Palmistry was considered such a massive threat to the English public that King Henry VIII officially banned the practice of reading hands, labeling it a felony equivalent to witchcraft and sorcery.

A closer look

Palmistry was considered such a massive threat to the English public that King Henry VIII officially banned the practice of reading hands, labeling it a felony equivalent to witchcraft and sorcery. The paranoid monarch passed the Witchcraft Act in 1542, specifically targeting roaming fortune tellers who claimed they could divine a person's lifespan or wealth just by looking at the random creases on their unwashed palms. Despite the threat of imprisonment or execution, the practice remained wildly popular among the nobility, proving that even the fear of the gallows cannot stop people from wanting to hear flattering things about themselves. Today, you no longer get burned at the stake for having a long heart line; you just get charged fifty bucks by a lady in a velvet tent who smells strongly of cheap patchouli incense