Category:Body Reading
From Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers
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Body Reading or Physiognomancy is the art of character analysis and divination through physical formations on the body of the client, including the shape of the head (Phrenology), the structure of the face (Face Reading), and the lines on the palms of the hand (Palmistry, Chiromancy, or Hand Reading).
Due to the individual nature of a person's musculature, dexterity, and training, graphology is also sometimes considered to be one of the arts of body reading.
Some readers like to perform a total body reading, assessing phrenology in combination with graphology, face reading, and palmistry to arrive at a complete spiritual morphology.
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Phrenology: Reading the Structure of the Head
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Phrenology is the practice of reading the structure of the head, primarily by touching the cranium and face of the person who is being read. Character strengths, personality flaws, and spiritual inclinations are assigned to various areas of the head and skull, whose bumps, plateaus, and hollows are felt and diagnosed.
In hoodoo practice, character reading through phrenology may be combined with prayer or hands-on spiritual cleansing, the client's head being read as a form of spiritual assessment, while the head is being bathed or washed or the client is being suffumigated or smoked with incense. Additionally, parents may request a phrenological reading of a child in order to help them understand what the child's talents and skills may be.
Face Reading: Metoposcopy
Face readers, also known as physiognomists, are diviners and character analysts who, by examining a person's facial features, are able to determine their subject's gifts and strengths, weaknesses and problem areas, and to determine his or her overall personality tendencies and probable health issues.
Facial typology tends to become more pronounced as a person ages, since personality traits, work habits, accidents, and disease are reflected in the body and face as time goes on. This makes interpreting the faces of middle-aged adults particularly productive for the skilled reader. Children, whose characters and futures are yet plastic and mobile, may be read, but these readings should be carefully done, with the recognition that change is probable.
In the past, face readers generally worked among a regional population of ethnically homogenized clients, training themselves to identify and make note of subtle variations from the average facial types of their own race. Lists of facial feature characteristics, as well as facial feature maps and models, were developed by such readers in many parts of the world, based on centuries of experienced observation. Chinese medical physiognomology and European facial character analysis are two of the best known of these regionally developed systems of face reading. Similarly, there is some Jewish thought on reading the lines of the forehead in Dead Sea Scroll 4Q186, in the Zohar (The Book of Radiance) 2:71a-78a, and other ancient texts in the Kabbalah and the Jewish Grimoire Tradition.
Once global travel became a reality, it became obvious to all who worked in the field of face reading that one nation's concept of a "long nose" may be highly different from another's, and that the "low forehead" of one race would differ markedly from the "low forehead" of another. Due to the mingling of people from formerly isolated regions, the modern face reader's training now includes familiarity with people of varied ethnic and racial types. Today, face reading requires more understanding of genetics and heredity than it did in the past, and the talented modern physiognomist can read people of any race, seeing deep into the character and the current conditions that surround and influence the person under scrutiny.
Face reading can be combined with Psychometry or reading an object, particularly with the psychometiric technique of reading a photograph. If the photograph shows clear facial features and the reader is both gifted for Psychometry and face reading, then a good character analysis can be given for someone in whom the client is interested, but who cannot be brought to the face reader in person.
Palmistry: Chiromancy or Hand Reading
Cheiromancy or Chiromancy (from the Greek "cheir," meaning "hand," plus "manteia", meaning "divination") -- also known as Palmistry, Hand Reading, Palm Reading, Chirology, or Hand Analysis -- is the art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm. The practice of palmistry is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations. Those who practice cheiromancy are generally called Palmists, Palm Readers, Hand Readers, Hand Analysts, or Chirologists. The shape, lines, mounds, and marks on the hand are used by palmists both for character analysis and for foretelling the future for clients. Most cheiromancers and hoodoo hand readers work only in person, but some will psychically read palm-prints or hand-scans.
Vulvamancy
Body reading can take on unusual forms and one of the more exotic is Vulvamancy, the reading of variations in shape of the female external genitals.
The vulva has a long history of being the focus for both character readings and divination. in the Hindu tradition of folk magic. The Ananga Ranga (Stage of Love), written by Kalyan’s Malla (c. 15th or 16th century), divides vulvas into four basic types: Padmini, Chitrini, Shankhini and Hastini. Within each of the four categories are three subdivisions. All 12 types have different personality associations.
Reading the vulva is also part of Islamic folk magc. Around the 16th century a complex and nuanced classification appeared in an Arabic manual called Al-rawz al-ātir fī nuzhat al-hātir (The Perfumed Garden) with over thirty different descriptions of vulvas and their correlations, knowledge which might be used to establish the best ways of pleasing women of different emotional temperements.
A newly standardized classification system that draws upon these past classics but uses scientific nomenclature for personality analysis and fortune-telling was developed in the 21st century and promises to carry the tradition of yoni reading well into the future.
Stolisomancy: Reading the Clothing
Although clothing is not intrinsically a part of the body, few people appear in public naked, so a form of body-reading that involves interpretation of the manner of dress -- called stolisomancy -- has long been a part of the folklore of many cultures, and there are certain commonly agreed-upon meanings. Here are five well-known examples:
- An attendant accidentally buckled the right sandal onto the left foot of the Roman Emperor Augustus, and he read this omen as a sign that a military revolt would occur on that very day.
- Accidentally wearing a shirt inside out is an omen of bad luck.
- Putting on a dress incorrectly portends that someone will present you with a gift.
- If your right shoelace becomes untied, someone is speaking kindly of you. If the left one becomes untied, someone is saying nasty things about you.
- Wearing black clothes at a wedding portends the death of someone in the bridal party.
Stolisomancers may take into account colour choices, pattern choices, and fashion choices, always with the understanding that they are subject to contextual cultural conditions and interpretations, and may be associated with a specific social, political, or religious roles. For instance, an Orthodox Jewish man who forgets his kippah is not the same as an Anglo-American Christian man who left his baseball cap at home. Pink thong underwear clinging onto a conservative Muslim woman's chador via static electricity from the dryer is not at all similar to pink thong underwear clinging to a Swedish-American Theosophist woman's yoga pants.
You may always take a picture and submit it for an expert Psychometry interpretation if you need assistance with challenging cases.
Graphology: Handwriting Analysis
Graphology is a means of determining personality traits, moral fiber, areas of strengths and weaknesses, talents, and to some degree, physical health by examination of a subject's handwriting. It can be performed for a client, as a part of guided self-analysis and spiritual development, but it is most often performed by a handwriting analyst for a client who wishes to learn hidden or otherwise unexpressed information about the character of a friend, spouse, or potential employee.
Credits
This page is brought to you by the AIRR Tech Team:
- Author: catherine yronwode
- Contributors: ConjureMan, Dr. Jeremy Weiss, Deacon Millett, Dr. E., Prof. C. D. Porterfield
- Images: Unknown Artists, Greywolf Townsend; photo-edited by catherine yronwode
See Also
Divination
- Divination and Fortune Telling by Psychic Body Reading, Phrenology, and Face Reading
AIRR Readers & Rootworkers Who Perform This Work for Clients
Pages in category "Body Reading"
The following 7 pages are in this category, out of 7 total.
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