{"id":1300,"date":"2010-02-04T20:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T20:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2017-11-04T14:54:32","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T20:54:32","slug":"are-epiphany-dreams-found-only-in-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1300","title":{"rendered":"Are Epiphany Dreams Found only in the Past?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review’s book-review feed recently served up a review <\/a>of William V. Harris’s Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/i> The reviewer writes,<\/p>\n

Some combination of [cultural expectations, generic demands, and the imperatives of performance and publication.], Harris argues …\u00a0 accounts for the relative frequency in antiquity of the epiphany dream, in which an authoritative figure visits the dreamer and makes a significant statement, and for its rarity in the post-Enlightenment West.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to argue that if readers say that they too have epiphany dreams, it don’t prove nuthin’:<\/p>\n

No doubt some reader of this review is now saying, “But I had an epiphany dream just the other night!”\u00a0 That is the problem with studying dreams:\u00a0 one must work hard to free oneself from dependence on anecdote and from the powerful attraction that dreams have for those who dream them.\u00a0 Appealing to concepts of “selfhood” or “personality” will only reinforce these tendencies by compelling the question, “What does this dream tell us about you?”\u00a0 Harris chooses instead to concentrate on ancient descriptions of dreams and reports of actions based on them.\u00a0 This is a book about dreaming, not about dreams; that is, about behavior and experience in antiquity, not about the ancient self.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I tell it, it’s only an “anecdote,” but if someone back then wrote it, it’s a “description” and thus useful? But if you act upon the advice of the dream, does that count?<\/p>\n

“Epiphany dreams” are not common, but when you have one, you know it.<\/p>\n

My example (oops, an ancedote!) was a dream that \u2014 at a time when I was not consciously thinking about it \u2014 told me to quit my job and go to graduate school in religious studies.<\/p>\n

When I awoke with the dream-voice echoing in my ears, I knew that “some god or daemon” had spoken. I immediately started researching university programs, thinking without irony that now I knew what was meant in those biblical accounts of “the Lord spake unto Abraham” or whomever.<\/p>\n

Someone or something sure enough spake unto me, and I knew I had to follow the instructions. Or else.<\/p>\n

Anyone else had a real epiphany dream? Show of hands? Yes, I thought so.<\/i><\/p>\n

As to the academic study, there is, I have learned, an almost-complete disconnect between the academic study of ancient Paganism and the study of contemporary polytheism, Paganism, etc.<\/p>\n

The former people are mostly in Classics and history, they have an academic heritage a couple of centuries old, and they publish in their own journals, attend their own conferences, and so on.<\/p>\n

The latter field only began to take shape in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Some study of ancient Pagan religion does sneak into the Society of Biblical Literature<\/a>, and when the SBL goes back to having its annual meeting together with the American Academy of Religion’s meeting <\/a>in 2011, maybe, just maybe, there might some crossover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review’s book-review feed recently served up a review of William V. Harris’s Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity The reviewer writes, Some combination of [cultural expectations, generic demands, and the imperatives of performance and publication.], Harris argues …\u00a0 accounts for the relative frequency in antiquity of the epiphany dream, in which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[71,33,56,4],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dreams","tag-greece","tag-rome","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-kY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":738,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=738","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":0},"title":"The religious marketplace in late antiquity, or ‘the more things change . . .’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Studying the program book from the upcoming American Academy of Religion-Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, I came across this description of a joint session session between the Europe and the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity Group, the Manichaean Studies Seminar, and the Religion in Roman Egypt Consultation:This joint session addresses\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14010,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14010","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":1},"title":"What Does ‘Pagan Persistence’ Look Like?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"For more than a century, scholars and Pagans (who are sometimes the same people) have debated the persistence -- or not -- of Pagan ideas and practices into the Chritian era. This is the question that Robin Douglas and Francis Young examine in Paganism Persisting: A History of European Paganisms\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/oaganism-persisting.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3302,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3302","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":2},"title":"What Was Ancient Roman Childhood?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Historian Peter Thonemann reviews books on childhood in the Roman republic and empire in the TLS. A lot is about trying to uncover the Romans' balance between sentimentality and utility, particularly in the upper classes: House-reared slaves, as Beryl Rawson shows in Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"childhood\"","block_context":{"text":"childhood","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=childhood"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":557,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=557","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":3},"title":"Pagan dreamsIn the first chapter\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan dreamsIn the first chapter of The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, Joscelyn Godwin writes of \"a state of mind and soul that arose in fifteenth-century Italy, spread through Europe on certain clearly defined fault-lines, and persisted for about two hundred years, during which, although no one believed in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12219,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12219","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":4},"title":"Free Download: The Materiality of Magic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Act now: this is a free download of an edited collection, The Materlality of Magic.\u00a0 8 MB PDF format. Fomr the description: The Materiality of Magic is an exciting new book about an aspect of magic that is usually neglected. In the last two decades we have had many books\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"magic\"","block_context":{"text":"magic","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=magic"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screenshot_2021-05-10-The-Materiality-of-Magic-CORE-Reader-193x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5152,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5152","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":5},"title":"Resource Website for Scholars of Esotericism in Antiquity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 29, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"News release: The Network for the Study of Esotericism in Antiquity (NSEA) is happy to announce our new website. With continually-updated online resources news, and conference announcements, AncientEsotericism.org is intended to be a one-stop location for scholars and students of the field. What is esotericism in antiquity? 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