Cheiromancy, or palmistry to give it a more popular name, is the art of interpreting the lines on the palm of the hand. Cheiro elevated this art to a science, his books on the subject elucidating the principles clearly and positively to the extent where they have become the basis for modern study and research.
 
Born in 1866, Cheiro wrote his first book on palmistry at the age of twelve, later expanding his career to encompass other aspects of the occult. He was widely travelled and worked as a lecturer, press correspondent and editor. In defence of palmistry he refers to the testimony and ideas given by scientists and philosophers as arguments in favour of the cheiromantic use of the lines on the hands:
 
Anazagoras as saying, "The superiority of man is owing to his hands;"
Aristotle, "The hand is the organ of organs, the active agent of the passive powers of the entire system;"
Quintilian, "For the other parts of the body assist the speaker, but these, I may say, speak for themselves; they ask, they promise, they entreat, they invoke, they dismiss, they threaten, they ask, they promise, they deprecate, they express fear, joy, grief, our doubts, our assents, our penitence, they show moderation, profusion, they mark number and time,"
and Balzac in his Comedie Humaine, "We acquire the faculty of imposing silence upon our lips, upon our eyes, upon our eyebrows, and upon our foreheads; the hand alone does not dissemble — no feature is more expressive than the hand."
 
Cheiro's list of clientele was impressive and included such names as the Rt. Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, John MacCormack, the Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Mata Hari, and Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener.

Apart from Cheiros character readings his interpretations in the form of predictions were extremely accurate, among them the two World Wars, the abdication of Edward VIII, Lord Balfour becoming Prime Minister and the independence of India in 1948.


Comment:

Palmistry posits a correlation between a person’s destiny and the creases on the palm of one’s hands. Like astrology, numerology and other forms of divination, the interpretations are never couched in specific terms, it is left to the subject (who would usually be inclined towards belief anyway) to make things fit. One example, that of the Line of Life, from which a palmist can supposedly give an accurate assessment of one’s life expectation, has been invalidated by British pathologists who examined the hands of 100 cadavers in a hospital mortuary, which revealed that the lifeline appeared to have no bearing on how long the patient lived.

Further reading:

 Bopari, N.S. 1991. Mind Pollution of Fortune Telling. Lismore. New South Wales.

<> Laycock, D. (Ed.) 1989. Skeptical. Canberra Skeptics, Canberra

Park, M.A. 1982/83.”Palmistry: Science or Hand Jive?” Skeptical Inquirer, 7(2): 21-32)  
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