Also called: Asterisk · Stella

Where on the hand: On any mount, on or beside any line, in the quadrangle, on the phalanges of every finger and on the thumb, and on the voyage lines of the Moon mount.

What it looks like: Three or more short lines crossing at a single common point and radiating like an asterisk (✳); Indian Palm Reading specifies the “intersection of three small lines independently.” Five or six radiating spokes is the ideal form. A well-proportioned, evenly-spoked star is the favourable form; a large, deep-red, ragged star is the destructive one (Benham).

This is where the traditions split hardest. Cheiro: “The star is a fortunate mark with one exception” (Saturn). Benham is neutral-mechanical — a star is a discharge point, so a well-proportioned one gives illumination and enhancement while a large deep-red one is “a destructive explosion.” The Indian severe strand reads it as predominantly a shock or injury mark. The modern synthesis (Palm Lines Co): “a sudden, intense event — usually dramatic, can be excellent or terrible depending on location.”

Western reading: Cheiro: fortunate with one exception. Saint-Germain supplies the sub-cases and the gravest claims. Benham is the corrective — the star is mechanically a discharge point, and its form (size, evenness, colour) decides whether the discharge is illumination or explosion.

Read with care: The Saturn-star “death on the scaffold,” “star on Moon = drowning,” “star on Mars = assassination or homicide,” “star on Jupiter = death by choking,” and “star on the life line in both hands = family extinction” are the most sensationalist items in the entire corpus. They should never be presented as findings. Note that the very same mount receives opposite readings across traditions — a Jupiter star is honour in the West and choking death in one Indian source. RECONCILED. The two entries disagreed on the Moon mount. The dominant reading is that the star inverts to catastrophe on SATURN, and is favourable on the Moon (celebrity through imagination, artistic or literary fame). The blanket 'inverts on Saturn and Moon' was the error. Both entries were also filed in opposite categories.

The star is a fortunate mark with one exceptionCheiro, Palmistry for All (1916)

distinction, but one to be dreadedSaint-Germain

A sudden, intense event — usually dramatic, can be excellent or terrible depending on location.Palm Lines Co