About British Cheirological Society

Hi Christopher,
From the day Anand started a thread - "Whos is Christopher Jones?", I started reading about BCS's history at your website, read the resignation letters also! I learnt few more facts from Lynn too.
I understand that its a sensitive matter and have hurt and disappointed many hand readers. I have had few questions to you regarding the same. Would you please answer them?

1. What are you doing now a days? Sorry, if that sounds very blunt. What I meant is - I and many of us here - would like to read and learn more from your knowledge. So, are you writing any books or researching on any particular topic? "Handreading Basics" section of your site is not updated from a long time( atleast from past 4-5 months). The 2 articles present there are very good. Are you planning to put more info there?

2. How and where can I purchase the books of yours? I learnt from Lynn that they are in old technology format like tapes. Can you pls make them available somehow for us? How about the diploma course materials? I am particularly referring to the advanced topics(like combinations, details, case studies etc...).

3. I learnt that the handreaders of BCS, after its dissolution, attempted to reform locally, but, nothing succeeded like BCS. Didn't you attempt to re-unite BCS members?

Kiran.Katawa wrote:Hi Christopher,
1. What are you doing now a days?
2. How and where can I purchase the books of yours?
3. Didn't you attempt to re-unite BCS members?

Hi Kiran,

thanks for your interest. I was most actively involved in handreading between 1983 and 1999, it being my full-time employment for 10yrs from 1989-1999. But I have not practised as a handreader since that time. I have a family and I run my own IT Support business. I would like to have more time to be able to get back to my handreading writing and I hope that one day I will. The website that I have established for this is more wish than substance at the moment, but I hope it shows to those that look that there is some good quality writing out there.

My books have only ever been privately published - with the exception of the History of Handreading which has been published on the WWW since 2001. This work is my donation to the global handreading community as without knowledge of the history of handreading, it is forever going to be mired in the prediction & fortune-telling atttudes of the C15th. The other books I have written would probably never be published by a publisher - Johnny Fincham told me how much he had to compromise to get his book published, and my books are just written in the kind of style that suits general consumption. Most of the books that I wrote covered what we termed Intermediate and Advanced Studies in the old Cheirological Society, so you would really need to be very well grounded in the basics to fully appreciate them. In the absence of my own book The Beginner's Guide to the Hand, you will find Johnny FIncham's Spellbinding Power of Palmistry the best book to learn from as this covers the material for the Cheirological Society Foundation Diploma course - in other words, the same course that Lynn Seal and Jenni Hirsch did 20-odd years ago. There is no financial incentive for me to publish my books as I know they would sell only very few copies, but I hope one day to be able to get back to them, re-work them and update them. I will be sure to let you know when I do.

No, I made no attempt to re-unite the old Cheirological Society members. There were only 120 or so in any case, it was not a big group; and of those only about 20 of them actually did anything: myself, Johnny Fincham, Chris Swain, Lynn Seal, Laura Thornton, Felicity Booth, Tim Chatterton, Denise Madden, Mardiah Lack, Caroline Abrams, Rupert Alison, Zia Musaphia, Jenni Hirsch, Talma Brill, Gulshan Noorani, Birgitta Birath come to mind, most of these did some form of teaching and/or actually practised as handreaders for some length of time. After we all resigned from the group, its implosion was inevitable. Those that were serious about handreading carried on doing it and got together in the Handreading Cyber Cafe which was started by Hidde Wallaart. Martijn van Mesvoort and Patti Lightflower both joined that forum - and you can say that this current handreading forum grew out of Hidde's Handreading Cyber Cafe when that had to close down a few years ago.

Chris Swain told me he was going to re-form a Cheirological Society in the UK a few years ago, but I have not heard anything from him about that since then. Those old members who want to are in any case still in touch with each other and, through forums like this, are actually still in communication with each other as well.

Thank you Christopher.
I'll look forward for that day.
My humble request to you is: please update your site on articles, as & when time permits. Its fine, even if its in small quantities.

Indeed, would be wonderful to learn more about your work, Christopher.

Hi Christopher,
It is amazing how things have changed since the earlier forums and you were actively involved. When you searched (google didn't yet exist) via Yahoo or Lycos and other engines of the time, there were only one or two web sites. A girl named Angela, wasn't it, was the main one for a long time.

If you still have an interest in the historical aspects of dermatoglyphics, you will find David Ashbaugh's book interesting. He fleshes out the personalities with stories involving the intense competition evolving around eugenics and how Galton freely switched concepts and grabbed onto others (seemingly as his own) as they were presented. And then there's the romance between Whipple and Wilder.

Patti wrote:Hi Christopher,
A girl named Angela, wasn't it, was the main one for a long time.

Hi Patti,
who is this lady Angela and how is she related to BCS?

Kiran.Katawa wrote:

Patti wrote:Hi Christopher,
A girl named Angela, wasn't it, was the main one for a long time.

Hi Patti,
who is this lady Angela and how is she related to BCS?

It was Angela Mattey. Nothing to do with BCS, just mentioning how things have changed enormously for the palmistry community on the internet since the late 90's.
Excuse the moment.