The Girdle of Venus

Small lines, called Minor lines, do not appear in every hand.

• They occur often enough in the same locations to take them out of the class called chance lines as a division by themselves.

These Minor lines are not of great importance. They often have only one interpretation.

Girdle of Venus

This rises between the fingers of Jupiter and Saturn and runs across the Mounts of Saturu and Apollo, ending between the fingers of Apollo and Mercury (523).

This does not always run exactly over this path, but sometimes rises on the Mount of Jupiter and runs over onto the Mount of Mercury, sometimes ending on the percussion. It is, in part, a sister line to the Heart line, and in some hands, when the Heart line is absent, takes the place of that line.

Older palmists said that this indicated a double supply of heart qualities if its palm also had a strong Heart line, since it was a sister to the Heart line.

This was not meant in a physical sense, but as regards the affections. This is why they called this as the Girdle of Venus, meaning the Girdle of Love.

At that time, love meant license. The Girdle of Venus became synonymous to profligacy, debauchery. It was considered the mark of un-chastity and abandonment.

This interpretation has been largely adhered to, often with evident misgivings on the part of some writers, who have frankly stated that they were at a loss for an explanation of this line.

Some few have doubted its accuracy. Many practitioners have abandoned its use entirely because they could not reconcile its accepted interpretation to the lives of the subjects they encountered. Many embarrassing errors were occasioned by the use of the line.

To solve this, we must adapt the line to the subject, not the subject to the line.

This is the 20th century, not 400 B.C. when the original meaning was given.

From an exhaustive study of the Girdle of Venus, I have found that it does not as a rule indicate debauchery and license. Instead, it nearly always does indicate an intense state of nervousness*. In most cases, great liability to hysteria.

In a large percentage of hands in which this Girdle of Venus is found, the palm will be crossed by innumerable lines running in every direction.

• This by itself is enough proof to call the subject as intensely nervous.
• But with the addition of a Girdle of Venus, there is an increased degree of nervous excitability.

The vital Current enters through the finger of Jupiter.

• It runs down the Life line
• It goes to the brain
• It returns to the palm and transfers itself to the lines of Saturn, Apollo, and Mercury, which are its natural channels of egress from the body.

When this course is pursued without interruption, the action of the fluid is normal.

But the Girdle of Venus is an abnormal line. Its location deflects part of the Current from its usual course immediately upon its entrance into us.

The balance of the Current seeking egress from the body through the lines of Saturn, Apollo, and Mercury flows against the barrier formed by the Girdle of Venus.

• This means it cannot easily flow out through the finger-ends.
• Instead, it overflows into the palm of the hand because of the obstruction by the Girdle.

This cuts new channels for itself, in many directions. It produces the multiplicity of lines that we see.

The large amount of vital Current thus zigzags its way out of the hand as best it can. It acts on every nerve, electrifies it, intensifies its action. This excitation of the nerves creates a highly nervous person.

Thus, the first result of a Girdle of Venus is often intense nervous activity.

The Girdle of Venus is found mostly in the hands of women, though in some types of subjects men’s hands show it.

If the subject be naturally a delicate, nervous, finely constituted person, the nervousness produced by the Girdle will be greater than if he be phlegmatic and heavy in construction. The nervous force will electrify his organization to a great degree.

He will:

• suffer from any slight or inattention
• be easily depressed
• think that he has no place in the world
• think that no one cares for him

This brooding once begun, grows instead of decreases, until:

• every act of even his best friends is distorted
• every grief is magnified
• pain is imagined where there is none.

This leads to hysteria.

On a hand with few lines and a phlegmatic temperament, the Girdle of Venus is never of so great importance as an indication of hysteria and great nervousness as in the highly strung subject, but it may turn to the other horn of the dilemma, and if the hand be coarse or sensual, have a swollen Mount of Venus, and be red and animal in its general make-up, there will likely be present the lasciviousness which has always been the accepted reading of the line.