benjamin/ mimetic faculty

“To read what was never written.” Such reading
is the most ancient: reading before all languages,
from the entrails, the stars, or dances. Later the
mediating link of a new kind of reading, of runes
and hieroglyphs, came into use. Its seems fair to
suppose that these were the stages by which the
mimetic gift, which was once the foundation of
occult practices gained admittance to writing
and language.