Originating in India, palmistry, or chiromancy is the claim of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm, also known as chirology, or in popular culture as palm reading.
The practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice chiromancy are generally called palmists, hand readers, hand analysts, or chirologists.
Chiromancy evaluates a person's personality and future by reading the palms of that person's hands.
Various lines (Such as the heart line, life line, etc.) and mounts (or bumps on the hand) are interpreted by their relative sizes, qualities, and intersections.
In some traditions, readers also examine characteristics of the fingers, fingernails, fingerprints, and palmar skin patterns, skin texture and color, shape of the palm, and flexibility of the hand.
A palm reader usually begins by reading the person's dominant hand. In some traditions of palmistry, the other hand is believed to carry hereditary or family traits, or, depending on the palmist's cosmological beliefs, to convey information about "past-life" or "karmic" conditions.