William H. Mumler - The Spirit Photographer

William H. Mumler the American "spirit photographer" worked in New York and Boston. Quite accidentally he discovered a remarkable talent for photographing ghosts accompanying the people who he portrayed.

His photographs aroused much controversy. His positives were revealing ethereal beings, which appeared very similar to portraits of dead relatives. For this reason, some accused Mumler of burglary and theft of family photos.

Looking today at the work of this controversial photographer, I have mixed feelings. Ethereal figures in the pictures appear to be a simple trick, but on the other hand ... who is able to exclude the possibility that William H. Mumler actually had the gift of vision?

The Meaning of Both Hands in Palmistry

In palmistry each hand is treated separately because, according to the views of the chiromants:

- The passive hand (usually the left hand) has to do with that which is hidden, namely the destiny of a man. Baed on his left hand the nature of man, his personality, talents, strengths and weaknesses are discovered..

- The active hand (right) is used to determine the attitudes and actions of man - this hand is often called the hand free will.

Palmistry / Chiromancy

Palmistry is the divination of the hands, or an ability to read the fate of the human hand.

Chiromancy studies both external hand shapes (width, length), cohesiveness of the palms, fingers, shape and the interior of the hand: lines, mounts and characters.

An interest in palmistry began about 5000 years ago, and as the cradle of this art are considered the countries of: India, China, Syria and Egypt.While observing the position of the stars in the sky it was noticed that there are similar lines on the palms. All knowledge of chiromancy had been passed on orally from generation to generation.

The first mention of palmistry in Europe appeared in the 1448th, but over the next years chiromancy lost it's popularity and regained it after 1700. In later years, astrologists took care of research on palmistry and noticed that apart from lines and characters there are also mounts on the palm, which resemble a map. They assigned assigning an astrological name to each mount and finger (such as Mount of Mercury, Venus, Saturn etc.).