I swear this really was the closest book:

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
* Tag five other people to do the same.

"At the top of the trump is written 'Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem,' Latin for 'Visit the interior parts of the Earth; by rectification thou shalt find the Hidden Stone.' The initial letters of this sentence for the word vitriol, which is the universal solvent formed by the perfect balance of the alchemical elements of Sulfur, Salt, and Mercury. The 'Hidden Stone' is the Philosopher's Stone of the alchemists, representative of the true self and the accomplishment of the Great Work. The Stone can only be found within the aspirant, the 'interior parts of the Earth' that are purified by the application of vitriol, the universal solvent."

-From _The Thoth Companion: The Key to the True Symbolic Meaning of the Thoth Tarot_, by Michael Osiris Snuffin (Woodbury, Minn: Llewellyn, 2007).

Tags: alchemy, books, tarot, thoth