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Bibliomancy
May. 16th, 2005 07:30 pmSo I'm reading Daniel DeFoe's Journal of the Plague Year, about which I'll hopefully have time to yammer about later because lots of interesting parallels with our post-9/11 society, but that's neither here nor there except that DeFoe, being devout, used bibliomancy to help him decide whether to stay in London or to flee into the countryside. He opened a page of the Bible at random, it was an Old Testament passage about how God would slay hundreds to his left and thousands to his right yet he would be spared, he took comfort from that and stayed, bang zoom, classic work of literature. (Though I'm sure 'Journal of the Year Spent in the Countryside Avoiding People' would have been just as gripping.)
Now another person, upon reading this, could have been struck by the particular Bible verse, decided to ponder aloud that at times the Old Testament God sounded like Not A Very Nice Person, and that by 'at times' he meant '23 hours out of every 24', and gotten in a very stimulating discussion. But I was struck by the whole Bibliomancy concept. Thinkz I, it's worth a try. But even if the Bible was my cup of manna, I don't have one in the house. What else could I use? What else has the panoramic spread of human existence, with highs and lows and keen observations that can act as guidance and comfort?
I've spent the last few minutes counting up the total pages of my Terry Pratchett books. 7,316, spread over 23 volumes. Each page has 34 lines. I've run the random.org randomizer two different ways, once to generate a totally random page and then a random line, and once to generate first a random book, then a random page, and then the line.
The Question: How Should I Spend My Evening Tonight? (A nice, easy one for starters)
Answer 1: "Twoflower grabbed him quickly."
Ooookay. Hrm. Let's try the other method.
Answer 2: "On the other hand, he gravitated quickly to anything with money in it."
It's true, I DO need to find new sources of income. I just may be onto something here.
Now another person, upon reading this, could have been struck by the particular Bible verse, decided to ponder aloud that at times the Old Testament God sounded like Not A Very Nice Person, and that by 'at times' he meant '23 hours out of every 24', and gotten in a very stimulating discussion. But I was struck by the whole Bibliomancy concept. Thinkz I, it's worth a try. But even if the Bible was my cup of manna, I don't have one in the house. What else could I use? What else has the panoramic spread of human existence, with highs and lows and keen observations that can act as guidance and comfort?
I've spent the last few minutes counting up the total pages of my Terry Pratchett books. 7,316, spread over 23 volumes. Each page has 34 lines. I've run the random.org randomizer two different ways, once to generate a totally random page and then a random line, and once to generate first a random book, then a random page, and then the line.
The Question: How Should I Spend My Evening Tonight? (A nice, easy one for starters)
Answer 1: "Twoflower grabbed him quickly."
Ooookay. Hrm. Let's try the other method.
Answer 2: "On the other hand, he gravitated quickly to anything with money in it."
It's true, I DO need to find new sources of income. I just may be onto something here.
