The Hand of the Microcosm
Eleven studies in Richard Saunders’s 1653 Chiromancie
AN OCCULT HALL ILLUSTRATIONEnter its world.
Saunders’s seventeenth-century hand carries an entire cosmos: planetary mounts, zodiacal divisions, lines with many names and a hierarchy of three worlds. These eleven lessons move from the first diagram to the numbered plates and the hand as an instrument of memory.
The eleven-part course is our curatorial route through the book, not its original chapter count. Each lesson gives exact printed pages and scan numbers so that the historical evidence stays visible.
The complete volume preserves its historical contents, including claims about health, character and fortune. The lessons explain those claims as Saunders’s ideas, while distinguishing them from reliable assessments of living people.
- Complete 1653 English volume
- Eleven lessons with exact source pages
- Planetary hand diagrams and three-world cosmology
Eleven studies of the hand
One free introduction · 10 member lessons
Why this number?
11 lessons form our expanded editorial path through this collection. The course count is a modern study arrangement, not the number of chapters, beings or stages stated by the historical authors.
Your way through.
Follow the teachings step by step, work through concrete examples, and connect each explanation with its cited passage.
The hand as a little cosmos
Explain why Saunders begins a book about hands with planets and the zodiac, and distinguish the observed hand from its proposed cosmic meaning.
14 min · Free introduction
Find the lines before interpreting them
Locate the principal lines, triangle, table, percussion and wrist in Saunders’s own diagram before attempting an interpretation.
14 min · Member lesson
Many names, one line
Use Saunders’s synonym tables to connect anatomical locations, Latin labels and interpretive names without confusing them with modern terminology.
14 min · Member lesson
The seven planetary regions
Reconstruct Saunders’s seven planetary places and distinguish his seasonal finger-joint arrangement from his alternative oval zodiac.
14 min · Member lesson
Time, changing lines, and disagreement
Explain Saunders’s differing rules for choosing a hand, his cautions about observation and his theory that changing lines reflect a changing cosmos.
14 min · Member lesson
How to read an engraved hand
Read Saunders’s numbered hand diagrams as keyed collections of examples, distinguishing pictured form, position and attributed outcome.
14 min · Member lesson
Three worlds in a hand
Reconstruct Saunders’s elementary, celestial and intellectual worlds and explain how his hand diagram joins cosmology with practical memory.
14 min · Member lesson
A letter needs a direction
Read Saunders’s letter signs through their planetary place and the compass he imagines within the hand.
16 min · Member lesson
A planetary reign inside a human calendar
Distinguish the main planetary periods from their subdivisions in Saunders’s account of alfridaries.
16 min · Member lesson
Two planetary bodies on one page
Compare the alternative planetary body maps Saunders prints and distinguish them from his zodiacal map.
16 min · Member lesson
The table line as a route through four territories
Explain why Saunders treats the mensal line as a route whose signs change subject beneath different mounts.
16 min · Member lessonThe source beside you.
Members can explore the complete edition. Begin with the free introduction and its selected source pages.
The complete book awaits.
The Hand of the Microcosm
The complete historical editions and page-turning readers belong to the member library. Free introductions include the source excerpts used in their teaching.
Books & dates
Physiognomie and Chiromancie, MetoposcopieRichard Saunders · 1653
Guided readings and teaching diagrams are original Occult Hall commentary. Imagined scenes are modern illustrations, separate from the historical source pages.
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