Palmistry or Palm Reading is a divination method utilizing the shape, structure and formations on the hands and fingers to identify likely tendencies, preferences, or other dispositions in one's personality.
It's typically employed in a setting known as a 'reading' where the palmist 'reads' (visually examines) the user's hands and makes an assessment of the user's life w/ respect to health, wealth, relationships, and happieness (past, present, and future).
The Palm Reader's ability to make these assessments about your nature and character is based on a thorough understanding of the structure of the hand and fingers and the specific meanings associated to them.
The History
Painted handprints on the walls of prehistoric caves indicates a clear awareness of the signifigance of the hand back to the earliest age of man. The chinese recognized the uniqueness of the fingerprint as far back as 3000 BC ... and utilized it as a personal mark on all letters by the emperor.
The earliest signs of the use of the whole hand for the assessment of character and likely tendencies occur around 1000 years later in early Sanskrit writings referring to Samudrik Shastra ... or a system for interpreting the marks and lines of the hand. Other references to methods of hand reading also appear in Vedic scripts, the Bible, and early Semitic writings.
The Spread of Palm Reading
The practice spread thru Persia and Egypt to Turkey and Greece. Legend has it that on one of his trips thru Egypt Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) discovered some writing on the art of hand reading. The writing was said to have be written in Arabic ... in letters made of gold. Aristotle was so impressed w/ the writing that he sent it to his student Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC) ... recommending that due to the value of the work it should be studied by all learned men. Alexander had the writings translated into Latin which made it available to Europeans who where quick to embrace the art.
The Rise & Fall
With the new dominance from Christianity occult practices including palmistry were viewed as pagan rituals which were expressly forbidden. In 315 ad a papal condemnation of palmistry with the threat of excommunication to anyone caught participating in the practice effectively forced the practice underground for nearly a thousand years. Of course, alghough excommunication was an undesirable fate ... being declared a heretic would fall on those less fortunate ... and the church reserved this fate for many a palmist, spritutualist, and magi.
It found an ally in the early 16th century w/ the great philosopher, scientiest, and alchemist Paracelcus (1493 - 1541) who promoted the practice in his writings and used alchemy, astrology, and palmistry as part of his studies. The study of palmistry was also a university level course in Europe in the late 17th century. The 19th century saw the key steps to the revival of Palmistry w/ the work of two Frenchman ... Stanilas d'Arpentigny and Adodphe Desbarrolles. d'Arpentigny spent his life classifying hand shapes and Desbarrolles worked as a palmist and was known to read for Napolean III and Alexander Dumas.
The great scientific discoveries and curiosities of this late Middle Age period began to undermine belief in the mystical arts ... including palmistry ... relegating most of them to an esoteric practice today.
The Hand
The hands are one of the most complex parts of the human body ... combining sensitivity, flexibility, and dexterity. The hands are often used in an automatic way in manipulating the environment around us in addition to a myriad of means of expression (artistically, musically, or for non-verbal communication).
This unique role of the hand results in a greater proportion of the human brain dedicated to both it's control and it's important sensory functions. The hand contains the most dense concentration of nerve endings of any area of the human body.
The Mind Reflected In the Hand?
There are many examples of physiological manifestations of psychological state. The most basic example most people would relate to is 'stress lines' likely to occur in the face due to the way one deals w/ difficult situations. Someone being embarrassed and blushing is another. There's even ways to use eye movements and other eye physiology to determine internal mental state. See the sections titled 'Did You Really Read My Mind' and 'What is NLP?' for more on this.
With the hands representing such an important element in the experiences of humans it would seem likely that this is not a simple one-way channel. The hand's reflection of your inner psyche has been well documented for thousands of years and most recently been supported w/ more advanced genetic and scientific techniques.
The Method
It's difficult to summarize this here but it's basically a combination of Hand Shape, Finger Length/Shape, Thumb Structure, Skin Type & Texture, Major/Minor Palm Lines, Mounts, and skin Ridge Patterns (palm and finger prints). All of the observed attributes are used collectively to come to a assessment of your likely tendencies and general nature.
Fingerprints
The skin ridge patterns that exist on the palm of the hand and especially the tips of the fingers produce a rolling landscape of lands and grooves that uniquely identifies you from all other humans ... for all of time. These ridge patterns often fall into one of a handful of categories. These unique characteristics were most notably catalogued by the 17th century physician Nehemiah Grew ... who taught the study of fingerprints in 1684. Another signifigant contributor is Jan Purkinje who published a thesis on fingerprint patterns in 1823. This uniqueness of the fingertips and the cataloguing of prints was to revolutionize police work everywhere when Scotland Yard first used the technique of fingerprinting in criminal cases (1901)
Unlike the lines in the palm of the hand ... while the fingerrpint patterns grow in size from child to adult, they never change. They can even be scraped, burned, or cut off ... and in time the exact same pattern will return.
The type of patterns you posses and which fingers they fall on will reveal your approach to life. It's not unusual to have a mix of more than one type of the roughly eight different known pattern types. The signifigance of the patterns is interpreted in the context of the finger in which it is resides (see finger length section).
In addition to fingerprints ... we all posses similar unique patterns on our palmar surface (ie. the palm). The whole palm is in fact covered w/ a series of lands and grooves that flow across the hand ... sometimes moving in parallel ... sometimes exhibiting the characteristic loops and whorls of the tips of the fingers. These patterns are genetic and form in the hand somewhere in the early stages of justation. They can be used by the Palmist to interpret specific aspects of our inherent nature.
