Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. If
Speaker 1: my name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: In the last episode, we discussed the power of dreams
Speaker 1: to impact the waking world, with a particular focus on
Speaker 1: times and places where the mystique of dreams seems to
Speaker 1: have held particular sway over prominent intellectual and or theological
Speaker 1: circles in a given society. So you know, what does
Speaker 1: it mean for a people when the gateway of prophetic
Speaker 1: dreaming is open wider and what factors seem to contribute
Speaker 1: to these upticks in dream fascination In particular, In the
Speaker 1: last episode, we discussed European Romanticism in the eighteenth and
Speaker 1: nineteenth centuries, as discussed by authors Lynn A. Strove and
Speaker 1: Jennerer Ford in their respective works. In this episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to continue looking at some of the times and
Speaker 1: places that Struve singles out in her twenty nineteen book
Speaker 1: The Dreaming Mind and the End of the Ming World,
Speaker 1: drawing in additional sources as well. Now, I believe the
Speaker 1: plan is to get into Struve's thoughts on the late
Speaker 1: ning Dynasty dream culture in Part three of this series.
Speaker 1: But to kick things off here, I thought we might
Speaker 1: discuss another movement another time in place that she highlights,
Speaker 1: and that is Quakerism of the mid seventeenth century, with
Speaker 1: religious and political strife in England, pushing immigrants out, religious
Speaker 1: dissenters out of England and into a new hotbed of
Speaker 1: religious and political strife in the New World. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know, this is definitely one of those cases, and
Speaker 1: this is going to continue to be the case with
Speaker 1: some of the examples we draw on. Certainly we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from anyone out there who has actual
Speaker 1: roots in Quakerism. I know I have a cousin that
Speaker 1: is a Quaker. So this is very quake Quakerism still
Speaker 1: is very much alive, but we're going to be dealing
Speaker 1: with mid seventeenth century Quakerism in particular. Here Streuve points
Speaker 1: out that the majority of Puritans of the time period
Speaker 1: considered Quakes heretical. It rejected the traditional Puritan power structure
Speaker 1: in favor of a meeting structure where anyone in the
Speaker 1: group could openly share their own account of seeking God
Speaker 1: through Christ, and accounts of dreams factored into these oral presentations,
Speaker 1: and sometimes these were written down as well. Quaker dream
Speaker 1: testimonials lost much of their prophetic qualities, but continued to
Speaker 1: be important into the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: So I tried to do some digging to learn a
Speaker 2: bit more about the role of dreams in Quaker history
Speaker 2: and the more general historical context, and I came across
Speaker 2: a lot of references to what looks like a highly
Speaker 2: relevant and well regarded academic book on the subject. It's
Speaker 2: by Carla Jerona called Night Journeys The Power of Dreams
Speaker 2: in Transatlantic Quaker Culture, University of Virginia Press in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four. I was not able to read this
Speaker 2: book itself, but I read a couple of academic reviews
Speaker 2: of it to get a sense of its arguments and
Speaker 2: major themes. So one of the reviews I'm going to
Speaker 2: reference was by Robert Cox in the Journal of the
Speaker 2: Early Republic Winter two thousand and five, and the other
Speaker 2: was by Michelle Lisa Tartar in the Journal of Quaker
Speaker 2: Studies two thousand and seven. But before I get into
Speaker 2: this book directly, I think it'd be good to do
Speaker 2: a little bit of background on the Quakers. So the
Speaker 2: Quakers are officially known as the Religious Society of Friends,
Speaker 2: and this tradition was founded in England in the mid
Speaker 2: seventeenth century by a man named George Fox. So I
Speaker 2: was reading about him in a book excerpt published in
Speaker 2: The New York Times by historian named James Walvin. The
Speaker 2: book is called The Quakers, Money and Morals. And before
Speaker 2: going any further, I just have to note a physical
Speaker 2: detail Waldning includes in the description of George Fox, which
Speaker 2: is that he was described at the time as a
Speaker 2: man with hair like rats tails.
Speaker 1: I'm having trouble picturing that, because rats tales don't really
Speaker 1: look like hair hair. They are by their very nature hairless.
Speaker 1: Maybe he had kind of like a wet look and
Speaker 1: had kind of like white or grayish hair.
Speaker 2: Perhaps it was an ambiguous evocation for me as well,
Speaker 2: But I'll keep trying to picture it as we go on.
Speaker 2: So George Fox was born in sixteen twenty four. He
Speaker 2: was the son of devout Puritan parents in Leicestershire, which
Speaker 2: is a city in the English Midlands. His father was
Speaker 2: a somewhat wealthy weaver, and in sixteen forty three George
Speaker 2: Fox had an unpleasant experience seeing friends drinking alcohol at
Speaker 2: a local fair, and so the teenage Fox, after this experience,
Speaker 2: heard the voice of God Almighty telling him to leave home,
Speaker 2: abandon his friend's and in his family, and seek the truth.
