This is one of the more obscure dreams in the Commentary as it is the furtherest away from a contemporary reading of it. Macrobius explains it; “We call a dream Oracular in which a parent, or a pious or revered person, or a priest, or even god clearly reveals what will or will not transpire, and what action to take or to avoid”. If we are to apply a readable filter to this dream from our own time, it might be suggested that we take heed and stop to reflect when we watch a respected man such as David Attenborough talk through his documentaries about the effects of nature’s destruction and what needs to be done to avoid it. Or when Mother Theresa spoke publicly about the work that needed to be achieved to tackle extreme poverty in the world. Conversely, the Oracular dream can also be applied to the opposite effect, when demagogues talk of nationalism, anti-immigration and sowing hatred and division among peoples. One could also pontificate whether Science itself is a source for Oraculum, or even the
common Television set.
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ANONYMOUS, Funerary Gold Mask, Phoenician or Greek, ca. 5th - 4th Century B.C.
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MASTER OF FRANKFURT, Allegory of love.
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ANONYMOUS, Funerary Gold Mask, Phoenician or Greek, ca 4th Century BC
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JOHANN HEINRICH FUSELI, R.A., St. John’s Vision of the Seven Candlesticks, 1796
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JOHN MARTIN, Paradise - With the Approach of the Archangel Raphael, 1824/25
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KONSTANTINO DREGOS, “SY-4” (Jacobs Ladder)
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