The Hand's Shape
The highest level of classification of the hand is it's overall shape ... and was first documented by Stanislas D'Arpentigny (1798-1865) and Adolph Desbarrolles (1801-1865). There are four basic hand shapes ... made up of one of two 'base of hand' shapes (square or oblong) ... and one of two finger lengths (short or long).
This is simply one of two ... Square Palm ... or Oblong Palm. Square palmers are typically down to earth, capable, practicle types. They enjoy challenges and are diligent workers w/ seemingly endless stamina and energy. Oblong palmers are the hands of artists. They are long and shapely ... and less practical than the square hand. Oblong palms enjoy the creativity of new ideas, daydreaming, and they are typically idealistic and gentle types.
The next level is the finger length. Your choices here are either long or short. Short finger types are often quick on the uptake and become impatient with people who dilly-dally and take their time. They like a straightforward approach and get the job done. They're more comfortable being occupied ... and frequently juggle multiple tasks at once. They are more likely to be better at the broader view as opposed to being mired in the detail. Long fingered types not suprisingly exhibit alternate behaviours ... they like detailed work that is difficult and involved. They are typically more patient and will take whatever time is necessary to complete the task (driving the short finger types nuts!). Other attributes for long finger type include conscientious, reliable, and often break things down to their elemental parts to understand their operation.
So two types of hand shape and two types of finger length give us four basic types of hands. These are named based on the four elements in nature: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Earth is the square hand w/ short fingers, Air is square hand w/ long fingers, Fire is oblong hand w/ short fingers, and Water is oblong hand w/ long fingers.
Not in all cases is this higher level classification meaningful ... since many people have hands that exhibit more generic features at this level making this classification difficult. In these cases the other attributes of the hand are used to make the assessment.
Skin Type & Texture
The hand's skin quality is all about the person's overall receptivity. If no clear indications emerge as part of the assessment of the hand shape ... the skin texture is very often the starting point in the Palmist's analysis.
The palmar skin texture is extremely important ... as it's serving a role as a filter between yourself and the exterior world. The skin on the palms has an exceptioanally dense concentration of nerve endings ... leaving it's complex cellular structure as a model of the central nervous system.
With the skin ridge patterns being highly concentrated w/ nerve endings ... the finer the skin and more numerious and dense are the ridge patterns ... thereby providing greater sensory perception and receptivity to temperature, touch, pain, atmosphere, and toxins.
Finger Length and Shape
The fingers provide us a unique insight into the individuals psychology including their motivations, drives, and background. The thumb and fingers change very little relative to each during your life. Some minor changes do occur with the phsyical development at the beginning of life ... and there may be some deformation of the hand shape in old age as arthritic or bone density issues come about.
Measurement of the relative finger lengths are used to assess various characteristics of the personality that are tied to each of the five digits of the hand. Nominal lengths for the fingers are: middle finger's top phalange protrudes half way beyond tips of adjacent fingers ... which are typically the same length. The little finger's nominal length should be for it to reach the crease line of the top phalange of the ring finger.
The digits in Palmistry have tradtionally been given planetary names and attributes: index (Jupiter), middle (Saturn), ring (apollo), pinky (mercury). These are representative of the various aspects of the cerebral cortex relating to self consciousness (index), values (middle), social expression (ring), and communication (little finger).
In general ... the more striking the characterisics of overall finger length, phalange length, finger thickness, and finger tip shape ... the more detail will be available in the understanding of the persons nature. A swing in the nominal characteristics of the fingers in either direction (more of ... less of) are reflected in the assigned nature of that finger (self consciousness, values, sociability, and communication).
The Lines of the Palm
Those are just creases in the skin, right? Caused by ... and due to ... the type of work we do? Well, not really. It turns out that our hands are all different ... but for other reasons than what type of physical experience they have.
The lines are created by our nervious system and tied to our physiology and body chemistry. There are many core elemental lines that nearly everyone has ... although the specific characteristics are usually different for each person. The secondary lines are often found in more rare cases and provide greater insight into other aspects of the persons nature.
Characteristics such as the actual existence of the line ... the length of the line ... the depth or prominance ... and whether it's solid or broken/striated are identified and used along w/ the other attributes of the hand and fingers to make an assessment. Each aspect providing it's own color to the final assessment.
Are you a believer?
I have to say that I was very skeptical when I first approached this. As a magician, I was looking for a better means to do what's called a 'cold reading' ... which is a reading like a palm, tarot, or astrological reading but I do it completely 'cold' (with no knowledge of you, your history, your birthdate, what your hand looks like, etc). Believe it or not there are many techniques for pulling this off (the cold reading) but I just didn't feel comfortable w/ it so I kept looking.
I looked at Tarot cards and I think they're really cool and would like to learn to use them but there's a lot of time required ... and at the end of the day it's a deck of pretty cards that are suppossedly telling all the inner most secrets about you. I'm not saying this isn't possible ... i'm just concerned about others being able to buy into it.
So I buy this book titled Palm Reading for Beginners by Richard Webster and it sits on my shelf for over a year. Eventually it's gets into my reading queue and to my surprise within the first twenty pages of the book I make a broad identification of my hand type ... one amongst roughly 10 different images of hand types ... and it was dead on w/ it's (broad) description of me. I did the id of my hand to the picture first ... then I read the summary ... so as not to taint my selection in any way.
If you believe that there's a connection between your mind and your body (and there is whether you believe it or not) ... it shouldn't be a huge leap to think that your inner state can be reflected somehow in your physical form (ie. your hands).
I wouldn't suggest letting the shape and structure of your hand define all the key aspects of your life ... but it would be at least interesting ... and possibly useful ... to know what your hand has to say about who you might really be!
