Palmistry: A History of Chiromancy from Aristotle to Cheiro

Palmistry, known in learned Latin as chiromancy, is the art of reading character and destiny from the lines, mounts and shape of the hand. Forms of hand reading developed independently in India and China, while the European tradition took shape in Latin treatises of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, joined palmistry to astrology by assigning the parts of the hand to the planets, and was printed and debated as one of the occult sciences in the Renaissance. Revived as "cheirosophy" in the late nineteenth century, it survives today as a popular form of divination, though it has no scientific support.

Hand Reading in the Ancient World and Asia§

Interest in the hand as a sign of character is very old, but evidence for a developed art in the ancient Mediterranean is thin. Aristotle remarked in his History of Animals that long-lived people tend to have one or two lines crossing the whole palm, a brief physiological observation rather than a system. Later medieval writers built on such remarks, and Latin treatises on chiromancy were often attributed to Aristotle or other ancient authorities, ascriptions that modern scholars regard as legendary.

In India, the reading of bodily marks belonged to sāmudrika śāstra, a body of lore found in Sanskrit texts on omens and in astrological works, which interpreted the lines and signs on hands and feet as well as the face and body. Auspicious marks such as the wheel or lotus on the palms and soles became part of the iconography of the Buddha and of great kings. In China, hand reading (shouxiang) developed as part of the wider art of physiognomy (xiangshu), which read fortune from the face, voice and body. These traditions grew largely independently of the European one, though nineteenth-century writers liked to claim an Indian origin for all palmistry.

Medieval Chiromancy and the Planetary Hand§

In Europe, the earliest surviving Latin texts on chiromancy date from the twelfth century, and several of the oldest are of English origin, as the historian Charles Burnett has shown. They describe the principal lines of the palm, usually the line of life around the base of the thumb, the line of the head or "natural line" across the middle of the palm, and the line of the heart, or "mensal line", below the fingers, and they interpret their length, depth, breaks and crossings as signs of health, fortune and length of life.

The mounts and the planets§

In the later Middle Ages chiromancy was integrated with astrology. Each finger and the fleshy pads, or mounts, at their base were assigned to a planet: the index finger to Jupiter, the middle finger to Saturn, the ring finger to the Sun, the little finger to Mercury, the ball of the thumb to Venus, the outer edge of the palm to the Moon, and an area of the palm to Mars. The strength of a mount was read as the strength of that planet's influence in the person's nature, so that the hand became a kind of birth chart written on the body. This planetary scheme, an expression of the doctrine of correspondences between the cosmos and the human body, remained the backbone of Western palmistry.

Chiromancy was therefore one of the occult sciences, claiming to read hidden qualities through visible signs. It was usually paired with physiognomy, the reading of character from the face and body, and with metoposcopy, the reading of the lines on the forehead.

Printed Palmistry in the Renaissance§

Printing made palmistry widely available. A German manual known as Die Kunst Ciromantia, attributed to the Bavarian physician Johannes Hartlieb and printed as an illustrated block book around 1475, showed hands marked with lines and signs. Hartlieb himself, in his Book of All Forbidden Arts (1456), listed chiromancy among the forbidden forms of divination, a sign of how ambiguous its status was.

The Bolognese writer Bartolomeo della Rocca, called Cocles, published his Chyromantie ac Physionomie Anastasis in 1504, a substantial treatise that combined palmistry and physiognomy. Johannes ab Indagine's Introductiones apotelesmaticae (1522), on chiromancy, physiognomy and astrology, was translated into English in 1558 and became a standard handbook. Later works such as the English astrologer Richard Saunders' Physiognomie, and Chiromancie, Metoposcopie (1653) continued the genre, and the Paracelsian physician Robert Fludd included chiromancy among the arts of the microcosm in his encyclopaedic Utriusque Cosmi Historia (1617–1621).

Condemnation and legal suspicion§

Theologians objected that chiromancy, when it claimed to foretell events rather than merely read natural temperament, infringed on free will and divine providence. The ninth rule of the Index of Prohibited Books issued after the Council of Trent in 1564 forbade books of chiromancy alongside those of geomancy, necromancy and similar arts, and the papal bull Coeli et terrae (1586) renewed the condemnation of divination. In England, palmistry became associated with travelling fortune-tellers and with the Romani, whose term dukkering referred to fortune-telling. The Vagrancy Act of 1824 punished anyone using "palmistry or otherwise" to deceive, and the related history of the Witchcraft Act of 1735 shows how English law treated such claims as fraud rather than as real magic.

