Three Causes for the Popularity of Prophetic Visions

I mean “Prophetic Visions” to be those of certain memory, from hidden causes. I do not mean the divine prophecies, heathen oracles, nor natural predictions.

Saith the Pythonissa to Saul, Tomorrow thou and thy son shall be with me.

Homer had these verses:

At domus AEneae cunctis dominabitur oris, Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.

Seneca the tragedian hath these prophetic verses of the Roman empire:

It is a prophecy of the discovery of America.

The daughter of Polycrates, dreamed that Jupiter bathed her father, and Apollo anointed him. It came to pass, that he was crucified in an open place, where the sun made his body run with sweat, and the rain washed it. Philip of Macedon dreamed, he sealed up his wife’s belly; whereby he did expound it, that his wife should be barren; but Aristander the soothsayer, told him his wife was with child, because men do not use to seal vessels, that are empty.

A phantasm that appeared to M. Brutus, in his tent, said to him, Philippis iterum me videbis.

Tiberius said to Galba, Tu quoque, Galba, degustabis imperium. In Vespasian’s time, there went a prophecy in the East, that those that should come forth of Judea, should reign over the world: which though it may be was meant of our Savior; yet Tacitus expounds it of Vespasian. Domitian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was growing, out of the nape of his neck: and indeed, the succession that followed him for many years, made golden times.

Henry the Sixth of England, said of Henry the Seventh, when he was a lad, and gave him water, This is the lad that shall enjoy the crown, for which we strive.

When I was in France, I heard from one Dr. Pena, that the Queen Mother, who was given to curious arts, caused the King her husband’s nativity to be calculated, under a false name; and the astrologer gave a judgment, that he should be killed in a duel; at which the Queen laughed, thinking her husband to be above challenges and duels: but he was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff of Montgomery going in at his beaver.

The trivial prophecy, which I heard when I was a child, and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was,

 When hempe is spun

 England's done:

whereby it was generally conceived, that after the princes had reigned, which had the principal letters of that word hempe (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth), England should come to utter confusion; which, thanks be to God, is verified only in the change of the name; for that the King’s style, is now no more of England but of Britain. There was also another prophecy, before the year of ‘88, which I do not well understand.

 There shall be seen upon a day,
 Between the Baugh and the May,
 The black fleet of Norway.
 When that that is come and gone,
 England build houses of lime and stone,
 For after wars shall you have none.

It was generally conceived to be meant, of the Spanish fleet that came in ‘88: for that the king of Spain’s surname, as they say, is Norway. The prediction of Regiomontanus,

 Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus,

was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great fleet, being the greatest in strength, though not in number, of all that ever swam upon the sea. As for Cleon’s dream, I think it was a jest. It was, that he was devoured of a long dragon; and it was expounded of a maker of sausages, that troubled him exceedingly. There are numbers of the like kind; especially if you include dreams, and predictions of astrology.

But I have set down these few only, of certain credit, for example.

I think they should all to be despised as a belief, and not taken seriously.

But the spreading or publishing of them is not to be despised. They have done much mischief. I see many severe laws to suppress them.

They became creditable due to 3 things:

1. Men mark when they hit, but never mark when they miss.

This is generally true also of dreams.

2. Probable conjectures, or obscure traditions, many times turn themselves into prophecies

Human nature wants divination. We think it no peril to foretell that which they do but collect, like that of Seneca’s verse.

The Earth had great parts beyond the Atlantic, which might not be all sea. He added thereto the tradition in Plato’s Timaeus, and his Atlanticus. This might encourage one to turn it to a prediction.

3. Almost all of them, being infinite in number, have been impostures

They were idly and craftily contrived and feigned after the event happened.