Also called: Chandra Parvat · Mount of Luna · Hypothenar eminence
Where on the hand: The hypothenar pad on the percussion side, diagonally opposite Venus, occupying the lower outer quadrant of the palm. Bounded above by Upper Mars (Luna begins where Upper Mars ends, roughly level with the head line's outer end), outside by the percussion, below by the rascette, and inside by the Plain of Mars and the fate line's lower course. Centre roughly x 0.82, y 0.25.
What it looks like: When developed it bulges visibly outward on the percussion, giving the hand's edge a curve rather than a straight line, and forms a thick pad on the palm's inner surface. Benham divides it into upper, middle and lower thirds.
Luna is the mount of imagination, romance, intuition and the inner life — everything the mind pictures rather than sees. It governs love of water, travel and change, mysticism and psychic sensitivity. Medium development is the ideal; both its absence and its excess distort the relation between reality and fantasy.
Its three zones (Benham)
- **Upper, middle and lower thirds** — each corresponds to different organ systems and to different degrees of fixity of the imagination.
- **The higher the marking** — the more intellectual and controlled the imagination.
- **The lower, nearer the wrist** — the wilder and more instinctual.
Well developed (medium — this is the ideal)
- **Imagination, fancy, creativity** — romance and poetry.
- **Intuition and psychic sensitivity**; **mysticism**.
- **Love of nature; love of water and of the sea.**
- **Love of travel and change.**
- **Sympathy and a rich inner life** — with a healthy balance between reality and imagination.
- **Benham** — the strongest Lunas were found in the hands of the greatest linguists, musicians, composers, fiction or romance writers.
Flat / deficient
- **A person who can picture nothing to himself** (Benham) — no imagination, no inventive ideas.
- **No romance, no mysticism** — hostility to art.
- **Weak mentality; prosaic literalism.**
- **Laziness, negativity, insecurity.**
Over-developed
- **Flighty, dangerous imagination** — fantasy replacing reality; delusion.
- **Morbid restlessness** — constant changing of the mind.
- **Suspicion and paranoia**; **anxiety, mood swings, emotional restlessness**.
- **Irritability, sadness, headaches.**
- **Superstition and morbid mysticism** — and at the extreme, madness.
- **A high Luna with a swollen middle zone** — read in Indian sources as intestinal disease and poor digestion.
- **A flabby, soft high Luna is worse than a firm one** — imagination without the energy to execute it: the daydreamer who never acts.
Displaced / leaning (apex migrated)
- **Toward Upper Mars (upward)** — controlled imagination; love of harmony; imagination governed by resistance and self-possession.
- **Toward the rascette (downward)** — wild, uncontrolled, instinctual imaginings.
- **Toward Venus (inward across the base)** — imagination intensifies the emotions and the passions.
- **Toward the palm proper (inward and upward, into the Plain of Mars)** — imagination increases aggression.
Professions & temperament
- **Poets, novelists, fiction and romance writers.**
- **Composers, musicians, linguists.**
- **Painters of the imaginative kind.**
- **Mystics and occultists; psychics and clairvoyants.**
- **Sailors, travellers and explorers.**
- **Hoteliers; dealers in liquids; nurses.**
- **Those working with the public's moods** — and, characteristically, the professional traveller: vertical lines on Luna are classically read as voyages.
Body parts governed
- **The kidneys and bladder; the urinary system.**
- **The gynaecological system** — menstruation, maternity, and the temper-swings attached to them; the diseases peculiar to women in the old phrase.
- **The respiratory system**; **the nervous system**.
- **Fluid balance and water-related disorders.**
- **Anaemia and scarcity of blood**; **tuberculosis**.
- **At the extreme — insanity and mental disorder.** Benham warns particularly to watch cross-lines here in women's hands.
Marks on this mount
- **Star** — brilliance of imagination; or, in the darker reading, danger from water and imagination running to disaster.
- **Triangle** — intuition and wisdom used well; controlled imagination.
- **Circle** — danger of drowning; also, in Indian sources, foreign travel for political or official work.
- **Cross** — the fatal influence of the imagination; a life lived in fantasy.
- **Grille** — restlessness, discontent, morbid imagination, sleeplessness.
- **Island** — delusion; nervous illness; secret sorrow.
- **Vertical lines** — travel and voyages.
- **Cross-lines / horizontal lines** — nervousness, restlessness, ill health of the kidneys and reproductive system.
- **Crooked or wavy line** — frequent sea travel.
- **Line of Intuition** (a crescent curving from Luna up toward Mercury) — psychic and prophetic gift.
- **Via Lascivia** (a line rising from the base of Luna) — excess, addiction, dissipation.
- **Bird-shaped mark** — success through one's own efforts, but with persistent problems.
Western reading: Benham's three-zone division of Luna, his linkage of a strong Luna to linguists, composers and romance writers, and his caution about cross-lines in women's hands are the Western framework here.
Read with care: Luna carries the most alarming claims in the mount literature — insanity, madness, danger of drowning, and gendered warnings about women's health. These are recorded here as tradition; they are not medical or predictive statements, and the gendered framing reflects the period of the sources.
the hands of the greatest linguists, musicians, composers, fiction or romance writersBenham
who can picture nothing to himselfBenham
Palmistry is a traditional interpretive art, not a science. Offered for reflection and self-understanding — not medical, legal or financial advice.