We love a good Hand of Glory article, so we were thrilled to find this lengthy post on Haunted Palace with steps for preparing and using one.
Despite the number of guides, the advice for creating a Hand of Glory is all quite similar. The following is taken from the Petit Albert, an eighteenth-century grimoire of natural and cabalistic magic, which in turn cites to a French occultist and the Compendium Maleficarum, a witch-hunter’s manual written by Francesco Maria Guazzo in 1608.
- Sever the left hand from the body of a still hanging criminal. If the man was a murderer; take whichever hand committed the deed. If not known, choose the right.
- Remove the hand in the dead of the night or during an eclipse.
- Wrap tightly in part of a funeral pall.
- Place the hand into an earthenware vessel along with zimat (an unknown substance, possibly verdigris), nitre (also known as saltpeter), salt, and long peppers.
- Leave it in this vessel for two weeks, then expose it to full sunlight during the hottest days of July and August, until dry. Or dry it in the oven.
Alternative directions call for the severed hand to be pickled in salt and the urine of a man, woman, dog, horse, and mare; smoked with herbs and hay for a month; hung on an oak tree for three nights; laid at a crossroads; then hung on a church door overnight.
To add the candle, you can dip the dried hand in wax, turning each finger into a candle. Alternatively, you can use the hand to hold a candle. The candle must be made from human fat taken from the same hanged man.
The Hand of Glory was associated with thieves. Using it, they could cause anyone in a household to fall into a coma-like sleep; open any door; cause the holder to become invisible; and render motionless any person who sees the candle.
Useful.
The only way to block the hand’s power was to douse it in milk. Households could protect themselves from a Hand of Glory by rubbing a mixture of blood, fat, and gall on their doorways.
The article has more detail, including possible sources for the myth of the Hand of Glory and photos of the only known surviving Hand.
