Today's Stichomancy for John Carpenter

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rig Veda:

looks on men, exceeding gracious, A song of praise sing to the God Immortal, whom the stone, presser of the sweet juice, worships.

4 Even as true knower of the Law, O Agni, to this our solemn rite he thou attentive. When shall thy songs of festival be sung thee? When is thy friendship shown within our dwelling?

The Rig Veda

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther:

with all care and diligence against the poisonous infection of such security and vain imagination, but steadily keep on reading, teaching, learning, pondering, and meditating, and do not cease until they have made a test and are sure that they have taught the devil to death and have become more learned than God Himself and all His saints.

If they manifest such diligence, then I will promise them, and they shall also perceive, what fruit they will obtain, and what excellent men God will make of them, so that in due time they themselves will acknowledge that the longer and the more they study the Catechism, the less they know of it, and the more they find yet to learn; and then only, as hungry and thirsty ones, will they truly relish that which now

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri:

Createdst, Love who governest the heaven, Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light!

When now the wheel, which thou dost make eternal Desiring thee, made me attentive to it By harmony thou dost modulate and measure,

Then seemed to me so much of heaven enkindled By the sun's flame, that neither rain nor river E'er made a lake so widely spread abroad.

The newness of the sound and the great light Kindled in me a longing for their cause, Never before with such acuteness felt;

The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

one excuse--to recall to the reader the events of the night of Arnold Armstrong's murder. Many things had occurred which were not brought out at the inquest and some things were told there that were new to me. Altogether, it was a gloomy affair, and the six men in the corner, who constituted the coroner's jury, were evidently the merest puppets in the hands of that all-powerful gentleman, the coroner.

Gertrude and I sat well back, with our veils down. There were a number of people I knew: Barbara Fitzhugh, in extravagant mourning--she always went into black on the slightest provocation, because it was becoming--and Mr. Jarvis, the man who

The Circular Staircase