Shapes and proportions of hands reveal one of four basic personality types. INTUITIVE or PRACTICAL qualities dominate when fingers are shorter than palms. Intuitive types with their long palms and short fingers take chances when they’re inspired and are impatient and easily bored when they’re not. Practical types with square palms and short fingers are logical, methodical, pragmatic, and make decisions based on objective reality. When fingers are longer than palms, THINKING or FEELING qualities dominate. Thinking types with square palms and long fingers are communicators who have to work hard to stay focused, disciplined, and structured and not spread themselves too thin. Feeling types with long palms and long fingers have to build trust in order to be comfortable with others. Large hands enjoy detail and organization. Small hands detest detail, are conceptual, and love big ideas. Small-handed folk need to delegate the detail work. Reading hands is like a Meyers Briggs personality test incarnate.
Speaking of details, every detail needs to be examined in the context of the whole and all other details at the same time. The danger in interpreting details out of context is in substituting one form of pre-determinism for another by reducing individuality to cookbook formulas. Most palmistry books do that. Every detail has meaning (even rings, scars, warts and birthmarks). Until you have determined the basic hand type, all details are superficial. The meaning of any detail can change depending on the question asked and the character of the individual. No matter what our circumstances, we still have plenty of free will to exercise our thinking, feelings, and actions. We cannot alter the past, but we can change our present and influence our futures.
Hi Mark, nice article!
Recently I have developed a more detailed method to describe (and recognize) each of the 4 hand (elemental) shapes… stuff for the advanced students/researchers: http://www.handresearch.com/diagnostics/finger-length-proportions-elemental-hand-shapes.htm
PS. The picture is interesting, but maybe your choice for 3 male hands + 1 female hand is a bit unfortunate – I think you will understand. 🙂
Hi Martijn, glad you enjoyed the article.
As you well know, judging hands is the key to learning palmistry. Most people are not pure types and that can make judging a bit challenging. I could have chosen four men or four women (a majority of my clients are women). Instead, I chose four of my favorite clients because of how well their personalities fit the archetypes. Fortunately, now people can go to the link you offered to get more information about recognizing the four basic types. I’ll also be presenting plenty of other examples of each type over time, along with a corresponding character analysis, so readers will have plenty of opportunity to view different examples.
One of the challenges I’ve personally encountered over the past few years is that I’ve been digitally photographing hands as opposed to printing them. I may unconsciously shoot the hand at an angle that subtly changes the way the proportions look and then in hindsight regret it because I cannot get another opportunity to capture that particular set of hands again. In a future blog entry entitled Palmistry and the Twelve Types, I multiply the four basic types by the three modalities and illustrate twelve specific types. Although they’re all pure personality types, some of the hands may appear questionable to those who may try to use them to identify their own type. The good news is that when I get to analyzing each type and telling their stories, I will also be offering plenty of other examples. Palmistry is incredibly powerful, but not an exact science.