CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
Nice to have the author's and illustrator's signatures on the front cover. From A Manual of Cheirosophy by Edward Heron Allen and illustrated by Rosamund Brunel Horsley, 1885.
"The hand of mysticism, hysteria, hallucinations, and religious mania." The caption doesn't say this is the hand of a mystically-minded person who experiences hysteria, hallucinations, and religious mania. Rather, it suggests that the hand itself embodies mysticiam, hysteria, hallucinations, and religious mania. Therefore, the illustration is transformed into a talisman, akin to the Hand of Fatima. From New Discoveries in Palmistry by Joseph Bryant Hargett, 1901.
In certain "New Age" cities, like Asheville, NC and Sedona, AZ, every time you hail a cab, your palm gets read. Freedom activists (proponents of so-called "Sibyl Liberties") are fighting for the public's right to private destiny.
"The palm feels, thinks, talks, as the mouth can never speak. It speaks truths that words could never express from lips. It is the communicating medium of our most thrilling and lasting soul unions and spirit yearnings." —Joseph Bryant Hargett
Are the lines of the palm actually the stems of flowers? That's what we get from this drawing on the cover of Cultivating Thinking in English and the Language Arts, 1991. See our own surprising study of palmistry: Crossroads Chiromancy: The Secrets of the Glowing Red Hands.