ABSTRACT
We read for information when we confront a problem with a definite solution. But we have to read in a different way if we face a problem for which there isn’t a ready-made answer. Readers in late antiquity who were perplexed by a problem would open the Aeneid at random, blindly put a finger upon a line, and try to find in the verse some indication of what to do. The Puritans in seventeenth-century America used the Bible in the same way. We moderns can use books this way, too.
The process for consulting an oracle goes like this:
Ask a question the right way. The question we ask should articulate a challenge that cannot be solved rationally.
Choose a text based on impulse or attraction. A book serves as an arbitrary focus so that we can work on our problem from a starting point outside the familiar premises that have already led us into a dead end.
Pick out a passage at random. An oracle works by giving us a new, unexpected perspective on our problem.
Interpret the passage in light of the challenge. We must rethink our problem using the terms of the randomly chosen text.
