Palm Reading: How to Read Palms for the Querent's Past

Cross my palm with silver, the gypsy fortuneteller always says in the movies, and I'll tell you what your future holds. Chiromancy - palm reading - has always been concerned with foretelling what is going to happen. But few realize that a palm reader is better at telling you the past, and how illuminating your past can be when considering your future. Like numerology, your palm easily reveals your present and past, though the future is usually shadowy.

Palm reading concerns the lines on your hand, but not exclusively. Every line - life line, heart line, fate line - can tell a palmreader something about your past. But a good palmist looks at the way your hand has been shaped by your life before telling you anything at all. Following are some tips for things you can look for to see the past in a hand.

Palm Reading Instructions, Sherlock Holmes Style

Good chiromancers do one thing before anything else: they look at the backs and sides of your hand, and at the nails. They measure the strength of your grip, how cool your hand is, and whether or not it's sweaty.

This gives them clues to your inner workings that you didn't know you were giving out. For instance, callused spots on your palm give chiromancers clues about what your profession may be; a person who uses a hammer all day has different calluses from a person who is an avid seamstress.

Beyond that, palm readers look at lines and marks that appear on your hand. The lines to look at most closely are the deep ones: your life line, fate line, love line, and heart line. You can learn more about these lines in general at my article
The chaining rule holds true throughout the life line, so chains halfway through the line indicate troubles as a young adult, chains at the end indicate unhealth toward the end of life. The life line does NOT indicate the likely length of your life, though many palmists read it thus.

Look, also, next to the life line. Clear lines that parallel it signify life mates - either best friends or love partners who will share that life for a significant portion of it. A person with few or no parallel lines is one who likely does not have many close friends.

About halfway down the hand, most life lines start to break, chain, or split. This is the beginning of your querent's middle age, and gives you a good point of reference. Pay attention to these changes, even if they are in your querent's future; they indicate places where their lives will change significantly. Breaks may indicate new jobs, especially career changes, or other major life changes such as a switch in focus or a divorce or remarriage. Chains, as earlier, indicate illness or problems. A life line that breaks up significantly at some point indicates a life that has been thrown into chaos, usually by the querent taking on too many responsibilities.

When you read for the past, use these markers on the life line to get a rough idea of when things happen. Chances are good that your querent is coming to you with a current problem, and there is likely to be a marker on that spot in the line to help you pinpoint the present.

Your Fate Line

The fate line is considered a minor line, and in many hands is not even present. Look for it to bisect the hand from the wrist up, sometimes ending between the middle and ring fingers but more often ending before it reaches that point. The beginning of this line is at the wrist.

The fate line should be read differently for the different hands. The dominant hand is the one where the fate line should be considered active. The other hand carries the querent's fate potential - what would happen if the will of the querent did not shape his or her life. Identical fate lines on each hands indicates either a person whose fate and desires matched perfectly or, more likely, a person with little will or ambition to shape his or her own life.

Observe especially where the fate line begins. If it is inside the life line, the querent tends to follow family wishes, and may have a career in a family business. Where it exits or weakens, look for attempts - successful or not - to break away and shape one's own life.

This is important. A person with repeated breaks early in a fate line is one who is probably desperately unhappy doing what is expected of him, and is trying hard to get away from family expectations. One whose fate line breaks out of the life line and continues indicates a successful attempt. Fate lines that start outside the life line indicate individuals whose early lives were relatively free of family influence.

If your querent's fate line stops at the heart line, he or she may not have had the motivation to follow through on goals. If it stops at the head line, bad luck or other outside forces were probably more a reason goals were not followed through on.

Remember, more than any other line on your hand, the fate line is malleable and will often change, especially in individuals who manage to take charge of their own lives.

Your Heart Line

The heart line starts near the index finger, often on the Mount of Jupiter between the index and middle fingers, and sweeps across the palm. In some hands it ends on the edge of the palm, and in others somewhere in the middle of the hand.

Islands on the heart line are interesting. One found under the middle finger may indicate hearing problems, and one found under the ring finger sight problems; if found in the same spot on both hands, the problem is emphasized.

Deeply curved lines indicate deep feelings; straighter lines indicate more cerebral treatments of love, or even a cold nature. This, beside the information you gathered from the life line, helps you ascertain your querent's likely past. Cold natured people with few companions on the life line indicate loners who don't really need companionship; curved heart lines with few parallel lines to the life line, on the other hand, probably indicate people who long for friendship.

Deeply etched lines on the non-dominant hand paired with fainter lines on the dominant hand generally indicate a person who has been hurt in the past and is less trusting with his or her heart. The opposite indicates a person who was colder once, but who has been drawn out of his or her shell by a close relationship, likely an ongoing one.

Other Important Palm Markers

Look also on the palm for markers that look like faint X's, stars, or crosses. These are problems the querent has faced. With a lot of these markers, you are probably reading the hand of someone with a troubled past. Where they cross the other lines, you can look for some sort of significant problem.

The art of palm reading lies in putting all these clues together, along with general observations about the palm, to get a sense of the whole person. Always consider all your information before telling your querent anything - take your time. Remember, the hand is as complex as the person owning it.

This article is part of a palm reading tutorial series.