#palmistry notes

Okay so the first thing we’ll cover is which hand to read. Short answer? We absolutely read both hands. We do this to get a more complete and full understanding of someone’s personality. The dominant hand shows the outward personality, actions, and what they’ve done with what they were given, sorta like the sun sign in astrology. The non-dominant hand shows the more inner workings, someone’s inclinations, and more of their way of thinking/reflections, sorta like the moon sign in astrology. Think conscious versus subconscious. So what do we do if someone is ambidextrous? First, I ask them which hand they default to when it comes to writing. Most of the time, they will tell you clearly. On the rare chance that someone says they write with both, check the flexibility of their thumb—the hand with the less flexible thumb is their dominant hand.

That’s cool, now we know to read both hands, now what? How do we study this before going out into the world offering our friends and families readings? Because that’s a lot of pressure. Slow down there tiger, you’ve probably got a long way before doing an in-person reading, especially for someone with a lot of questions. The best way to study palms can be broken down into 2.5 parts.

Number 1, take a print! All you need is some paper and ink. Cover your hand in ink (one at a time of course) and push firmly into the paper. If done correctly, you should be able to clearly see the lines in your hands and even your finger prints and palmar ridges. Here’s an example:

Prints are fantastic for learning, because not only are you able to clearly see the lines and use them as a reference for study, but now you have a print that you can use to compare your hands in the future, because a lot of the lines in your hands will change over time. Having a print allows you to take your time when studying and learning to read palms, much better than asking your curious mom to check her palms and then getting a borage of “What do you see?” and “What does that mean?”

Number 2, pictures! Phone cameras have come a very long way over the years, and most people are able to capture a fairly good image of someone’s palm. The reason this is less preferred than a print is because not only will some of the minor lines and the palmar ridges be basically invisible, but you also won’t be able to measure the fingers against each other (which we’ll get into in a different post). That being said, they’re still a great resource to have, especially if you’re not able to take a print for any variety of valid reasons.

2.5? 2.5 includes pictures of celebrity hands, which can be found accompanying readings from other palmists sometimes, just like is done with celebrity astrology. I would recommend to ignore the other palmist’s reading and just study the palms, especially of the dominant hand, and try to match your findings with the way said celebrity portrays themselves, especially in interviews. For example, Hillary Clinton has a simian line, which in short, makes a lot of sense for her based on her career in politics. Jim Carrey has a long ring finger, sometimes known as the Apollo finger, which is found in a lot of people drawn to being the star of the room, and some people in the public eye like actors and comedians (and I’m not just saying that). You can also find plenty, and I mean plenty, of palm pictures on reddit, specifically r/palmistry, which I will absolutely recommend to beginners as a studying resource once you learn a few things to pinpoint.

So we’ve identified some great ways to get your hands on some other hands, which is fantastic. Learning to read for strangers helps you to build you objectivity when reading—it removes bias from your readings, which sharpens your knowledge on the topic.

So first off:

Palmistry doesn't tell you "the future", it's not at all like typical divination methods where you can divine stuff about the future (knowing that it's always changing of course). Palmistry also doesn't tell you when you're going to die or the cause of death like is shown in plenty of movies and shows.

Palmistry does give you insight into someone's character, both externally and internally (which we'll get into later on). A good palmist can also offer advice about strengths and weaknesses in someone's personality, and offer communication techniques as well.

Anyone can learn palmistry, regardless of intuitive abilities or background.

A very common misconception is that because the practice is referred to as "palmistry" that only the lines on the hand are read. This is false, as the entirety of the hand is read from the major and minor lines, to skin texture, to finger length, angles of some knuckles, dermatoglyphics (fingerprints and palmar ridges), and even the way someone holds out their hand for you to read. You can actually get a very solid reading based on finger length, skin texture, and dermatoglyphics alone without reading into the major and minor lines on the palm.

Another common misconception is that only one hand—the dominant hand—is read. Any good palmist knows to read both hands and they would show different aspects of someone (this is something I'll go more in depth on in the next post)

And last but not least, the palms—or hands, rather—change over time. Skin texture, minor lines, knuckles, the plushiness of the thumb, and other signs will change over time, especially with age. I can point out specific minor lines on my own palms and say "This one wasn't here 6 years ago," or "This one has gotten deeper and more prominent in the past 4 years," or "There used to be a line right about here 2 years ago." A good way to keep track of changes is with taking a print, which I'll also explain in the next post.

Also, not a misconception, but something I see in a lot of palmistry resources is gendered language. I find that relying on gender to determine different qualities of a factor in someone's hand is lazy, cheap, and exclusionary. My younger brother has some qualities on his hands that are considered "feminine" or "usually found on a woman's hands," and I don't subscribe to that sort of language when reading palms because it's often exclusionary and doesn't offer any information or true insight. You can't take something as diverse as people's hands and try to shove them into two boxes, it doesn't work that way.

Also not a misconception, but something I want to address now before moving forward with this series of posts is a brief note about "parlor palmistry" and "elemental hand shapes". I'm sure many of you have seen those posts going around explaining the different elemental hand shapes, and I'm not going to discount it; because when I was a beginner in palmistry, I used to base a lot of my knowledge of someone off of the basic shape of their hand, and I was usually fairly accurate. I consider this part of parlor palmistry, which is usually done in very brief readings and is mainly for entertainment. It offers a very broad look at someone's personality without much deep insight. And it's perfectly fine to do in the right setting, like at summer camps or cafes, or doing a free reading in the break room at work. Parlor palmistry should never be done for profit, however, as it offers no real and deep insight, sorta like trying to tell someone details about their inner ways of thinking based only off of knowing that they're a capricorn. So that being said, we won't be going over parlor palmistry in this series—we'll be going into the nitty gritty details of true palmistry.

So there we have it, those are some common misconceptions and brief points about palm reading that I wanted to make before we get started with this series. Also, as this is a very visual practice, I will be using real pictures and diagrams to show certain points when necessary, because I personally can't stand reading about palmistry and not being able to see an example of what they're talking about!

I'm still drafting out how I want to format these posts, especially when I get into more detailed topics (I'm afraid of the dermatoglyphics posts, I'm going to need sooo many example photos). So if y'all have any questions about anything or points you want me to explain/cover, please feel free to comment under this post or send me an ask or message.