Palmistry?
Another of those pesky belief systems that has managed to hang around for centuries is Palmistry. What makes the reading of the lines of the hand so compelling? It’s an interesting question that covers areas of both woo and science in semi-equal parts depending on what you want to believe. I know a bit about how powerful this branch of pseudo-science can be because I have been reading palms for at least ten years. People really enjoy hearing all about themselves and how it all relates to their hands and I enjoy looking at the myriad of shapes and styles – not to mention the shapes and styles of the people each hand is attached to. I simply pay attention. That’s really the main game when you get right down to it. I don’t pretend to be a swami or have contact with any spiritual guides when I do it, I just read the lines the way I have set up in my own system and lo and behold: I’m amazingly accurate. If my “sitter” or “client” wants to give me credit for being in touch with the vast vibrations of the cosmos, I’m not going to burst their bubble unless pressed and for a good reason. I’m paid well to jabber my observations because my job to deliver this traditionally intimate con with all the ancient trimmings. Think of it as a warmer fuzzier cold reading.
Despite the great preponderance of woo involved, there are medical and scientific applications to a good palm reading and depending on the venue and who is sitting down in front of me, I may or may not decide to give out whether what I have correctly nailed has been diagnosed through pure science or some arcane secret sorcery. Once again Ladies and Gentlemen: such is part of my job as a performer and part of the fun for me is just how far I want to go with either extreme. Welcome to another tightrope I walk. Truth is, even if I go out of my way to tell my sitters that I’m an absolute charlatan, it usually makes no difference at all and in fact on a few occasions has only added an even more fuel to the believer fire. Some people actually reason that I “doth protest too much” as if I must have some occult powers and be trying to cover up for it. Imagine that for a moment. It’s astonishing when this happens, but is par for the course with anyone who can pull off a good mentalism act. My UK friend in bizarreness Tony “Doc” Shiels makes great use of this ploy on purpose and refers to it as the “double bind disclaimer.” Talk about “Confirmation Bias,” whew. People will take this ball and run all over town with it.
Having just finished writing a book on the subject, “HAND SPRINGS – THE CHARLATAN’S BOOK OF PALMISTRY” and submiited it to my lieterary agent, (who has told me that in the present economy the title might better be “The Snowball’s Chance in Hell of Being Published Book of Palmistry”) I’m still confident that there’s a market for a real world look at the subject. There have been so many books on Palmistry, mostly newage in content and almost totally without a skeptical view other than a few “scientific” tomes publsihed by doctors no one has ever heard of, I decided to focus more on the scams, dodges and cons I learned as a magician trying to pick up a new way to wheedle a few more bucks between card tricks, give it a narrative texture and well, … be honest. A recent search of Amazon showed over 5,000 different books on Palmistry.
So all we need is yet another book on the subject, right? Well, maybe we do. The main difference is that this book is written by a skeptic or at least someone who admits throughout to being a complete charaltan. There’s a certain charm to the word charlatan that takes a little of the taint off being a simple con artist, so I’m going with that monicker for now. Few gypsies would cop to their real methods. I think it’s about time someone did. Is it possible that there could there be such a thing as an honest psychic or am I merely romanticising another crude oxymoron of our times? I could be wrong but I doubt if there’s another book like this one and that’s what makes it such a “hard sell’ as my agent has so kindly put it. Never mind the fact that said agent is a self professed “Goddess of Isis” and her own latest book is entitled: “Daily Devotions for Busy Wiccans and Pagans.” Perhaps I need to start looking for another literary agent? Having what’s known in the psychic entertainment business as a “shut-eye” or absolute believer trying to push books with skeptical leanings has frequently caught me wondering, but beggars in my case can’t be choosers. While I wait for my vast publishing empire to materialize, I’ll have to settle for looking forward to another joyous holiday season packed with lines of needy sitters waiting to have their palms read.
Please rest assured that when and if they ask how I happen to know all the information I’m able to access, I will make every effort to encourage them to turn to science for their own answers. The problem is; few want to hear that line of reasoning or even care. If it involves reading a book, going to the library or even thinking, forget it. They are at the theater watching “Twilight” or online Googling “Real Housewives of Orange County – Season Three.”
Dare “The Skeptologists” hope for a chance for even a season one in this maelstrom of mediocrity? I might get down on my knees and pray for us but I know that’s right out too. What do we have to do to get this show on thre road!
Persevere.
In the meantime, I’m the fortune telling machine: Pay for your ticket, pull the lever and out spurts your canned fortune. Happy Holidays!
What larks! I’ll by a copy of the book anytime.
Happy Solstice/Saturnalia/Mithras’ birthday……..Fill in your own here.
Ian
An afterthought: some years ago, when I first read of the concept of entanglement in sub-atomic physics I said to my girlfriend of the time that it was possible that we had paricles in our bodies that were “twinned” with particles in distant stars. She took this to be proof of astrology (another of those odd beliefs that won’t die).
I didn’t – and still don’t have – a rebuttel. Can anyone help? Maybe I was misinformed about the science.
On the subject of writing: my link is to mt poetry site. Maybe that will be a book one day. (Hysterical laughter from the publishing industry) “Poetry that’s about something is SO 1990’s, darling”
Keep on keeping on.
