Roanoke first impressions

I just finished reading Karen Kupperman's Roanoke. I read it over the course of three days and it fueled my weird dreams lately involving the Algonquian Indians. I had one dream I was out collecting oysters or clams at night in a slow moving narrow river. I then dreamed that I was drilling holes in the pearls to make a necklace. I had another dream about being in Roanoke and being frustrated with the fact that I'm a low priority to the English investors, who favor privateering and immediate returns, and I believe I was made at Ralph Lane for being too heavy handed with the locals and pissing them off. I felt frustrated and endangered. But since in the dream I was in the Lane colony and not the White colony, at least I had a chance of going back to England.

In my reading I was taken by the idea of how Roanoke fits into the larger context of Britain being a marginalized parasitic nation that's on the verge of usurping Spain's position as the main superpower in the world. Kupperman touches on the larger Protestant verses Catholic themes of the day, which I was aware of but never truly ever considered how that might of faired in early American colonization.

I was also surprised to learn about French Huguenot attempts to colonize Florida, that's an interesting tid-bit of trivia. I was also surprised to learn about Joachim Ganz who was probably the first Jew in British America. I've read before about how a at least a few of the people that went with Christopher Columbus on his first voyage were probably secret Jews (so called Marranos or swine)and later on how Dutch Recife Brazil became a 16th century haven for Jews, but to my knowledge there isn't a similarly interesting and exciting story to tell about Jews in the British colonies.

I think Kupperman does a really good job of describing the mindset of the gentry and how that played into their dealings with the Indians. Things that seemed plainly obvious to them seem stupid and fool hearted to me, such as Ralph Lane attacking the Indians over a cup, which I imagine would of really pissed them off. Into this delicate situation come the Lane colonist that then mistakenly attack Indians that are friendly to them, granted this time it was a more honest mistake. But still I'm left with a feeling that the English were very unskillful with their dealings with the Roanoke area Indians.

One more thing about Algonquians Indians, the "flyer" or Shaman described by and painted by John White seems to fit in with what I know about larger Shamanic studies. The name alone "the flyer" might be indiciative of the whole shamanic experience of soul travel and "flying" around the world making spirit frineds (perhaps he's friend with a bird?). This is speculation on my part though.

A dialog in a dream

A dialog in a dream about dreams

Two eerily similar individuals sit across from each other in a nondescript room, the entire scenario is dreamlike and it is hard to say if it even happened at all. At one end of the room is the vague figure of a person that goes by the name Ziggy. Ziggy is a somewhat intelligent college student that has an overview understanding of Freudian psychoanalysis and has attended all of Dr. Capper’s class about Freudian theory. At the opposite extreme of the room is Chris, a similarly intelligent person that has a similar level of knowledge as Ziggy except focused on Christianity and dream healing.

Ziggy: The mind is like an iceberg in that most of it is hidden and cannot be easily seen or studied. The part of the mind that cannot be easily seen is the unconscious (Freud 14). Although unseen and not easily accessible it does exist and is worthy of study and also the study of the unconscious is along the lines of a natural science and the does follow certain cause and effect rules that ultimately boil down to something physical (Freud 14,15, 29).

Chris: There is the potential for something extra physical that goes on when one sleeps. Maimonides says that some dreams can serve as a type of prophecy (Kelsey 139, 151). For early Christians dreams played a large role in their faith as is evident by the fact that both the Pauline letters have accounts of Paul’s dream vision of Jesus as well as text “Sheperd of Hermas” has an account of a dream vision from its author (Kelsey 100, 90). Not all dreams are necessarily important however; some are just junk dreams (Kelsey 21).

It is however obvious that some dreams do not come from the self and come from God in some way or another. Joel 2:28 says, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions (NIV).” As it is also clear from the story of Joseph that the use of puns and hidden meanings in dreams is also important.

