Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Glance at the Past - Palmistry in 1943

An article in Time magazine from 1943, 65 years ago, shows that handreading was taken a lot more seriously back then. While not endorsing the practice, the article does give the subject some serious reflection. In addition, handreaders are referred to as "artists", which is much more palatable than "fraudsters" and "con-men", which is how they are often seen today. Here's an extract from the article:

"To artists, and a few scientists, the hand is as revealing as the face in expressing temperament, heredity, life habits, glandular function. One such scientist, Dr. Charlotte Wolff, physician and psychologist, last week gave her second summary of findings in the science of chirology. In The Human Hand (Alfred A. Knopf, $3) she carried on her rescue of the hand from the hocus-pocus of palmistry and fortunetelling, gave laymen some interesting reading as well."

Read the full article

Thanks to Lynn Seal for digging this article up.