
    • Of the heathen, who, having purified themselves by their sacrifices to fit themselves to receive full manifestations by dreams, did to that end lie down in the night and sleep in the temple of Pasithea, one of three graces called Charites (the first Aglaea, splendor, the same as Pasithea; secondly, Thalia, always green, never withering; thirdly, Euphrosyne, joy). I say in the temple of Pasithea among the Lacedemonians at the altar, and in the temple of Asclepius, and at the altar of Apollo; and in their sleep the Devil formed dreams in their minds as answers to what they desired, in which the Devil spoke to them as if at an oracle.
    • Of the Manicheans in the time of the primitive church, as appears abundantly out of ecclesiastical stories. For though at the coming of Christ, oracles—the greatest and strongest delusions ever used by Satan—ceased, yet he has since, by visions and dreams, wrought in the heads of many men most strange conceits for the raising up of heresies. This he did in the Manicheans, who had their damnable opinions (that there was a good God and a bad God that were eternal, the authors of all things, that the souls of man and beasts were all one, that the soul was a part of God, taken from him, that what creature any man did kill, or eat; into that his soul was turned when he died, etc.) inspired and confirmed to them in and by dreams.
    • Of the monks at their altars, to receive revelations, the Devil in their sleep in the night, in dreams appeared in the appearance of the Virgin Mary or some other saint, manifesting and confirming the observation of such and such popish superstitions.
  3. They tell us that there are other diabolical dreams which were neither with those solemnities nor with such earnest labor sought for, but suggested and formed in men's minds by the Devil, influencing them to be given to novelties, strange opinions, and unheard of revelations. Such were:
    • Those who pretended to be inspired with some divine fury, or strange rapture (called Lympathici).
    • The Enthusiasts, or pretended Revelationists.
    • A subset of Anabaptists (as they call them) who in the time of reformation from popery (by Hus, Prague, Luther, Wycliffe, etc.) pretending visions and dreams to reveal things to them, committed many horrid things in Westphalia, Thuringia, etc.
    • The Family of love mightily boasted of their revelations by dreams, believing they must come to the height by degrees—a man must ascend by steps before he can be of them, an Elder illuminate, and a man deified (as they speak)—and when one has attained to this, then he has strong illusions by visions and dreams.

I need not labor to make a parallel of our times to these practices, for almost all of you have heard and know the abundance of people who now heed visions and dreams by which they pretend to have revelations, some of whom I might easily name, who are alive today and their books in print. And how they speak, similar to the Manicheans, that the creature is God, and God the creature, and like the Familists, that a man is deified, etc.

Nor need I labor to show the evil of these dreams, in regard of the author, the Devil; the subject, men usually departing from holiness; the matter, a mixture of vanity, if not sin; and the end, to draw men from the infallible word of truth. You have heard enough by what has been spoken.

Nor is there need of much endeavor to show that these dreams foretell nothing but lies. Nor do they indicate any other thing than that there is much communion between them and Satan. Therefore I shall conclude this chapter concerning dreams only with this caution: you who profess a knowledge of the truth, stick to the word of truth before any revelations by one from the dead (Lk. 16:31; Isa. 8:19-20) or visions or voices from heaven (2Pe. 1:19), or from any angel, if he agrees not with the Gospel (Gal. 1:8-9).