Today's Stichomancy for Claire Forlani
| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: to one Anebos, an Egyptian priest, stating his doubts as to the popular
notions of the Gods, as beings subject to human passions and vices, and
of theurgy and magic, as material means of compelling them to appear, or
alluring them to favour man. The answer of Abamnon, Anebos, Iamblichus,
or whoever the real author may have been, is worthy of perusal by every
metaphysical student, as a curious phase of thought, not confined to
that time, but rife, under some shape or other, in every age of the
world's history, and in this as much as in any. There are many passages
full of eloquence, many more full of true and noble thought: but on the
whole, it is the sewing of new cloth into an old garment; the attempt to
suit the old superstition to the new one, by eclectically picking and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: mad and his entire troop of cavalry should be composed of
maniacs, yet they all persisted in speaking and acting as
though he were indeed the mad king of Lutha and the
young girl at his side a princess.
From pitying the girl he had come to feel a little bit in
awe of her. To the best of his knowledge he had never be-
fore associated with a real princess. When he recalled that
he had treated her as he would an ordinary mortal, and that
he had thought her demented, and had tried to humor her
mad whims, he felt very foolish indeed.
Presently he turned a sheepish glance in her direction,
The Mad King |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: could not tell him. I had never thought of such a possibility before. He
showed me by calculations on paper, which Lord Kelvin, no doubt, or
Professor Lodge, or Professor Karl Pearson, or any of those great
scientific people might have understood, but which simply reduced me to a
hopeless muddle, that not only was such a substance possible, but that it
must satisfy certain conditions. It was an amazing piece of reasoning.
Much as it amazed and exercised me at the time, it would be impossible to
reproduce it here. "Yes," I said to it all, "yes; go on!" Suffice it for
this story that he believed he might be able to manufacture this possible
substance opaque to gravitation out of a complicated alloy of metals and
something new - a new element, I fancy - called, I believe, helium, which
The First Men In The Moon |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: But thou, shrieking harbinger,
Foul pre-currer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-defying swan,
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