LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 704 Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
What You Should Know About Palmistry
Leo Markun
HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright, 1927, Haldeman-Julius Company.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PALMISTRY
INTRODUCTION
Individual differences in the formation of the human hand are so great that they are used for purposes of identification. Specifically, it is the tips of the fingers which are made to imprint their distinctive marks. It was noticed many centuries ago, however, that the shape of the hand and the form of the folds which run across it are not exactly the same in people of the same race or even in close relatives. Neither are all faces or all heads or all bodies identical, of course. Physiognomy, the study of character from the face, is undoubtedly of very ancient origin, although we sometimes think of Johannes Kaspar Lavater, Goethe’s friend, as its originator. Phrenology, the attempt to study the mind from the formation of the skull, arose or at least became important in the system worked out by Gall not much more than a century ago.
Before there was much interest in the question of the origin of individuality and the meaning of variation, our primitive ancestors sought to find indications of future events. We need not consider at length the methods which they employed. They are outlined in my Little Blue Books dealing with fortune telling and astrology. Before there could be any astrology, however, a certain amount of astronomical knowledge was necessary. Simpler methods of prognostication were first used. The Chaldean priests who gazed at the stars were surely several degrees above the primitive.
Our word palmistry (probably from the Middle English and the Old French words paume and maistrie, meaning therefore mastery or skill with regard to the palm of the hand) has really now two separate connotations. It includes chirognomy, or the reading of character from the hand, which is allied with phrenology and physiognomy and sometimes combined with them by the modern charlatans who call themselves “mentologists” or “characterologists.” It also embraces chiromancy or the foretelling of individual fortunes from the appearance of the hand.
We associate chiromancy chiefly with the gypsies, who have probably brought this “art” with them from India. It is still in great favor in India, as also in Egypt and Syria. Many of the great men of classical Greece believed in the possibility of reading future events in the lines of the hand. In their country, the chiromantic tradition had existed at least from Homeric times. We are told that palmistry, chiefly for the purpose of divination, is some five thousand years old in China. The Chinese have also been interested in podoscopy, the study of the foot and especially the compressed foot of the female, for the same purpose.
For the medieval physiologists, palmistry was bound up with astrology and all of the magical arts. “He sealeth up the hand of every man: that all men may know his work” (Job: 37: 7), is one of the Biblical texts which were supposed to justify chiromancy. Since both the hands of the individual and the stars which had been dominant at the moment of his conception were supposed to show his fate, parts of the hand were given astrological names and held to be ruled by the various planets.
The softness or hardness, dryness or moistness of the palm was considered to indicate which of the four humors--blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy--was most prevalent in the body, and therefore to show which of the four temperaments the subject possessed. The general shape of the hand, the flexion-folds of skin (the lines), and the muscular projections or mounts were taken to show something about character and a great deal about the future.
The material of palmistry belongs chiefly to very old traditions, and some of it dates from the earliest Indian culture of which we have any record. The arrangement found in modern books and many of the teachings, however, originated with two men, Hartlieb in the fifteenth century and d’Arpentigny in the middle of the nineteenth.
We have no good reason to suppose that the formation of the hand or of any other part of the human body can tell us anything about character. This sort of notion is common enough in the beginnings of science. A few simple rules are supposed to unlock all mysteries. In the Christian writers, the theory is that God made a regular and very orderly world. Moreover, authority was taken as the guide. If Aristotle approved palmistry; if Albertus Magnus, who claimed to make careful investigations of his own, agreed with the master; if other medieval philosophers and theologians also believed in the prognostic significance of the lines and the mounts; it was, then, a very bold skeptic who dared to suppose that these signs are meaningless or of no known meaning. But the chief opposition to palmistry, as to the other pseudo-sciences, came from the obscurantists, the men who thought that Jehovah is annoyed to find men seeking to solve his mysteries.
People want to know what is going to happen in the future. Is the poor priest to become a bishop? Is the poet to be recognized by his contemporaries, or will monuments be erected to his memory? Will the merchant’s cargoes fall into the hands of pirates? Such questions arise constantly, but intelligent men are now resigned to finding them unanswerable, or capable of receiving an answer after a lapse of time. Yet men have a way of supposing that whatever they eagerly desire actually exists. It is thus that we create heaven and the freedom of the soul and the whole oracular system.
The scientists, assuming that the natural relationships of the future will operate as they do at present and as they appear always to have operated in the past, engage in something which resembles fortune telling. They assure us that a certain comet will appear at a definite time, for instance, or that the earth will be able to support life after a stated period. If their calculations are correct, that is, based upon an appreciation of all the factors involved, their prophecies are trustworthy. But science is in a constant state of revision, as phenomena are better understood.
In the present state of knowledge, it would be rash to maintain that the form and the markings of the hand will never be useful in the indication of character. Individual physical peculiarities, which must be reflected in the mental and the moral man, may some day be analyzed with the aid of the palm of the hand. Fingers of a particular shape frequently are helpful in playing the piano or the violin or in various arts and crafts. It is possible for the observer who has acquired a little skill to recognize the cigarette-smoker, the chemist, the day-laborer, the housewife, the lady of leisure, and the man who plays baseball (especially at the catching position) a great deal, simply by examining the hand. Palmistry cannot go far beyond this, however, and enjoy the respect of the intelligently educated, until we have much more information than we now possess. The traditional chiromancy and the chirognomy which is largely the work of modern writers are both systems of superstition. They are outlined here as curiosities, not as useful sciences or arts.
THE HANDS AND THE FINGERS
According to d’Arpentigny and the other French palmists, there are seven sorts of hands. These are called elementary, spatulate or active, conic or artistic, square or useful, knotty or philosophical, pointed or psychic, and mixed. As a matter of fact most hands are somewhat “mixed,” for they do not correspond exactly to any of the types.
The elementary, simple, or ordinary hand has short fingers. The longest finger is usually shorter than the length of the palm. The palm is thick and somewhat rounded. The skin is inclined to be rough. It is supposed to be so naturally, that is, not merely as the result of hard work. Therefore the calloused palm is taken to be less important as an indication of the simple hand than the hard, rough skin of the fingers. This type is supposed to show a lack of educability, and to be found chiefly in unskilled laborers. People with elementary hands are said to be passionate but mentally sluggish.
The spatulate or active hand suggests the spatula, the broad and knifelike instrument used by druggists and painters. The thumb is large and the fingers are usually sensitive, well-developed at the tips. The palm is wide, but often it narrows near the fingers. The hand is seldom flabby, for it indicates the worker, and it is most frequently rather flat. People with spatulate hands are just and orderly, we are told. According to Edward Heron-Allen, “The great pronounced characteristics of this type are: action, movement, energy; and, of course the harder or firmer the hand, the more pronounced will these characteristics be. A man of this type is resolute, self-confident, and desirous of abundance rather than of sufficiency.”