The Hand as a Whole
As far back as we can remember, there have been the three divisions of body, soul, and spirit; mental, abstract, and material; air, fire, and water, and many other subdivisions into three or trinities corresponding to the three worlds. They all embody the idea of an ethereal element, a material one, and a baser.
We wish to find the domination of mind, material matters, or baser qualities in the subject.
MENTAL = the finger or upper portion of the hand
-->If the length of finger predominates mind is the ruling factor. We know
that mind is elevating, therfore if the world of mind is strongest, we know
the subject is fitted for study, for mental occupation, and if this development
is very pronounced, without anything to back it, he will be one who lives in
a realm of ideas and exaltation, without sufficient of the practical side present
to keep him form following his mental development to the exclusion of nece4ssary
and practical matters. This is why so many literary men, teachers, and students
are such poor business men that they accumulate nothing. They live entirely
in the upper world as Palmistry concerves it, and, while mind is all right,
still all mind and nothing practical is a most unfortunate develpment for one
who has to get through this matter of fact world.
PRACTICAL = the middle portion of the hand, from the
base of the fingers to a line running across the hand from the top of the Mount
of the Moon to the Mount of Venus.
-->If the middle portion is most developed the world of business or every-day
life is strongly prominent. This is because we have in the territory covered
by this middle portion of the hand the qualities of ambition, soberness, wisdom,
art, shrewdness, agression, and resistance developed. This seems a fromidable
array of qualities, but to the one who has to battle with wordly affairs in
this century, they are none too strong. The middle develpment, if overshadowing
both the upper and lower world, will show that business, pracitcal life, every
day ideas and material success compose the world in which the subject lives.k
Thus he is better fitted for commercial positions, politics, wor, agricultural
persuits, or for anything which is entirely practical. He has a fine contempt
for the subject who is all brains. Money getting is moving desire, and he lives
in the world of material matters.
BASE = from the line from the top of the Mount of the
Moon to the Mount of Venus to the wrist.
--> If the lower part is strongest, the subject lives on a low, earthly plane,
and is sensual and animal in his instincts.
If you find the hand developed at the base, you will know that you subject
lives in the realm of low, base desires, and enjoys himself best when
gratifying his sensual preasures. This is particularly true if the hand be coarse.
He can appreciate nothing high or elevating. It he acquaires maney he does not
know how to make a refined use of it. He loves beauty, but it is vulgar, showy
kinds that attract him; he is fond of eating, but with the gluttony of the gourmand,
not the delight of the epicure. He has no mental recreation; mind is not a guiding
force with him. He is sometimes shrewd, but with the instinctive cunning of
the fox, not the talent of a high and lofty mind. He loves display, and in his
hom will have porusion, not taste; glaring colors, not harmony. He is vulgar
and common in all his tastes, and among people of reginment and good breeding
is the veritable boor. He does not see how ridiculous he makes himself to men
of mind nad elevated thought. he sees only from his earthly point of view, and
all his tastes, his thoughts, his loves, are coarse, vulgar, and common.
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Very often you will not be able to tell at a glance which wold predominates.
This is a most fortunate curcumstance, for it tells you that the hand is balanced,
and in everything pertaining to the human character balance is most to be desired.
Thus to have mind, practical matters and the lower desires so combined as to
give neither one a mastery of the other will show a person who is not one-sided
in his veiw of life. He will be wise, intelligent, practical, prudent, even-tempered,
and yet not unsophisticalted, for he has enough of the base alloy to give him
necessary knowledge. He is thus able to weigh all matters, not from a purely
mental standpoint, but can add to his investigations the common-sense needed
to make life successful. This balance of the three worlds, as shown by the whole
hand, enables a person to become
pronounced success in the world. Sometimes you will see one world only slightly
in excess of the others. In this case you can say that the subject likes the
matters of the particular world best, but it may not be sufficently in the lead
to make him FOLLOW it.
Of course it stands to reason that no success can come in a worldy way unless the middle portion be developed. Mind may win glory, but not money; or the base qualities may be abundantly present and yet not destroy financial success.
Link the two upper worlds, and you can obtain financial results from mental strength; link the two lower and you can gain riches though it may be made in coarse occupations. Take away the middle portion, and you have then the spremacy of mind and the predominacne of the earthly without the leaven of common sense; such developments cannot make successful people.
end of chapter