ABSTRACT

The preceding chapters have made it clear how important it is to study the relative position of the fingers in order to judge the various functions and their interconnectedness. Two important things have to be distinguished in this respect : the hand raised in a relaxed position with its back facing the observer, (see fig. 39) and the relaxed dropping of the hands with their palms lying on the table (see fig. 40). The raised position reveals the conscious attitude and position of a person towards the environment, which according to Jung's terminology would be the position of the persona within the entire psyche. The relaxed dropping of the hands conveys the unconscious inner attitude towards the realities of the environment. The result of the dropping of the hands can be considered fairly harmonious if the palms touch the supporting surface with the Mounts of Venus and of the Moon (see fig. 40). In both these procedures it is important to observe the position of left and right hands towards each other. If the uplifted hands are pronouncedly inclined towards each other, we conclude that the person is dependent upon his milieu, that he has a “ milieu-fixation ” (see fig. 41), an attachment whose chirological significance will be discussed at greater detail in the chapter about the lines of the hand. The more the hands are inclined towards each other the stronger the milieu-fixation. If the left hand assumes an upright position and the right hand is strongly inclined towards the left, we can assume that the fixation has to be attributed more to the milieu than to the person. Reversely, if the right hand is in an upright position and the left is strongly inclined towards it, the fixation is mainly conditioned by the person himself.