Palmistry

Look at your palms: How many lines do you see? How fine or deep are they? How knobby is the bone structure? Which way do the fingerprints whorl?

In a palm reading, each of these features is said to signify something specific about your personality (at least according to those who believe in it). Skeptics insist that palm reading — like tarot and astrology — amounts to little more than guesswork. And even those who perform palmistry — the practice of interpreting the lines and forms on the hand, which is believed to have originated in India — will likely say that, while it can uncover some truths about your personality, the practice cannot give you a direct look at what’s coming down the pike.

“When I look at your hands,” Kay Packard, director of the American Academy of Hand Analysis, says, “I can tell you what behaviors are likely to show up, but I’m not going to say when you’re going to have a child or when you’re going to get married or when you’re going to get divorced.”

In order to understand any of what may be written on your hands, though, you need to be able to navigate their topography. Below, the basics.

The folds and creases of the palms — referred to as lines — are used to form narratives and predict future happenings. The meanings of lines are determined by analyzing their length, depth, and curvature. No two palms are unique, so remember that context is everything: Note where each line begins and ends, which mounts it crosses, and where the creases intersect.