"Dreams are rudiments of the great state to come. We dream what isabout to happen." BAILEY.The Bible, as well as other great books of historical and revealedreligion, show traces of a general and substantial belief in dreams.Plato, Goethe, Shakespeare and Napoleon assigned to certain dreamsprophetic value. Joseph saw eleven stars of the Zodiac bow to himself,the twelfth star. The famine of Egypt was revealed by a vision of fatand lean cattle. The parents of Christ were warned of the cruel edict ofHerod, and fled with the Divine Child into Egypt. Pilate's wife, throughthe influence of a dream, advised her husband to have nothing to dowith the conviction of Christ.But the gross materialism of the day laughed at dreams, as it echoedthe voice and verdict of the multitude, Crucify the Spirit, but let theflesh live. Barabbas, the robber, was set at liberty. The ultimatum ofall human decrees and wisdom is to gratify the passions of the flesh atthe expense of the spirit. The prophets and those who have stoodnearest the fountain of universal knowledge used dreams with morefrequency than any other mode of divination. Profane, as well assacred, history is threaded with incidents of dream prophecy.Ancient history relates that Gennadius was convinced of theimmortality of his soul by conversing with an apparition in his dream.Through the dream of Cecilia Metella, the wife of a Consul, the RomanSenate was induced to order the temple of Juno Sospita rebuilt. TheEmperor Marcian dreamed he saw the bow of the Hunnish conquerorbreak on the same night that Attila died. Plutarch relates howAugustus, while ill, through the dream of a friend, was persuaded toleave his tent, which a few hours after was captured by the enemy,and the bed whereon he had lain was pierced with the enemies'swords. If Julius Csar had been less incredulous about dreams hewould have listened to the warning which Calpurnia, his wife, receivedin a dream. Croesus saw his son killed in a dream. Petrarch saw hisbeloved Laura, in a dream, on the day she died, after which he wrotehis beautiful poem, The Triumph of Death.Cicero relates the story oftwo traveling Arcadians who went to different lodgings one to an inn,and the other to a private house. During the night the latter dreamedthat his friend was begging for help. The dreamer awoke but, thinkingthe matter unworthy of notice, went to sleep again. The second timehe dreamed his friend appeared, saying it would be too late, for hehad already been murdered and his body hid in a cart, under manure.The cart was afterward sought for and the body found. Cicero alsowrote, If the gods love men they will certainly disclose their purposesto them in sleep.Chrysippus wrote a volume on dreams as divine portent. He refers tothe skilled interpretations of dreams as a true divination but adds that,like all other arts in which men have to proceed on conjecture and onartificial rules, it is not infallible. Plato concurred in the general ideaprevailing in his day, that there were divine manifestations to the soulin sleep. Condorcet thought and wrote with greater fluency in hisdreams than in waking life. Tartini, a distinguished violinist, composedhis Devil's Sonataunder the inspiration of a dream. Coleridge, throughdream influence, composed his Kubla Khan.The writers of Greek andLatin classics relate many instances of dream experiences. Homeraccorded to some dreams divine origin. During the third and fourthcenturies, the supernatural origin of dreams was so generally acceptedthat the fathers, relying upon the classics and the Bible as authority,made this belief a doctrine of the Christian Church. Synesius placeddreaming above all methods of divining the future he thought it thesurest, and open to the poor and rich alike.Aristotle wrote: There is a divination concerning some things indreams not incredible. Camille Flammarion, in his great book onPremonitory Dreams and Divination of the Future,says: I do nothesitate to affirm at the outset that occurrence of dreams foretellingfuture events with accuracy must be accepted as certain.Joan of Arcpredicted her death. Cazotte, the French philosopher andtranscendentalist, warned Condorcet against the manner of his death.People dream now, the same as they did in medieval and ancienttimes. The following excerpt from The Unknown,a book byFlammarion, the French astronomer, supplemented with a few of myown thoughts and collections, will answer the purposes intended forthis book. We may see without eyes and hear without ears, not byunnatural excitement of our sense of vision or of hearing, for theseaccounts prove the contrary, but by some interior sense, psychic andmental. The soul, by its interior vision, may see not only what ispassing at a great distance, but it may also know in advance what is tohappen in the future.The future exists potentially, determined by causes which bring to passsuccessive events. Positive observation proves the existence of apsychic world, as real as the world known to our physical senses. Andnow, because the soul acts at a distance by some power that belongs