Head line on your palm: how palmistry reads the way you think

The head line runs across the middle of your palm, under the heart line, and palmistry reads it for how you think. A level line is read as practical and a sloping one as imaginative. Joined to the life line at the start, it's read as careful, and with a small gap, as independent. Put the end of yours on the plate above and you get a slope and a length to compare with the readings below.

One plain note: this line says nothing about how intelligent you are. A long one doesn't mean clever and a short one doesn't mean slow. What the tradition reads is a style of mind, and a modern guide puts that well: the line shows "its style of processing, not its horsepower".

Head line joined to the life line, or apart: what each start means

The head line can start three ways: inside the life line, joined to it, or apart from it, and each one has its own reading. Joined is the usual form according to Cheiro, whose 1916 handbook many later books built on ("more frequently found connected with than separated"). That's worth knowing if yours is joined and you've read somewhere that it's a problem.

Inside the life line, crossing it on the way out, is "the most uncertain of all", read as over-cautious and easily upset. Joined is "a highly sensitive disposition, which inclines towards the side of caution", with a remark that may ring true for some readers: "even the cleverest people with this sign seem to rein themselves in too tightly". Apart, with a small gap, is "independence of thought, quickness of judgment, and a certain mental daring". Modern pages agree on that last one: a separate start "indicates early intellectual independence".

Leo Markun, surveying the same claims in 1927, couldn't resist. Of the separate start: "He may play the saxophone by ear without regard for the feelings of his neighbors." Of the crossing start: "Even though wearing a belt and suspenders, he will constantly fear the loss of his trousers." Character sketching is the fun of it, so look at where yours meets your life line and see which sketch fits.

What a straight or sloping head line means

A straight head line is read as practical and a sloping one as imaginative, and the classic scale runs in three steps. Level is "what is called level-headed", the practical line. A gentle slope towards the far lower side of the palm is imagination in hand: the person "uses his imagination when he wishes to do so instead of being controlled by it". A steep plunge is the reverse, someone who "can only work in moods of the moment". The modern version is warmer about the curve, which "shows a mind that wanders productively".

There's a useful twist in the 1916 handbook: read the slope against the shape of the hand. A sloping line on a square, practical hand means more imagination "than any casual observer would at first sight give them credit for", and a level line on a long, tapered hand means someone practical "even in their highest dreams". The hand type test tells you which shape you have, if you want to try that on yourself.

The tool measures slope in degrees, from where you place the end of the line. That's more precision than the tradition ever had, and the 1927 survey saw the gap: "If chirognomy were altogether a product of the present day, we should no doubt be provided with precise measuring instruments." Here's one, then. The angle tells you where the crease goes, and the rest is yours to read.

A forked head line, or two head lines

A fork near the end of the line, one branch level and one sloping, is read as two sides of a mind: "the imaginative and the practical". On a hand joined at the start it was thought to mean hesitation, and the old advice to such people was oddly practical: "act according to first impulse", rather than arguing both sides for ever. Other old books say a small fork "makes for diplomacy" and a large one "causes cunning", and the 1927 survey adds, "I have not been able to learn how large the fork must be to create a subject too cunning to be a diplomat."

Two separate head lines are something else: "as rarely found as are cases of the single line right across the hand", in the 1916 handbook, and read as a "dual mentality", someone who can carry "two separate mental lives". It passes on what "many ancient authorities" said about inherited riches and sets that aside, so even the old books thought some of this went too far.

A head line close to the heart line, or merged with it

The space between the head and heart lines gets a name of its own in palmistry, the quadrangle. A narrow one is read as narrow views, and an even one as balanced judgment. When the two become a single line across the whole palm, the old advice is to check where it sits: lying where a head line would be it's "a question of head and mentality", and higher up it's "more intensity of feeling".

A single line like that is also a known anatomical variant. Its medical name is the single transverse palmar crease, older sources call it a simian crease, and it's often normal. That page has what doctors say about it, and it's worth reading before anything a palmist says.

Why the head line comes first in the classic handbook

The name has moved around too. Dale's Indian Palmistry of 1895 calls it the Liver line, "called the Head line in England". Williams in 1902 calls it the line of thought, and reads it by which finger it leans towards: "to the third finger shows commercial ability; to the middle finger, shows social activity, and to the first finger, scientific attainment." The left-hand and right-hand comparison may be the most interesting idea here: if the left slopes and the right runs straight, the 1916 handbook would say you were forced to become practical against your natural bent. You can check that one on yourself, and it might start a good conversation.

Try the head line on a real decision

Pick a choice you're facing at work, and read yourself through the old scale.

• The level line starts with the numbers, and the sloping line with the picture of how it might feel. Which did you reach for first? Would the people you work with say the same?
• The joined line reins itself in too tightly. Is there a project you've been talking yourself out of?
• The forked line gets the advice to "act according to first impulse". What would first impulse say here?

If you want the traced version, the palm scanner finds your head line on a photo of your open hand and measures it, as an estimate, and marks how sure it is. The overview of palm lines shows how this one fits with the rest.