Speaker 2: And after this he spent several years a sort of itinerant,
Speaker 2: just wandering the country with his Bible in hand, seeking
Speaker 2: enlightenment of some sort, and apparently harassing local priests and
Speaker 2: ministers along the way. One example is in sixteen forty
Speaker 2: nine he was arrested and jailed for getting up in
Speaker 2: the middle of a church service in Nottingham and arguing
Speaker 2: with the minister about his interpretation of the Bible. Now,
Speaker 2: in defining Fox's early preachings and the Quaker's early beliefs,
Speaker 2: it's kind of interesting because several sources I've read mentioned
Speaker 2: that they're more easily defined in opposition to other beliefs
Speaker 2: than in the positive substance of themselves. But one thing
Speaker 2: seems to be that Fox's theology developed to include a
Speaker 2: belief in the necessity of inner spiritual rebirth. Sometimes this
Speaker 2: is known as born again theology. It was very much
Speaker 2: about having the inner light of God or the inner
Speaker 2: light of Christ revealed within yourself and experiencing God directly,
Speaker 2: and Fox also came to preach a message that was
Speaker 2: basically against the institutional structure of Christianity. It seems Fox's
Speaker 2: unique thesis was that you do not need a church
Speaker 2: or a congregation or a cleric to act as any
Speaker 2: kind of intermediary or interpreter between you and God, that
Speaker 2: you should interact with God honestly and directly on your
Speaker 2: own terms.
Speaker 1: And I think already we can see how this is
Speaker 1: going to line up with the importance of dreams, the
Speaker 1: idea that there's some sort of direct communication. We saw
Speaker 1: that already with the example of Fox having heard the
Speaker 1: voice of God. And as we've been discussing already in
Speaker 1: this series, there's this longstanding human tradition of potentially interpreting
Speaker 1: dreams as such as well.
Speaker 2: That's right, so we will get there. But another thing
Speaker 2: I should note before we move on is that this
Speaker 2: is happening in England in the sixteen forties, which is
Speaker 2: the same time as the English Civil War, or directly
Speaker 2: after the English Civil War, in the Interregnum period, and
Speaker 2: this is a time of major change, political, social, cultural
Speaker 2: upheaval in England. I want to read a brief passage
Speaker 2: from Walven summarizing the cultural climate in England at the time,
Speaker 2: quote Fox was not alone in suffering turmoil in the
Speaker 2: sixteen forties. The entire nation was racked by personal and
Speaker 2: social agitations that had been whipped up by a bloody
Speaker 2: and vengeful civil war. That decade and the interregnum years
Speaker 2: of the sixteen fifties formed what Christopher Hill has described
Speaker 2: as the greatest upheaval in English history. Old assumptions and beliefs,
Speaker 2: old certainties were shattered by the convulsion of religious and
Speaker 2: political freedoms, which had scarred most people in some way
Speaker 2: or other. The traditional acceptance that all English people belong
Speaker 2: to the National Church and must worship as a matter
Speaker 2: of obligation was destroyed forever. And another feature of this
Speaker 2: period that Walvin notes is that this is a time
Speaker 2: when there was a sudden dissolution of the strict censorship
Speaker 2: laws that had up until then controlled the printed word.
Speaker 2: There was kind of a sudden explosion in different kinds
Speaker 2: of materials that could be disseminated in print, including books
Speaker 2: and tracts that advocated radical and unorthodox points of view
Speaker 2: in civil and religious life. Now, the people around George
Speaker 2: Fox when he was traveling and preaching in the sixteen
Speaker 2: forties or sixteen fifties. These would mostly include members of
Speaker 2: the Church of England, the mainstream Protestant church in England
Speaker 2: at the time, and also Puritans, people who dissented from,
Speaker 2: or at least wanted to reform the Church of England,
Speaker 2: largely on the grounds are to oversimplify, but largely on
Speaker 2: the grounds that it was not removed enough from its
Speaker 2: Roman Catholic roots and not sufficiently based on Sola scriptura.
Speaker 2: That Church of England was not Protestant enough. I mentioned
Speaker 2: that Fox was jailed at least one time for interrupting
Speaker 2: a church meeting in Nottingham. He was jailed other times,
Speaker 2: I think for blasphemy of various sorts. Fox made a
Speaker 2: lot of people angry, but he also won a lot
Speaker 2: of converts, if that's the right word. At least you
Speaker 2: could say he persuaded a lot of people to see
Speaker 2: their relationship with God in his way, and his movement
Speaker 2: spread rapidly in England and also to the colonies in
Speaker 2: North America in the sixteen fifties. In fact, the colony
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, who was a
Speaker 2: wealthy English Quaker to serve as a safe haven for
Speaker 2: Quakers who were sometimes viciously persecuted in England. Now once again,
Speaker 2: it's sometimes easier to say what Quakers don't believe than
Speaker 2: what exactly they do believe. But though there's some variation, overall,
Speaker 2: Quakers were known for rejecting hierarchy and rejecting the enforcement
Speaker 2: of orthodoxy and religious matters, and they were also known,
Speaker 2: though this might not have been a direct result of
Speaker 2: their theology, they were known for at certain times, but
Speaker 2: not always, having many members who supported radical social and
Speaker 2: political causes such as pacifism, advocating for women's rights, and
Speaker 2: the abolition of slavery. One thing that I think is
Speaker 2: worth noting with relevance to the role of dreaming is
Speaker 2: the format of Quaker religious meetings, which very often were
Speaker 2: just sort of like gatherings of the religious society of Friends,
Speaker 2: the friends that would typically allow anyone to speak men
Speaker 2: and women alike, rather than just having a minister sermonized
Speaker 2: top down to the congregation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I believe streve mentions that of the various
Speaker 1: written dream reports that would survive, a lot of these
Speaker 1: were by women.