Ziggy: What a perfect lead in to wish fulfillment and the interpretation of dream symbolism. But first let us discuss why we are here: the healing power of dreams. Everything that we encounter we remember on an unconscious level. The mind is made up of three parts the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the oldest most fundamental part of the mind (Freud 15, 19). The id is composed of two basic instincts, the Eros instinct and the Death instinct (Freud 18). While contradictory these two instincts exist side by side and influences everything that we do. The other superego is responsible for enforcing all the learned norms society and our parents have placed upon us and the ego is responsible for mediating between the id, the superego, and what is feasible (Freud 14-16).

As you might imagine often the ego is not able to totally satisfy the id and the superego all the time. When this happens often things become repressed (Freud 36). The repressed can cause mental problems in an individual because although it is our nature to repress things repression causes one to lose touch with the reality of what their mind is actually think of. It is important, in Freudian theory, to not have any unknown repressions.

Things that are repressed and put into the unconscious want to be expressed, besides mental problems another medium for expression is dreams. When one dreams the unconscious mind takes control and the id mostly reigns supreme supplanting the normal roles and boundaries in a dream although it is possible for the ego to take control during a dream as well. The superego does not give up its attempt to impose order and norms on our mind willy-nilly however and impose some limited structure on dreams; the main avenue for this is the dream-distortion (Freud 39).

Dream-distortion causes images in our dreams to not be what they seem to be (Freud 39,40). The examples are endless: a cigar may be a penis; a window or the back of the nose may represent female genitalia and so on. However it is important to note that these associations are not hard and fast. As noted earlier when talking about the Eros and Death instincts, the id is capable of holding contradictory beliefs simultaneously and the id is constantly making wild associations between unrelated objects, not unlike the Aristotelian imagination (Freud 56). So it is difficult to interpret dreams without an in depth knowledge about the dreamer in question.

Back to wish fulfillment, despite being censored by the superego dreams are mostly about the id satisfying some desire by way of a dream (Freud 39). This relates to healing because if one is unaware of this process taking place one is ruled by it, to be healthy and free one must recognize the dynamics of their own mind and this acknowledgement and self knowledge will lead to good mental health (Freud 61-62).

Chris: In addition to the Jewish influences on Christian dream theories it is also important to note that Christianity owes a lot of its dream traditions to the ancient Greeks. Dreams could be part of shamanistic healing traditions involving soul travel; dreams in Platonic thought are accepted as important and also as a way for the gods to communicate with humans (Kelsey 62, 66). However Ziggy there were Greeks that agreed with you that dreams are physical entities that arises from the self and follow certain rules, Aristotle being one as you’ve mentioned. While Aristotelian thought has been unutterably important in the Occidental Christian tradition, western Christians have lost touch with their very rich pre-Aquinas dream tradition (Kelsey 152, 191).

These non-Jewish Greek dream traditions had a strong following in early Christianity. Macrobius an early 5^th century Christian theologian borrowed heavenly from the Pagan Dream manual of Artemidorus (Kelsey 139). A contemporary of Macrobius, Jerome was less keen on dreams and forbid them by translating Deuteronomy 18:10 as forbidding dream observation in the Vulgate (Kelsey 139).

About wish fulfillment why would somebody like Saul or Constantine dream about Jesus and Christians symbols before they ever converted?

Ziggy: For the sake or argument, assuming that these accounts are true, and using your own example of Artemidorus it would depend heavily on the context of that dream and who had that dream. As mentioned before often symbols in dreams are not self evident and may mean something other than what you assume they’d mean and also following in the Artemidorian thought and also early Hebrew Biblical thought dreams can often have a meaning that is the opposite of what their face value reading is. So my answer is that it is impossible for us to know, with certainty what these dreams may of actually meant. But from a Freudian point of view all religious beliefs are neurotic and hinder mental health.

Chris: Ah then how would you explain examples of people like Handsome Lake whom overcame alcoholism after a dream that he claimed was sent from God? Or how do you explain cases where people with little or no faith are dragged to Lourdes and get cured?

