Afortune-teller conducting a palm reading, with lines and mounts marked out on the person's left palmGold stamped front cover ofThe Psychonomy of the Hand
Palmistry is thepseudoscientific practice offortune-telling through the study of thepalm. Also known aspalm reading,chiromancy,chirology orcheirology, the practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice palmistry are generally calledpalmists,hand readers,hand analysts, orchirologists.
There are many—and often conflicting—interpretations of various lines and palmar features across various teachings of palmistry. Palmistry is widely viewed as apseudoscience due to various contradictions between different interpretations and the lack of evidence for palmistry's predictions.[1][2]
Palmistry is a practice common to many different places on theEurasian landmass;[3] it has been practiced in the cultures of Sumer, Babylonia, Arabia, Canaan, Persia,India, Nepal, Tibet and China.
Theacupuncturist Yoshiaki Omura describes its roots inHindu astrology (known inSanskrit asjyotish),ChineseYijing (I Ching), andRomanifortune tellers.[4] Several thousand years ago, the Hindu sageValmiki is thought[5][6] to have written a book comprising 567 stanzas, the title of which translates in English asThe Teachings of Valmiki Maharishi on Male Palmistry.[5][7] Since ancient times, palmistry is considered to be a branch of Samudrika Shastra (Sanskrit: सामुद्रिक शास्त्र) which included the studies of marks all over a person's body such asastrology and palmistry (Hast-samudrika), as well asphrenology (kapal-samudrik) and face reading (physiognomy,mukh-samudrik).[8][9] From India, the art of palmistry spread to China,Tibet and to other countries inEurope.[4][10]
Palmistry also progressed independently inGreece whereAnaxagoras practiced it.[4]Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) reportedly discovered a treatise on the subject of palmistry on an altar ofHermes, which he then presented toAlexander the Great (356–323 B.C.E.), who took great interest in examining the character of his officers by analyzing the lines on their hands.[11] A chapter of a 17th-centurysex manual, misattributed to Aristotle, is occasionally incorrectly cited as being the treatise in question. The text is not contained in hiscanonical works.
Palmistry experienced a revival in the modern era starting with Captain Casimir Stanislas D'Arpentigny's publicationLa Chirognomie in 1839.[10] The Chirological Society ofGreat Britain was founded inLondon by Katharine St. Hill in 1889 with the stated aim to advance and systematise the art of palmistry and to prevent charlatans from abusing the art.[14][15] Edgar de Valcourt-Vermont (Comte C. de Saint-Germain) founded the American Chirological Society in 1897.
Edward Heron-Allen, an Englishpolymath, published various works including the 1883 book,Palmistry: A Manual of Cheirosophy, which is still in print.[10][16] There were attempts at formulating some sort of scientific basis for the art, most notably in the 1900 publicationThe Laws of Scientific Hand Reading byWilliam Gurney Benham.[17]
In 1970,Parker Brothers published a game designed by Maxine Lucille Fiel called "Touch-Game of Palmistry" which allowed players to do "palm reading and analysis" through selecting cards that matched designated palm features.[18]
Cheiro, an influential exponent of palmistry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Dermatoglyphics and palmistry both study the intricate features of the human palm, likefingerprints,creases,shapes, and mounts, but their purposes differ greatly.[20] Dermatoglyphics is a scientific field examining these patterns for genetic and medical insights,[21] while palmistry interprets them to reveal personality traits and predict future events.[22][23][24] The former relies on empirical data, whereas the latter is based on the 12th-century textSamudrika Shastra. Further research is needed to explore any potential links between these two approaches.
Scientific literature regards palmistry as a pseudoscientific orsuperstitious belief.[25] Psychologist and noted skepticRay Hyman has written:[26]
I started reading palms in my teens as a way to supplement my income from doing magic and mental shows. When I started I did not believe in palmistry. But I knew that to "sell" it I had to act as if I did. After a few years I became a firm believer in palmistry. One day the late Stanley Jaks, who was a professional mentalist and a man I respected, tactfully suggested that it would make an interesting experiment if I deliberately gave readings opposite to what the lines indicated. I tried this out with a few clients. To my surprise and horror my readings were just as successful as ever. Ever since then I have been interested in the powerful forces that convince us, reader and client alike, that something is so when it really isn't.
Skeptics often include palmists on lists of alleged psychics who practicecold reading. Cold reading is the practice that allows readers of all kinds, including palmists, to appear psychic by using high-probability guessing and inferring details based on signals or cues from the other person.[27][28] Although some Christians condemn palmistry as a form ofdivination,Jewish andChristian traditions are largely ambivalent about divination in general.[29] During the 16th century the Catholic Church condemned the practice of palmistry.[13] However, there is a long tradition of practicing palmistry within bothJewish andChristian mysticism,[30] and some practitioners, such as Comte C. de Saint-Germain, have argued that the Bible does not oppose it.[31]
^Park, Michael Alan (1986). "Palmistry or HandJive?". InFrazier, Kendrick (ed.).Science Confronts the Paranormal. Prometheus. pp. 198–201.ISBN978-1-61592-619-0.
^Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas; Furnham, Adrian (2010).The Psychology of Personnel Selection. Cambridge University Press. p. 19.ISBN978-0-521-86829-7.A more popular pseudoscience is chiromancy (or palmistry), the art of characterisation and foretelling the future through the study of the palm.
^Modern Asian Studies Volume 41. Cambridge University Press. 2007. p. 504.
^Robert Svoboda & Hart De Fouw - Light On Life. Lotus Press. 2003. p. 14.ISBN0-940985-69-1.
^abcChinn 2000, p. 24: "It was not until the mid- to late nineteenth century that palmreading took off in Britain, France and the United States thanks to three major figures: Casimir Stanislas d'Arpentigny, Edward Heron-Allen and Cheiro."
^Preece, P. F.; Baxter, J. H. (2000). "Scepticism and gullibility: The superstitious and pseudo-scientific beliefs of secondary school students".International Journal of Science Education.22 (11):1147–1156.Bibcode:2000IJSEd..22.1147P.doi:10.1080/09500690050166724.S2CID143202676.
^Hyman, Ray (1976–77). "Cold Reading: How to Convince Strangers That You Know All about Them".Zetetic.1 (2):18–37.
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![The mounts in palmistry: Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, Mercury, Mars positive, Mars negative, plain of Mars, Luna mount, Neptune mount, Venus mount [19]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMounts-melbourne-hand-analysis.JPG)