Speaker 2: That's right. So that brings us back to a couple
Speaker 2: of the reviews I wanted to talk about of that
Speaker 2: book by Karla Girona, Night Journeys, The Power of Dreams
Speaker 2: in Transatlantic Quaker Culture. Not only did early Quakers believe
Speaker 2: that dreams contain and genuine revelatory prophetic content, the culture
Speaker 2: of Quakerism in the North American colonies was substantially downstream
Speaker 2: from the contents of dreams, or what they might call
Speaker 2: night journeys.
Speaker 1: I don't know why night journeys is just such a cool
Speaker 1: term for dreams. I mean, it just ties in with
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're talking about here, But then
Speaker 1: it also sounds like it could be like an eighties
Speaker 1: rock anthem. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Where the dream warriors don't want to dream no more,
Speaker 2: except they did want to dream more. They in fact,
Speaker 2: wanted to dream quite a lot and discuss all their dreams.
Speaker 2: So Cox sort of summarizes Jerona's point as quote, dreams
Speaker 2: are not only models of culture, they are models for it.
Speaker 2: And I think a way of understanding this better is
Speaker 2: that while we today often think of dreams as simple
Speaker 2: reflections of individual internal psychological states and fixations, in the
Speaker 2: case of early American Quakerism, during the colonial and revolutionary periods,
Speaker 2: dreams were quote a collective endeavor. So the way I
Speaker 2: understand it is that for these seventeenth and eighteenth century
Speaker 2: Quakers there was not only an emphasis placed on prophetic
Speaker 2: visions received through dreams, but the development of a collaborative
Speaker 2: prophetic dream culture where stories of other Quakers prophetic dreams
Speaker 2: would be shared either in meetings or disseminated and circulated
Speaker 2: in print, and then interpreted by the community. Coxwrites, quote
Speaker 2: more than any of their sectarian peers, Quakers developed a
Speaker 2: uniquely intense practice of recording and circulating their prophetic dreams
Speaker 2: within their meetings and beyond, each minister sharing in the
Speaker 2: discussion and interpretation, each dreamer and each auditor imparting his
Speaker 2: or her own shades of meaning, dialectically collectively shaping a
Speaker 2: common Quaker identity in the problem. So this really captured
Speaker 2: by imagination because it's sort of describing a scenario where
Speaker 2: dreams are such a common topic of conversation and a
Speaker 2: common subject of printed material circulated within the Quaker community
Speaker 2: that they really kind of become a major facet of
Speaker 2: what the culture is, a lot of what it meant
Speaker 2: to be a Quaker in these times came from discussing
Speaker 2: dreams and what you thought you learned from them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is something that I honestly did not know
Speaker 1: about Quakerism until we started getting into this research here.
Speaker 2: But there's another side to it too, which is, as
Speaker 2: with many religions that contain the possibility of individual revelation,
Speaker 2: whether that's through dreams or visions, or you know, you
Speaker 2: believe in God speaks to you directly or whatever, there's
Speaker 2: evidence of a kind of push and pull effect with
Speaker 2: radical beliefs emerging through supposedly prophetic visions and dreams, and
Speaker 2: then kind of taming or watering down process that comes
Speaker 2: through interpretation or through selective publication. So if you think
Speaker 2: about it, there's kind of an inherent tension between the
Speaker 2: wild individual agency of democratized dream revelation. Again, thinking like
Speaker 2: somebody could have a dream and share it with us,
Speaker 2: and that may well be God himself speaking to us.
Speaker 2: There's that, and then there's also just like the practical
Speaker 2: necessities of maintaining a stable social group, or the self
Speaker 2: interested motives of leaders in maintaining their positions of power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's easy to imagine for any of
Speaker 1: you out there who are a part of say like
Speaker 1: a modern Protestant or Catholic denomination, Like imagine going into
Speaker 1: church one day and it being announced, Okay, from now on,
Speaker 1: starting right now, everybody can have an input on what
Speaker 1: we believe and what our individual relationship with God happens
Speaker 1: to be. And also a second part of that, dreams
Speaker 1: count as well. Whatever's happening in your dreams, bring that
Speaker 1: into the conversation. Like I think for people who who
Speaker 1: have not had had any either aspect of this be
Speaker 1: part of their religious and organized religious experience, that would
Speaker 1: seem chaotic. That would that you would wonder what does
Speaker 1: that mean that my faith is now going to be
Speaker 1: like a Wikipedia article where anyone can edit it and
Speaker 1: they can cite dreams, or is it going to be
Speaker 1: something to where organically something will emerge to sort of
Speaker 1: keep it in check, kind of like you see with
Speaker 1: many mainstream Wikipedia pages.
