Reading the hand

How to read palm lines: a beginner's order of operations

Most beginners try to read everything at once and end up reading nothing. Do it in order: one hand, good light, one line at a time, and a note of what you cannot see.

Step 1: choose one hand

Read one hand first, the one you write with. Reading both at once is how beginners talk themselves into a story. Which hand gets read explains the reasoning, and how the two hands are compared once you are comfortable.

Step 2: get the light right

Hold your palm open, slightly cupped, near a window so the light falls from one side. Side light throws the fine lines into relief; light from straight above flattens them away. If you want a photograph to study, here is how to take one.

Step 3: find the four major lines

• The heart line: the curve across the upper palm, under the fingers. The heart line
• The head line: it starts between thumb and forefinger and runs across the middle. The head line
• The life line: it curves around the base of the thumb. It describes the thumb's mound, not how long you will live. What the life line does not measure
• The fate line: a vertical line up the middle of the palm. Many people have none, and that is normal. The fate line

Trace each one with a fingertip and ask only three plain questions: where does it start, where does it end, and is it deep, faint or broken? Write the answers down before you look up any meaning.

Step 4: look at the mounts around them

The pads at the base of each finger and around the thumb give the lines their context. The mounts of the palm shows where each sits. At this stage you are noticing which are full and which are flat, nothing more.

Step 5: read the tradition, then hold it loosely

Only now look up what the tradition says. Palm lines meaning is the map. Treat what you find as a prompt to think about yourself, not a verdict. Palmistry is a tradition, not a science, and a good reader says so. If you are new to it, what palm reading is is the short background, and what a palm reading scanner really does covers doing it from a photo.

Mistakes beginners make

• Treating a short or faint line as bad. Depth and length vary widely between healthy hands.
• Counting every tiny crease as a meaningful line. Creases deepen when you flex the hand.
• Reading in a mood. If you want a particular answer, you will find it.
• Reading health, lifespan, fertility or money into a line. We never do, and neither should you.

Want it read from a photo?

Our reading works the same way you just did: every claim names the feature it came from, and anything the photo cannot show is said plainly. How we read sets it out. Your photo is deleted as soon as the reading is written.