What is Chiromancy?

Have you ever seen someone having their palm read, at a fair or in the street, and wondered how it is possible to find out about someone just by looking at the palms of their hands?

Chiromancy is a very interesting field because it is the art of predicting the future by studying closely the lines on the palm of a person’s hand. Known to have existed for centuries, the concept of chiromancy was part of many of the world’s ancient cultures, such as those of the Native Americans, the Babylonians, the Persians and in China.

In ancient Rome, soothsayers were already using the art of palm reading. The classic Chinese text « I-Ching » mentions the use of chiromancy and in India in bygone days, men and women of culture practiced chiromancy in a broader sense, involving astrology, whereby they studied the positions of the planets and heavenly bodies, together with palm-reading, in order to predict the future.

There are different schools and methods of palm reading.

As well as the lines on the palm, the shape of the hand, the length of the fingers in relation to the palm, the color of the nails, etc., may also be studied. During the reading, the dominant hand or the hand generally used by the person for writing is read by the fortune-teller. The two main aspects used in palmistry are the lines and the bumps on an individual’s dominant hand. The most important lines to read on the palm are the heart line, the head line and the life line.

The heart line is the first important curve and is found below the base of the fingers. It is said that this line relates to a person’s future love,affairs and marriage. The head line is the curve below the heart line, beginning below the base of the index finger and leading over to the edge of the palm. Palmists read this line to assess how intelligent a person is and their intellectual and analytical capacities.

The third important line read by fortune-tellers is the life line, which begins just above the thumb and curves around towards the wrist. The life line gives indications about  a person’s longevity, health, accidents and physical injuries as well as overall well-being.

There are also other, minor lines on the palm, such as the fate line, which refers to successes and failures during someone’s lifetime, the sun line, which relates to fame or scandal, union lines which concern close friendships or relationships, travel lines which refer to trips and journeys of significance to the subject and the Mercury line which indicates health issues, and business acumen.

If you have never had occasion to have your palm read by a fortune-teller, now is the moment to give it a go. Many palmists are amazingly skilled and the accuracy of their predictions is quite remarkable.

So next time you see somebody reading someone else’s hand, you won’t be surprised any more, you will know exactly what they are doing.