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Show EFAD FOR OCCULT SCIENCES By EREDERIC J. HASKIN ' IL hardly a cily in the Laiitpd fet has not the sipn of a clair-T clair-T fortune-teller or palm-reader Jcinjilv ivor some door. J here ity of town, or even a country JUhood. that lias not its ardent giof the mystical, whether they Swt the belief is or not. It is Mature to speculate on things Wind to marvel over them, and fehuman nature to ask someone a-ms to be a little wiser, than aRto help us solve those hidden Si Wo must be amused and en-j55fe.vc.n en-j55fe.vc.n it' things are somewhat Wfor that purpose. Tn one of .Jfuco'.s stories wo arc told of a Wold Cathav who bought chil-atE chil-atE had them placed in queerly Sftron frames in order that their flight grow in that shape and queer assortment of mon-irmnd mon-irmnd deformities for hisannisc-I hisannisc-I iKclav the. sciences known to an-Ufc-pt," India and C'haldca are be-Srted be-Srted into queer shapes that wo fllsmused, that our love of the ay be gratified. !(Ty, palmistry and psychology jbeen perverted from their orig-fand orig-fand made the means for cliar-Jftlplny cliar-Jftlplny on a people ever ready Aliped. These were legit imn to in the long ago. .Students dc-jir dc-jir whole lives to them and sorest sor-est their years were not longer. Sfaries of the occult sciences Orb built up in Alexandria and hocome prey to invading armies -jfRoman or French, and only 'Weft to show where they stood. ii&R thev taucrht have hocome pf-- tradition. Tn Egypt, even "Effpno is permitted to practice Jlfyas a science until ho has dc-Ipit dc-Ipit years of close stud' to it, Hyligcr even than many lands Tar the study of medicine. Over -nijok, a chart, a lesson or two Jlfjyrlio believes he can road the -jlfrtlie soul, and presto! some grl is all ready to scan. the. lines blind and loll vou what the fu-.Siding fu-.Siding from you and what the j-frbrought von. She can give ilUrhanics for all the bumps and A'crosses on your palm, jusit as amen of the Orient can, but she vhI you why these names have fljiwjn,, nor can she trace for vou ller, ' delicate nerves that gov-f(as gov-f(as could the students of oklon mc contributes to your pleasure, ttjerlv gratifies your personal plfctailing tho various flnttor-?fyou flnttor-?fyou are supposed to possess, jjj- tbatis alMhcrc is to it. 'imreul student of 1 palmistry, ! jar the Orient, where that sci-liinst sci-liinst sacred, I ho work of those Jis nothing short of sacrilege. tgo'ng years of patient study of psychology, physiognomy and philosophy set at naught by a people who are to hini mere pretenders to the kingdom of science, lie recalls the trnd:r,!ons of his ancestors and is able to recount in-Hlances in-Hlances antedating the Pharaohs where Egyptian philosophers and snvants, rich in the lore of palmistry, stood ns counselors coun-selors to kings. His science is older than the Mosaic laws. Tt reaches far back to a time before the Jlykses kings and the dawn of Judaism in Egypt. To this student it is no superstitious rite. His science tenches him that from the day an infant is born there are lines of character in the; hand; that as the years go by opportunity is given to make or mar "this character: that the left hand shows the potentialities, the right the uses or abuses of those powers. In the olden days when Egypt was yet a land of political greatness, no career ca-reer was chosen for a child until his tiny hand had been read by a seer. In the pink fists lie, so thev say, the key to his future. Parents were taught to regard these lines, with their signs and promises. This prevented an embryo statesman froin being sent to study medicine, a musician from being turned into a mechanic, and n scientist from being made into a painter, a thing that happens too often because parents make the choice from their own wishes. Art ancient Indian drama played 400 years before Christ has a scene" in -which the ruler of the realm calls on his philosophers philoso-phers and wise men to road the hands of many children in order to select for him a suitable successor. i China, too. has known palmistry ns a deep and worthy science for countless count-less centurios. Inscrutable yellow faces through long days have pored over maps and charts that explained tho nerves of the body, observing the ramifications rami-fications of these uervesana reasoning out the part the" play in shaping the expression of hand or face. Long-pointed Long-pointed nails have followed line by lino the markings on the hand and have read from these the things the hand has done, the things it might have done and tho things ft will do. And in all the world no two hands have ever been found that were marked alike. H r Fingers long or short, cone-shaped or spat u late, taperhig or knotted at the joints, have indicated to the scientist the character of the person he studies, until on this