There is really no tendency which the hand denotes more plainly than insanity, whether hereditary or brought on by circumstances. The multitude of forms which could be gathered under this heading cannot be entered into in this work, but I will endeavor to show the most general.
It must be borne in mind that any point that is beyond the normal is abnormal. When, therefore, the line of head sinks to an abnormal point on the Mount of Luna, the imagination of the subject is abnormal and unnatural. This will be more important in the elementary, square, spatulate, and philosophic, than in relation to the conic or psychic types. When the line of head, even on a child’s hand, reaches this unnatural point, it may grow up to manhood or womanhood with perfect clearness and sanity of ideas, but as surely as a mental shock or strain comes, so surely will that brain be thrown off its balance, and insanity will be the result.
The same development of the line of head, with an unusually high Mount of Saturn, will denote a morbidly imaginative nature from the very start (Plate XXV.). Such a subject is gloomy, morose, and melancholy, and this tendency, even without cause, generally increases until the subject completely loses his or her mental balance.
Temporary insanity is shown by a narrow island in the center of a sloping line of head, but this mark generally indicates some brain-illness or temporary insanity consequent upon brain-fever.
The hand of the congenital idiot is remarkable for its very small, badly developed thumb, and for a line of head sloping and made up of broad lines filled with a series of islands, like a chain.
I have further illustrated these remarks in Part III., Chapter V., on various phases of insanity as shown by the hand.
Murderous Propensities as Shown by the Line of Head
The mere act of murder, such as one man killing another in the heat of passion or in self-defense, is not shown by the hand except as a past event, and then only when it has deeply affected a very sensitive nature; but if propensities for crime exist, the age at which they will reach their active or working point in the nature is decidedly shown, as I will proceed to demonstrate.
I have explained in the foregoing remarks that, when the line of head is abnormal in one direction, abnormal characteristics are the result, such as insanity, morbidness, and extreme melancholy, which under certain conditions lead to self-murder. These, however, are abnormal characteristics denoted by the falling line. We will now consider the abnormalities indicated by the rising line of head.
It will be remembered that I have previously stated that the line of head divides the hand into two hemispheres—that of mind and that of matter; and that if it be high on the hand, then the world of matter has greater scope, and the subject is more brutal and animal in his desires. This has been amply proved by the hands of those who have lived a life of crime, particularly if they have been murderous in their propensities (Plate XXIV.).
In such cases the line of head leaves its proper place on the hand and rises and takes possession of the line of heart, and sometimes even passes beyond it. Whether such people murder one or twenty is not the question. The point is that they have abnormal tendencies for crime; they stop at nothing in the accomplishment of their purpose, and under the slightest provocation or temptation they must and will gratify these strange and terrible propensities. The extraordinary thing in connection with this point is that the same line also predicts years in advance when these propensities will cause the destruction of the subject. If the head and heart meet under Saturn, it will occur before he is twenty-five; between Saturn and the Sun, before thirty-five; under the Mount of the Sun, before forty-five; and so on. This is one of the most interesting points in the study of the hand, and goes far to prove that, once the line of head goes over or p. 97 under what should be its normal position, it betrays these various inherent tendencies in the character and the nature of the subject. In this way it will be seen that this study could be used to the greatest advantage in the training of children and young persons, as the line of head from the earliest indicates the mental bent of the subject whether for good or evil. There can be no doubt but that nature points in some way, even years in advance, to the harvest of those seeds that we are continually sowing; let us then look facts in the face whether they speak against ourselves or our children. Humanity has little pity for the reaper when binding the sheaves of regret: he cries, I did not know the seeds that I had sown.
[Note.—I do not use or pay attention to such signs as the red cross on Mars or the black spot on Saturn as indications of murder. I consider that they belong to the more superstitious side of this work, and are relics of that black age which once claimed palmistry as its own.]