The Future with Palm Reading
Tarot cards, crystal balls, and palm reading are terms which often connote the same thing, that being of fortune telling. Such connotation isn't exact, in the sense that each of these three have their own respective unique elements, unique to their own natures, and not just limited to the scope of fortune telling, though often applied into such disciplines.
As the future, the undiscovered country, has often been questioned and inquired upon since the Middle Ages, the prevalence of fortune telling has been around for a long time, with some cultures accepting the belief regimen, while others totally rejecting them.
On Chiromancy
Chiromancy, or the term cheiromancy, is combined from the Greek words cheir and manteia, which respectively means hand and divination. Commonly, chiromancy refers to palm reading, palmistry, hand analysis and chirology. Foretelling the future would be the "game" of chiromancy in general, with variations of the practice being applied in congruence to the variations of cultures and beliefs. Typically, those who engage in chiromancy are often titled as palm readers, palmists, chirologists and even hand readers.
Palm reading's, cheiromancy or hand analysis, call it whatever you may, origins could be traced back to Indian Astrology, as well as being practiced by Roma, or Gypsy Fortune Tellers. More than 5,000 years in the past, a book whose title translates to "The Teachings of Valmiki Maharshi on Male Palmistry" was written by Valmiki, a Hindu sage. The practice of palm reading then went around, reaching Persia, Tibet, Egypt, China and even making it to Europe as well.
By 3000 BCE, China came in contact with palm reading. Greece then has its cultural encounter with palm reading, where Anaxagoras practiced it. Today, palm reading hosts a wide range of variations in terms of disciplines and practices, the most often entailing the combination of palm reading with technique beliefs of holistic healing, psychology, as well as divination, or alternative means of divination, and the ever enduring fortune telling.
Palm reading and its practice is generally considered to be a pseudoscience, considering that most practices of palm reading don't have scientific evidence to back up predictions of the future, let along the other healing and such beliefs rooted to the practice. Differing in "schools", most interpretations of palm reading vary as well as conflict with other "schools" adding on to the already confusing nature of palm reading.
But even with such givens, palm reading is quite popular still, even with its many given considerations, and is particularly popular in more fatalistic or superstitious cultures.