Speaker 2: But there's another layer of difficulty there too, because it's
Speaker 2: not just like, oh, William had this opinion about what
Speaker 2: we should believe, and that comes from William. Beliefs potentially
Speaker 2: come directly from the divine. The creator of the universe
Speaker 2: is telling you this through your dreams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when anyone in a given congregation, any given group,
Speaker 1: is opened up to the like direct communications from the
Speaker 1: divine or you know, certainly things that are interpreted or
Speaker 1: reinterpreted or presented as such. Yeah, that brings a whole
Speaker 1: new way to everything.
Speaker 2: Now, it's one thing if these supposed revelations are just
Speaker 2: about you know, theological beliefs, understanding of the nature of
Speaker 2: Christ or something. Not to say that's not important, but
Speaker 2: that's you know, a different kind of subject matter than
Speaker 2: dream revelations supposedly from God that are things like maybe
Speaker 2: we should overthrow the government, or maybe we should all
Speaker 2: stop going to work, or something like that. Where it
Speaker 2: turns out that a lot of these early dream revelations
Speaker 2: in Quaker friends meetings did have direct political connotations and
Speaker 2: direct political implications. There was often ay for dreams of
Speaker 2: the early Quakers to be interpreted as granting license to
Speaker 2: revolt against church and state, and one thing documented in
Speaker 2: this book is that in response, influential Quaker ministers often
Speaker 2: kind of counteracted these radical explosions of dream revelation that
Speaker 2: threatened political or social stability by guiding collaborative dream work
Speaker 2: sessions and by controlling the publication of prophetic dreams to
Speaker 2: sort of like steer them toward different interpretations, often having
Speaker 2: more to do with individual morality and regulation of personal
Speaker 2: behavior rather than having these radical political implications. And this
Speaker 2: was especially true apparently for the dreams of women. To
Speaker 2: illustrate this, I'm going to quote from the review by
Speaker 2: Lisa Tarder now, who writes, quote, At the beginning of
Speaker 2: the Quaker movement, such dreamings were experienced and expressed as
Speaker 2: apocalyptic prophesying, replete with symbolic language, which they promoted friends
Speaker 2: religious enthusiasm, often attacked political leaders and addressed contemporary issues,
Speaker 2: similar to their public tradition of prophesying. Seventeenth century friends
Speaker 2: shared their visions and dreams quite often and in public.
Speaker 2: But then by the eighteenth century there was a transition
Speaker 2: to a more corporate dream work within Quaker culture that
Speaker 2: was facilitated by leaders of specific Quaker groups who assumed
Speaker 2: control of the publishing of these dreams, and they regulated
Speaker 2: and sort of censored how dreams were discussed in Quaker print.
Speaker 2: Tartar writes, quote. No longer confrontational or enthusiastic, this newly
Speaker 2: shaped corpus of dreams sought to regulate Quaker behavior and
Speaker 2: self discipline was more introspective in nature and focused on
Speaker 2: the individual, but extended to community wide meaning. And so
Speaker 2: she says that leaders at the time saw dreams as
Speaker 2: powerful tools that like, if you selected the ones to
Speaker 2: publish and share with other Quaker groups, and if you
Speaker 2: interpreted them the right way, they could be used to
Speaker 2: encourage unity among the friends, to make everybody sort of
Speaker 2: like you know, fit together and function well as a
Speaker 2: social group. But you had to be careful to avoid
Speaker 2: letting prophetic dreams rock the boat too much, basically, And
Speaker 2: this is interesting to me because it seems this would
Speaker 2: probably be the case for any religion that allows new
Speaker 2: beliefs or new theology to evolve from individual direct experiences
Speaker 2: that people have, whether that's they believe to be waking
Speaker 2: visions or just sort of verbal revelations God speaking to
Speaker 2: people or through dreams. There's always going to be this
Speaker 2: battle going on within a religious culture that believes in
Speaker 2: these kinds of revelations. Anyone can present the contents of
Speaker 2: their own mind and their own imagination as a kind
Speaker 2: of new scripture carrying the terrifying authority of the Almighty.
Speaker 2: But then these dreams have to be quote interpreted, and
Speaker 2: there will be various pressures guiding that process of interpretation,
Speaker 2: often trying to resist the radical authority that leaps like
Speaker 2: lightning out of the mind of a single parishioner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is fascinating, and I mean you can even
Speaker 1: compare it to to situations where individual ideas and opinions
Speaker 1: within a given movement or a given group, you know,
Speaker 1: are not tied to dreams and visions. But even in
Speaker 1: those situations, like say like a protest environment environment, like
Speaker 1: a protest movement, is there going to be an effort
Speaker 1: to sort of amplify certain voices and demands within that group?
