Today's Stichomancy for Terry Gilliam

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

STRANGER: Then let us divide sciences in general into those which are practical and those which are purely intellectual.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Let us assume these two divisions of science, which is one whole.

STRANGER: And are 'statesman,' 'king,' 'master,' or 'householder,' one and the same; or is there a science or art answering to each of these names? Or rather, allow me to put the matter in another way.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear.

STRANGER: If any one who is in a private station has the skill to advise one of the public physicians, must not he also be called a physician?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.

Statesman

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato:

a similar figure; and any one may very fairly say in like manner that the soul is lasting, and the body weak and shortlived in comparison. He may argue in like manner that every soul wears out many bodies, especially if a man live many years. While he is alive the body deliquesces and decays, and the soul always weaves another garment and repairs the waste. But of course, whenever the soul perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this will survive her; and then at length, when the soul is dead, the body will show its native weakness, and quickly decompose and pass away. I would therefore rather not rely on the argument from superior strength to prove the continued existence of the soul after death. For granting even more than you affirm to be possible, and acknowledging not only that the

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Koran:

Why should God punish you, if ye are grateful and believe? for God is grateful and knowing.

God loves not publicity of evil speech, unless one has been wronged; for God both hears and knows.

If ye display good or hide it, or pardon evil, verily, God is pardoning and powerful!

Verily, those who disbelieve in God and His apostles desire to make a distinction between God and His apostles, and say, 'We believe in part and disbelieve in part, and desire to take a midway course between the two:' these are the misbelievers, and we have prepared for misbelievers shameful woe! But those who believe in God

The Koran

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 Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp:

In the morning, of course, I was as brave as a lion and much amused at the cold perspirations of the night before; but even the nights seem to me now to have been delightful, and myself like those historic boys who heard a voice in every wind and snatched a fearful joy. I would gladly shiver through them all over again for the sake of the beautiful purity of the house, empty of servants and upholstery.

How pretty the bedrooms looked with nothing in them but their cheerful new papers! <12> Sometimes I would go into those that were finished and build all sorts of castles in the air about their future and their past. Would the nuns who had lived in them know their little white-washed cells again, all gay with delicate flower papers and clean white paint?

Elizabeth and her German Garden