Remember
the college party scene with one popular guy sitting on his throne,
with all his adoring female friends willingly offering their hands
for palmistry readings? The guy patted their palms, studied the
shape of their hands, twisted their fingers around, and then wormed
out some of their most personal secrets!
There
was a famous doctor in my family who always surreptitiously examined
the palms of his patients as he treated them. His wife told me
that after reading his own hand, he had bought two insurance policies
on his own life, for his wife and minor son. This precaution saved
them from financial ruin and indeed left them very comfortably
off, when the doctor died very unexpectedly at an early age, as
he has seen indicated on his hand.
Origins
Palmistry not only is a source of amusement and entertainment
to some people but also a serious divinatory act to others. Allied
to intuition, it has been practiced from ancient times by the
Hindus, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and the Greeks. In the Middle
Ages, it went via the Italians and the Arabs to Europe and England.
Curiosity about the fate of man has existed through the times.
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In
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, medical palmistry came
into its own as doctors examined the hands of dead and ill patients,
findings similarities in the lines of their palms, their nails
and the shapes of their hands. What separates us from the rest
of the animal kingdom is our hands and the sense of touch. Besides
our eyes, it is our hands which attract or repel others towards
or away from us, as they reveal our inner most souls! What divides
us from our cousins (the simians) is our brains, closely connected
by our nervous systems to our hands. The thumb placed in a human
hand is very different from that in a monkey's which is placed
close to its fingers. The lines in a human hand are divided into
the basic Head Line, the Heart Line, The Life Line, the Fate and
Sun Lines etc. and also many minor lines. The monkey has usually
one line straight across his palm.
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Palmistry
can be divided into :
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6
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The
size, shape and colour of the hands in general up to the wrist.
The
length and shape, the fingers and the phalanges as against the
length of the palm.
The
thumb, its phalanges where it is placed, its length, the
shape and size.
The
nails and their colour, feel and shape.
The
lines - 14 main ones on the palm of
the hand.
The
mounds or elevations of the hand.
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