Speaker 1: Is there going to be an effort to like to
Speaker 1: lessen the impact of other ideas? And then and then
Speaker 1: also how do you make it all actionable? Like what
Speaker 1: ultimately is the sort of the what are you going
Speaker 1: to end up nailing to the church doors? In other words?
Speaker 1: You know, mm hmm, But it is interesting, yeah, that
Speaker 1: you bring up like through publication and selective publication, there
Speaker 1: is kind of like a theological hierarchy that comes into
Speaker 1: play here, determining exactly what sort of gets presented, what
Speaker 1: actually gets put forth For further discussion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Struve in her book rights that in the cases she covers,
Speaker 1: including those early on involving Euro American dream mystique and
Speaker 1: also the example get to here in a minute, there
Speaker 1: is ultimately a trichotomy of opinions concerning the nature of dreams,
Speaker 1: fed by various influences, including philosophy, religious doctrine, and folklore.
Speaker 1: And they are one dreams as residue of thought and
Speaker 1: or byproducts of bodily processes. We've just we've talked about that.
Speaker 1: The second area dreams is seen as being caused by
Speaker 1: demonic or satanic forces. And then three, in rare cases
Speaker 1: with exceptional individuals, they are divine visions or messages. And
Speaker 1: with the Quaker example, of course, we see item number
Speaker 1: three taken and democratized. It's no longer the chosen few
Speaker 1: who have the vision. It's everyone who has insight into
Speaker 1: the vision, everyone who's potentially hearing the words of God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is interesting, and it seems like so Struve
Speaker 2: is saying with those that trichotomy you mentioned basically that
Speaker 2: every place you look in history there is sort of
Speaker 2: a three way understanding of dreams, where there's some understanding
Speaker 2: that they might just be essentially natural, you know, nothing
Speaker 2: much to them. They're either something arising from the digestion
Speaker 2: of beef in your gut, or they're just what you
Speaker 2: were thinking about in the day. Second thing is they're
Speaker 2: from an evil spiritual entity, and the third is they're
Speaker 2: from a good spiritual entity. And so yeah, it seems
Speaker 2: like the Quakers really opened the floodgates on option number three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it does make me wonder like today are
Speaker 1: we are we still living in an age where predominantly
Speaker 1: the floodgates are open on item one, like like they
Speaker 1: are we in? You know, can I this doesn't cover everybody.
Speaker 1: You're gonna still have certain areas and parts of society
Speaker 1: where two and three are gonna have more weight. But
Speaker 1: for the most part, yeah, do we just sort of
Speaker 1: default too? Well? You know, I shouldn't have eaten that potato,
Speaker 1: or I shouldn't have like in my case just the
Speaker 1: other night, shouldn't have watched that horror movie. Messed up
Speaker 1: my dreams all night long, gave me a terrible night
Speaker 1: of sleep. But I'm not blaming it on a satanic force,
Speaker 1: but true what chimes in on this idea of like
Speaker 1: you know prophetic dreams and how they're managed, and she
Speaker 1: says that yeah. It then falls to authority figures to
Speaker 1: employ these categories as needed to quote protect their respective
Speaker 1: creeds against challenges to orthodoxy from the random mental effusions
Speaker 1: of neophytes. So that means that, you know, in more
Speaker 1: sort of balanced situations, if someone's saying, hey, God spoke
Speaker 1: to me in a dream, then you would have someone
Speaker 1: in a position to say so, come forward and say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's God's voice. Perhaps that is
Speaker 1: the potato you ate, or you know, there are other
Speaker 1: reasons we have the dreams that we have and perhaps
Speaker 1: that's what it was, or even potentially dipping into number
Speaker 1: two and saying, you know, there are other forces that
Speaker 1: may influence our dreams and they are not all divine.
Speaker 2: Now, one last thing I think is worth emphasizing about
Speaker 2: the Quakers is I think Struve selects them because they
Speaker 2: do conform to her general idea that times and places
Speaker 2: where there is a sudden, sudden profusion of writing about dreams.
Speaker 2: This often coincides with times of extreme social and cultural change,
Speaker 2: where there's a lot of like churn and who has
Speaker 2: power and there's a lot of uncertainty and anxiety, which
Speaker 2: again would have been true about England in the sixteen forties.
Speaker 2: That remember that passage from Walvin about like it being
Speaker 2: the greatest time of upheaval and English history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so you can definitely see those pressures in place.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, and then not only on the bridge
Speaker 1: side of the ocean, but then once they get to
Speaker 1: the new world, like, yeah, they are all sorts of
Speaker 1: new stresses and problems. Like it is not it is
Speaker 1: not just this world of new opportunity. Obviously there are
Speaker 1: there's you know, an indigenous population, there are all these
Speaker 1: other groups. There's just sort of the you know, the
Speaker 1: potentially harsh nature of the reality of colonial life and
Speaker 1: so forth. Now, with all of that in mind, it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting that one of the other main examples that
Speaker 1: she makes in the book that Struth makes concerns sufism
Speaker 1: in the Ottoman Empire. And as we get into this
Speaker 1: here and discuss it, I think it'll become like more
Speaker 1: obvious how this particular example falls in line with what
Speaker 1: we've been discussing, but also some of the things that
Speaker 1: seem to make it unique if I'm understanding everything correctly,
Speaker 1: So dreams are of great importance in Islam, especially as
Speaker 1: referenced in the Qur'an and the revelations of the prophet Muhammad.
