Order of the Occult Hand

January 26th, 2007

The hand brushed past my radar in the newsroom in Winston-Salem, it was clever, and then I forgot about it. For some reason it struck my memory tonight.

The Order of the Occult Hand has no president, board, or member roll. It’s existed for more than 40 years. I haven’t joined, and odds are against my ever joining. Membership belongs to reporters who can sneak the phrase ‘It was as if an occult hand had …’ into print. This isn’t easy: to make it from the reporter’s draft to the printing press, the occult hand has to make it past the reporter’s editor and the copy editors.

But it happens. The Alamogordo Daily News (which, apparently, is owned by my employer’s corporation) ran an article Wednesday with the phrase.

Get more history on the Order.

p.s. If you’re curious about the time I’m posting this — no, I’m not writing this stuff at work. I write it at night and save publishing for the morning.

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