diversity in hand shapes has been built one of the modern helps in the study of criminology that of identification by finger prints. It is new to us. but Very old in the Orient. It is one phase of palmistry that, we have accepted as legitimate, and that has been raised to t ho dignity of a I study -without degradation. In early 1 Chinese history the thumb mark was usofl as a passport, and woe he uuto Ijim who tried a counterfeit,! There is a theory that the American Indians may have had a bit of knowledge knowl-edge of palmistry, though doubtless most meager. This is based on a carving carv-ing Unit adorns the face of a rock overlooking over-looking Lake Kcjpmkoojic, in Nova Scotia. The carving represents the hand of a man turned palm outward. Ou xhis palm aTc marked all the primary pri-mary lines thai usually adorn the "hand ; of man and indicate in their arrange menl that the hand they represent wad one of strong character, "Whether this relic of the Micmac Indians is a rough etching of the hand of a beloved chief or the earliest American sign of the professional palmist is not known. It may bo the preservation of some science sci-ence known to remote ancestors of the Indian race in the days when it is believed this hemisphere received its first redskin population. y The cxpouents of tho occult sciences do a thriving business because people are eager to find what lies beyond, despite de-spite the fact that the Good Book deem de-em res this knowledge inaccessible to the children of men. Wo ilock eagerly into the dim parlors of the so-called savant and ask him to lift for us tho veil that obscures our future, to tell us how to invest our money, to win back our friends and to recover lost articles. Wp marvel over him, and when he accidentally ac-cidentally hitR some lucky answer wo t marvel over his genius and almost believe in him, -. We go to the cabiu of' some nogro mammy whose voodoo knowledge is not many j'ears out of Africa, and while she mixes some concoction as hetero genoous in its make-up as that brewed by the witches in "MacBoth," she will mutter and mumble and finally deliver a bit of ambiguous advice that may be taken in half n dozen fashions.' A charm makes this advice more easily realized, and bits of hair, chicken bone's and bird feathers tied in a bundle con stituto a mystic symbol against which tho powers of evil, according to her faith, ennnot prevail. We hear that a gypsv van has arrived ar-rived in the neighborhood, nnd soon wee our neighbors going down to interview the dark eyed women who form picturesque pic-turesque groups around the camp. Tho fires glimmer on the vans drawn up in a circle, the horses poer curiously through the smoke, tho men of the clan gather in groups and lend a picturesque air to the scene ns the light strikes a silver button here, a dark face or a ; gaudy handkerchief thorp. The proph- -etcss of the clan, after her own palm has been crossed with a bit of silver, follows the linos of tho hand with a claw-like finger, covertly watching the " exprcstfion of the facp tho while, and in a speech composed of stilted phrases, obBcuro references and mystical allusions, allu-sions, tells of brave men, fair women, the crossing of dark waters, the coming of unexpected fortune;, accidents by land and sea, and love or loss as her imagination may provide. Whether it be faith or superstition or hunger for amusement that leads us to these expounders of tho mystical, it is hard to say, but so many people arc interested in 'the subject, for one reason or another, that the merest fakir can do a good business by hanging out his shingle and doing some form of advertising adver-tising to attract customers. For those who merely desire to be amused the morion' spent with the cleverest of them is doubtless well spent. While an expert ex-pert palmist can doubtless tell something about character from the lines of tho hand. oen the best of them stoop to char latanry when they prophesy the acci dent at sea, the meeting with the dark lady which will result in a second marriage, mar-riage, and that you will live to be 02 years and 6 months old. Tf these seers really knew a sixteenth of what they claim to know, the future would no longer be a sealed book. We would each go around with our little piece of silver and get the exact date of our death nnd our wife's death and our mother-in-law's death. Then we would secure some inside information on stock quotations a few days in advance, where Ua-tain Kidd buried Iiib treasure, or some othor simple scheme to get plenty of easy money, and enjoy lite without auy of its poverty or uncertainty. Have n little fun with tho occult fellow, fel-low, if you want to. .Lot him amuse you the "samo as a juggler, n magician, or auv other kind of a showman, but when "ho begins to foretell the future just remember the one big fact that no one knows that but God, and Ho won't tell. |