Speaker 1: In Sufism, a more mystical branch of Islam, dreams are
Speaker 1: even more important given the emphasis on quote direct experience
Speaker 1: of the divine and on achieving is static union with
Speaker 1: God through dreams, visions, and trance unquote. The interest in
Speaker 1: dreams was, according to Struve, generally prognostic, and there were
Speaker 1: various manuals for dream interpretation, but they also probed their
Speaker 1: dreams and journaled the contents of their dreams as a
Speaker 1: way of seeking quote indications of their current spiritual state unquote,
Speaker 1: which you know, to a certain extent, Like that kind
Speaker 1: of jives with the way we see dreams today, right
Speaker 1: though often I guess in a non spiritual sense, like
Speaker 1: you could look at your dreams and you could learn
Speaker 1: something perhaps about the state of your own mind if
Speaker 1: you had you know, the ability or the tools to
Speaker 1: sort of dig through like the nonsense that is inherent
Speaker 1: in our dreams. But again in Sufhism, particularly Ottoman Sufism, here,
Speaker 1: according to stry Of, dreams were seen as sacred bestows
Speaker 1: rather than subjective, and it all contributed to an intense
Speaker 1: intellectual focus on the contents of dreams. Under the Ottoman Empire,
Speaker 1: intellectuals of the day look to dreams for solutions, for inspiration,
Speaker 1: and also for introspection. Quote. Every change in daily life
Speaker 1: was believed to have a counterpart in dreams or to
Speaker 1: possess an otherworldly dimension. So I did a bit more
Speaker 1: reading on the subject of Sufi Ottoman dreaming, and according
Speaker 1: to scholar Osgen Phelik in twenty twenty three, quote, the
Speaker 1: study of dreams in the Ottoman and greater Islamic worlds
Speaker 1: is still in its early emergent stages unquote, So it
Speaker 1: seems like that's an important caveat to make here that
Speaker 1: there is. It seems to be quite a bit more
Speaker 1: on all of this for academics to consider and to analyze. Now.
Speaker 1: Felick had previously edited a volume titled Dreams and Visions
Speaker 1: in Islamic Society, in which Alexander D. Denesh shares that
Speaker 1: the Arab mystic Ibn al Arabi, who lived eleven sixty
Speaker 1: five through twelve forty, suggested that quote the only reason
Speaker 1: God plays sleep in the animate world was so that
Speaker 1: everyone might know that there is another world similar to
Speaker 1: the sensory world.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting, though, I wonder if I'm interpreting this right.
Speaker 2: So it would mean that under Ibn al Arabi's view,
Speaker 2: that God gave us dreams, so we would know that
Speaker 2: the material world is not all there is, that there
Speaker 2: is another world, and dreams are like one demonstration of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is which is quite quite fascinating to
Speaker 1: see this stress especially. I mean, I can't help but
Speaker 1: think about things that I've read in the past concerning say,
Speaker 1: witchcraft persecution in Europe, and the idea that like that, this,
Speaker 1: this world of the alleged occult was perhaps a focus
Speaker 1: for witchcraft persecutors because it gave them some idea of
Speaker 1: like here is the supernatural world, and if the infernal
Speaker 1: version of that is real, then so is the divine.
Speaker 1: But here this stress seems to be like look no
Speaker 1: further than the world of dreams, Like that is kind
Speaker 1: of the proof right there again, if I'm understanding this correctly.
Speaker 1: But according to even Lrab, here the dream state allows
Speaker 1: one to probe mysteries of God and creation that are
Speaker 1: normally quite invisible to us. Densh describes this view as
Speaker 1: one detailing dreams as an instrument of cognition that enable
Speaker 1: people to better understand not only the inner workings of
Speaker 1: the waking world, but to better understand the next world
Speaker 1: as well. For as even Lrab would frequently quote, the
Speaker 1: Prophet said that people are asleep and when they die,
Speaker 1: they awake. So dreams are like this hidden window. Now,
Speaker 1: the author stresses that while not all Muslims of the
Speaker 1: time would have agreed with even l R. Beyond this,
Speaker 1: they would at least still value the importance of dreaming
Speaker 1: and of waking visions in the Muslim life. Pre modern Muslims,
Speaker 1: Dannish Rights saw dreams as things that revealed not only
Speaker 1: hidden personal insights, but hidden aspects of the wider universe,
Speaker 1: things otherwise hidden, citing the words of the prophet that
Speaker 1: with his death, tidings of prophecy would end, but quote
Speaker 1: true dreams would endure. And with this in mind, believers
Speaker 1: in the Sufi school of Islam saw dreams as a
Speaker 1: kind of a font of continued revelations. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the main font of revelation is now closed. It's
Speaker 1: the message is complete, but there's kind of this continued
Speaker 1: signal that will be open to those you know who
Speaker 1: will listen to it. Who can you receive these true dreams?
