Today's Stichomancy for Philip K. Dick

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass:

The three oldest are now going regularly to school--two can read and write, and the other can spell, with tolerable correctness, words of two syllables. Dear fellows! they are all in comfortable beds, and are sound asleep, perfectly secure under my own roof. There are no slaveholders here to rend my heart by snatching them from my arms, or blast a mother's dearest hopes by tearing them from her bosom. These dear children are ours--not to work up into rice, sugar, and tobacco, but to watch over, regard, and protect, and to rear them up in the nurture and admonition of the gospel--to train them up in the paths of wisdom and virtue, and, as far as we can, to make them useful to the

My Bondage and My Freedom

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare:

Spend thrifts, and such as gape for nothing else But changing and alteration of the state; And is it possible That they are now so loyal in them selves?

LORRAINE. All but the Scot, who solemnly protests, As heretofore I have informed his grace, Never to sheath his Sword or take a truce.

KING JOHN. Ah, that's the anchorage of some better hope! But, on the other side, to think what friends

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James:

always, for a time at least, driven him who had it into the wilderness, often into the literal wilderness out of doors, where the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, St. Francis, George Fox, and so many others had to go. George Fox expresses well this isolation; and I can do no better at this point than read to you a page from his Journal, referring to the period of his youth when religion began to ferment within him seriously.

"I fasted much," Fox says, "walked abroad in solitary places many days, and often took my Bible, and sat in hollow trees and lonesome places until night came on; and frequently in the night walked mournfully about by myself; for I was a man of sorrows in

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 A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde:

A Woman of No Importance

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

Lord Illingworth Sir John Pontefract Lord Alfred Rufford Mr. Kelvil, M.P. The Ven. Archdeacon Daubeny, D.D. Gerald Arbuthnot Farquhar, Butler Francis, Footman Lady Hunstanton