Ziggy: Well the answer absolutely cannot be that there is any merit in religion or ritual at all. Obviously they are displacing one neurosis with another. On some level or another some id satisfaction is going on, perhaps though some sort of cathexis where the id recognizes the dream or the Lourdes water as fulfilling some sort of need it has, but this is naturally wrong and will cause another neurosis and not take away the original neurosis in question. So it is bad business all around.

How do you go about curing yourself in the Christian dream tradition?

Chris: In both Aristotelian and Hippocratic circles dreams warn somebody of subtle changes in their body and alert the dreamer by way of an allegorical dream such as dreaming you’re on fire when your body detects a fever coming on (Kelsey 73). There are examples of people becoming healed after a dream vision such as Aquilinus’ healing after a dream (Kelsey 119). Ambrose, the late 4^th Milan Bishop, was told to repent in a dream and also was given the emotional comfort of seeing his brother after his death (Kelsey 132). You argued Ziggy that becoming aware of the inner workings of your mind and acknowledging these things to yourself can lead to good mental health. Say you what can be said about the value of repentance in the Freudian theory.

Ziggy: In psychoanalysis it is important to have a skilled therapist to counter and lead the way of psychoanalytic sessions. If one repents to God all sorts of things can go wrong! Transferences, when a patient projects qualities of their parental figures onto the therapist, must take place, be used masterfully, and be channeled properly in order for a patient to fully work though issues they have with their parents. The language is already in place for this kind of interaction to take place between a repenter and a priest and or God. In a protestant context, when one talks to God and uses God as an invisible therapist this natural transference can lead to issues plus there isn’t an actual trained psychoanalyst there to steer the session. If you transfer anger onto your therapist the therapist could help you work through that anger, put it into perspective, and ultimately dispel it. If one transfers upon God and gets mad at God, there is nobody present help this person work through this feeling and he or she is likely to develop a new neurosis because his or her superego will be telling him or her that it is unacceptable to feel mad at God.

Chris: You said previously that humans, by nature, are going to have neurosis. In a Christian context this idea fits in well with the idea that humans have an evil nature because of the Fall. It is only by living the teachings found in the New Testament that one can, through divine grace, over come this nature. On this journey of self-discovery dreams can be a valuable tool to gauge one’s spiritual health and even get messages from God.

Ziggy: Human beings are neurotic but there is no place for God in the path to personal enlightenment, as I have clearly pointed out any such belief is an example of neurosis in and of itself.

Chris: Thank you, before we go I’d like to reiterate that the Judeo-Christian tradition has a long history of dream theories. Christians today are rediscovering Christian takes on dream interpretation and I’m sure we owe that in large to Sigmund Freud and others that have paved the way for the importance of the self, self identity, and self reflection. In a world where it was not enough to be content with the idea that “I think therefore I am”, Freud makes us ponder the idea that: I know how I think there for I am less neurotic.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. Trans. James Stachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1949.

Kelsey, Morton T. God, Dreams, and Revelation: a Christian Interpretation of Dreams. Revised and Expanded ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991.

Vision and Language in Dreams

Dreams consist of both visual images and languages and language. One tool used by Near Eastern Writers, ancient Greek, writers, medieval Muslims writers, and Freud was to examine what the possible meanings of dream images were, but another tool known to all of these groups would of been to specifically look for puns and metaphors in the dreams. Another interpretation used was that some

dreams meant their exact opposite, in fact Freud goes so far as to cite examples of how ancient languages often used the same root word for two opposite things. And lastly another tool would have been to try to focus on the visual images of a dream, an approached used by Artemidorus and favored by Aristotle.