Speaker 1: So the strits that the result is kind of twofold
Speaker 1: here for this particular example. First of all, a devout
Speaker 1: Muslim could expect the guidance of God in dreams, and
Speaker 1: two Sufi's in particular made broad use of dreams and
Speaker 1: dream lore quote from training Sufi disciples and prognostication to
Speaker 1: confirming the special status and authority of individual Sufi masters,
Speaker 1: as well as authenticating spiritual genealogies and mystical orders. At
Speaker 1: the same time, Dnes points out that dreams and visions
Speaker 1: were and still are seen by Muslims as not only
Speaker 1: cosmological and social, but also reflections of the dreamers inner
Speaker 1: world quote expressions of both inner and outer voices. So
Speaker 1: again coming back to this idea that yeat dreams may
Speaker 1: reveal things about the world unseen, they may reveal things
Speaker 1: about the future, but also they may reveal things about yourself,
Speaker 1: which again that kind of compares rather favorably with sort
Speaker 1: of the secular way that many people, certainly in the West,
Speaker 1: few dreams today.
Speaker 2: So I'm understanding this as the difference being that many
Speaker 2: Muslims would view dreams not as a source of sort
Speaker 2: of new theology that would change anything revealed in the
Speaker 2: Qur'an or anything like that, but that it would offer
Speaker 2: sort of specific guidance that is more particular to your
Speaker 2: time and place in history.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that's that's my understanding. And now, as with
Speaker 1: our example with the Quakers, you know the same here.
Speaker 1: If you have have a particular expertise and background and
Speaker 1: Islam or in Sufism, you know, we would love to
Speaker 1: hear from you and get your individual take on all
Speaker 1: of this. But based on what we've been reading in
Speaker 1: researching herea, it does seem like dreams important in Islam broadly,
Speaker 1: with a heightened importance in Sufism, and then during the
Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire particularly so particular focus of time and place,
Speaker 1: though it is kind of a broader period of time.
Speaker 1: We'll get into details on that in just a second.
Speaker 1: Even more focus on the power of dreams now Danish
Speaker 1: also drives home though that Yeah, it is important to
Speaker 1: note that dream cultures will vary from one Muslim society
Speaker 1: and one time to another. So yeah, don't again, don't
Speaker 1: take any of this as meaning like all Muslims, all Sufis, etc.
Speaker 1: Believe this about any given dreams. Now, the book I
Speaker 1: reference covers different topics under this umbrella of dreaming, but
Speaker 1: there's another author in it, Gottfried Hagen, who singles out
Speaker 1: Ottoman dream culture as well. I just wanted to share
Speaker 1: a quick quote from Hagen on this quote. Throughout the
Speaker 1: pre modern era and probably much longer, people in the
Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire were firmly convinced of the reality of dreams. Now,
Speaker 1: another interesting thing to think about, especially with this particular case,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, naturally one sees the importance of
Speaker 1: dream culture reflected in folklore as well, you know, because
Speaker 1: a lot of this is concerning I guess my understanding anyway,
Speaker 1: like the upper parts of like the Sufi system at
Speaker 1: the time, But beneath all that you're also going to
Speaker 1: have sort of underlying folklore, right, that is, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: working both ways, like folklore influenced by the prominent dream
Speaker 1: culture of the day, but also perhaps contributing to the
Speaker 1: general energy of it as well. I looked at a
Speaker 1: paper titled dream Motif in Turkish folk Stories and Shamanistic Initiation,
Speaker 1: and it discusses some examples of this, such as a
Speaker 1: motif of a young man or woman having an important dream,
Speaker 1: either after a traumatic event or after they pray to
Speaker 1: God for help following such an event. And then in
Speaker 1: the dream that follows, a holy man or holy men,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes it's a maiden offers the youth a
Speaker 1: cup of wine to drink, and this is sometimes described
Speaker 1: as like a love potion. They predict his future love
Speaker 1: or her future love. They give them a pseudonym under
Speaker 1: which to write poetry, and they offer guidance in the future.
Speaker 1: And then there's additional dream imagery that occurs in this motif,
Speaker 1: including the like the burning of the body, like the
Speaker 1: mortal body, and the dream burns away and they awake
Speaker 1: with all this inspiration brought on by the dream. Now
Speaker 1: they're inspired to write poetry inspired by both this dream
Speaker 1: cup of wine and also inspired by God. The author
Speaker 1: writes quote the dream motif complex and Turkish folk stories
Speaker 1: provides a valuable case to illustrate how a ceremonial right,
Speaker 1: a shamanistic initiation right, turns into a fiction motif through
Speaker 1: long social and historical development. There is a striking resemblance
Speaker 1: between the initiation of a candidate into a shamanistic profession
Speaker 1: and the dream motif complex which initiates the candidate into
Speaker 1: the new life of an artist and lover. And the
Speaker 1: author here links these folkloric stories, including the one that
Speaker 1: I just shared, and also some that are discussed elsewhere
Speaker 1: in this particular ride up to magico religious life of
Speaker 1: the Turko Mongol Shamans.
