6. Palmistry has been around for millennia, and famously Alexander the Great inherited a book on palm reading from his tutor, Aristotle
Also known as chiromancy, the practice of predicting a person’s future by reading their palms has been a popular form of divination for many centuries. What’s more, despite being roundly-debunked by scientists, it’s still widely-practiced around the world to this day. Quite where and when it originated is the source of historical debate. However, it’s widely-acknowledged that palmistry has its roots in the East. The ancient peoples of India, Nepal, Tibet and what was Babylonia all turned to specialist seers to read palms and predict futures, even if the lines of the hand were interpreted in different ways across the different cultures.
Probably the most famous fan of palmistry was Alexander the Great. According to accounts from the 4th century BC, Aristotle, who was Alexander’s boyhood tutor, discovered a book on the pseudoscience in a temple dedicated to Hermes. He passed it onto Alexander, igniting a lifelong fascination. In fact, it was said that the great ruler would regularly examine the hands of his army officers, supposedly gauging their character and even seeing whether they would bring him bad look or good fortune on the field of battle simply by reading their palm lines.