The idea that dreams contain puns wherein the words used for images one sees in a dream can be studied and inferences can be made about what those puns mean is a practice found in all of the aforementioned oneirocritic traditions. In the ancient Near East there was an idea that dreams were a kind of secret legal contract between humans and the gods, but because of their secret nature one needed to visit a powerful dream interpreter to find out what one’s dream meant because they were not always self evident. For example there’s a point in the Epic Gilgamesh when Ea warns Utnapishtim to “spurn property” which we later learn sounds very similar to and actually means “construct boat”. Another example from the same story is when Ea tells Utnapishtim that she dreamt that the people would receive an abundance of wheat cakes, which Utnapishtim takes as meaning that there will be a heavy dark storm, notice how in this last example the interpretation of the dream not only plays off of puns in the dream but the ultimate meaning is actually counterintuitive and opposite of what it originally said. The notion of the polarity of dreams and their meanings is another important theme of dream interpretation related to visual input verses the language used in dreams. A link between ancient Near East and Freudian interpretation of dreams can be made because it was said that the very act of interpreting a dream and “solving” its word mysteries could dissolve its harmful consequence, a notion that Freud would later support fully albeit for different reasons.

Puns of this kind as well as the polarity of dreams and their meanings can be both in all levels of dream literature of the Jews. The two most prominent figures related to dreams in the Hebrew Bible are Joseph and Daniel both of whom became foreigners in other lands. The use of word play and puns is quite evident when one looks at Joseph’s interpretations of the cupbearer, the baker, and the Pharaoh’s dreams. In the cupbearer’s dream grapes can be equated to people, budded can also mean prosperity so Joseph interprets his dream as meaning that soon he will be exonerated. However the baker’s dream is more grim because the word used for food in the basket on his head is a word that’s normally used to talk about a carcass left for birds to eat, and the mention of white bread is equated to Pharaoh’s heated anger, so the dreams ultimate means that the baker will receive a harsh punishment. Joseph uses similar means to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, reckoning abundance to seven years.

Another issue that would of been important to ancient Near Eastern people, Biblical era Hebrews, and Freud alike would of been the issue of reoccurring dreams. For the Near Eastern and Biblical people the repeat of a dream obviously meant that it was of some significance because it was being sent to the person for another go at interpretation. For Freud it would of meant that the dream represented something unresolved in the unconscious and one needed to find the meaning in it.

Ancient Greeks also had many similar ideas on oneirocritic traditions. An example of somebody with similar ideas on dream interpretation is Artemidorus. Artemidorus had two practices related to the visualization of dreams that were not as popular in Near Eastern culture but has Freudian echoes. Artemidorus made a case for dream images as being symbolic and similar to something else, for example he likens a crucifix to a sailing mast when interpreting a sailor’s dream. Notice too that that Artemidorus takes into consideration details about the person interpreting a dream, ancient Near Easterners would of done this too but mainly in the context of whether that person was pious and ritually clean enough to receive dreams, not so much relating their particular life circumstances, such as being a sailor, as being a critical part of the person’s dream interpretation. This notion that different people’s dreams can mean different things gave Artemidorus much more leeway when interpreting dreams images and puns.

Another ancient Greek interested in dreams was Aristotle, although Aristotle did not necessarily believe that one could gain any daemonic knowledge from dreams, he believed they were value to interpret because they could put one in touch with their imagination and give one introspective knowledge about one’s self. For Aristotle the important thing in dreams would have been apparitions and the conversations one has with them. Because the imagination is the part of one’s mind that can make radical associations and isn’t limited by things like reason and memory it can the source of some unique knowledge. Because the nature of imagination the notion that dream images are representative of something else similar would not of been lost on Aristotle.

Aristotle’s imagination is somewhat similar to Freud’s unconscious because it makes unusual associations, isn’t hampered by reason, and is the dominant force at work in one’s dreams. There too is a need for an interpreter in the Aristotelian system of dreams and a dream interpreter is said to be in touch with and have great understanding of the imagination. The interpreter would of looked at things such as the images and conversations in the dreams and then try to figure out what other things those images are related to. As a sort of proof for his methods Aristotle cited the occurrence of how in dreams you will see a figure in a distance and it will look one way, perhaps like a horse, and when you get closer to it will look another way, perhaps like a man. So the idea goes that your imagination made these kinds of associations but it isn’t until you’re asleep that your imagination, working off of the residue of your senses, plays with these associations.

