TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1041, 4 August 1930, Page 14

TALKS ON PSYCHOLOGY

PROBLEM OF DREAMING At the Higher Thought Temple last evening, the series of addresses in psychology were continued, the speaker beir,g Mr. M. Walker, and the subject. “Dreams and Visions.” The lecturer said that the psychical faculty was continually proving itself to be a power which very rarely asserted itself forcibly unless we were in actual need of its services. The bare fact of dreaming did not seem to depend upon moral or mental culture, but rather upon a peculiar state of organism. The speaker then reviewed a number of dreams narrated in the Bible, and said that they were so suggestive and true that we utterly failed to find any consistency in the teaching of those who. while insisting upon the veracity of Holy writ, denied that dreams and visions were of any account at the present day. Though we must not ignore physiological conditions, we should steadily endeavour to trace them all back to their primal origin in the region of psychology, and in doing so we were but following the most illustrious precedents in the fields of sicence and religion alike. Mr. Walker said that Joseph of the Old Testament, who interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams, was presented as an upright and honourable man. and Joseph of the New Testament, was described us a just man. There was a very decided ethical note in such teaching, as it led us to infer that the purity of motive was necessary to secure reliable illumination. A quiet mind and excellent morals were favourable to useful dreams and visions, and these prime requisites went well with a sensitive temperament open at every pore to an influx of knowledge from a higher plane of consciousness than that upon which most of us ordinarily dwelt.