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Hand Analysis

Hand Analysis - Modern Palmistry
By Lynn Seal

What is hand analysis?
Palmistry and hand analysis are different ways of looking at hands. Traditional palmistry is based on astrological symbolism, with the fingers and mounts named after planets. The main emphasis of traditional palmistry is prediction, specific markings having specific meanings.

Elemental hand analysis uses different terminology and takes a more holistic approach. It uses the principles of the five elements Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether to interpret all features of the hand at all levels - physical, emotional, creative, intellectual and spiritual. We can see how problems at one level can affect the other levels, the interaction of mind and body, for example emotional upsets causing physical illness.

Hand analysis, or chirology, involves looking at all aspects of the hand - handshape, skin texture, flexibility, size and shape of fingers and thumbs, nails, knuckles, fingerprints, and the patterns, lines and markings on the palm. By analysing and interpreting these features, the reader can put it all together like a jigsaw and build up a picture of the individual.

Because of its 5000 year history and it's association with fortune telling, there are a lot of misconceptions as to what you can see from the hand. For example, you can't foretell the length of someone's life - a short lifeline does not mean a short life. Hand reading is not a psychic thing, it's an 'analytical art' - some of it is a science- that anyone can learn.

Although the fingerprints never change, the palmar lines and markings change throughout life, so you can't predict a set future from the hand. Looking at a hand is like a snapshot in time, a map of the person as they are now, shaped by the past and sowing seeds for the future.

The type of person you are plays a major part in the way you lead your life and kind of future you might have, but anything relating to the future is only potential or possibility. It's not all set in stone e.g. you might see a tendency to develop digestive problems, but if they look after their diet etc, they may avoid ill health later on.

I feel that making predictions perpetrates a fatalistic approach and takes the power away from the individual. The most important thing is free will - we can make choices and changes that can alter or control our direction and life experience.

C15th palmistry
Many of the predictive markings date back to 15th century - an age of superstition, myth and fatalism. Documents show that the emphasis was on prediction, especially when and how you would die. They foretold all manners of death, e.g. by stone, bloody flux, or at the sword of your enemy, calamities such as imprisonment, poverty, various perils and ways you could suffer wasting of the liver.

The child lines and relationship/marriage lines also date from C15th. These days palmistry experts agree that the marriage and child lines are not reliable with regard to the number of relationships/children you will have. I have seen distinct child lines on hands of women over childbearing age who never had a pregnancy. Or people with one marriage line who are on their third marriage. Although many palmists still read these lines, (and sometimes get them right!), any prediction about children or marriage from the hand shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Modern Palmistry
Modern hand analysis has moved away from the "fortune telling" image to a more accurate and useful understanding of what hands can reveal about us. Hand analysis is an amazing diagnostic tool and navigational aid to help guide us in the right direction. The hand tells us a lot about our character and psychology, it helps us understand and accept ourselves.

Hand Analysis can help you to take stock of your life, gain clarity, insight, identify your habitual patterns, childhood conditioning, where you are now, how you arrived here, and your current direction for the future.

You might recognise things that you can do to improve your quality of life, whether that is in health matters, finding types of work or study that suit you best, understanding your patterns of interacting in relationships. An in depth reading can help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, provide guidance as to how to make the most of your abilities, transcend difficulties and limitations, break old patterns, develop your latent potentials and make some changes in order to feel more balanced and fulfilled in life.

Which hand do you read?
If you are right handed, traditional palmistry says "The left is what the gods gave you, the right is what you do with it" (reversed if left handed). This is simplistic and misleading - we were given both hands, we do something with both hands! Your dominant hand reflects your public side 'out in the world', what you have actively developed. The other hand is more about the inner you, your private side, instincts, latent abilities. So we have to compare both hands to see the 'whole' person.

Sceptics, and even scientists, say that the palmar lines are just creases where the hand folds, but this is not true. The lines develop when the foetus 7-10 weeks old, but the muscles don't form until 11 weeks. So the lines are there before movement of the hand is possible.

Every hand has a lifeline, head line and heart line. The number of other lines differs according to the person's temperament, health and stress. The more lines, the more the tendency to be highly strung, emotional, sensitive, prone to stress and anxiety. People with empty hands (few lines) are often practical, even tempered, tend not to worry too much.

No one really knows why the lines are there, but they seem to be associated with the nerve endings. There are more neural connections between the brain and hand than any other part of the body - if our bodies were proportioned according to the number of nerves, we'd have hands the size of beach umbrellas!

I think of the lines as rivers of energy flowing across the hand, and the markings like pulses of electricity (nerve impulses) - like a coded computer print out of the information exchange between the brain and the hand. What a palmist does is to crack this code for you.

Hand Analysis and Science
It is only in the last hundred years that a serious interest in hands has grown, with scientific research into subjects such as dermatoglyphics, finger lengths and palmar lines. Particular hand features are more common in certain chromosomal disorders e.g. Down's syndrome. Research has been done into the hand and heart conditions, diabetes, autism, depression, fertility etc. So gradually, the analysis of the hand is moving away from its fortune telling image into something much more useful and relevant to our lives today.

Lynn has studied and practised palmistry and hand analysis for 15 years.
She is available for readings in Torquay, and also teaches palmistry and tarot. Visit her website at www.handanalysis.co.uk