Babylonian Folklore
The world ancient people lived in was one filled with
spirits and demons, gods and goddesses, good and evil
forces. The many immaterial things they were surrounded
by, the immense uncertainties they faced, were quite
usefully called spirits - invisible and mysterious
yet potent powers that could act upon one for good
or ill. Their beliefs and observations regarding dreams
were therefore deeply coloured by their worldview.
Death was a certainty, illness, physical or mental
was a possibility, love and reproduction were drives
to be satisfied, and so many dreams or myths centered
on the way they met these. In the Babylonian culture
the attempt to find meaning in the events of life
and to control or direct the threatening forces of
nature, led to a wide array of techniques concerned
with prophecy, magical control or propitiation.
The Babylonians believed that an event in one part
of the world or cosmos would cause an occurrence in
another part. A comet appearing in the sky for instance,
would be seen as presaging great social or personal
changes. This link between the cosmos and the individual
also suggested to the Babylonians that the cosmos
could be influenced by human action - thus the rituals
of appeasement or magic. These beliefs led to an examination
of any mysterious event in an attempt to understand
its personal or wider significance. Dreams were one
of the possible sources of such prophecy or enlightening
information.
Foreword
