The practice of hand reading is one of the oldest forms of a divination procedure, practices in one form or another in many many ancient cultures taking its own style and shape in each culture. There have been numerous findings of hands painted in ancient caves, which indicate that the human hand has held an interest for humans since the Stone Age. The ancient caves in Santander, Spain display hand drawings of palms with the major lines portrayed in amazing detail.

Hand stencil in the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave

Archaeological discoveries have discovered hands made of stone, wood and ivory by ancient civilizations. Hand reading practice has also been found in Vedic scripts, the Bible and early Semitic writings. 

The earliest records referring to palmistry come from ancient India where it is considered to be a subsection of a vast field of study referred as “Samudrika Shastra” which literally means the ocean of knowledge and deals specifically with the study of the hand. Centuries ago, the sages of India established a system of knowledge stemming from the Vedas, the earliest sacred Hindu writings. They studied the hands as a means to unveil and understand the self and relationships with others. They saw that the unique patterns of lines and signs in the hand come into being as a direct result of the way we think and behave.

Aristotle who was the teacher of “Alexander the Great” discovered an ancient Arabic thesis on hand lines, written in gold, on an altar to the god Hermes and later he mentioned Palmistry in his own writings "De Historia Animalium". Aristotle mentioned the meaning of the length of lines in the hand. This early reference is the proof of Aristotle being a supporter of chiromancy for many future manuscripts.
 

 
Around 350 BC Aristotle sent Alexander to India to learn as much as possible about this fascinating subject.
 

Julius Caesar used to judge his men by reading their hands.

Some earliest references to Palmistry claimed to have found in the Bible-- Job 37:7 ("stealth up the hand of every man: that all men may know his work") and Proverbs 3:16 ("length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour")

Even though India and Egypt have both been credited as the seat of palmistry, speculation has honored India as the actual cradle for Western Palmistry. Indian hand reading had already spread to China and Japan where it was refined. Palmistry arrived in Europe in 12th Century by Arabic traders, who picked it up on their travels and took it to Europe. Then Palmistry was practiced in India, China, Egypt, Arab and ancient Greece, taking it's own shape and style in each country.

The most famous doctor in the Roman Empire was a Greek, named Galen. He was one of the first to analyze how human body works. He was also educated about the use of palmistry as a clinical aid. 

One of the earliest writings on Palmistry (spelled 'Pawmestry' at that time) was made in 1420 by John Lyndgate in his documents “Assembly of Gods”

Michael Scotts wrote the first book on Palmistry in 1477 on the physiognomy of the human body with a chapter on all the aspects of the human hand.

The practice of palmistry was unfortunately banned in Europe by the Catholic Church, which branded it by declaring devil worshiping. Anyone found to have an interest was quickly murdered.

As the church started to lose its influence in society common sense prevailed. Notable people such as Paracelsus and Fludd brought respectability to palmistry through their writings.

In the seventeenth century many books were written on Palmistry that included the collected early gypsy ideas about the hand that had been handed down through verbal tradition. Among the many references to palmistry is a page from Captain George Warton's translation of Joannes Rothmann's Chiromantiae in 1651.

A French mystic, the Comte C. De Saint Germain, (not to be confused with the fraud “Jon Saint-Germain” who wrote a book in the nineteenth century entitled "Practical Palmistry") contributed importantly towards palmistry by writing a famous book "The study of Palmistry for professional purposes and advanced purposes".
 

Another eighteenth century palmist of any note was a famous French fortune-teller “Marie Anne le Normand” who historically created great interest in Palmistry because of her predictive successes with Napoleon and Josephine.

A Physician to the King of Saxony who used to match palms to personality.

One other famous French Palmist of nineteenth century was Captain Casimir Stanislas D'Arpentigny who was the first person to formulate a system of hand shape classification. The previous focus had been with the lines of the palm only, but not with the form of the hand in which those lines were to be found.  No doubt that D'Arpentigny refreshed and revived the old form of chiromancy and rehabilitated it as a science.

More About D'Arpentigny

After D'Arpentigny, it was "Adrien Adolphe Desbarolles" who made a major influence on the study of palmistry during the nineteenth century. He is also considered to be the father of modern Palmistry. Whilst D'Arpentigny concentrated his efforts on a sober evaluation of the form and structure of the hand, Desbarolles emphasized on the symbolic study of hand and took the findings of D'Arpentigny in further depth and detail.

More About Desbarolles

More About Cheiro

Noel Jaquin was one of the most important pioneers in the development of chirological diagnosis in 20^th century. Although he is most important as a pioneer within the fields of health analysis and sexual and emotional evaluation from the hand, he has contributed something to all aspects of the chirological art. His work is as a broad canvas with a lightly sketched image, outlining the breadth of scope of the diagnostic potential of the hand.

More About Noel Jaquin

A New York doctor palmist became interested in palmistry at the age of thirteen.  By 1900, after years of extensive study and research, he produced his influential work 'The Laws of Scientific Hand reading' treated as a bible of Palmistry. He devoted his life to making the study of the hand and so to raise it from the realms of superstition into a proper science.

More About William Benham

Dr. Charlotte was a qualified physician and a psychoanalyst, who stands among the very few scientifically trained people ever to have seriously investigated the diagnostic significance of the hand. She was the modern author of Palmistry who conducted complete studies on the hands of the mentally retarded, mentally diseased and homosexual people. She managed to examined more than 90, 000 hands during her long career and stands as one of the very few people, who accomplished a extensive experimental research on the pattern of the hands, which gave Palmistry a definite scientific foundation.

More About Dr Charlotte Wolff

In 1901 Scotland yard adopted the technique of fingerprinting in criminal investigation and identification. Medical researchers studying skin patterns (dermatoglyphics), have discovered a correspondence between genetic abnormalities and unusual markings in the hand. Research has confirmed a link between specific fingerprint patterns and heart disease.

These days palmistry is well accepted throughout the world. Professional palmists can be found reading palms in every country in the world. Pick up almost any copy of magazine and there is some information on palmistry. There are thousands of books written on the subject and there are palmistry clubs the world across.