The Victorian Revival: Chirognomy and Cheirosophy§

In the nineteenth century palmistry was reinvented as a science of character. The French army officer Casimir Stanislas d'Arpentigny, in La Chirognomonie (1843), classified hands by shape into types such as the square, spatulate, conical, knotty, pointed and mixed, each linked with a temperament, an approach he called chirognomy. The painter Adolphe Desbarrolles combined d'Arpentigny's classification with the old planetary chiromancy in Les Mystères de la main (1859), which was widely read in France and drew on the occultism of Éliphas Lévi.

In England, the young Edward Heron-Allen, later a distinguished naturalist and expert on violins, published A Manual of Cheirosophy (1885) and lectured on hand reading in America. The Chirological Society, founded in London in 1889 by Katharine St Hill, sought to place palmistry on a scientific footing. The most famous practitioner of the age was the Irish-born William John Warner, known as Cheiro, who read the hands of celebrities and published Cheiro's Language of the Hand (1894); his career is described in our article on Cheiro and Chaldean numerology. In America, William G. Benham's The Laws of Scientific Hand Reading (1900) became the standard textbook of the twentieth century.

Palmistry, Psychology and Science§

In the twentieth century some writers tried to recast hand reading as psychology. The German-born psychologist Charlotte Wolff, working in Paris and London, studied the hands of patients and celebrities and published The Human Hand (1942). Julius Spier, a "psychochirologist" whose book The Hands of Children (1944) appeared with an introduction by Carl Jung, practised hand analysis as a form of character diagnosis.

Science, meanwhile, took a narrower interest in the hand. The study of fingerprints and palm patterns, called dermatoglyphics by the anatomist Harold Cummins in 1926, found that certain features, such as a single transverse crease across the palm, occur more often in some genetic conditions, including Down syndrome. These findings concern development in the womb, however, and lend no support to the claim that palm lines reveal personality or future events. Controlled studies have not shown palmists to read character or predict life events better than chance, and the persuasiveness of readings is usually explained by general statements that fit most people, as discussed in our article on the psychology of superstition.

Palmistry as Divination Today§

Palmistry remains one of the best-known forms of popular divination, practised at fairs, in consulting rooms and through countless books. Modern palmists usually combine chirognomy, the reading of hand shape and finger length, with chiromancy, the reading of lines and mounts, and many present the hand as a mirror of potential rather than of fixed fate. Its history is told alongside scrying, lots and dream interpretation in our guide to other oracles. Like other divinatory arts, it is best understood as a cultural practice with a long history, not as a substitute for medical, financial or psychological advice.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the difference between palmistry and chiromancy?§

The words mean the same thing: chiromancy is the older learned term, from the Greek for hand-divination, and palmistry is the English popular name. Chirognomy refers more narrowly to reading character from the shape of the hand and fingers.

Where did palmistry originate?§

Hand reading developed independently in several cultures, including India and China. The European tradition is documented from Latin manuscripts of the twelfth century; claims that it descends directly from ancient India or from Aristotle are later legends.

What do the mounts of the hand represent?§

In Western palmistry the mounts are the fleshy pads of the palm, each assigned to a planet, such as Jupiter under the index finger and Venus at the base of the thumb. The scheme is medieval and reflects the astrological belief that the planets govern parts of the body and aspects of character.

Is palmistry scientific?§

No. Controlled tests have not found that palm lines reveal personality or predict the future. Some palm features do correlate with certain medical conditions, but that is a matter of development and genetics, not divination.

Sources and further reading§

• Chyromantie ac Physionomie Anastasis — Bartolomeo della Rocca (Cocles), 1504
• Introductiones apotelesmaticae — Johannes ab Indagine, 1522
• A Manual of Cheirosophy — Edward Heron-Allen, 1885
• Cheiro's Language of the Hand — Cheiro (William John Warner), 1894
• The Laws of Scientific Hand Reading — William G. Benham, 1900
• The Human Hand — Charlotte Wolff, 1942
• The Hands of Children — Julius Spier, 1944