Ian: You could tell your girlfriend that, although it seems that the entangled particles would have to exchange information in order for their waveforms to collapse properly, it is not possible for any mechanism to use entangled particles to directly transfer information. (They can never be the basis for a faster-than-light communication system, for example.) That would be an effective rebuttal, though from her perspective it may sound like proof by fiat — “Physicists say it can’t happen, so you’re wrong” — in which case she would have to read up on the subject, and thus learn enough to understand the reasons for this, in order to be convinced. (Alternately, I suppose you could advance an argument of the form: “If you don’t believe that physicists are right about entangled particles being useless for transferring information, then why do you believe them when they say that particles can become entangled in the first place?” But that argument never seems to work … look at the LHC-paranoiacs.)
Thanks Brian. I think I need to read some more on the subject myself. I’m rather what used to be called “right brain dominant”. It doesn’t mean left handed but find art etc. easy to understand and mathematics as comprehensible as a lost 7th century Chinese dialect. I will try though.
Ian
p.s. I volunteered my PC to do work for CERN/LHC just after it started up – then it broke! Not my fault, guv. Honest!
A friend of mine used to call his right hand Rosa Palma. He claimed it was his alternate girlfriend.
So palmistry is all about reading between the lines.
I’m afraid that if even Pushing Daisies can’t manage to stay on the air, I don’t see how the Skeptologists can make it onto TV either.
A friend of mine is a former stage magician. At an event I organized, on stage with Dr. Shermer, he did some cold readings as a “psychic”, then explained to the audience that he had no psychic powers and exactly how he had fooled them.
Afterward, people came up to him and asked if he did private readings. Even as he was emphatically and rather desperately insisting that he had no powers and was just fooling them, they just plain refused to hear him. It really disturbed him.
As a kid I read a book about palmistry and of course promptly offered readings to school friends and parents. I became a fast skeptic because of my surprisingly succesful results. I mean I only read one chapter and I’m already a prophet, come on.
Max, the “reading between the lines” line is brilliant! So true I may use it myself when I go through the inevitable re-writes of my book!
When I met my wife-to-be I learned that she read palms. I used it as an excuse to hold hands, and the rest is history. She is very good at it, always amazing people at parties. I wish I could get her to charge a fee for it so I could retire, but she refuses. Seems like easy money to me….
I wonder whether your “friend in bizarreness” Tony “Doc” Shiels, has written his autobiography; he was due to publish it in August to coincide with his 70th birthday (it was even mentioned in an Irish newspaper), but rumour has it that he burnt the thing. A pity if this is so, as it would be a pleasure to read a warts n’ all tale of Doc’s life and thoughts.
I recently received a letter from Doc. He’s working with a publisher on a book about his life, but it’s so far mostly about his painting and art career. He hasn’t mentioned any burnings yet – but it’s certainly possible or at least a good rumor. He says this book is planned as a sort of “coffee table” deal. I have kept up a correspondence with him since the late 80’s when we worked on a hoax together and were published in FATE MAGAZINE. We are still in active conpirracy mode with a continuing long range plan: THE CASE. If you don’t know about THE CASE, it’s better not to ask. People in Scotland had their computers comfiscated and things did indeed get a little “hot” for awhile. Or was that part of the hoax? I’m not telling…. I’m still hoping that this new book will focus a bit more on Nessie and Doc’s other “activities.” He’s the one who started the whole “bizarre” movementt in magic and a true subversive one of a kind genius. THE SKEPTOLOGISTS would do well to honor him with a segment or two.
Thanks for the info, Sir. Good news. Originally – as I said – “Doc” was to have had his autobiography out by his 70th birthday this year (as reported by The Kingdom newspaper last year) . . . I asked his son (via MySpace) about it, who replied, “last I heard, he’d burnt it!” Well, I hope it was just a nnidnid-bblip. Er… I’ve heard about “The Case” (via Jon Downes) but it never occurred to me to ask for the details. Being a Scots/Irish (born in England) surrealchemist myself, maybe I should try and acquaint myself further with this conspiracy. The thing is, I know “Doc” wants, as a good surrealist, to re-enchant the landscape and all, but he (and, I presume you too) knows enough about The World to know that sorcery, magic and marvels genuinely occur sometimes. Having never met “Doc”, nor corresponded with him at length, I’m not in a position to know how to what extent he uses his knowledge of magic merely to confound the gullible, rather than as part of a genuine pursuit of the Marvellous. Either way, I’m sure he finds fundamentalist skepticism (a la James Randi) tiresome.
I really enjoyed this article, I too read palms, at the local weekly flea market, and I have the same attitude to “psychic powers”.
I did it for my own amusement for many years, but people believe better when they are charged a fee. I’ve put the fee up to increase the value of what they’re getting, they still come back for more.
Fantastic article, the human race is very naive. I used to be a believer until finding out more, now I have turned to more the psychologist route of skeptism, and thoroughly enjoying my research!
It was very interesting to read this post! I wasn’t even sure whether you were talking tongue in cheek or whether you were serious! :) And that book certainly sounds interesting.
What I want to say is that it’s not palmistry that you should condemn as much as palmists themselves. Palmistry has a lot of merit in it, if only palmists stopped promising the moon. Its quite impossible to tell the future by palmistry, unless the person who the hand belongs to never changes one bit. Which is quite impossible.
And if so many people are craving to get their hands read, it means that they do need some information to help them get on with their life.
Is mr. Shiels still living? I was listening again to an audio tape made by him in 1985, I ama magician in the same vein as doc, ye-mage, and others from invocation.