A passage, met by chance

How to consult it

1. Hold a question in mind, or enter it on the casting page.
2. Choose a book from the collection.
3. Select “Draw a passage.” Read slowly and notice a word, image, or tension that stands out.
4. Consider its relationship to your question and the passage’s original context.

This digital version chooses among prepared passages from your selected book. Each passage has an equal chance; a passage may appear again. It does not simulate opening a physical book to a uniformly random page.

The book collection

Books are added to this curated library by the site owner. Every passage carries a book title, author when known, and a source location. PDF page references count from the first page of the uploaded file and may differ from printed page numbers. Text files use numbered paragraphs.

Passages retain the source wording. Line wrapping may be normalized during preparation; no interpretation is inserted into the quoted text. Book-specific edition and preparation notes appear beneath the book selector.

Tao Te Ching

Laozi, translated by James Legge. All 81 chapters, each drawn in full, from The Tao Teh King, Project Gutenberg #216. Citations use chapter numbers.

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius, translated by Meric Casaubon. 417 numbered sections across twelve books, following Project Gutenberg #2680. Each reading identifies its book and section. Introduction, appendix, glossary, and editorial notes are excluded.

Gitanjali

Rabindranath Tagore’s English prose-poem version, from Project Gutenberg #7164. All 103 poems are drawn as complete entries. W. B. Yeats’s introduction is excluded.

The Dhammapada

Translated by F. Max Müller, Sacred Books of the East, volume X, from Project Gutenberg #2017. All 423 verses are represented in 414 entries; verses printed together remain together. Citations retain chapter and verse numbers. Each entry has an equal chance.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell — Proverbs of Hell

William Blake, John W. Luce and Company, Boston, 1906, from Project Gutenberg #45315. This selection contains the 69 proverb paragraphs in this edition’s “Proverbs of Hell,” one per draw. Proverb numbers are assigned here in source order. Other sections of the book are not included.

The Magic Oracle Book

Cerridwen Greenleaf, The Magic Oracle Book: Ask Any Question and Discover Your Fate, Mango Publishing Group, 2019. EPUB ISBN 9781642501834.

876 entries from “The Magic Oracle”: 820 attributed excerpts and 56 short oracle answers. Poetic paragraph breaks are retained. The quoted writers and works are credited as they appear in this book; these attributions have not been independently verified. Repeated entries remain in their original sequence.

This EPUB has no stable printed-page mapping. Citations use an Alchemysterium entry number, EPUB part, and paragraph range, not invented page numbers. Introduction, instructions, acknowledgments, bibliography, and promotional material are excluded. Source wording is preserved, including occasional typographical or incomplete text.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Baltasar Gracián, translated by Martin Fischer. The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Collection of Aphorisms from the Work of Baltasar Gracián, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 1993.

The collection contains all 300 numbered aphorisms, each drawn as a complete entry. Source: the supplied scanned edition, printed pages 1–174 (PDF pages 23–196). Title and publication details appear on PDF pages 5–6.

This is an OCR-derived transcription. Entry boundaries and sample pages have been checked; the entire text has not been proofread. Line wrapping, end-of-line word breaks, and several clear OCR errors have been normalized. Remaining transcription errors are possible. Each reading identifies its aphorism and both printed and PDF page numbers.

Your question

Questions and draws stay in the current browser page and are not automatically saved or sent to the site. Saving to Scriptorium stores a private copy when you are signed in. Sharing offers image, PDF, and text exports. Saved and exported readings include the question you entered, the passage, and its source. Changing the question or book clears the previous reading.