In the exercise of these arts of divination there is no doubt that, owing to the concentration of his attention on the thing to be inspected the operator is, in many kinds of divination, "self-hypnotized," or brought into that well-known mental condition in which the unconscious memory and other special mental processes are active, whilst an exaggerated acuteness of the senses is produced. In other cases the person who consults the "operator" may be so influenced. Hallucination of one kind and another is therefore likely to occur, and thus mystery and apparently marvellous results are not inconsistent with the good faith of the operator. But there is no reason to doubt that the modern sorcerers who make money by their pretended divinations are rogues and impostors of a particularly dangerous and injurious variety.
Palmistry or chiromancy is one of the oldest of the large family of systems for foretelling the future. It existed in China 4000 years ago, and is treated in the most ancient Greek writings as a well-known belief. The gipsies probably brought it with them from India. Those who practise palmistry pretend that by the inspection and proper interpretation of the various irregularities and flexion-folds of the skin of the hand the mental or moral dispositions and powers of an individual can be discovered, and not only that, but that the current of future events in the life of an individual are indicated by them. To this it is customary to add nowadays the pretence of a revelation by these same markings of events in the past life of their owner. It is only what we might have expected that primitive man, seeking for signs and occult mysteries, should have found in the varying folds of the hand--"the organ of organs"--something to excite his tendency to attribute magical importance to what he could not simply explain. The folds of the skin on the palmar surface of the hand are, as a matter of fact, so disposed that the thick loose skin shall be capable of bending in grasping, whilst it is held down to the skeleton of the hand by fibrous lines of attachment, so as to prevent its slipping and the consequent insecurity of grip. The swellings bounded by the lines of folding and fixture are called "monticuli" by the palmist, and are simply subcutaneous fat, which acts as a padding, or cushioning, and projects between the lines of fibrous attachment of the skin to the deeply placed bones. They differ slightly in different individuals, as do other structures.