Today's Stichomancy for Robert Anton Wilson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad:

"Now, Stevie, you must look well after me at the crossings, and get first into the `bus, like a good brother."

This appeal to manly protection was received by Stevie with his usual docility. It flattered him. He raised his head and threw out his chest.

"Don't be nervous, Winnie. Mustn't be nervous! `Bus all right," he answered in a brusque, slurring stammer partaking of the timorousness of a child and the resolution of a man. He advanced fearlessly with the woman on his arm, but his lower lip dropped. Nevertheless, on the pavement of the squalid and wide thoroughfare, whose poverty in all the amenities of life stood foolishly exposed

The Secret Agent

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair:

invention and the scientific arts? The point of view which Dr. Abbott takes is one which had never occurred to me before, and I had therefore been completely mistaken as to the attitude of Jesus on the question. Also I have, like Dr. Abbott, many radical friends who are still laboring under error.

Jesus goes on to bid his hearers: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." What an apt simile is this for the "great mass of American wealth," in Dr. Abbott's portrayal of it! "It is serving the community," he tells us; "it is building a railway to open a new country to settlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway to carry

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister:

mountains. "I came awful near asking her in the stage," said he.

"Goodness, Lin! give yourself time!"

"Time can't increase my feelings."

"Hers, man, hers! How many hours have you known her?"

"Hours and hours! You're talking foolishness! What have they got to do with it? And she will listen to me. I can tell she will. I know I can be so she'll listen, and it will go all right, for I'll ask so hard. And everything'll come out straight. Yu' see, I've not been spending to speak of since Billy's on my hands, and now I'll fix up my cabin and finish my fencing and my ditch--and she's going to like Box Elder Creek better than Shawhan. She's the first I've ever loved."

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 Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale:

From whom the sea is bitterer than death.

¹ From " Helen of Troy and Other Poems."

RIVERS TO THE SEA

Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no more To thee, God's daughter, powerful as God, It is that thou hast made my life too sweet To hold the added sweetness of a song. There is a quiet at the heart of love, And I have pierced the pain and come to peace I hold my peace, my Cleïs, on my heart; And softer than a little wild bird's wing