He was an expert on the art of chiromancy or palmistry, having read palms and analysed the handwriting of luminaries of the period, he wrote several books on the subject and in 1886 went on a lecture tour of the United States.
12.
In addition to these four broad categories, there is palmistry, also called chiromancy, a practice common to many different places on the Eurasian landmass; it has been practised in the cultures of India, Tibet, China, Persia, Sumeria, Ancient Israel and Babylonia.
13.
Michael Scott " the wizard " ( 1175 c . 1232 ) was a real-life scholar and philosopher, whom Walter Scott described in " The Lay of the Last Minstrel " as " addicted to the abstruse studies of judicial astrology, alchemy, physiognomy, and chiromancy.
14.
The seven " artes magicae " or " artes prohibitae " or arts prohibited by canon law by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456 were : nigromancy ( which included " black magic " and " demonology " ), geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy, chiromancy, and scapulimancy and their sevenfold partition emulated the artes liberales and artes mechanicae.
15.
For example, he admits the possible effectiveness of chiromancy, while rejecting cartomancy : " It is certain that chiromancy, and especially physiognomy, have at least some plausibility : they draw their predictions from signs which relate to features which distinguish and characterize people; of lines which the subjects carry with themselves, which are the work of nature, and that someone can believe significant, since they are unique to each individual.
16.
For example, he admits the possible effectiveness of chiromancy, while rejecting cartomancy : " It is certain that chiromancy, and especially physiognomy, have at least some plausibility : they draw their predictions from signs which relate to features which distinguish and characterize people; of lines which the subjects carry with themselves, which are the work of nature, and that someone can believe significant, since they are unique to each individual.
17.
Here, he was once more allowed the use of the prison library, writing several books, including " Buch der orientalischen Geheimnisse " ( Book of Oriental Secrets ) and " Zauberbibel " ( Magical Bible ), the latter of which was divided into seven sections, each of which looked at a different occult practice : cartomancy, astrology, the interpretation of dreams, chiromancy, magic, alchemy and necromancy.
18.
He carried his enquiries so far into the occult sciences of abstruse and hidden nature, that, after having given most ample proofs, by his writings concerning physiognomy, geomancy, and chiromancy, he moved on to the study of philosophy, physics, and astrology; which studies proved so advantageous to him, that, not to speak of the two first, which introduced him to all the popes of his time, and acquired him a reputation among learned men, it is certain that he was a great master in the latter, which appears not only by the astronomical figures he had painted in the great hall of the palace at Padua, and the translations he made of the books of the most learned rabbi Abraham Aben Ezra, added to those he himself composed on critical days, and the improvement of astronomy, but by the testimony of the renowned mathematician Regiomontanus, who made a fine panegyric on him, in quality of an astrologer, in the oration he delivered publicly at Padua when he explained there the book of " Alfraganus ".
