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.
"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.