I have many unfavorite palmistry books.  Some call themselves encyclopedias or guides for beginners. One former # 1 best selling palmistry book on Amazon.com is Palmistry: Apprentice to Pro in 24 Hours by Johnny Fincham (Amazon Sales Rank 49,710 at the time). This is one book that truly can’t be judged by its cover. The front cover describes the content as “the easiest palmistry training course ever written”. The back has five rave sound bites from expert authorities that know little to nothing about reading hands. The Daily Mail described Johnny as “Britain’s leading palmist” on the cover.

I will never recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn palmistry. Johnny begins by telling his readers to ignore hand shape. That’s the # 1 most important factor in reading hands. Knowing hand shapes enables readers to readily identify one of four basic Jungian archetypes (intuitive, thinking, feeling, and sensation) like a Myers Briggs psychological test incarnate.

Johnny confidently instructs readers to ignore anything that appears “normal” in the hands. Until you know what’s “normal”, all details are superficial. Details are important, but trivial without first establishing basic character. Each detail needs to be examined in the context of the whole and all other details at the same time. One danger of interpreting details out of context is in substituting one form of pre-determinism for another by reducing individuality to cookbook formulas.

Traditionally, an index finger is” Jupiter”. Johnny’s version is the “Mirror finger” The middle finger is “Saturn”.  Johnny’s is the “Wall finger”.  The ring finger is “Apollo” or Johnny’s “Peacock finger”. The pinky finger is “Mercury” or Johnny’s “Antenna finger”. Metaphor is useful, but much better when tied to real mythology. Too much esoteric, clever, and cutesy jargon is very confusing. Johnny peppers his book with pictures of celebrities, and then never really examines them. He mentions two case histories of clients, but then fails to produce relevant background information or basic understanding of their character. Johnny analyzes a variety of details, and then gives his client’s response as to how “wonderful” and how “right” he was. They can’t wait to sign up for his next workshop. Johnny’s “Secret Palmist Assignments” for his readers are superficial at best. If this is a best selling palmistry book for the 21^st century, it’s reprehensible for me at age 65, not to take full responsibility for sharing my knowledge and experience with the public.