Medieval Muslims would of been aware of all of these traditions and here are elements of each in the Islamic dream interpretation tradition. There is some conflict in the Islamic world about whether dreams had any value at all. John C. Lamoreaux argues that even from the early stages of Islam dreams played a paramount and central role in orthodoxy. Puns were a popular form of interpretation in the early Islamic world, and puns were also popular in Islamic poetry. Images were important in Muslims dreams, especially the image of the prophet, because it was said that Satan could not take the form of Muhammad and any dream that Muhammad appeared in was a true dream. Dream visions as being representative of something else by way of the Artemidorian system would of been known to early Muslims also by way of many popular dream manuals and the notion that the individual circumstances of the person having a dream were of supreme importance would of been known to Muslims as well.

Another important issue, present in all the traditions talked about so far with the exception possibly of Freud, is the idea of a junk dream. Not every single dream had profound meaning. Also it said that a dream from an impious or ungifted person probably did not hold much weight. The notable exception to this idea is of course Freud, who held that all images in dreams are important and represent some facet of the unconscious.

Dreams played a critical role in all of these traditions and continue to do so until this day. One can speculate endlessly about why dreams meant so much in these traditions, one possible answer is that the attempt to try to understand dreams is an attempt to try to subdue them there by conquering them. It is an attempt to try to apply things from the waking world, like reason, cause and effect, unto our dreams that do not apparently seem to follow these kinds of rules.

Gnostic Demiurge

Hezakiah and Nehustan

Thought this would be an interesting topic of discussion. How in Exodus chapter 32 while Moses is getting the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, the Israelites are activly turning their jewelery into a gold calf and worshipping it, breaking the first two commandments. Of course, as most of know and have seen the reinactment by Charlston Heston, Moses angerly throws down the tablets, has a fit, destroys the calf, grinds it to powder, throws it in a river and forces the Israelites to drink it.

However after God tells him not to make any idols, not even of God, he tells Moses to make a snake staff to heal snake bites in Numbers chapter 21. But as we learn from 2 Kings chapter 18, Hezakiah broke the snake staff because people were starting to burn incents for it and called it Nehustan, as if it were a god. It became an idol. (in my imagination I can't help but imagine Hezakiah grinding it up and throwing it into a river like Moses had done)


Even more ironically is that God tells Moses to put golden cherubims on the Ark of the tabernacle. And despirte the popular version of "Cherubs" we have today which are little chubby angels:

Some scholars think that cherubim, as understood by the original audience, would of more likely resembled a wingled lion or bull with a human head:



which makes chapter 32 seem even more ironic. What exactly is the Bible's stance towards graven images? I'm defintly not sure but I do collect Batmobile minitures.

Is there a lesson to be learned from all this? Probably but you'll need to find somebody that cites their sources if you're looking for something with that deep of a meaning.

Satan and Lucifer: two differnt beings

Lucifer and Satan traditionally the same being? I disagree.

Last month something sparked my interest in the figure of Satan/The Devil. It's been a pretty hard task for me to shift through all the stories and references found in the Bible, the Christian New Testament, and Apocrypha.
For the purposes of this post I'm just going to focus on Lucifer and Satan.

The characater of Lucifer is referenced in the book of Isaiah chapter 14 and the myth may also be referenced in the Ezekial chapter 28. Both times they're making paralleling to an Earthly king who's about to experience a fall. Since this characater is not clearly introduced or given his own background story in the canone it's almost a safe bet to say that they where drawing from an oral tradition about an Angel who has something to do with the morning star, Venus, which is where we get the name Lucifer.
Isaiah chapter 14

Quote:

12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Now the story that one can piece together from these references is that this Angel rebelled against God and is then cast directly into Shoel, the underworld, which is one of the main differences between Lucifer and Satan; where they get banished.

Now let's talk about Satan. I'm sure most of us know and appricate this characater's work in the book of Job. He's not given an origin in this story.

