fandomhigh | Good Omens...And Bad: Prophecy in Theory and Practice, Class Fifteen

Monday, December 18, First Period

Extra care seems to have been put into the spread of breakfast offerings this morning -- muffins, bagels, coffeecake, spice bread, and scones. As well as plenty of hot beverages, and several types of juice. Aziraphale appears to be in a particularly mellow mood, although he frowns now and again when the thought crosses his mind that this is the very last meeting for this class.

"First off, I want to tell all of you how very much I've enjoyed teaching you, and just getting to know you. I'm going to miss this class terribly, and I do hope that even if you don't enroll in my class next term, you'll still stop by for a visit now and again.

Today, in place of a lecture, we're going to have an open discussion. I want to hear your views on what we've covered in class this term, and I also want to hear any questions that might have gone unanswered. There'll be a drop box for your final group projects to be turned in outside my office door, and it will remain there until Friday afternoon.

Truly, this has been a remarkable experience for me, and although I do expect to be seeing some of you for our final lab session on Friday, I want to thank all of you for making my very first teaching experience a wonderful and memorable one."

[ooc: No lecture today, but there ~~will be~~ are OCD threads for the discussion Aziraphale mentioned.]

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Dawn had pretty much the same view of prophecy she had when she started--it sucked to be the person who had the prophecies come to them and to be the person the prophecy was about and the people who recorded prophecies needed to learn to be a little more accurate. Not that she said that.

At least she knew all the different ways to divine now.

"If someone has a gift of prophecy, or gets visions, is there a way to get rid of it?"

Aziraphale frowned a bit as he considered Dawn's question.

"I suppose it's possible to find a way to block such a gift, and of course I imagine it could be taken away by the source of the prophecies themselves, but I don't know if you could simply remove it. Imagine it as any other sort of talent -- you can't take away a person's knack for music or mathematics, and think this would into the same sort of category. On the other hand, I don't know very much about magic personally. So I won't say for certain that there isn't some way to produce a...sort of curse, if you will, that would take away one's gift of prophecy."

Hmmm. Yeah, not cursing the boyfriend. That never ended well. "So, how would you suggest managing it, then?"

Smiling ruefully, Aziraphale replied, "Well...it isn't the answer you want, I expect, but the best way to 'manage' a gift like that is to learn how to use it. The practice you received keeping your dream journals would be a good starting point -- keep track of not just what the prophecies are, but when they tend to come, what form they take, how you feel before, during, and after. The more you can learn about your end of things, the easier it should be to deal with actually receiving the predictions. Learning a meditative technique may be useful -- even for active divination, the basics of meditation can help a great deal in your preparations. And I think talking to someone else who also has the gift, and has learned how to live and deal with it, would be quite helpful."

Dawn nodded and took careful notes. "No, that makes sense. Like learning how to fight or shoot."

"Quite." Aziraphale nodded, pleased. "I think you've got the right idea, there. Just like learning to use any other skill that you've realize you have a talent for. Only in this case, it's a bit more necessary that you learn it, because the skill is going to be used whether you want it or not. Rather like...a deaf person who is suddenly able to hear. The sounds aren't going to go away, and you either learn to understand and manage them, or find a way to ignore them, but you can't make them go away."

Good Omens...And Bad: Prophecy in Theory and Practice, Class Fifteen

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