Today's Stichomancy for Michael Moore

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton:

And lived: One came, methought, of shape divine, And said, 'Thy mansion wants thee, Adam; rise, 'First Man, of men innumerable ordained 'First Father! called by thee, I come thy guide 'To the garden of bliss, thy seat prepared.' So saying, by the hand he took me raised, And over fields and waters, as in air Smooth-sliding without step, last led me up A woody mountain; whose high top was plain, A circuit wide, enclosed, with goodliest trees Planted, with walks, and bowers; that what I saw

Paradise Lost

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis:

how to run MY business!"

Mr. Elder was growing more excited, more belligerent and patriotic. "I stand for freedom and constitutional rights. If any man don't like my shop, he can get up and git. Same way, if I don't like him, he gits. And that's all there is to it. I simply can't understand all these complications and hoop-te- doodles and government reports and wage-scales and God knows what all that these fellows are balling up the labor situation with, when it's all perfectly simple. They like what I pay 'em, or they get out. That's all there is to it!"

"What do you think of profit-sharing?" Carol ventured.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac:

eaten through the rock, escaping below through a gap without a sound. The watery sheet overhanging the fall glides so gently that no ripple is to be seen on the surface which mirrors the chaise as you drive past. The postboy smacks his whip; you turn past a crag; you cross a bridge: suddenly there is a terrific uproar of cascades tumbling together one upon another. The water, taking a mighty leap, is broken into a hundred falls, dashed to spray on the boulders; it sparkles in a myriad jets against a mass that has fallen from the heights that tower over the ravine exactly in the middle of the road that has been so irresistibly cut by the most formidable of active forces.

If you have formed a clear idea of this landscape, you will see 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 The Koran:

were unjust.

Eat, then, from what God has provided you with, things lawful and good, and give thanks for the favours of God, if it be Him ye serve.

He has only forbidden you that which dies of itself, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that which is devoted to other than God; but he who is forced, neither revolting nor transgressing, it is no sin for him: verily, God is forgiving and merciful.

And say not of the lie your tongues pronounce, 'This is lawful, and this is unlawful,' forging against God a lie; verily, those who forge against God a lie shall not prosper. A little enjoyment- then for them is grievous woe!

The Koran