In the Christian New Testiment there are passages which give us a background story for Satan. In Luke Chapter 10 Jesus says "I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven." And in Revolations 12 it says that Satan was cast out heaven and sent to Earth. The idea that Satan goes to Earth and not Shoel is also found in other non-canone texts.

Also in the apocrypha Vita Adae et Evae (Life of Adam and Eve) we're given a very clear cut description of how and why Satan was cast out of heaven (for refusing to bow down to Adam). And in the apocrypha 2 Enoch we're told very explicity by God himself that Lucifer was thrown out of heaven for trying to overthrow Him, not for anything having to do with Adam. And even though these stories are just apocrypha/pseudoapoocrypha that doesn't really deminish their value at tracing a myth. And please, please understand that I use myth in the neutral sense to mean a story.

This are kind of made fuzzy by the phrase in second Corinthians chapter 11 about how Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. There could be some confussion about this passage and trying to equate Satan to Lucifer, but Satan's ability to look like an angel of light is simply an alagory about liars, which is what that entire first half of the chapter is about. Besides we already know from Isaiah that Lucifer went to Shoel, the underworld, and thus would have no dealing with humans in any way what so ever.

On a note of tracing this myth down to it's origins (which is not my goal in this post) there is a pretty neat little trail of similar stories surrounding rebelion of Lucifer and Satan, Rahab the angel/prince of the sea, the rebellion of the water (from when God seperated the upper and lower waters in Genesis), the personification of the firmament from Genesis in the book of Ezra, and the Babylonian story of the god Marduk slaying Tiamat, the personification of water and splititng her body as land to create the Earth. One really interesting difference in that little chain is that Timat the Babylonian goddess is female and Rahab the angel is male/masculine. And I'm next to positive that Zoroasterism mixes into the Christian sides of these stories too somehow. (All of these links of course beings ones I've read and discovered in other sources, I'm not claiming I'm smart enough to put all these pieces together).

Lucifer rebeled on the second day of creation (before humans where ever created- Enoch chapter 29) and Satan rebeled on the 6th day of creation (because of Adam - Vita Adae et Evae Chapter 13)

Second Book of Enoch Chapter 28 verse 4 to Chapter 29 verse 4 (God speaking)
Quote:

4Thus I made fast the firmament. This day I called me the first-created. Chapter 29 1And for all the heavenly troops I imaged the image and essence of fire, and my eye looked at the very hard, firm rock, and from the gleam of my eye the lightning received its wonderful nature, which is both fire in water and water in fire, and one does not put out the other, nor does the one dry up the other, therefore the lightning is brighter than the sun, softer than water and firmer than hard rock. 2And from the rock I cut off a great fire, and from the fire I created the orders of the incorporeal ten troops of angels, and their weapons are fiery and their raiment a burning flame, and I commanded that each one should stand in his order. 3And one from out the order of angels, having turned away with the order that was under him, conceived an impossible thought, to place his throne higher than the clouds above the earth, that he might become equal in rank to my power. 4And I threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continuously above the bottomless.

Lucifer isn't named in here but the notion that it's Lucifer (or even somebody besides Satan) is because this characater wants to place his thrown higher than God, not refuse to bow before Adam. Also this fits in exactly with the analogy in Isaiah chapter 14 "Instead you are brought down to Sheol, to the bottomless pit".

Vita Adae et Evae Chapter 13 (This is Satan Speaking to Adam)

Quote:

2 from that place. When thou wast formed. I was hurled out of the presence of God and banished from the company of the angels. When God blew into thee the breath of life and thy face and likeness was made in the image of God, Michael also brought thee and made (us) worship thee in the sight of God; and God the Lord spake: Here is Adam. I have made thee in our image and likeness.'

Of course both of these books didn't make it into the canon but that doesn't diminish their value as far as knowing what people of their day thought. The idea that Satan is different than Satan can be made strickly using canon material, as I think I did earlier)
If you made it to the end of my post PLEASE note that I've only scratched the surface of this topic. What do you think?