Speaker 2: But this is not particular to the Ottoman Muslim period
Speaker 2: in Turkey.
Speaker 1: No no. But though the particular dream motif that is
Speaker 1: shared here I believe has some like clear Islamic cultural
Speaker 1: cultural labeling, like the way that the that the holy
Speaker 1: Men are presented, they're presented at least in this version
Speaker 1: of it, as Islamic holy Men. Yeah. But I bring
Speaker 1: it up though, just to sort of try to dig
Speaker 1: at and explore the idea that, yeah, that any given
Speaker 1: culture you're going to still have like these other folkloric
Speaker 1: energy is going on as well, that are going to
Speaker 1: have certain stresses regarding let's say, the reality of dreams,
Speaker 1: the cause of dreams, and the prophetic nature of dreams
Speaker 1: as well. But to come back to the Ottoman dynasty specifically,
Speaker 1: which ultimately runs twelve ninety nine through nineteen twelve. According
Speaker 1: to Struve, one has a strong dream tradition of Sufi Islam,
Speaker 1: the influence of Turkish Shamanism, and by the sixteenth century
Speaker 1: one sees a particularly strong Ottoman empire quote, as the
Speaker 1: empire was brought by successive conquests to nearly ring the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean Sea, and also on top of that the prominence
Speaker 1: of the Sufi Halvetti order, and also growing excitement in
Speaker 1: the Muslim world over quote anticipation of the appearance of
Speaker 1: a messiah, the Mahdi, who would prepare the world for
Speaker 1: judgment day, a millennial belief affirmed in Sufism. So if
Speaker 1: I'm understanding everything correctly here, Struve seems to outline less
Speaker 1: of an external stress based inward gaze and one more
Speaker 1: like Dee, deeply rooted in religion and culture, sure, and
Speaker 1: then heightened by theological prominence and millennial excitement. So it
Speaker 1: was like a high time of dream reports, dream journaling, mythologizing,
Speaker 1: dream law, and consultation of one's own dreams for daily guidance.
Speaker 1: Struve quotes the modern historian drawerza Hevy on all of this,
Speaker 1: who is a historian with a particular expertise in Ottoman culture. Quote.
Speaker 1: Ottoman culture may be described as a dream culture in
Speaker 1: the sense that true or imaginary every change in daily
Speaker 1: life was believed to have had a counterpart in dreams,
Speaker 1: or to possess an otherworldly dimension. People seem to have
Speaker 1: used dreams for introspection, to interpret the past, to anticipate
Speaker 1: the future, and to calculate their moves. Dream Lore was
Speaker 1: a unifying discourse, uniting people in a bond of shared experience,
Speaker 1: knitting together insights from politics, medicine, and religion.
Speaker 2: Oh well, there is a kind of similarity with the
Speaker 2: Quaker example of the emergent gents of a sort of
Speaker 2: collective dream culture in a way where people would share
Speaker 2: and discuss their dreams and the meaning of dreams. And
Speaker 2: there was it was more than just like an individual
Speaker 2: private experience that you have, believing that it reflects the
Speaker 2: you know, the contents of your own mind. That there
Speaker 2: was something bigger and more collective to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This, Yeah, I was really taken by that as well.
Speaker 1: A unifying discourse. Which there's so many things that are
Speaker 1: different about the Ottoman example in the Quaker example, but
Speaker 1: this does seem to be the thing that they both
Speaker 1: have in common in their own ways. And again, both.
Speaker 1: In both cases, it's so different from the way we
Speaker 1: think about our dreams today, Like since we often have
Speaker 1: this idea that it is at best this kind of
Speaker 1: thing we extrude that has if you tease it apart
Speaker 1: enough and to have some sort of insight or about
Speaker 1: our own inner world. It's the kind of thing where
Speaker 1: if you imagine yourself going to work, if you're you know,
Speaker 1: among your coworkers and go like, hey, everybody, you want
Speaker 1: to hear about my dream last night, like that would
Speaker 1: feel more like a social faux pas, right, that would
Speaker 1: seem like something you should not do, like nobody wants
Speaker 1: to hear that, or perhaps you're oversharing by mentioning it,
Speaker 1: you know, unless you have something I guess just the
Speaker 1: right calibration to share. Whereas in these accounts like the drink,
Speaker 1: sharing your dreams was just was part of the culture,
Speaker 1: and it brought people together rather than making them seem like,
Speaker 1: you know, the office weirdos, as it might be in
Speaker 1: today's world in the West. All right, on that note,
Speaker 1: we're going to go ahead and close this episode out,
Speaker 1: but we'll be We'll be back for at least one
Speaker 1: more episode dealing with this whole topic of dream mystique
Speaker 1: and dream fascination and dream culture, so be sure to
Speaker 1: tune in on Thursday for that. In the meantime, you
Speaker 1: can check out other core episodes of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast
Speaker 1: feed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do a
Speaker 1: listener mail, on Wednesdays we do a short form artifact
Speaker 1: or monster effect, and on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 1: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
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